Patrick Comerford
We had intended to go to the Chanukah lighting ceremony in Bletchley Park last Sunday. But circumstances changed last weekend, events caught up with us, and we never got there along with a friend who was visiting us. Then, as Sunday afternoon unfolded, any intentions, any plans, or any notions of being in Bletchley were forgotten as news broke of the attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, which has become a tragedy for Jewish communities around the world.
Chanukah continues until next Sunday evening. But this year it has become an especially personally poignant and deeply painful Chanukah for many people in England, with the Bondi Beach attack coming so soon after the attack on the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester. It is a stark reminder too that antisemitism is a global threat and of how widespread and dangerous hatred has become.
It was an act of violence that highlights the urgent need for all to unite against hatred and to continue collectively all efforts to pursue safety, tolerance, and understanding. But Chanukah symbolises hope, perseverance and endurance, a reminder that even in darkness, resilience and hope can shine the brightest, and for many it is a challenge to bring light into even the darkest times and places.
Having missed the lighting of the Chanukiah in Bletchley Park last Sunday evening, we found ourselves unexpectedly with an opportunity to join a celebration of Chanukah in London yesterday in a collaboration between the Jewish Museum and the Museum of the Home.
After lighting five of the the candles and reciting the blessings we sang the first verse of Ma’oz Tzur (מָעוֹז צוּר) a liturgical poem or piyyut in Hebrew sung at Hanukkah after lighting the festival lights:
My Refuge, my Rock of Salvation!
’Tis pleasant to sing your praises.
Let our house of prayer be restored.
And there we will offer you our thanks.
When you will have slaughtered the barking foe.
Then we will celebrate with song and psalm
the altar’s dedication.
It is a hymn that tells Jewish history in a poetic form and celebrates deliverance from four ancient enemies, Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Haman and Antiochus. It is named for its Hebrew incipit, which means ‘Strong Rock (of my Salvation)’, a name or epithet for God. It may have been written in the 13th century, although recent research suggests the 12th century. It was sung only at home originally, but has been sung in the synagogue since at least the 19th century.
Three of us were visiting the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum, which is housed in the 18th-century Grade I-listed former almshouses on Kingsland Road in Hoxton. The almshouses was first built in 1714 with a bequest ln a legacy from Sir Robert Geffrye (1613-1704).
A special all-day event in the Museum of the Home yesterday (18 December 2025) was ‘Object Handling with the Jewish Museum’ from 11 am to 4 pm. This was a free, drop-in day, with an invitation to get up close and personal with handling objects from the Jewish Museum’s collection at the recreation in the Museum of the Home of the 1913 tenement flat, where the Delinsky family will be preparing for a Hanukkah feast.
The day included doughnuts from Rinkoff’s Bakery for sale in their shop and dreidels to play outside their 1913 room, and ended with lighting a special Chanukiah in the atrium at 4 pm.
Sir Robert Geffrye had been a merchant, slave trader, Lord Mayor of London and Master of the Ironmongers’ Company. The almshouses were built to house the widows of ironmongers, and had 14 four-room houses, housing up to 56 pensioners, with a large garden. The Ironmongers' Company decided by 1911 the area had become too dangerous for pensioners and moved to new premises.
The Geffrye Almshouse and its gardens were bought by the London County Council in 1911. The gardens represented 14% of the open space in Shoreditch, a densely populated area, and the Geffrye Museum opened in 1914. The museum was run in the late 20th century by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA), before becoming a charitable trust in 1991.
The museum closed in 2018 for 2½ years for an £18 million development project and reopened as the Museum of the Home in 2021. The museum explores home and home life from 1600 to the present day with galleries that ask questions about ‘home’, present diverse lived experiences, and examine the psychological and emotional relationships people have with the idea of ‘home’ alongside a series of period room displays.
The museum hosts exhibitions that exploring the meaning of home to diverse communities. The main museum building is Grade I listed, and several buildings connected with the museum are listed Grade II* and Grade II.
The Tenement Flat in 1913 is a permanent exhibition in the museum that recreates a Friday night when the Delinsky family prepares to welcome in Shabbos. Their flat is in the Rothschild Buildings, among dozens of tenement blocks built in the late 1800s in an effort to clear inner London of notorious slums and raise the standard of living for working-class Londoners.
By the 1980s, these blocks had come symbols of east London’s poverty, and the Rothschild Buildings were among many that were demolished.
In the museum exhibition, the Delinsky family welcomes in Shabbos on Friday nights. Ray’s famous lokshen soup is simmering on the stove as she prepares the chicken to be roasted in the oven. Ray’s daughter Bessie has spent most of the day tirelessly cleaning the flat and has just sent her brother Nathan to Brick Lane for some last-minute needs. Their father Israel has finished a long week of work and has gone to the local synagogue to pray, before returning home to begin dinner with a blessing.
The room was curated with the help of members of Jewish community groups and was funded by the Shoresh Trust. The objects in the room include religious silverware from ca 1900-1910, and The Economical Jewish Cook by May Henry and Edith B Cohen (1897).
Shabbat Mikets or the Shabbat in Chanukah begins this evening (19 December 2025) at 3:38 pm and the time for lighting the Chanukah candles at home is some time between 3:03 pm and 3:38 pm.
Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום
Chag Sameach Chanukah, חג חנוכה שמח
Lighting the Chanukiah with the Jewish Museum at the Museum of the Home in London last night (Patrick Comerford, 2025)
