Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: Irish Defence Forces via Wikimedia Commons.
Alan Shatter, an Irish lawyer and politician, visits an army base in Ireland on Sept. 2, 2013
(JNS)—A four-star hotel in Dublin, Ireland, in May canceled the local Jewish community’s reservation of 70 rooms for a conference on combating antisemitism, in what the country’s chief rabbi, Yoni Wieder, called an apparent “disgrace.”
The Herbert Park Hotel gave organizers no reason for declining to host the Special Envoys and Coordinators Combating Antisemitism (SECCA) conference in Dublin, according to Alan Shatter, a former justice minister of Ireland.
Shatter told JNS that the hotel had confirmed accommodation for 70 delegates in April. Organizers met with hotel management on May 7 to discuss conference facilities, he said. The cancellation was an ”example of the escalating antisemitism in Ireland,” Shatter said. An alternative venue was found, he said.
In his speech to the SECCA forum, Cohen said he explained to the hotel’s general manager that the gathering would bring together Jewish community leaders and government-appointed officials responsible for combating antisemitism, most of whom were not Jewish. He also outlined its association with Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the planned participation of government ministers.
“As I spoke, I noticed her manner change. There was a tension that had not been there before,” Cohen said. “Then she asked me a question I simply was not prepared for.” The question, Cohen said, was: “Will the IDF be involved?” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.
“I remember looking at her and wondering whether I had heard correctly,” he said.
Shatter did not attend that meeting but said Cohen briefed him immediately afterward. Organizers explained that the conference had no connection to the IDF, said Shatter, who is Jewish.
In a May 8 email reviewed by JNS, the hotel wrote: “Further to our meeting and after careful consideration, I’m afraid higher management had decided that we won’t be able to host the event at the hotel on this occasion.” The email gave no reason for the decision.
When organizers asked whether their confirmed reservation for 70 rooms remained valid, the hotel said it had released the bedrooms because they had not supplied credit-card details, Shatter told JNS. He said the hotel had raised no such issue during the preceding correspondence or at the May 7 meeting.
“This was a retrospective excuse for canceling the bookings, basically,” he said.
Organizers subsequently secured another hotel and conference venue. They initially withheld the incident from public discussion to avoid jeopardizing the gathering.
“We didn’t want a controversy to possibly sabotage the holding of the conference,” Shatter told JNS. Cohen disclosed the affair at a reception for delegates at Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs, presenting it as an example of escalating antisemitism, Shatter said.
The hotel had not replied to a request for comment at the time of publication.
“If things happened as reported, then it’s a downright disgrace,” Wieder, the chief rabbi of Ireland, told JNS.
“How ironic is it that delegates should come to Dublin for a conference on combating antisemitism, only to learn that their original hotel accommodation had been canceled, apparently because of the very nature of the conference they were attending,” he added.
Shatter said the incident indicates “a broader pattern of cancellations affecting Jewish events in Ireland.” He added: “We now have a cancel culture to cancel events that have any Jewish associations.”
Ireland.” He added: “We now have a cancel culture to cancel events that have any Jewish associations.”
