Truth comes in fifty shades of grey

Double Vision with Charlie Adley

Can’t I turn my back for one minute? Last week I went off to London to spend a few days with my mum. Sitting in her living room, pure terror ran through me, as Mum told me a tale of horror about her friends, who live around the corner in the road where I grew up.

Above the front door of Jewish homes there’s a tiny container holding a prayer, written on parchment: a mezuzah.

Vile scumbags had been going down this road, knocking on doors with a mezuzah and yelling: “Heil Hitler!” at lone senior ladies opening their doors. Immediately protective of my mum, I felt amazed yet again by the stoicism she displayed.

After a childhood lived as millions of bombs fell nightly from the sky, her Blitz Generation takes things in their stride.

Alongside the police, my family and friends feel protected by their local Jewish community. There exists a strong sense of belonging, of togetherness, supporting and being supported by each other.

Even though I’m an atheist, I feel culturally and in every other way Jewish. The Nazis didn’t care if Jews believed in God or not, but here in the west of Ireland there’s no similar community to lean on, reach out to, talk to.

In fact Irish opinions on Palestine and Israel are often as naive as many of the views I hear from the other end of the spectrum, back in London. I end up feeling wary of speaking about or writing my views, as I love my friends and family, and if I did so it would upset both.

So often I end up feeling pretty damn lonely in both places I call home.

Maybe this lack of community support was the reason I felt more scared than Mum did: if someone heil Hitlered me at my door, I’d be bloody terrified.

Ah, but wasn’t this why I fell in love with life here in the West of Ireland? Aren’t we compassionate here, preferring people to profit and a heart to heart more than a heil Hitler?

To read Charlie’s column in full, please see this week’s Galway City Tribune.