Anti-Semitism in Ireland (the East Antrim coast)
In late April of 2012, a Northern Irish schoolboy accused his classmates of anti semitic assault. Antisemitism is the intense dislike for and prejudice against jewish people. Anti semites express their hatred for God’s chosen nation through vandalism, riots, and verbal or physical assaults. Matthew Lough, a 14 year old victim, was terrorized after admitting that his maternal great-great-grandmother was a jewess during a class on Holocaust History. The boys in his class at Carrickfergus College called Matthew “Jew boy” and drew swastikas in his textbooks. One student even went so far to tell him “It’s a pity that the gas chambers were not still open so we could deal with you”. One boy actually kicked Matthew, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrome, in the head. He came home with an egg-sized bump on his head and was complaining of headaches. A trip to the hospital showed that he had a concussion. The Lough’s decided to speak out but first asked Matthew for permission. His mother told The Guardian, a newspaper in the UK, “...He was fully supportive and said that if we keep sweeping it under the carpet then t will just keep going on, not just against him. the kind of race hatred, even for someone with a connection far back in history to the Jewish faith, has to be highlighted like all other forms of racism.” The Guardian readily published Matthew’s story. Though anti semitism isn’t common in Northern Ireland, many hate crimes against minorities such as the Filipinos, Chinese, and the Roma have been reported in the area; therefore the paper felt the need to publicize the story in a campaign against bullying and hate crimes. Carrickfergus
College suspended the physically violent and obviously gentile student, and is now working on a school wide anti-bullying policy. The coastal community that the Lough’s belong to have been doing all they can to minimize hate crimes.
An act like this in my community would