Blond, Marcus Joseph

Blond, Marcus Joseph (c.1865–1905), president of the Limerick Jewish community, was a native of Wexna, Lithuania. Ordained a rabbi in his teens, he settled (1880s) in Limerick city, where he established a grocery business. He appears in the 1901 census as ‘Marcus Jacob Blonde’ at 40 Henry St., Limerick. A victim of the economic boycott visited on the Jews in Limerick following the anti-Semitic sermon (January 1904) of Fr John Creagh (qv), he wrote to The Times (12 April 1904) describing how he had worked unceasingly to establish himself comfortably until ‘all of a sudden like a thunderstorm, Father Creagh spoke hatred and animosity against the Jews . . . in one month . . . my business is nil . . . I defy anyone in this city to say whom I have wronged . . . our position is worse on account of the local press that they would never admit a just defence to put in their columns’. He sold his shop and moved (1904) to Dublin, where he died 2 April 1905. He married Russian-born Esther Greenfield; they had at least two sons and three daughters.