Outrage over government-funded Irish magazine cover featuring Jewish stars on barbed wire

An Irish government-funded magazine has sparked outrage over its July front cover, which shows wire barbed with Magen Davids.

Comhar magazine, a monthly Irish-language publication that covers current affairs and culture, features a cartoon on the cover of its July edition, which shows a couple in swimwear lying on a beach next to a bloodied, red pool and what appears to be an amputee, with barbed wire dividing them.

Jewish symbols are dotted along the wire that splits the amputee from the bathers, prompting backlash from community groups.

An Irish magazine is accused of producing antisemitic imagery after publishing a front page cartoon of wire barbed with Magen Davids dividing an amputee from sunbathers (photo: X screenshot)[Missing Credit]

The Chief Rabbi of Ireland, Yoni Wieder, said the cover art “reinforces the perception” that “public discourse around Israel has gone far beyond critical commentary into open vilification”.

Speaking to the JC, Wieder said: “So much of what we’re now hearing and seeing feels like hostility that has spilled over from politics into something much more personal and insidious. An image such as this, which uses a symbol so central to Jewish identity in this way, only reinforces that perception.

“What makes matters even more troubling is that Comhar receives public funding through Foras na Gaeilge.”

Foras na Gaeilge is an agency funded jointly by the Irish and devolved Northern Irish governments responsible for the promotion of the Irish language across the island.

Likewise, Holocaust Awareness Ireland accused the cover of featuring “antisemitic imagery from the Göbbels playbook”.

Posting on X, the organisation said: “The defamation of the Holocaust continues apace. Here, wire is barbed with the Star of David. The incarceration of Jews by Nazis is inverted, the message is: Jews are now the perpetrators, their evil hallmarked in coils of power.”

And Steve Aiken, a member of Northern Ireland’s Legislative Assembly, said he had questioned the Communities Minister Gordon Lyons over “why his department is funding this institutional antisemitism and whether he will have Foras na Gaeilge investigated by Public Service Ombudsman for antisemitism”.

Irish writer Rachel Moiselle said the "horrific” cover was an example of an “institutional antisemitism problem in Ireland”. 
Speaking to the JC, Moiselle, who is a fluent Irish speaker, added: “There is a phrase in Ireland ‘tír gan teanga, tír gan anam’. It means ‘a country without a language is a country without a soul’.

“May I present an alternative: ‘teanga gan fáilte, teanga gan anam’. A language without welcome is a language without a soul.

“We are the land of ‘céad míle fáilte’, ‘a hundred thousand welcomes’. Our language should embody that promise.”

Foras na Gaeilge told the JC that it plays no part in the editorial decisions made at the magazine. 

Commenting on the story, the agency said: “Foras na Gaeilge has a funding role in relation to Comhar through the Irish Language Magazine Scheme.

“Editorial freedom is vital in the media sector, and Irish language media organisations we provide funding to have editorial independence.

“Foras na Gaeilge has a statutory duty to promote equality north and south and we are committed to reflecting this in all aspects of our work.

“Media organisations who receive funding from Foras na Gaeilge can be contacted directly to make an official complaint.”

The JC approached Comhar for comment.