The Beit Chabad stands beside the traditional synagogues in the Ghetto of Venice

The Beit Chabad, or the Chabad House is a small, shop-front shul or synagogue in the Ghetto Square in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Patrick Comerford

Venice is a city that is rich in Jewish history: Jews have lived there since the Middle Ages; the old Jewish cemetery on the Venice Lido was founded in the 1300s; the first printing of holy books, such as two of Judaism’s most important, the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah and the Shulchan Aruch, took place in Venice.

The ghetto in Venice dates from 1516, when it became the first place in Europe designated as an enclosed area of enforced Jewish segregation. At its height, about 5,000 Jews were living in the Ghetto in the 17th century. But, today, the Jewish community in Venice counts fewer than 450 people, and only a handful of Jews live in the Ghetto itself.

The Chief Rabbi of Venice, Rabbi Scialom Bahbout, has previously served as the chief rabbi of Naples and of Bologna before coming to Venice in 2014. He was born in Tripoli in Libya, and he succeeded the previous Chief Rabbi, Elia Richetti (1950-2021), who died earlier this year (4 April 2021) at the age of 71.

The chief rabbi’s office is above the Scuola Spagnola, or Spanish Synagogue, one of the five surviving, historic synagogues in Venice. It was built in 1580 by Sephardic Jews who sought refuge in Venice after being expelled from Spain. Services continue to be held regularly in the Spanish Synagogue.

The ghetto in Venice, dating from 1516, was the first segregated Jewish ghetto in Europe (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

In the past, I have visited and written about the five surviving, working historic synagogues in Venice: the Scuola Spagnola (Spanish Synagogue), Scuola Italiana, Scuola Levantina, Scuola Canton, and the Scuola Grande Tedesca. I have visited other Jewish foundations in the Ghetto, including the Jewish Museum of Venice, shops, cafés and restaurants, and last week I also visited the old and new Jewish cemeteries on the Lido of Venice.

But last week, for the first time, I also noticed a sixth Jewish house of prayer in the Ghetto Square – the Beit Chabad, or the Chabad House, a small, shop-front shul or synagogue, and the offices of the Chabad of Venice.

It was a bright, sunny, late autumn afternoon and children were playing football in the square of the Ghetto. All were wearing kippot, and the tzitzit or fringes of their prayer shawls dangled visible below their jackets and jumpers.

In the quiet of the off-season early afternoon, a few tourists were wandering around aimlessly in the Ghetto Square. A few cafés were open, and one or two shops were open too. But the Jewish Museum of Venice has been closed temporarily for the past two weeks.

Glass figures from Murno in ashop window in the Ghetto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Gam-Gam, the Chabad-run restaurant where I have eaten in the past, was closed too, although the lights were on. Instead, two of us then had lunch in the Ghetto at Mojer, close to the Scuola Spagnola and the Scuola Levantina, at tables beside family groups of tourists talking about their walking tours of the ghetto and its synagogues.

The Chabad of Venice is celebrating 30 years of meeting and greeting tourists from all over the world who visit the Ghetto. The Beit Chabad says it has been a beacon of light to many Jews visiting Venice over the last three decades, and their lives have been touched by a taste of Shabbat, a Yom Kippur experience, or an unexpected conversation.

Understandably, relationships between Chabad and the traditional, local, resident Jewish community have been rocky over those past three years, with local Jews accusing Chabad of trying to usurp the community’s position and undermine its activities.

Rabbi Rami Banin, who has led the Chabad presence in Venice for many years, recently told an interviewer, ‘Chabad understood before anyone else that Jewish Venice is not just a local place but an international one.’ A truce or a modus vivendi is now in place between the old and the new communities.

Shops selling kosher food bring new ingedients to Jewish life in the Ghetto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

The Beit Chabad synagogue offers tourists and Venetians morning, afternoon and evening services each day. The Chabad House claims it is seeing tremendous growth in participation as new young Jewish families make their home in Venice. It also reaches out to Jews living throughout the Veneto area, including Padova, Verona, Treviso and Vicenza, where there are two US army bases.

As well as the Chabad House, other ingredients of Jewish life are making an active daily Jewish lifestyle possible, such as kosher food and special event catering from Gam-Gam, the popular Kosher restaurant, which offers Shabbat and High Holiday hospitality, including free Friday-night meals for tourists. Sometimes, hundreds have been present and spill out onto the street and the canal front, singing and dancing.

Other programmes include art exhibitions featuring Venetian and other Jewish artists, plans for a state-of-the-art mikveh, and a focus on Jewish education, with private tutoring and holiday events and activities for children.

Before the pandemic outbreak, 300,000 Jewish tourists were visiting Venice each year (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

Until the pandemic outbreak, 300,000 Jewish tourists were visiting Venice each year, and the majority of them experienced Judaism through one of these outreach programmes. For a few, it may even have been their first Jewish experience.

The Yeshiva or Jewish Academy of Venice on the east side of the Ghetto Square is open from 7:30 a.m. to midnight. All guests, tourists, and visitors and visitors are welcomed, regardless of Jewish background, and are encouraged to join the students for one-on-one Torah study sessions or to study subjects ranging from the Aleph Bet to Chasidic Philosophy.

The Yeshiva has more than 140 graduates who are now serving as rabbis in communities all over the world, including Australia, California, South Africa, Chile, Israel, Belgium, France, New York, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia.

The Chabad of Venice is celebrating 30 years of meeting and greeting tourists who visit the Ghetto (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2021)

New project to bring new life to the Jewish Museum and synagogues in Venice

Thew Jewish Museum is in the heart of the Ghetto in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

Normally, during the first few weeks in November, I take a few days off for a city break, to mark some special family days and in advance of the busy seasons of Advent and Christmas.

Two of us had planned to spend a few days around this time in Paris. But when the pandemic travel restrictions were introduced, we lowered our sights and planned a city break in Galway. That too was cancelled in recent days, and we had panned to stay in Co Limerick, with dinner and an overnight stay at the Mustard Seed in Ballingarry.

But that too fell by the wayside, and over weekend dinners in the rectory we reminisced about previous city break in November, including Bratislava (2019), Venice (2018), Bologna and Ravenna (2017), and Krakow and Auschwitz (2016).

We have promised to return to Venice as soon as possible. Meanwhile, it was heartening in the last few days to learn that he Jewish Museum of Venice, which I visited this week two years ago, is undergoing a full-scale expansion and redevelopment following the Jewish High Holidays at the end of September. The project is expected to take about three years to complete and to cost about €9 million.

The project was announced earlier this summer by the Mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, the President of the Jewish Community of Venice, Paolo Gnignati, the Director of the Jewish Museum of Venice, Marcella Ansaldi and the Venice-based art historian and philanthropist David Landau, who is managing the project.

The museum was founded by the Jewish Community of Venice in 1953. The museum is on the main square of the ghetto in Venice, and includes an exhibition of religious objects and other items, and it offers tours of three of the five 16th century synagogues in the Ghetto.

One area of is dedicated to the cycle of Jewish holidays and the liturgy. It displays books and manuscripts, precious objects and textiles from the 16th to the 19th century and objects of religious life. A second area tells the story of the Ghetto and the persecution of the Jews, from its origins to the concentration camps in World War II.

The Jewish population of Venice in 1938 had numbered 2,000; by the end of World War II and the Holocaust, this number was reduced to 1,500 or, according to some sources, 1,050. Only eight Jewish people from Venice survived the death camps.

Words from the Book of Job in the Jewish Museum … a chilling reminder of the Holocaust (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

The architect Alessandro Pedron is responsible for the planned renovation. According to his plans, the Museum complex will be enlarged from its present 1,200 square metres to 2,000 square metres.

The renovation work includes reinforcing the Jewish Museum building. The cafeteria, bookshop and toilets area will be expanded, there will be new exhibition and educational spaces, and the Jewish community library and archive are to be redesigned in an expanded space. The museum will also be adapted to the needs of disabled visitors, with the installation of two internal lifts.

The three synagogues will be renovated inside at the same time. The German Grand Synagogue (Scuola Grande Tedesca), founded in 1528, and the Swiss Synagogue (Scuola Canton), dating from 1531, are located in the same building as the Museum’s exhibition rooms; the simple, rooftop Scuola Italiana or Italian Synagogue, dating from 1575, is in an adjacent building.

The project plans to connect the main building, where the museum and the two synagogues are located, with the building that hosts the Italian Synagogue, which will also be opened to visitors.

The expansion of the museum will incorporate a Ghetto apartment beneath the German Grand Synagogue, and the installation of an exhibition that recreates the living conditions of a Jewish family in the Ghetto in 16th century Venice.

The Scuola Spagnola was founded around 1580 by Spanish and Portuguese speaking Jews (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Recent reports say 60 per cent of the €9 million needed for the project has already been pledged, with contributions from about 20 US and European private investors. Local reports said the President of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, had donated €2 million to the project.

Some reports say the museum will remain open to the public during the three-year project. But, since some parts of the museum will be temporarily closed, the Jewish community in Venice plans to open other spaces inside the ghetto that are normally closed to the public.

The museum is located in the Campo di Ghetto Novo. In that square and in the Campo di Ghetto Vecchio there are several midrashim inside buildings owned by the Jewish Community, two other 16th century synagogues – the Scola Levantina or Levantine Sephardic Synagogue, founded in 1541, and the Scuola Spagnola (Spanish Synagogue), founded around 1580 by Spanish and Portuguese speaking Jews – kosher restaurants, a guesthouse, an old people’s home, a small biblical garden, a bakery and grocery shop, as well as many buildings with mezuzot on the doorposts that indicate Jewish residents.

In addition, Venice also has a large population of Lubavitcher followers of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson of Brooklyn, who died in 1994. They run a kosher food shop, a restaurant and a yeshiva, and have their own Chabad synagogue.

The new plan for the museum was made public this year, six years after an earlier, $12 million renovation plan for the museum and three synagogues was announced in November 2014. At the time, it was hoped that project would be completed by 2016, in time for the 500th anniversary of the establishment of the Venice Ghetto in 1516.

However, this was never carried out, although some restoration work was carried out in the synagogues, funded through the World Monuments Fund.

A conversation with David Landau, who is managing the project and Marcella Ansaldi, Director of the Jewish Museum of Venice, touring the museum and the three synagogues to be restored

‘If the sun would lose its light And we lived an endless night’

A Hanukkah Menorah in a shopfront in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Tonight is the eighth and last night of Hanukkah, the Jewish eight-day ‘Festival of Lights,’ which ends tomorrow [Monday 30 December 2019].

Over the past eight nights, Hanukkah has been celebrated with lighting the menorah lights each night.

The Hanukkah Menorah holds nine flames, one of which is the shamash (‘attendant’) and is used to kindle the other eight lights. On the first night, just one flame is lit; on the second night, an additional flame is lit; and tonight, the eighth night of Hanukkah, all eight lights are kindled.

Last night’s attack in Monsey has drawn attention to the dramatic rise in the number of anti-Semitic attacks in the New York and New Jersey areas in the past week, coinciding with the week of Hanukkah.

The rise in racism has not only been stoked by has been encouraged by the attitudes and policies of President Trump, who has stoked intolerance during his time in the White House. Although Ivanka Trump has tweeted, it is telling that almost 24 hours after this latest attack, Donald Trump has not yet commented or tweeted on these attacks in Monsey.

Hanukkah is a reminder to never be afraid to stand up for what is right, to speak out against oppression and to speak up for religious and political rights and freedoms.

Hanukkah is a reminder that the light of God always shines, even in the darkest of times.

And Hanukkah is a reminder that a little light goes a long way. The Hanukkah candles are lit when dusk is falling. Perched in the doorway or in the front window, they serve as a beacon for the darkening streets. No matter how dark it is outside, a candle of Godly goodness can transform the darkness itself into light.

A Hanukkah Menorah in a shopfront in Murano in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

In his later songs and poetry, Leonard Cohen wrote about the darkness of life and the light of God. I was listening to his album You want it darker on the road from Rathkeale to Dublin this afternoon, and thought his song If I didn’t have your love is about the love and light of God, and is appropriate as Hanukkah comes to a close at the end of this year:

If the sun would lose its light
And we lived an endless night
And there was nothing left
That you could feel
That’s how it would be
My life would seem to me
If I didn’t have your love
To make it real

If the stars were all unpinned
And a cold and bitter wind
Swallowed up the world
Without a trace
Oh well that’s where I would be
What my life would seem to me
If I couldn’t lift the veil
And see your face

If no leaves were on the tree
And no water in the sea
And the break of day
Had nothing to reveal
That’s how broken I would be
What my life would seem to me
If I didn’t have your love
To make it real

If the sun would lose its light
And we lived in endless night
And there was nothing left
That you could feel
If the sea were sand alone
And the flowers made of stone
And no one that you hurt
Could ever heal
That’s how broken I would be
What my life would seem to me
If I didn’t have your love
To make it real

‘O blest communion, fellowship divine! We feebly struggle, they in glory shine’

Christ and the Saints depicted in a dome in Saint Mark’s Basilica, Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford,

All Saints’ Day, 1 November 2019,

11 a.m.: The Eucharist (Holy Communion 2)

Saint Mary’s Church, Askeaton, Co Limerick

Readings: Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18; Psalm 149; Ephesians 1: 11-23; Luke 6: 20-31.

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

All Saints’ Day is one of the 12 ‘Principal Holy Days’ of the Church. This is one of those days, according to the Book of Common Prayer, when ‘it is fitting that the Holy Communion be celebrated in every cathedral and every parish church or in a church within a parochial union or group of parishes.’

In our first reading (Daniel 7: 1-3, 15-18), Daniel’s visions include one in which he sees beyond persecutions to a time when God shall rescue his people, and ‘the Most High shall possess the kingdom for ever – for ever and ever.’

In the Psalm (Psalm 149), the worshippers, the saints, are invited not only to sing but to dance and to make music on the tambourine and the lyre, so I am going to say something, in a few moments, about one of our hymns this morning.

In the Epistle reading (Ephesians 1: 11-23), Saint Paul is writing ‘to the saints who are … faithful in Christ Jesus,’ and reminds them that Christ has made them heirs to the kingdom of God.

In the Gospel reading (Luke 6: 20-31), Saint Luke gives us his version of the beatitudes, with a different emphasis that the way Saint Matthew lists them (see Matthew 5: 3-12).

Christ now speaks of four blessings or beatitudes and four parallel woes or warnings of the age to come. Some people are ‘blessed’ or ‘happy’ (μακάριος, makários) by being included in the Kingdom, but they are paired with those who are warned of coming woes:

● those who are poor (verse 20) and those who are rich now (verse 24)
● those who are hungry now (verse 21) and those who are full now (verse 25)
● those who weep now (verse 21) and those who laugh now (verse 25)
● those who are persecuted, or hated, excluded, reviled and defamed (verse 22) and those who are popular now (verse 26)

Who are the poor, the hungry, those who weep and those who are persecuted today? And do we see them as saints?

Our offertory hymn, ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest’ (459), was written by Bishop William Walsham How (1823-1897) as a processional hymn for All Saints’ Day.

The saints recalled in this hymn are ordinary people in their weaknesses and their failings. In its original form, it had 11 verses, although three are omitted from most versions – the verses extolling ‘the glorious company of the Apostles,’ ‘the godly fellowship of the prophets’ and ‘the noble army of martyrs’ were inspired by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version of the canticle Te Deum.

The tune Sine Nomine (‘Without Name,’ referring to the great multitude of unknown saints) was written for this hymn by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) while he was editing the English Hymnal (1906) with Percy Dearmer.

When he wrote this hymn, Walsh How was Rector of Whittington, Shropshire, a canon St Asaph Cathedral. He also spent time in Rome as chaplain of the Anglican Church there, All Saints’ Church, before returning to England.

While he was Bishop of Bedford, Walsham How became known as ‘the poor man’s bishop.’ He became the first Bishop of Wakefield, and died in Leenane, Co Mayo, in 1897 while he was on an Irish fishing holiday in Dulough.

The hymn vibrates with images from the Book of Revelation. The saints recalled by ‘the poor man’s bishop’ in this hymn are ordinary people who, in spite of their weaknesses and their failings, are able to respond in faith to Christ’s call to service and love, and who have endured the battle against the powers of evil and darkness.

In its original form, this hymn had 11 verses, although three are omitted from most versions: the verses extolling ‘the glorious company of the Apostles,’ ‘the godly fellowship of the prophets’ and ‘the noble army of martyrs’ were inspired by the 1662 Book of Common Prayer version of the canticle Te Deum.

But the heart of the hymn is in the stanza in which we sing about the unity of the Church in heaven and on earth, ‘knit together in one communion and fellowship, in the mystical body of … Christ our Lord.’ Despite our ‘feeble struggles’ we are united in Christ and with one another in one ‘blest communion’ and ‘fellowship divine.’

It is a hymn that celebrates that there among the saints are the ordinary people, the people who are blessed and happy in Saint Luke’s version of the Beatitudes this morning.

And so, + may all we think, say and do be to praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, surrounded by the saints in glory.

All Saints depicted in the window in Saint Columb’s Cathedral, Derry, in memory of Canon Richard Babington (1837-1893) of All Saints’ Church, Clooney, Derry (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Luke 6: 20-31 (NRSVA):

20 Jesus looked up at his disciples and said:
‘Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours is the kingdom of God.
21 ‘Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you will be filled.
‘Blessed are you who weep now,
for you will laugh.
22 ‘Blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, revile you, and defame you on account of the Son of Man. 23 Rejoice on that day and leap for joy, for surely your reward is great in heaven; for that is what their ancestors did to the prophets.
24 ‘But woe to you who are rich,
for you have received your consolation.
25 ‘Woe to you who are full now,
for you will be hungry.
‘Woe to you who are laughing now,
for you will mourn and weep.
26 ‘Woe to you when all speak well of you, for that is what their ancestors did to the false prophets.

27 ‘But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. 29 If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. 30 Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them again. 31 Do to others as you would have them do to you.’

Saints and Martyrs … the ten martyrs of the 20th century above the West Door of Westminster Abbey (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Liturgical colour: White

Penitential Kyries:

Lord, you are gracious and compassionate.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

You are loving to all,
and your mercy is over all your creation.
Christ, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.

Your faithful servants bless your name,
and speak of the glory of your kingdom.
Lord, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Collect of the Day:

Almighty God,
you have knit together your elect
in one communion and fellowship
in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord:
Grant us grace so to follow your blessed saints
in all virtuous and godly living
that we may come to those inexpressible joys
that you have prepared for those who truly love you;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Introduction to the Peace:

We are fellow citizens with the saints
and the household of God,
through Christ our Lord,
who came and preached peace to those who were far off
and those who were near (Ephesians 2: 19, 17).

The Preface:

In the saints
you have given us an example of godly living,
that rejoicing in their fellowship,
we may run with perseverance the race that is set before us,
and with them receive the unfading crown of glory …

Post-Communion Prayer:

God, the source of all holiness
and giver of all good things:
May we who have shared at this table
as strangers and pilgrims here on earth
be welcomed with all your saints
to the heavenly feast on the day of your kingdom;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Blessing:

God give you grace
to share the inheritance of all his saints in glory …

The Berliner Dom in Berlin, popularly known as Berlin Cathedral … the images inside the dome illustrate the Beatitudes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Hymns:

459: ‘For all the saints, who from their labours rest’ (CD 27)
468: ‘How shall I sing that majesty’ (CD 2, Church Hymnal discs)

All Saints’ Church, Rome … the Anglican church where the hymn writer Bishop William Walsham How was chaplain (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

Island hopping in summer sunshine on the Aran Islands

Island hopping for two days in the Aran Islands (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

I have been staying overnight at Tigh Fitz Bed and Breakfast in Killeany on Inishmore or Inis Mór, 1.6 km out from the island capital Kilronan, in a room looking out onto Galway Bay, across to the Connemara coast and Galway Bay, listening to the birds, watching the lights of Kilronan reflecting on the bay, and watching the flights landing and leaving the Aer Arann airstrip – known locally with a combination of humour and pride as the airport.

The Aran Islands form a group of three islands located at the mouth of Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland, with a total area of about 46 sq km.

From east to west, the Aran islands are: Inisheer, (the ‘east island’), the smallest of the islands, Inishmaan, the second-largest; and Inishmore, the largest of the islands.

The 1,200 inhabitants of these islands speak Irish as their first language, the islands are part of the Gaeltacht, even though all islanders are fluent in English.

Ferries to the Aran Islands are available from Rossaveal near Galway all year round and from Doolin, Co Clare, from April to October. Catching a ferry with Doolin2Aran Ferries at Doolin Pier in mid-morning, we first stopped for about an hour or two on to Inisheer (Inis Oirr), the smallest and most easterly of the Aran Islands.

Inisheer extends to 1,400 acres and is an outcrop of the Burren landscape in Co Clare. During a walk on the beach beside the pier, we caught tantalising views of O’Brien’s Castle, a 15th century castle built within Dún Formna, a cashel that is thousands of years old.

Mediterranean colours on the sea and in the sky at Inisheer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

In the early afternoon, after lunch, we caught a second ferry to Inishmore that brought us along the north coast of Inishmaan (Inis Meain), the middle island, with a land area of 2,252 acres.

In the warm summer sunshine and the clear blue waters, with white sandy beaches, it was like island hopping between Greek islands in the Aegean year after year, or catching ferries in Venice between Murano, Burano and Torcello last November.

Inishmore or Inis Mór, literally the ‘Big Island,’ is the largest of the three Aran Islands, with an area of 31 sq km (12 sq m) or 7,635 acres and a population of about 840. It is known for its strong Irish culture, Irish language as a Gaeltacht area, and a wealth of pre-Christian and Christian ancient sites including Dún Aengus, described as ‘the most magnificent barbaric monument in Europe.’

In all, there are 38 national monuments on the Aran Islands. Since my arrival on Inishmore yesterday afternoon, I have been exploring the island’s prehistoric sites and ancient churches, as well as the piers, harbours, beaches and castles.

Saint Enda of Aran founded the first true Irish monastery near Killeany (Cill Éinne or Church of Enda). In time there a dozen more monasteries were founded on Inishmór alone. Many Irish saints are said to have some connection with the Aran Islands: Saint Brendan was blessed for his voyage there; Saint Jarlath of Tuam, Saint Finnian of Clonard and Saint Columba called it the ‘Sun of the West.’

Evening lights at the small pier bside Arkin’s Castle in in Killeany on Inishmore (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

As afternoon turned to evening, two of us climbed the hill opposite Tigh Fitz to Teampall Bheanain, or the little church of Saint Benan, said to be Europe’s smallest church. From there, there were panoramic views across both sides of the island, with Inishmaan and Inisheer to the south east and the Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare to the east.

But more about that church later, perhaps.

Later in the evening, we went in search of Arkin’s Castle and Saint Columcille’s Well, both close to Tigh Fitz, before walking back into Kilronan, the island capital, for dinner at ‘The Bar,’ looking out at the harbour.

After dinner at ‘The Bar’ in Kilronan, overlooking the harbour at Kilronan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Passing me by on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho

The Good Samaritan ... a stained glass window in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 14 July 2019

The Fourth Sunday after Trinity

11.30 a.m.: Morning Prayer, Holy Trinity Church, Rathkeale, Co Limerick

Readings: Amos 7: 7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1: 1-14; Luke 10: 25-37.

An Orthodox icon of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, interpreting the parable according to the Patristic and Orthodox tradition (Click on image for full-screen viewing)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

One of the difficulties I face when I come to preaching, I have to admit, is that in most parishes most of are familiar with most of the great parables.

This year [2019, Year C], the Lectionary readings are inviting us to work our way through Saint Luke’s Gospel, which is full of healing stories and parables.

Most of us are familiar – or think we are familiar with – these great parables:

● the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37, this morning, 14 July 2019)
● the rich man with his barns who wants to ‘eat, drink and be merry’ (Luke 12: 13-21, 4 August 2019)
● the thief in the night (Luke 12: 32-40, 11 August 2019)
● the guests at the wedding banquet (Luke 14: 1, 7-14, 1 September 2019)
● the lost sheep and the lost coin (Luke 15: 1-10, 15 September 2019)
● the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32, 31 March 2019)
● the unjust steward (Luke 16: 1-13, 22 September 2019)
● Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16: 19-31, 29 September 2019)
● the widow who nags and nags at the judge (Luke 18: 1-8, 20 October 2019)
● the Pharisee and the tax-collector (Luke 18: 9-14, 27 October 2019).

Regular churchgoers are so familiar with these parables, we know who to identify with, who is being chided, what the lesson is, and what to expect in the sermon.

Or do we?

The story of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which we have read this morning, is so familiar to all of us that we all know how to use the term Samaritan … well, don’t we?

A Good Samaritan is someone who comes to our aid in time of need, who goes over and beyond the demands of duty, a good listener, a good neighbour, a giver, a helping hand …

In a conversation in Limerick with distant cousins earlier this week, I was identifying my own Good Samaritans in the world today, including Carola Rackete, the German sea captain who defied Italy’s ban on migrant rescue ships last month by forcing her way into the port of Lampedusa with 42 migrants rescued at sea.

But there are other characters, other dramatis personæ, in this parable too … who would identify with the man who has been beaten up and left by the road?

We all pretend we have not but probably have met characters who might easily be in that band of robbers.

I should worry that people might compare me less with the Good Samaritan and more with the priest and the Levite hurrying and scurrying to the Temple, two men who might well have made very good and upright deans and canons today.

How many of us would identify with the innkeeper, worried about somebody who is going to make a mess of one of the last rooms we have left available at a busy time of holidays and pilgrimages?

How many of us, instead, would identify with the man who has been beaten up and left half dead on the side of the road?

How often have I been beaten up on the pathway through life?

Beaten up by family rows and divisions?

Beaten up by depression, anxiety and low self-esteem?

Beaten up by job loss or finding it difficult to find meaning in life?

Beaten up by rejection in love, in friendship, by bullies, in employment?

Beaten up by ill-health, physical and psychological, when people pass by and think I ought to pull myself up by own bootstraps?

Beaten up by addictions that other people think are my own fault, so they pass me by on the other side of the road?

Well that man brought it all on himself, didn’t he, straying off the straight and narrow, instead of keeping focussed on the holy city, the Jerusalem of this parable, turning his face towards Jericho, the oldest city in the world, representing every city with its fleshpots and decadence?

There is another way of reading this parable, however. It is the way it was read by the early Fathers of the Church, a way of reading it for almost 1,500 years, a way that it is still read in the Orthodox Church.

The man who goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho is Adam, or humanity, each and every one of us.

Jerusalem is the holy city of God, but also symbolises God’s future plans for us.

Jericho, the oldest city the world, symbolises the oldest earthly pleasures.

On the way, the man loses his freedom, becomes captive to his passions, wounded by sin, so incapable of prayer and worship that on the road of life he has become spiritually half-dead, stripped of his virtues, left without the cover of God’s grace and protection.

The man wounded by robbers represents fallen humanity before the coming of Christ.

The Priest and the Levite, ministers of God, represent the saints and prophets sent by God from the beginning of time, before Christ’s coming.

They saw the plight of humanity, lying on the road. Moses came by, Elijah came by, other prophets came by, but the illness of humanity remained without being healed.

Only God who has created us can recreate us. God humbles himself and becomes human, takes on our human flesh, in the incarnation. It sounds so unlikely, so impossible, it is like imagining a Jew becoming a Samaritan, one of those in the territory between Judea and Galilee, between Jericho and Jerusalem.

Indeed, the Pharisees mockingly labelled Christ a Samaritan, saying, ‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’ (John 8: 48).

Christ humbly attributes to himself the name given to him by his detractors.

The Samaritan binds up the wounds of wounded humanity, pours oil and wine on them: oil symbolises mercy and wine the true teaching of God. He then brings us to an inn where we can be taken care of.

The Gospel says that the Good Samaritan ‘put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.’ However, in traditional icons, Christ carries the man on his own back. Christ in the incarnation takes on our human nature, our soul and body. That is why in the parable he ‘set him on his own beast,’ interpreted by the Early Fathers that Christ makes us members of his own body.

There is a similar image in the parable of the Lost Sheep (see Luke 15). When the Good Shepherd finds the lost sheep, he puts him on his shoulders, rejoicing.

The inn represents the Church, the innkeeper the bishops and priests. Christ establishes his Church which, like an inn, accepts and provides shelter for all. The wounded man should stay here to be taken care of. The Samaritan has to leave, however. He takes out two silver coins and gives them to the innkeeper, saying: ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

Christ indicates his second coming, he will return.

The silver given to the innkeeper is the divine grace Christ gives to the Church; it heals and saves souls through the sacraments. Bishops and priests, the ministers of the sacraments of the Church, are the distributors of God’s gifts and freely-given grace for the lost and the outcast and those of us who have fallen by the way.

In this reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ offers himself as the prime example of mercy and compassion. Through his compassion, he takes on our sufferings and becomes the true neighbour of all fallen humanity.

This is a reading of this parable that connects with Saint Paul’s reminder this morning that God through Christ ‘has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (Colossians 1: 13).

We are not being challenged in this morning’s reading to be Good Samaritans. We don’t all have that opportunity, that encounter, that wealth to spend.

We are not even being challenged to be a good neighbour.

We are being challenged to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself’ (Luke 10: 27).

The Jewish theologian, Professor Michael Fishbane, says this great exhortation is at the heart of the Hebrew Bible, and adds: ‘These words are also at the heart of Judaism and constitute its religious idea.’

Christ then echoes a verse in the Law: ‘You have given the right answer; do this and you will live’ (verse 28); ‘You shall keep my statutes and my ordinances; by doing this one shall live: I am the Lord’ (Leviticus 18: 5).

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transformed us into the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (Colossians 1: 13) … the Bridge of Sighs in Venice at night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Luke 10: 25-37 (NRSVA):

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 26 He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ 27 He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’

28 And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ 30 Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ 37 He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

‘You shall love … your neighbour as yourself’ (Luke 10: 26) … but who is my neighbour? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Liturgical colour: Green

The Collect:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
Increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide,
we may so pass through things temporal
that we finally lose not the things eternal:
Grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our Lord.

The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him’ (Luke 10: 35) … coins on a bar table in an inn in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

517, Brother, sister, let me serve you (CD 30)
499, When I needed a neighbour, were you there? (CD 29)
569, Hark, my soul, it is the Lord (CD 33)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

The Good Samaritan ... a stained glass window in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live’

‘You shall love … your neighbour as yourself’ (Luke 10: 26) … but who is my neighbour? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

Sunday 14 July 2019

The Fourth Sunday after Trinity

9.30 a.m.: The Parish Eucharist (Holy Communion 2), Castletown Church, Co Limerick

Readings: Amos 7: 7-17; Psalm 82; Colossians 1: 1-14; Luke 10: 25-37.

The Good Samaritan ... a stained glass window in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

May I speak to you in the name of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

One of the difficulties I face when I come to preaching, I have to admit, is that in most parishes most of are familiar with most of the great parables.

This year [2019, Year C], the Lectionary readings are inviting us to work our way through Saint Luke’s Gospel, which is full of healing stories and parables.

Most of us are familiar – or think we are familiar with – these great parables:

● the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37, this morning, 14 July 2019)
● the rich man with his barns who wants to ‘eat, drink and be merry’ (Luke 12: 13-21, 4 August 2019)
● the thief in the night (Luke 12: 32-40, 11 August 2019)
● the guests at the wedding banquet (Luke 14: 1, 7-14, 1 September 2019)
● the lost sheep and the lost coin (Luke 15: 1-10, 15 September 2019)
● the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32, 31 March 2019)
● the unjust steward (Luke 16: 1-13, 22 September 2019)
● Dives and Lazarus (Luke 16: 19-31, 29 September 2019)
● the widow who nags and nags at the judge (Luke 18: 1-8, 20 October 2019)
● the Pharisee and the tax-collector (Luke 18: 9-14, 27 October 2019).

Regular churchgoers are so familiar with these parables, we know who to identify with, who is being chided, what the lesson is, and what to expect in the sermon.

Or do we?

The story of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which we have read this morning, is so familiar to all of us that we all know how to use the term Samaritan … well, don’t we?

A Good Samaritan is someone who comes to our aid in time of need, who goes over and beyond the demands of duty, a good listener, a good neighbour, a giver, a helping hand …

In a conversation in Limerick with distant cousins earlier this week, I was identifying my own Good Samaritans in the world today, including Carola Rackete, the German sea captain who defied Italy’s ban on migrant rescue ships last month by forcing her way into the port of Lampedusa with 42 migrants rescued at sea.

But there are other characters, other dramatis personæ, in this parable too … who would identify with the man who has been beaten up and left by the road?

We all pretend we have not but probably have met characters who might easily be in that band of robbers.

I should worry that people might compare me less with the Good Samaritan and more with the priest and the Levite hurrying and scurrying to the Temple, two men who might well have made very good and upright deans and canons today.

How many of us would identify with the innkeeper, worried about somebody who is going to make a mess of one of the last rooms we have left available at a busy time of holidays and pilgrimages?

How many of us, instead, would identify with the man who has been beaten up and left half dead on the side of the road?

How often have I been beaten up on the pathway through life?

Beaten up by family rows and divisions?

Beaten up by depression, anxiety and low self-esteem?

Beaten up by job loss or finding it difficult to find meaning in life?

Beaten up by rejection in love, in friendship, by bullies, in employment?

Beaten up by ill-health, physical and psychological, when people pass by and think I ought to pull myself up by own bootstraps?

Beaten up by addictions that other people think are my own fault, so they pass me by on the other side of the road?

Well that man brought it all on himself, didn’t he, straying off the straight and narrow, instead of keeping focussed on the holy city, the Jerusalem of this parable, turning his face towards Jericho, the oldest city in the world, representing every city with its fleshpots and decadence?

There is another way of reading this parable, however. It is the way it was read by the early Fathers of the Church, a way of reading it for almost 1,500 years, a way that it is still read in the Orthodox Church.

The man who goes down from Jerusalem to Jericho is Adam, or humanity, each and every one of us.

Jerusalem is the holy city of God, but also symbolises God’s future plans for us.

Jericho, the oldest city the world, symbolises the oldest earthly pleasures.

On the way, the man loses his freedom, becomes captive to his passions, wounded by sin, so incapable of prayer and worship that on the road of life he has become spiritually half-dead, stripped of his virtues, left without the cover of God’s grace and protection.

The man wounded by robbers represents fallen humanity before the coming of Christ.

The Priest and the Levite, ministers of God, represent the saints and prophets sent by God from the beginning of time, before Christ’s coming.

They saw the plight of humanity, lying on the road. Moses came by, Elijah came by, other prophets came by, but the illness of humanity remained without being healed.

Only God who has created us can recreate us. God humbles himself and becomes human, takes on our human flesh, in the incarnation. It sounds so unlikely, so impossible, it is like imagining a Jew becoming a Samaritan, one of those in the territory between Judea and Galilee, between Jericho and Jerusalem.

Indeed, the Pharisees mockingly labelled Christ a Samaritan, saying, ‘Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?’ (John 8: 48).

Christ humbly attributes to himself the name given to him by his detractors.

The Samaritan binds up the wounds of wounded humanity, pours oil and wine on them: oil symbolises mercy and wine the true teaching of God. He then brings us to an inn where we can be taken care of.

The Gospel says that the Good Samaritan ‘put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him.’ However, in traditional icons, Christ carries the man on his own back. Christ in the incarnation takes on our human nature, our soul and body. That is why in the parable he ‘set him on his own beast,’ interpreted by the Early Fathers that Christ makes us members of his own body.

There is a similar image in the parable of the Lost Sheep (see Luke 15). When the Good Shepherd finds the lost sheep, he puts him on his shoulders, rejoicing.

The inn represents the Church, the innkeeper the bishops and priests. Christ establishes his Church which, like an inn, accepts and provides shelter for all. The wounded man should stay here to be taken care of. The Samaritan has to leave, however. He takes out two silver coins and gives them to the innkeeper, saying: ‘Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.’

Christ indicates his second coming, he will return.

The silver given to the innkeeper is the divine grace Christ gives to the Church; it heals and saves souls through the sacraments. Bishops and priests, the ministers of the sacraments of the Church, are the distributors of God’s gifts and freely-given grace for the lost and the outcast and those of us who have fallen by the way.

In this reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christ offers himself as the prime example of mercy and compassion. Through his compassion, he takes on our sufferings and becomes the true neighbour of all fallen humanity.

This is a reading of this parable that connects with Saint Paul’s reminder this morning that God through Christ ‘has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (Colossians 1: 13).

We are not being challenged in this morning’s reading to be Good Samaritans. We don’t all have that opportunity, that encounter, that wealth to spend.

We are not even being challenged to be a good neighbour.

We are being challenged to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself’ (Luke 10: 27).

The Jewish theologian, Professor Michael Fishbane, says this great exhortation is at the heart of the Hebrew Bible, and adds: ‘These words are also at the heart of Judaism and constitute its religious idea.’

Christ then echoes a verse in the Law: ‘You have given the right answer; do this and you will live’ (verse 28); ‘You shall keep my statutes and my ordinances; by doing this one shall live: I am the Lord’ (Leviticus 18: 5).

And so, may all we think, say and do be to the praise, honour and glory of God, + Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen.

‘He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transformed us into the kingdom of his beloved Son’ (Colossians 1: 13) … the Bridge of Sighs in Venice at night (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Luke 10: 25-37 (NRSVA):

25 Just then a lawyer stood up to test Jesus. ‘Teacher,’ he said, ‘what must I do to inherit eternal life?’ 26 He said to him, ‘What is written in the law? What do you read there?’ 27 He answered, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself.’

28 And he said to him, ‘You have given the right answer; do this, and you will live.’

29 But wanting to justify himself, he asked Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbour?’ 30 Jesus replied, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan while travelling came near him; and when he saw him, he was moved with pity. 34 He went to him and bandaged his wounds, having poured oil and wine on them. Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35 The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, “Take care of him; and when I come back, I will repay you whatever more you spend.” 36 Which of these three, do you think, was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?’ 37 He said, ‘The one who showed him mercy.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do likewise.’

An Orthodox icon of the Parable of the Good Samaritan, interpreting the parable according to the Patristic and Orthodox tradition (Click on image for full-screen viewing)

Liturgical colour: Green

The Collect:

O God, the protector of all who trust in you,
without whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy:
Increase and multiply upon us your mercy;
that with you as our ruler and guide,
we may so pass through things temporal
that we finally lose not the things eternal:
Grant this, heavenly Father,
for Jesus Christ’s sake, our Lord.

Post-Communion Prayer:

Eternal God,
comfort of the afflicted and healer of the broken,
you have fed us at the table of life and hope.
Teach us the ways of gentleness and peace,
that all the world may acknowledge
the kingdom of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.

The next day he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of him’ (Luke 10: 35) … coins on a bar table in an inn in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Hymns:

517, Brother, sister, let me serve you (CD 30)
499, When I needed a neighbour, were you there? (CD 29)
569, Hark, my soul, it is the Lord (CD 33)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Material from the Book of Common Prayer is copyright © 2004, Representative Body of the Church of Ireland.

The Good Samaritan ... a stained glass window in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

A family trail that leads to Holocaust victims and heroes in the Venice Ghetto

The plaque erected in the Ghetto in Venice in 1947 commemorating Chief Rabbi Adolfo Ottolenghi (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Patrick Comerford

In my search earlier this week for the two Comerford brothers, Bert (Bert Brantford) and Harry (Harry Ford), and their wives, the two Sipple sisters, Aggie and Rosina, I was fascinated by finding that these two sisters are descended from some of the most interesting Sephardi Jewish families in Europe.

Many of their immediate ancestors could trace their ancestry directly to leading Sephardi families who lived in Amsterdam, Livorno, Venice and Seville, including Spanish Marrano families who had been forced to convert to Christianity in Seville during the Inquisition but had maintained their Jewish faith and practices in their private family and domestic life.

The grandmother of Agnes and Rosina Comerford, Dove Deborah (Paloma) de Isaac Nunes Martinez (1788-1876) was married twice, marrying Abraham Ottolenghi (1794-1847) in 1847. He was her second husband and she was his second wife.

Abraham Ottolenghi’s father, Israel Ottolenghi (1774-1828), was born in Livorno in Tuscany. The Ottolenghi family apparently originated in Germany, and the name is an Italian form of Ettlingen. Prominent members of the family include: Joseph b Nathan Ottolenghi (died 1570), Rabbi of Cremona; Samuel David b Jehiel Ottolego (died 1718), scholar and kabbalist, born in Casale Monferrato; and Abraham Azariah (Bonaiuto) Ottolenghi (1776-1851), rabbinical scholar, born in Acqui.

But this complex and remote connection with the Comerford family also reminded me of the story I heard in Venice three months ago of another member of the Ottolenghi family, Adolfo Ottolenghi (1885-1944) a Jewish scholar who was Chief Rabbi of Venice (1919-1944) and perished in the Holocaust.

Chief Rabbi Adolfo Ottolenghi, his wife Regina and their children (Photograph: CDEC)

Adolfo Ottolenghi was born on 30 July 1885 in Livorno, the son of Avraham Abramo and his wife Amalia (nee Ventura). He studied at the rabbinical college in Livorno and law at the University of Pisa, qualifying as a procuratore or lawyer, and initially planned to follow a career in the legal profession.

He also received the diploma of a maschil in 1907, a qualification found principally in Italy. The word refers traditionally to a ‘scholar’ or ‘enlightened man,’ and one who held a secondary rabbinical position corresponding to that of a dayyan. In Italy, and especially in Tuscany, the title maschil is conferred on rabbinical students. In 1911, he qualified as a chakham, the official title used among Sephardi Jews, particularly Spanish and Portuguese Jews, for local rabbis.

At the end of 1911, the Jewish community in Venice invited him to become secretary of the Fraterna Generale di Culto e Beneficenza, the main Jewish charity in the city. At the time, Moisè Coen Porto (1834-1918) was the Chief Rabbi of Venice and Giuseppe Musatti (1841-1928) was the president of the Jewish community (1903-1919).

Giuseppe Musatti and Amedeo Grassini, a prominent lawyer, founded a financial group that started the transformation of the Lido into a tourist destination and that financed Grassini’s formation of the first vaporetto company in Venice. Ever since, the vaporetti or water buses have carried residents and millions of tourists every day along the Grand Canal and to the lagoon islands. But Grassini is also remembered as the father of Margherita Sarfatti (1880-1961), the beguiling art critic who became Mussolini’s lover and his first biographer in 1925.

Ottolenghi served the community in Venice as a rabbi from 1911 to 1919. Because of his short-sightedness, he was exempted from military conscription during World War I. But the frontline was close to Venice, and throughout the war he took care of Jewish refugees, taking many of them to Livorno.

The Chief Rabbi of Venice, Moisè Coen-Porto, died in Mantua on 9 December 1918, and Adolfo Ottolenghi was elected to succeed him as the Chief Rabbi of Venice on 18 May 1919.

As chief rabbi, he became involved in deciphering inscriptions on the graves in the Jewish cemetery in the Lido and was involved in researching the history of the Jewish community in Venice. He published a number of monographs and papers in Jewish newspapers, including the Corriere Israelitico, the Vessillo Israelitico and the Rassegna mensile di Israel.

His services to the city of Venice and its culture and history were recognised when he was elected a fellow of the Ateneo Veneto, the Venetian academy, in 1933.

The Jewish school had grown under his oversight, allowing the community to accommodate all Jewish students who were expelled from public schools after Italian racist laws were enforced in 1938.

Italy, which had been an ally of Nazi Germany, became an occupied country in September 1943. The Nazis began a systematic hunt for Jews in all Italian cities, including Venice. In November 1943, Jews were declared ‘enemy aliens’ in accordance with the manifesto of the puppet state, the Italian Social Republic, to be arrested and their property seized.

When the Nazis occupied Venice, they demanded the President of the Jewish community, Giuseppe Jona (1866-1943), a distinguished doctor and academic, hand over a list of all Jews living in Venice. During World War I, the Italian Ministry of the Interior had recognised him as ‘an enthusiastic patriot of unshakable faith’ who had given ‘all his indefatigable work as a citizen to his country. A true example of activity and of very high civil value.’

Although Dr Jona had not been a practising Jew, the promulgation of fascist racist laws in 1938 forced his expulsion from academic life and the practice of medicine. In June 1940 he was elected the President of the Jewish community in Venice in succession to Aldo Finzi, who had been a fascist sympathiser.

On the morning Dr Jona had been commanded to deliver the list to Nazi headquarters, Jona decided to burn the list and end his own life on 17 September 1943. Thanks to his heroic self-sacrifice that day, the Nazis were never able to locate all the Jews of Venice. As well as being Chief Rabbi, Adolfo Ottolenghi now took over as president of the community.

An order was issued on 30 November 1943 to deport the members of the Jewish community in Venice and to confiscate their property.

On the night of 5/6 December 1943, 150 Jews were arrested and were held at Marco Foscarini college, the women’s prison on Giudecca, the prison at Santa Maria Maggiore. About 40 Jews were deported to the concentration camp at Fossoli on 19 December 1943.

Elio Gallina, a notary in Treviso who saved hundreds of Jews, helped Carlo Ottolenghi, his wife Annamaria (nee Levi Morenos) and their children Alberto and Elisabetta, Adolfo Ottolenghi’s two grandchildren, to escape to Switzerland in December 1943, using false papers with the name Vianello.

The ghetto was raided on 31 December. Days later, Adolfo Ottolenghi’s wife, Regina, fled and was sheltered by Gallina in his home in Treviso until 7 April. He gave her forged papers in the name ‘Pennella’ and she made her way to her sister in Piedmont, while her youngest son Eugenio was taken to safety in Genoa.

Among the prisoners arrested in December 1943, only those over the age of 70 were allowed to return to Venice in early 1944, and there they were imprisoned in the Casa di Ricovero Israelitica.

In 1944, the remaining 20 old people in the Jewish convalescent home in the Ghetto were arrested and 29 people were taken from their hospital beds in 1944 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Meanwhile, Adolfo Ottolenghi, now infirm and almost blind, spent a month in prison in Como. He was finally arrested on the night of 17/18 August 1944, along with the remaining 20 old people in the convalescent home and 29 people taken from their hospital beds. Most of those arrested that summer spent some time in the Risiera di San Sabba concentration camp in Trieste.

Ottolenghi was deported to the Auschwitz, where he died after 2 September 1944, although the exact date is not known.

In all, 243 Venetian Jews were deported from Venice, but about 1,200 other members of the community managed to escape, many to Switzerland and others to Allied-liberated parts of Italy. Of the 243 people forcibly deported to Auschwitz, only eight returned home to Venice. The Jewish population of Venice was 2,000 in 1938 out of 30,000 people; by the end of World War II, it had been reduced to 1,050.

The Holocaust memorial sculpture by Arbit Blatas in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Adolfo Ottolenghi is remembered for his sincerity and his devotion to the needs of his community. He wrote several historical essays, including a biography of the 17th century Jewish scholar in Venice, Leon da Modena (1571-1648), published in 1929, and of Rabbi Abraham Lattes (1809-1875) of Venice, published in 1930.

Venice’s Holocaust victims are commemorated in the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo in the memorial sculpture by Arbit Blatas. Chief Rabbi Adolfo Ottolenghi is also commemorated in a memorial tablet there and at a memorial woodland at Mestre.

Meanwhile, Dr Giuseppe Jona is remembered in a plaque of the Campo del Ghetto di Venezia as a ‘master of righteousness and goodness’ for helping the Jewish community ‘in the sad hour of persecution,’ offering ‘the treasures of his great soul.’

In 2007, Yad Vashem recognised Elio Gallina as ‘Righteous Among the Nations.’

With antisemitism continuing to infect the body politic throughout Europe, it is important to remember these heroes and victims of the Holocaust, no matter how remote or distant the connections may be.

‘O earth, do not cover my blood’ (Job 16: 18) … a reminder of the Holocaust in the Jewish Museum in Venice (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2018)

Columbus said it was Heaven on Earth Did Venice give its name to Venezuela?

Gondolas moored at the Doge’s Palace in Venice … but did Venice give its name to Venezuela (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

As the current crisis Venezuela continues to unfold, I have wondered why its name sounds like Venice. After all, why would a former Spanish colony in Latin America acquire a name from the most beautiful city in Italy?

After my visit to Venice three months ago [November 2018], my curiosity deepened.

For the past 20 years, Venezuela has been known officially as the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, since a new constitution was adopted in 1999. Before that, the official names have been Estado de Venezuela (1830-1856), República de Venezuela (1856-1864), Estados Unidos de Venezuela (1864-1953), and again República de Venezuela (1953-1999).

But where does the name Venezuela come from?

During his third voyage to the Americas, Christopher Columbus sailed near the Orinoco Delta in 1498, and landed in the Gulf of Paria. Amazed by the great off-shore current of fresh water that deflected his course eastward, Columbus wrote to the Spanish monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand saying he must have reached Heaven on Earth.

A year later, according to the most popular version, an expedition led by Alonso de Ojeda visited the Venezuelan coast in 1499, accompanied by the Italian-born navigator, Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) from Florence.

Vespucci is said to have commented that the houses on stilts in the area of Lake Maracaibo reminded him of Venice, and so he named the region Veneziola, or ‘Little Venice.’ The name Venezuela is said to be the Spanish version of Veneziola.

However, another account attributes the name to Martín Fernández de Enciso, a member of the crew with Vespucci and Ojeda. In his Summa de geografía, he claims the crew found indigenous people who called themselves the Veneciuela.

Two decades later, the territory now known as Venezuela was colonised by Spain in 1522.

In 1811, it became one of the first Spanish-American territories to declare independence, when a national assembly declared Venezuela independent on 5 July 1811. However, this independence was short-lived, and Spanish forces were in control once again a year later.

The area was finally liberated by Simon Bolivar in 1821. But at first, Venezuela was incorporated into a larger, federal republic state known as Gran Colombia, which from 1819 to 1831, Gran Colombia included the territories of present-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela, and parts of northern Peru, western Guyana and north-west Brazil.

However, as Gran Colombia begin to break up and Venezuela gained full independence in 1830.

It is believed nearly 12% of Venezuelans live abroad with Ireland becoming a popular destination for students.

But there is another curious historical link between Ireland and Venezuela that has been brought to life by research by William FK Marmion. He has unearthed the story of Brigadier-General Michael (Miguel) Marmion (1736-1818), who was born in Dundalk, served as Governor of part what is now Venezuela, and died in Cuidad Bolivar in 1818.

Marmion was an officer in the Spanish Army from 1770 to 1799, and a colonial governor until he retired in 1800. His records in the Spanish Military Archives in Segovia list him as ‘noble’ and ‘distinguished’ birth. He was probably born in 1736, and a very young age he was brought to Spain in 1746 by a ‘noble relative’. He enrolled in the Spanish Military Academy in Barcelona in 1758, and he graduated as a sub-lieutenant of engineers in 1762. He went into the regular Spanish Army given his graduation from the Military Academy primarily for engineers.

After time in different regiments in Spain, including one in Mallorca, he left for the colony of ‘New Granada’ in South America in late 1768 as a captain. Earlier that year, he had married Tomasa Villamayor, the daughter of a Spanish colonel.

The separate Captaincy General or Kingdom of Venezuela was formed in 1777, and Marmion worked from the capital, Santiago de Leon de Caracas, now known as Caracas, the capital of Venezuela. But he spent much of his time in the Spanish colony of Guyana. He was promoted lieutenant-colonel in 1779, colonel in 1789, and served as Governor of the colony from 1785 to 1790.

He then served as the Chief Engineer in all the Spanish colonial areas dependent upon Caracas, travelling to several islands, as well as Florida and Cuba.

He was promoted brigadier-general in 1794 and retired in 1800 at the age of 64. He never returned to Spain or to Ireland, and instead lived on in what is now Venezuela. He died without surviving children in 1817 or 1818; his wife appears to have died before him.

Patrick and Thomas Marmion from Dundalk claimed they were his close relatives and wrote to Spanish officials inquiring about any estate he may have left. But by the time they wrote, Venezuela was no longer under Spanish rule, having become part of Gran Colombia shortly after his death.

Several of Marmion’s signed reports relate to disputes with the British and the Dutch about the boundaries of Guyana, and there is a school named after him in what is now Ciudad Bolivar in Venezuela.