The Foundation Roger Fleischman and the former Synagogue Beit Yossef on rue des Ecouffes in Paris (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
Patrick Comerford
I spent an afternoon during our visit to Paris last week walking around the Jewish district in Le Marais and strolled through the Rue des Rosiers, known affectionately in Yiddish as Pletzl or the ‘Little Place,’ and the surrounding streets, including Rue Pavée, with the Rue Pavée Synagogue, built as the Agoudas Hakehilos Synagogue.
The Rue des Rosiers is the main street in the Marais and the neighbouring streets are home to many Jewish restaurants, cafés, bakeries and bookshops.
Many luxury brand shops have moved onto rue des Rosiers in recent years. A one-time community hammam, or steam bath, was in 2008 transformed into another link in the chain of Swedish fashion retailer H&M.
But these narrow, cobbled streets remain an important centre of Parisian Jewish life with their kosher food shops, bookshops, restaurants and cafés. Throughout the Marais, memorials plaques on many buildings are reminders of the impact of the Holocaust on the Jewish community in Paris.
The Kosher Pizza shop on rue des Ecouffes, a little street off rue des Rosiers, was previously the Synagogue Beit Yossef. Next door at No 18, the Roger Fleischman Foundation dates from 1931, when it was set up as a study centre.
The founder, Armand Fleischman (1886-1973), was born in Paris and was an infantry sergeant major during World War I and was awarded the Croix de Guerre and the Military Medal. He became President of the Fonds National Juif (FNJ) of France in 1923.
Armand Fleischman set up the Foundation Roger Fleischman in 1931 as a centre for young people to study the Torah, with a small oratory following the death of his son, a young Tzadik and medical student, at the age of 19.
This shtibel or small house of prayer is said to be one of the few places in the Marais still representative of the places of worship of Jewish immigrants who arrived from Poland in the 1920s.
It became a house of prayer for Jews from North Africa in the 1960s, and now follows the Sephardic rite, and it continues to serve as a place devoted to prayer and religious instruction.
The Tephilat Israel or Frank-Forter Synagogue on rue du Bourg Tibourg is named in honour of Rabbi Ray Israel Frank-Forter, who was murdered in Auschwitz in 1943 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
The Tephilat Israel or Frank-Forter Synagogue is a small oratoire or prayer house at 24 rue du Bourg Tibourg in the Marais. It was founded in the 1920s for another Jewish community from Central Europe. It is named in honour of Rabbi Ray Israel Frank-Forter, who was deported during the Holocaust and murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.
It too became a Sephardic synagogue in the 1970s and is open for Shabbat services, holidays and on Sunday mornings.
During that afternoon last week, I also visited the Mémorial de la Shoah or Holocaust Museum in Marais, the Memorial of the Unknown Jewish Martyr and the Museum of Jewish Art and History. But more about these visits on other days.
Shabbat Shalom
Many of the traditional Jewish shops continue to thrive in the Marais (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)
16 February 2024
Daily prayer in Lent with
early English saints:
3, 16 February 2024,
Saint Augustine of Canterbury
Saint Augustine, Apostle to the English and first Archbishop of Canterbury, depicted in stained glass (Photograph: Lawrence, OP)
Patrick Comerford
The Season of Lent begins this week with Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024).
In previous years, my Lenten reflections have journeyed with the saints, looked at Lent in Art, read poems in Lent, reflected on the music of Vaughan Williams, selected sayings from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield lexicographer, and similar themes.
This year, I am taking time each morning in Lent to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated by the Church of England in the Calendar of Common Worship. I began this series on Wednesday with a reflection on Saint Alban, England’s first martyr and saint.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time early this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, A reflection on an early, pre-Reformation English saint;
2, today’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Pope Gregory sending Saint Augustine to England, depicted in an 11th century manuscript (© British Library Board)
Early English pre-Reformation saints: 3, Saint Augustine (605), first Archbishop of Canterbury
Saint Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, is commemorated in Common Worship on 26 May. He was the Prior of the monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome in 596 when Pope Gregory the Great sent him as the leader of a group of 40 monks to re-evangelise the English Church.
Saint Augustine appears not to have been a particularly confident person and, in Gaul, he wanted to turn back. But Pope Gregory’s firm resolution held the group to their mission. The monks finally landed in Kent in the summer of 597 where they were well received by King Ethelbert whose wife, Bertha, was a Christian.
Once established, Saint Augustine returned temporarily to Gaul to receive ordination as a bishop. Pope Gregory would have preferred London to have become the primatial see, but in the event Canterbury was chosen and so Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He died in either 604 or 605.
Saint Augustine of Canterbury … a modern icon
Matthew 9: 14-15 (NRSVA):
14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ 15 And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.’
‘Saint Augustine at Ebbsfleet’, Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) ca 1920, tempera on canvas (Christ’s Hospital Foundation, Horsham)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 16 February 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Ash Wednesday Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Jessie Anand, Chaplain, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (16 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:
We pray for the work of USPG on the day that we remember its founder, Thomas Bray. May we look back with open minds to discover new insights to inform the path we tread.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty God,
you have given your only Son to be for us
both a sacrifice for sin
and also an example of godly life:
give us grace
that we may always most thankfully receive
these his inestimable gifts,
and also daily endeavour
to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Holy God,
our lives are laid open before you:
rescue us from the chaos of sin
and through the death of your Son
bring us healing and make us whole
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection: Saint Petroc, Abbot of Padstow (6th century)
Tomorrow: Saint Mellitus (624), first Bishop of London
‘A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids’ by William Holman Hunt in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
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
Patrick Comerford
The Season of Lent begins this week with Ash Wednesday (14 February 2024).
In previous years, my Lenten reflections have journeyed with the saints, looked at Lent in Art, read poems in Lent, reflected on the music of Vaughan Williams, selected sayings from Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), the Lichfield lexicographer, and similar themes.
This year, I am taking time each morning in Lent to reflect on the lives of early, pre-Reformation English saints commemorated by the Church of England in the Calendar of Common Worship. I began this series on Wednesday with a reflection on Saint Alban, England’s first martyr and saint.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time early this morning for reflection, prayer and reading in these ways:
1, A reflection on an early, pre-Reformation English saint;
2, today’s Gospel reading;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
Pope Gregory sending Saint Augustine to England, depicted in an 11th century manuscript (© British Library Board)
Early English pre-Reformation saints: 3, Saint Augustine (605), first Archbishop of Canterbury
Saint Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, is commemorated in Common Worship on 26 May. He was the Prior of the monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome in 596 when Pope Gregory the Great sent him as the leader of a group of 40 monks to re-evangelise the English Church.
Saint Augustine appears not to have been a particularly confident person and, in Gaul, he wanted to turn back. But Pope Gregory’s firm resolution held the group to their mission. The monks finally landed in Kent in the summer of 597 where they were well received by King Ethelbert whose wife, Bertha, was a Christian.
Once established, Saint Augustine returned temporarily to Gaul to receive ordination as a bishop. Pope Gregory would have preferred London to have become the primatial see, but in the event Canterbury was chosen and so Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He died in either 604 or 605.
Saint Augustine of Canterbury … a modern icon
Matthew 9: 14-15 (NRSVA):
14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ 15 And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.’
‘Saint Augustine at Ebbsfleet’, Frank Brangwyn (1867-1956) ca 1920, tempera on canvas (Christ’s Hospital Foundation, Horsham)
Today’s Prayers (Friday 16 February 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Ash Wednesday Reflection.’ This theme was introduced on Sunday by the Revd Jessie Anand, Chaplain, USPG.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (16 February 2024) invites us to pray in these words:
We pray for the work of USPG on the day that we remember its founder, Thomas Bray. May we look back with open minds to discover new insights to inform the path we tread.
The Collect:
Almighty and everlasting God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all those who are penitent:
create and make in us new and contrite hearts
that we, worthily lamenting our sins
and acknowledging our wretchedness,
may receive from you, the God of all mercy,
perfect remission and forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty God,
you have given your only Son to be for us
both a sacrifice for sin
and also an example of godly life:
give us grace
that we may always most thankfully receive
these his inestimable gifts,
and also daily endeavour
to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
Holy God,
our lives are laid open before you:
rescue us from the chaos of sin
and through the death of your Son
bring us healing and make us whole
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s Reflection: Saint Petroc, Abbot of Padstow (6th century)
Tomorrow: Saint Mellitus (624), first Bishop of London
‘A Converted British Family Sheltering a Christian Missionary from the Persecution of the Druids’ by William Holman Hunt in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)
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
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