Two millenia of racism rekindled by a claim for €12 photographs

It’s fascinating in a grim way to see anti-semitism revivify itself on this small provocation, writes Terry Prone

I WORK in a synagogue. Admittedly, it’s a deconsecrated synagogue. So thoroughly deconsecrated was this synagogue, 15 years ago, that not as much as a Star of David remains to tell of its past, which was considerable.

It appeared in Ulysses and was apparently the posher of the available synagogues in the late 19th century, known as the English synagogue, because the Yiddish- speaking Eastern European Jewish immigrants did not feel themselves welcome there. I’m told it appears for a fleeting few frames in Darby O’Gill and the Little People, with children pouring out of its two front doors. It is beautiful, and we grab at any stories of its past, one of which, as yet unverified, is that Alan Shatter TD was married in it.