Member's statement: Yom Kippur

Member's statement by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on 14 October 2024.

MLA

Dr Steve Aiken OBE

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

14 October 2024

Type

Member's statement

Business

Members' Statements

Heading

Yom Kippur

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4589550

Read the official Assembly record

Text

From just before sunset on Friday to dusk on Saturday marked Yom Kippur. Across the world but particularly in the homes of our many Jewish friends and colleagues, it is by observing their prayers that members of the Jewish faith seek to atone and ask God for his forgiveness. Yom Kippur culminates with Neilah and the sounding of the shofar. During the religious services, one of the most poignant moments is the saying of Yizkor, the memorial prayer for the recently deceased. Anyone with a degree of empathy will share in that with our Jewish community, this year of all years, on Yom Kippur. Equally, the attempts to denigrate that religious observance by some, including university student bodies, left-wing and pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah terrorist supporters or just those who cannot resist joining in with their base antisemitism, need to be roundly condemned. Last week, memorial services for the victims of 7 October were held in Belfast and Dublin. In the spirit of the Yizkor prayer, large numbers of Gentiles, including me, stood in solidarity with our Jewish friends and colleagues in Israel, the United Kingdom, Ireland and elsewhere. I thank the friends of the Jewish community who organised those events, especially the one in Belfast. I was pleased that the deputy First Minister attended and expressed solidarity on behalf of us to our beleaguered but still proud local Jewish community and to the victims of 7 October. That was in marked contrast, however, to the event in Dublin, where neither the president nor the Taoiseach or the Tánaiste could find the time to attend the memorial to 1,119 victims of terror, torture and sexual violence, nor did they bother to attend any Yom Kippur memorials. Indeed, a Fine Gael councillor, Councillor Rane, even expressed base antisemitic tropes during a Dublin City Council debate. It seems that some members of society on this island are deemed to be less equal than others. It is also apparent to any dispassionate observer that the Irish Republic is more interested in opening embassies in Tehran and its parties more interested in inviting the Iranian embassy to their conferences than it is in tackling its ingrained and growing institutional antisemitism. While Dublin is happy to cloak itself in intolerance, it is good to see that many others are calling that out, especially in Brussels, Berlin and, above all, Washington. That, at least, gives reason for hope as Yom Kippur for the Hebrew year 5785 passes.

410 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Qualifying Religion and belief (including people of no religion), churches, faith communities and religious prejudice (including antisemitism and anti-Muslim prejudice)

Second assessment

Jev’s answers did not settle this record, so a second model, claude-opus-5-5, read the same text (without the MLA’s name or party) and gave its reasons on 21 October 2026. How the second assessment works

Verdict

Qualifying

Public interest or divisiveness

Mixed

Against the published rubric

The opening marks Yom Kippur and condemns antisemitism, which is legitimate and in itself defends a minority faith community against hostility. The statement then turns into a broad attack on the Irish state and its parties, accusing them of 'ingrained and growing institutional antisemitism' and saying that 'Dublin is happy to cloak itself in intolerance'. It also lumps 'left-wing' people and student bodies together with 'pro-Hamas and pro-Hezbollah terrorist supporters'. This amounts to an identity-based accusation of bigotry against a state, its parties and a political tendency as a whole, and it maps the Middle East conflict onto divisions on this island, which the rubric treats as culture-war activity.

Public interest or divisiveness

Showing solidarity with a 'beleaguered' local Jewish community and condemning specific antisemitic remarks serves the public interest. However, a substantial part of the statement uses the religious occasion as a platform to score points against Dublin. It claims that 'some members of society on this island are deemed to be less equal than others', which turns a statement of solidarity into a cross-border and political grievance. Both elements are substantial, but the closing emphasis deepens division rather than opposing it.

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 11:13 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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