A centre for Judaic and Near Eastern studies is to be established at Trinity College Dublin. In addition, Ireland's only full-time professorship in Jewish Studies has been endowed with the help of the American Ireland Fund. The Chaim Herzog Centre for Judaic and Near Eastern Cultural Studies is named after the late President of Israel, who was born in Belfast and grew up in Dublin.
His son, Mr Isaac Herzog, was guest of honour at yesterday's announcement.
The centre will provide academic courses, public programmes and exchanges with institutions around the world.
Hebrew has been taught in Trinity since its foundation in 1592, the Provost, Dr Thomas Mitchell, said yesterday. "Ireland has one of Europe's oldest Jewish communities: the Annals of Inisfallen trace the arrival of Jews back to the year 1062," said Prof Sean Freyne of Trinity's School of Hebrew, Biblical and Theological Studies.
"It is not possible fully to understand the Christian tradition without having an appreciation of its Jewish and wider cultural heritage," he said. "We anticipate that the Herzog Centre will make a major contribution both to the study of Jewish and near-Eastern culture and to the understanding of Christianity, through highlighting the ways in which Christianity itself developed."
Its activities are to begin with a number of guest lectures in the first half of next year, followed by a symposium entitled The role of Jewish Studies in the Academy, in September.