Community Blog

Shabbat Shalom! This week’s Torah portion is Parashat Vayekhel-Pekudei, a double portion about - what else - the building of the Mishkan. And of course today is also St. Patrick’s Day, which is obviously not a Jewish holiday, but is it really a Catholic holiday as indicated by the word “Saint”? 

Well, yes. St. Patrick is the Catholic patron saint of Ireland. He was a British son of a Christian deacon in the 5th century, was captured by Irish pagan raiders and held in captivity for 6 years, during which time he seems to have worked as a shepherd and heard the call of God, much like the shepherds of our own scriptures. After escaping his captors, he returned to Britain, formally studied the priesthood, and returned to Ireland after his ordination to begin his missionary work. However, historical records would suggest he did not actually bring Christianity to Ireland (there were already Irish Catholics that he went to minister to, in addition to the pagans he was sent to convert), he did not cast the snakes off the island (there is no scientific evidence that there were ever snakes in Ireland), and he was never officially canonized by the Catholic church (the canonization process didn’t really start until the 11th century). Meanwhile, although St. Patrick’s Day began in Ireland as a fairly solemn day of prayer and family feasting, the raucous day of wearing green and drinking as we know it today in America is a celebration of Irish heritage, that includes Irish Jews, and in the early 20th century even included some non-Irish Jews. 

Jews lived in small clusters in Ireland throughout the 2nd millenium of the common era, but major Jewish immigration to the small island began in the 19th century, as the Eastern European Jews were fleeing Russia and the Pale of Settlement. Between the years 1871 and 1881, the Jewish population nearly doubled. Over the next 20 years, it increased again by 8 times the 1881 population. And throughout the first half of the 20th century, those same Jews continued onward to bigger and better futures in the land with roads paved with gold - New York City. With the Irish Catholic and Russian Jewish immigrants living side-by-side in the Lower East Side, and the Russian-Irish Jews living among both, corned beef became the staple of any Saint Patrick’s Day feast in the United States. Whereas pork had been a more common food in Ireland, beef from their Jewish neighbors was cheaper and more accessible in New York, so that’s what the Irish ate for their big day. In the early 1960’s, the Yiddish Sons of Erin were founded and an annual gala for St. Patrick’s Day was established. They served green bagels and green Matzah balls, and of course, corned beef and cabbage. Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara performed. It was a big deal. 

The founding members of the organization had largely been family friends back in Dublin, and convening the Yiddish Sons of Erin was a way to reconnect in their new country. Through this effort, this tongue-in-cheek organization, this annual gathering of Jews on a Catholic saint’s day, the Irish Jews of New York were building their own Mishkan. They each brought of themselves, their love of their home and heritage, contributed materially to the efforts, and reached out to the wider community to continue building bridges and kinship among the Irish and Jewish immigrant populations. Although the Mishkan of the desert was a more isolated endeavor, and the Israelites weren’t exactly reaching out to the Amalekites or Ammonites, still, the effort was similar: to bring together all the different tribes and mixed multitudes that had left Egypt together. Now they were building a nation, a true peoplehood. The New Yorkers of the 20th century belonged to a multicultural nation, did not need to construct an entirely new peoplehood, but they needed to find their place in the wilderness of so many languages and cultures, such new landscapes and politics to navigate. They found that in the Mishkan of the Yiddish Sons of Erin, and the Saint Patrick’s Day gala was a gathering that called them all together, much like many of the rituals we are about to see play out throughout the book of Leviticus now that the Mishkan is built. 

This Shabbat, may we continue the work of our ancestors, those who left Egypt and those who left Ireland, to build communities wherever we are, to strengthen our bonds to each other and the uniting Divine force of the universe.  And "From all of our league members, those near and those far, shalom to you all, and Erin go Bragh."