January 1, Irish Hotel Cancels 70 Rooms for Antisemitism Conference After Learning Who Was Coming

Wyatt’s Take

• A Dublin hotel backed out of hosting an international gathering fighting antisemitism after its manager asked if the Israel Defense Forces were involved.
• Seventy rooms that had been reserved for Jewish leaders and diplomats suddenly became unavailable once the word “Jewish” entered the conversation.
• Ireland’s tiny Jewish community now faces rising discrimination with no government tracking system in place to record the incidents.

Maurice Cohen, chairman of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, met with the Herbert Park Hotel’s general manager on May 7 to go over details for the upcoming Special Envoys and Coordinators Combating Antisemitism Conference.

Organizers had already received written confirmation that about 70 rooms were being held for attendees. Cohen explained that the event would bring together Jewish community representatives, diplomats, and government officials, many of whom were not Jewish.

“I was completely taken aback by that question,” Cohen told Fox News Digital. “I said, ‘What would the IDF have to do with a conference on antisemitism?'”

The general manager said she needed to check with the hotel owners before giving final approval. One day later organizers received an email stating the hotel could not accommodate the event.

When organizers asked about the reserved rooms two or three days after the meeting, the hotel claimed the rooms had automatically been released one week earlier. Cohen called the excuse retrospective.

“Why would you hold a meeting seven days after the rooms had been canceled without mentioning them?” Cohen said. “To my mind, that excuse was a retrospective excuse.”

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, called the reported action disgraceful and an example of the very antisemitism the conference was organized to combat.

“Seventy rooms had been booked. Seventy people had been welcomed as guests,” Cohen said during an October 13 address at Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs. “The only thing that changed was what they were understood to be.”

The experience struck Cohen personally because he had attended meetings, New Year’s Eve celebrations, and his mother’s birthdays at the hotel through her 93rd birthday.

“How quickly does the word ‘Jewish’ change a conversation?” Cohen asked during his address.

Ireland’s Jewish community numbers only about 2,200 people. The Jewish Representative Council recorded 143 self-reported antisemitic incidents in the first six months of its tracking effort, including verbal abuse, threats, vandalism, and discrimination.

Cohen described the climate facing Jewish and Israeli people in Ireland as “ambient antisemitism” that has worsened since the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Prime Minister Micheál Martin has said, “We have no toleration for antisemitism, none.”

When asked directly about the hotel’s decision, a representative responded, “No comment.”

“They need training on what antisemitism is,” Cohen told Fox News Digital. “They need to be cognizant of the fact they are promoting antisemitism. They need to understand why they’re so wrong.”

“I, like most people, don’t want to be in a place where I’m not wanted,” Cohen said.

Wyatt Matters

Middle America still believes a man’s word should mean something and that discriminating against people because of their faith has no place in a civilized nation. When hotels and governments look the other way, working families who value fairness and common decency see the same pattern of broken promises playing out overseas that they reject at home.