article: It seems an unlikely meeting - but it is one that Rabbi Alexander Goldberg hopes can be the start of something positive. Rabbi Goldberg, whose great grandparents and great aunt are buried in Northern Ireland, has a special connection to the place. The catalyst for this meeting, however, came from something sinister. In August, 13 Jewish graves, some dating back to 1870, were damaged in an attack at Belfast City Cemetery. The attacks were met with widespread condemnation from the community and politicians. Following the attacks, Rabbi Goldberg felt the urge to reach out to the community - in particular those who carried out the vandalism. "When I heard about the attacks in Belfast it saddened me so much, I reached out on social media," he said. "I wanted, ideally, to speak to the young people involved and to give them the names and faces, history and culture of the Jewish community in Belfast." In early October, he flew to Belfast to meet up with local Sinn F??in representatives, who were all disgusted by the attacks. "I wanted to show him our frustration and anger with what had happened to the graves," said West Belfast MP Paul Maskey. The group stood outside the Jewish cemetery: As a Cohen - a member of the Jewish hereditary priesthood - Rabbi Goldberg could not enter. "We started to speak candidly about the attack on the graves. All three told me how disgusted they were as were the people living around the cemetery," said Rabbi Goldberg. What makes the visit all the more special to Rabbi Goldberg was that his grandparents were descended from Jewish Lithuanian immigrants who had moved to Ireland in the late 1800s. His grandfather, from Cork, met and married his grandmother from Belfast. The Rabbi's father studied in Londonderry before moving to England. Rabbi Goldberg himself got married in the synagogue in Cork. But the meeting turned into an unexpectedly emotional one. Through historian Tom Hartley, Rabbi Goldberg discovered that his aunt Lesbia Smith died in 1910 at seven weeks old. At the time her parents were not wealthy enough to buy a burial plot and she was buried in the paupers' section in an unmarked grave. The daughter of persecuted migrants, she was born into poverty in the slums of Belfast and could only be buried in that section of the Jewish cemetery, where the city would not allow those buried to have gravestones. "It must have been very hard for them to bury her without one," he said. For Mr Maskey and councillor Stevie Corr, the meeting was a positive one and they are looking forward to working with Rabbi Goldberg. "We've been in touch with Belfast City Council about some potential joint initiatives with the synagogue Rabbi Goldberg is connected with. I don't know yet what form these will take but we do want to restore the graves," said Mr Maskey. Councillor Stevie Corr, who is chairing a project to renovate the Falls Cemetery, said he was keen to include the Jewish section. "Alex has offered to come over
summary: On a bright day in October, a Rabbi met a Northern Ireland historian and two West Belfast councillors.