Herzog Park row shows name changes need proper discussion to avoid polarisation

Herzog's lengthy list of life achievements makes for difficult and unsettling reading as we continue to bear witness to Israeli war crimes, and the current escalation of settler violence and expansion across the West Bank. File photo: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ie

Last week saw much debate over the suggested name change of a small park in Rathgar, a delightfully secluded spot known only in my youth as ‘the quarry’. 

What was then the site of secret smoking and skiving from class is now home to a wonderful playground which my daughter and niece have enjoyed on a number of occasions. Until recently, I was blissfully unaware that the park bore Chaim Herzog’s name, despite attending the Jewish school which sits directly behind the park wall.

Calls to change the name of the park began in April 2024 and have caused tremendous upset among the Jewish community who have quite rightly pointed out that Herzog Park is the only public park in Ireland bearing the name of an Irish Jewish figure. 

By renaming it, this action can be seen to erase the contributions made by a community who have been part of the fabric of Dublin for over a century. Such erasure is particularly triggering given the long history of Jewish erasure and persecution. 

The current rise of anti-semitism, fuelled both by associations with Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the emergence of an increasingly bold and vitriolic far-right movement, has only heightened the sensitivity surrounding the proposed name change. However, this dispute is emblematic of far greater contemporary issues of decolonisation, identity and representation.

Chaim Herzog

Born in Belfast, Chaim Herzog went to school in Dublin before moving to Israel at the age of 17 to attend a Talmudic academy in Jerusalem. A member of the Zionist paramilitary group Haganah, Herzog defended early Jewish settlements in 1930s British Occupied Mandatory Palestine. 

His service included the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which resulted in the Nakba during which 700,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes. He continued to serve extensively in the IDF and following the Six-Day War in June 1967 became the first Military Governor of the West Bank. 

According to his biographer, Herzog ordered the destruction of an Arab quarter of east Jerusalem to make space for Jewish worshippers at the Wailing Wall.

Herzog’s lengthy list of life achievements makes for difficult and unsettling reading as we continue to bear witness to Israeli war crimes, and the current escalation of settler violence and expansion across the West Bank. 

Until recently, I was blissfully unaware that the park bore Chaim Herzog’s name, despite attending the Jewish school which sits directly behind the park wall. File photo: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ie

As a Jew and a lifelong Dubliner, it is not so much the stripping of Herzog’s name from a public park that saddens me, but the fact that of all the vibrant, proud Irish Jews who have called this island home, it was Chaim Herzog who was ever selected for commemoration. 

Above all the notable Jewish figures who spent their lives deeply embedded in the Dublin community, why was a man who left post-colonial Ireland at 17 and dedicated himself to another settler-colonial project selected for this commemoration?

The naming ceremony of Herzog Park took place on November 10, 1995, to mark Jerusalem’s 3000th anniversary. Planned in a spirit of pride and optimism following the second of the Oslo Accords, Herzog’s presidency may have been remembered in the context of peace, had the utopian and ultimately flawed two-state solution ever come to pass. 

Evaporated pride

Such hopes were short lived. Between the planning and the unveiling of Herzog Park, Israeli prime minister Yitzchak Rabin was assassinated by Zionist extremist Yigal Amir following a peace rally on November 4, 1995. 

I was a student at Stratford NS and cannot describe the devastation of all those around me, who had hoped for peace for so long. That same collective trauma descended following the horrors of October 7, 2023, and has only deepened over the last two years.

Any pride Ireland once had in producing international leader Chaim Herzog has subsequently evaporated. His memory has come to represent a Zionist ideology that claims to desire co-existence while denying equality and safety to those it has displaced and occupied. 

Chaim Herzog is far from the only publicly commemorated figure to have found his name on the wrong side of history. File photo: Sasko Lazarov/© RollingNews.ie

Lately, the Herzog family name has loomed larger than ever in the public consciousness, not because of the part Chaim Herzog played in the ethnic cleansing and occupation of Palestine but because of the role his son Isaac Herzog, Israel’s current president, who was recently photographed proudly signing ‘I rely on you’ on a shell bound for Gaza.

At the behest of Donald Trump, Isaac Herzog currently faces enormous pressure to pardon prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption and fraud cases. 

The suggestion of this pardon has caused outrage both within Israeli society, and the wider international community, no doubt causing many Dubliners to question the connection between a small park in Rathgar and a family name now associated with a Zionist paramilitary group, expansionist occupation, Palestinian displacement and the gravest of war crimes.

Wrong side of history

Chaim Herzog is far from the only publicly commemorated figure to have found his name on the wrong side of history. In March 2025, Trinity College Dublin renamed its main library The Eavan Boland library after a 2023 decision was made that The Berkeley Library was no longer an appropriate name, given philosopher George Berkeley’s ownership of slaves. 

This renaming was given careful consideration and time in which to select a suitable replacement. Undoubtedly, such processes will be repeated across many institutions, dedications and monuments as the world grapples with the complexities of decolonisation and the legacies of those we no longer wish to collectively celebrate.

To hastily rename Herzog Park is to ignore the broader task at hand. In the absence of meaningful debate, public engagement and consultation we will only see further alienation and polarisation. 

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Stripping ‘the quarry’ of Herzog’s name is indeed an act of hypocrisy, political theatrics or at worst, anti-semitism, if the same protocol fails to be applied across the board. There are many problematic figures memorialised across the country whose actions, values or attitudes no longer reflect those of contemporary society. 

The ways in which we attempt to redress, re-attribute and remove honours once bestowed is a matter which requires great depth of consideration and transparency of process. While challenging, this task is imperative.

Would I prefer that the esteemed Jewish artist, political activist and member of Cumann na mBan Estella Solomons had her name immortalised in the public sphere? Certainly. 

Similarly, would I rather my cycle home each day didn’t include Fairview Park’s statue of IRA leader Sean Russell, whose associations with the SS and Nazi Germany have led to the statue’s repeated vandalism, decapitation and repair at much cost to the Irish taxpayer? Indeed I would.