Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2026: 36, Friday 12 June 2026

A summer wedding in a monastery in Crete … but today’s Gospel reading may bring us to ask whether a marriage should last longer than love (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

We are in Ordinary Time in the Church Calendar, and this week began with the First Sunday after Trinity (Trinity I, 7 June 2026). Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Enjoying a summer wedding (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Matthew 5: 27-32 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 27 ‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall not commit adultery.” 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

31 ‘It was also said, “Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.” 32 But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.’

Wedding flowers strewn on the lawn at Lisnavagh House, Co Carlow, in the late evening … what happens when love fades in a marriage? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflections:

In the Gospel reading at the Eucharist today (Matthew 5: 27-32), we return to our readings from the Sermon on the Mount. At first, the statements on adultery, divorce and remarriage in this reading may sound harsh and judgmental. So, this morning, I am going to look carefully at this passage in some detail before any further reflection or coming to any conclusions.

Verses 27-28:

‘You have heard’ … the Mosaic code states that you shall not commit adultery. Legally, adultery is sex with another person’s partner, more specifically, with another man’s wife. Under the Mosaic Law, consensual sex between two people who were not married was settled in marriage and so legally it was not adultery. However, adultery carried the death penalty (see Leviticus 20: 10; Deuteronomy 22: 22). But when it comes to God’s perfect law, lust is as good as the deed, thus ‘all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.’

In this passage, ‘a woman’ (γυνή, gynē) implies specifically a married woman. When a man looks at her lustfully, he already conjures up the thoughts and the images of intercourse with her. But here the construction may also express the result.

Verses 29-30:

We now move to two parabolic sayings in which Christ speaks of the crucial importance of taking any necessary measures to control any excessive passions that flare out of control (see also Matthew 18: 8-9; cf Mark 9: 43-48). These sayings are more like crisis parables than ethical illustrations.

Of course, Christ is not advocating radical surgery or self-mutilation, nor is he suggesting that this kind of surgery can rid us of sinful desires will be exorcised. Nor is he saying we must blind ourselves to what is wrong, in the sense of closing our eyes to it, like the three monkeys who ‘see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.’ But we must deal radically with sin, and the language of hyperbole expresses radical action.

Verses 31-32:

Is divorce always against the will of God? Is the ‘one-flesh relationship’ between a man and a woman to be permanent and for all time? What does the Apostle Paul have to say? Where may the law end and grace begin?

Think of the consequences in those days for a woman if her husband divorced her. And whatever about a man divorcing his wife, what about a woman divorcing her husband?

The Mosaic law, recognising the human condition, regularises marital separation by the requirement of a ‘document of dismissal’ (Deuteronomy 24: 1). By the time of Jesus, this had become little more than publicly-sanctioned adultery. But where the Church has taken the ideal and enshrined it in legalism, have we become more like the Scribes and the Pharisees? Christ exposes our state of sin, but does he seek to burden us with a weight too hard to bear? Is this an ideal to strive after or a law to be obeyed?

There is an exception, but Matthew alone notes this, while Mark and Luke give no grounds at all for ending a marriage. Matthew is describing cases where one partner has destroyed marriage through πορνεία (porneía), which can refer to illicit sexual intercourse, adultery, fornication, homosexuality, intercourse with animals, sexual intercourse with close relatives, sexual intercourse with a divorced man or woman. It is the word that gives us ‘pornography’, but it is also used throughout the Bible to talk about the worship of idols and the defilement of idolatry, incurred by eating the sacrifices offered to idols.

The word was originally used of sex with a prostitute, but took on a wider sense to include all sexual acts outside of marriage. In Deuteronomy 24: 1-4, the ground for a divorce was ‘something indecent’, but Christ now severely limits the understanding of what constitutes an ‘indecent’ act.

Should a man divorce his wife for other reasons, he is effectively trying to condemn her as an adulteress. In Jewish society it would be extremely difficult for a woman to survive without a husband. A divorced woman would be forced to take another husband and be seen as an adulterer. The responsibility for this situation properly rests on the man who divorced her.

Reflecting on the reading:

I wince and even imagine physical pain when it comes to the discussion of physical mutilation in the first part of this reading.

As a priest who is divorced and remarried, I find the topics in this reading a challenge every time I read it, even though I have dealt with these topics on many occasions when I have preached in a parish and pastoral context, in preparing couples for marriage, and in my own life. I wish some of my priest colleagues had been as generous to me in the recent past as I hope they are to their own parishioners when it comes to providing true pastoral care, understanding and support.

Later in this Gospel (Matthew 19: 11-12), the discussion about divorce and remarriage causes me even greater confusion and all my attempts to understand its context still leave me in search of meaning and understanding. But then even the text itself warns that some readers will not be able to receive what is being said.

Jesus’ words seem to find echoes in Saint Paul’s writings when, for example, he seems to advocate remaining single if someone is called to do so (see I Corinthians 7: 24-28), yet says it is wrong to forbid marriage to anyone (I Timothy 4: 1-3). However, both Jesus and Paul stress that relatively few people were called to a life of celibacy, a lifestyle that was generally unacceptable socially in their time.

People who go through a marriage breakdown and divorce, and still cling on to going to church, perhaps just by their fingernails, may well ask, ‘Where is the Good News this morning?’

The Pharisees were divided on the legality of divorce and the grounds for divorce. The Law of Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife, if he finds ‘something objectionable about her’ (Deuteronomy 24: 1). It never said a woman could divorce her husband.

A man could simply ‘write a certificate of dismissal’, without going through any formal legal proceedings. ‘Something objectionable’ could cover a multitude, from adultery to an eccentric hair-do on a bad hair day. Indeed, by the time of Christ, divorce was allowed for the most trivial of reasons, and was so common that many women suffered.

There are other places in the New Testament where Christ, and Saint Paul and Saint Peter, accept that a man may divorce an unfaithful wife. Saint Mark alone mentions the possibility of women also divorcing. This may have been normal in non-Jewish contexts, but cases of Jewish women initiating divorce are rare.

Christ devotes much of his teaching time interpreting scripture in a way that gives priority to human wellbeing. For example, the Sabbath is made for us rather than we being made for the Sabbath. Similarly, we could say he is saying here that the order of marriage is made for us, not that we are made for the ordering of marriage, or worrying about the minutiae in the details religious people construct around marriage.

The way Christ interprets scriptural law ought to provide a clue to how we interpret his teaching.

Today, many of us may appear to be on the side of the Pharisees on the question of divorce. Divorce is common today and most of us accept it as a reality. Our laws and our customs, like those of the Pharisees in the Gospel accounts, assume divorce happens.

Christ appears to be harsh and uncompromising on a first reading this morning. But many marriages get stale or toxic, relationships can dry up or lose focus, self-destruct, or break down. Things go wrong for far too many reasons.

A divorce may be a burial for a dead marriage. Divorces do not kill marriages any more than funerals kill people … although one of the great tragedies today is that far too many couples are burying their relationship when it is only sick or injured.

Is it not possible that the promise to be together until death can refer to the death of the relationship as well as the death of the person?

Is it not possible to recall that the original intent of our loving and caring God who gave us the gift of marriage was to make our lives better?

Does that desire of God evaporate when we are no longer in a marriage?

In other Gospel passages, when Jesus is asked about divorce and remarriage, people are trying to set a trap for him. But marriage is not a trap and not a matter of expediency in which the wife is the property of the husband.

Of course, the covenant of marriage is still just as valid today. Ideally, when two people marry, they commit themselves to an exclusive relationship of love and devotion in a new entity. But it is easier to say thar than it is to face up to reality, which includes the complexities of child-rearing, careers and competing religious, social and economic claims and responsibilities.

Ideally, we are not to live alone, but in loving and committed relationships. Indeed, in an ideal world, there would be no such thing as divorce. But we do not live in an ideal world. We live in a fallen and broken world in which human nature always falls short of the glory of God. Whether we like it or not, divorce is a reality and we have to live with that.

Sadly, when people go through a divorce, the church is often the last place they can turn to for help and understanding.

But divorce is like a death. It is the death of a relationship, and so people grieve, and they need sympathy and to be consoled. Would we dare chastise someone who was grieving after the death of a family member?

I was reminded once by a divorced priest in the Church of Ireland that when God says: ‘I hate divorce ... I hate divorce’ (Malachi 2: 16), that of course God hates divorce because God has gone through the sufferings and grieving of divorce through our faithlessness and wandering.

God hates divorce because God has suffered divorce.

It was a profound insight.

Too often, in debates, passages of Scripture taken out of context, or one-sided interpretations of the tradition of the Church can be used to set a trap so that people are forced to accept only one standard or practice for marriage in the world today. Let us not use this reading to trap Jesus through hardness of heart. And let us not use this reading to trap vulnerable, suffering and grieving people who remain open to loving and being loved.

We must face questions about marriage and divorce, about who can be married and who can be divorced, as challenges that ask us to think outside the box, without trying to trap Jesus or to trap those who are faced with honest questions about marriage and about divorce.

‘If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away’ (Matthew 5: 29) … posters for an exhibition seen in Vienna (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Friday 12 June 2026):

In Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), the theme this week, from 7 to 13 June 2026 (pp 8-9), is ‘Safe Churches in Zambia’. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a programme update from Fran Mate, Senior Regional Manager for Africa, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Friday 12 June 2026, World Day Against Child Labour) invites us to pray:

God of justice, we pray especially for children who are exploited, harmed or made vulnerable. Guide your Church worldwide to be courageous in protecting children and creating truly safe spaces for all.

The Collect:

O God,
the strength of all those who put their trust in you,
mercifully accept our prayers
and, because through the weakness of our mortal nature
we can do no good thing without you,
grant us the help of your grace,
that in the keeping of your commandments
we may please you both in will and deed;
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:

Eternal Father,
we thank you for nourishing us
with these heavenly gifts:
may our communion strengthen us in faith,
build us up in hope,
and make us grow in love;
for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

God of truth,
help us to keep your law of love
and to walk in ways of wisdom,
that we may find true life
in Jesus Christ your Son.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

‘Eternal Father … may our communion strengthen us in faith, build us up in hope, and make us grow in love; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord’ (the Post Communion Prayer) … Communion vessels in the Harvard Chapel in Southwark Cathedral (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

Moving from welcome to belonging: enabling mission work among the Chinese communities in Britain

In the foyer of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission in Fishermead, near the centre of Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

I spent a few hours today with other clergy in the Milton Keynes Deanery area as guests of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission in Padstow Avenue, Fishermead.

Fishermead is an interesting area close to the centre of Milton Keynes. The first house was built there in 1973, and at one time Fishermead was known as one of the most notorious estates in Milton Keynes. In the past it suffered from high volumes of deprivation, multiple occupancy housing and street crime.

Now Fishermead is home to one the most diverse and vibrant communities in the city. The three-storey townhouses and blocks of flats house with about 1,400 households and people from many parts of the world.

The Chinese Overseas Christian Mission (COCM) has its headquarters at Padstow Avenue in Fishermead. COCM is an inter-denominational mission with the objective of bringing the gospel to the Chinese scattered over Europe through pioneering evangelism, church planting, training and literature work. The mission’s vision is ‘where there are Chinese, may Christ be there also’.

The Revd Henry Lu, who welcomed us to the centre, has been the general director of the Chinese Overseas Christian Mission (COCM) since he succeeded Mary Wang in 2008. He spoke of its work today, but also brought us back to its origins when the Revd Stephen Wang, a Methodist minister, moved to Britain in 1950 to study theology at Selly Oak in Birmingham.

COCM is an interdenominational mission with the objective of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with the Chinese diaspora and local communities in the UK and Europe through multi-faceted ministries.

The Chinese Overseas Christian Mission (COCM) has its headquarters at Padstow Avenue in Fishermead (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

When COCM was founded by Stephen Wang, its vision was ‘Where the Chinese are, there Christ must be.’

In the 75 years since then, COCM has grown substantially and the scope of its work now covers the UK and countries on the European continent. Its extended vision has become, ‘Reaching the Chinese to Reach Europe.’

He described COCM’s work in helping people to build up strong and healthy churches and to serve their communities. Many Chinese churches in the UK and in Europe are in the early stages of development and rely on outside resources for their work, ministry and mission.

He spoke of the courses and training programmes COCM runs and organises, we visited the bookshop, which is one of the largest Chinese bookshops in Europe, and the chapel which is used during training programmes and courses but does not serve a regular Sunday morning congregation.

The chapel in the COCM building in Fishermead, Milton Keynes (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In much of its work, COCM acknowledges the pioneering inspiration of Bishop Frank Houghton (1894-1972), an Anglican missionary bishop in China. He was born in Stafford, educated at the University of London and ordained in 1917. He was a curate in Everton and Preston before going to China as a missionary with the China Inland Mission in 1920. In 1923, Frank Houghton married Dorothy Cassels, the daughter of William Cassels, who had been a member of the ‘Cambridge Seven’ and became a bishop in China.

Frank Houghton was the Bishop of East Szechwan from 1937 to 1940, and returned to England to work in parishes in Leamington and Banbury. He was the general director of the China Inland Mission (CIM) when the mission had to leave China in 1951. He retired in 1963 and died in 1972. The China Inland Mission was founded by Hudson Taylor in 1865. It is now based in Singapore and is an international and interdenominational evangelical missionary society known since 1964 as OMF International or the Overseas Missionary Fellowship.

Bishop Frank Houghton was the first trustee chair of COCM. He retired in 1963 and died in 1972. One of his hymns, in English and Chinese, hangs on banners in the foyer of COCM, on either side of a banner with Psalm 126.

A hymn by Bishop Frank Houghton in English and Chinese hangs on banners in the foyer of COCM, on either side of a banner with Psalm 126 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

After lunch as guests of COCM, Katie Woo spoke to us of her work with the National Church Hong Kong Communities Enabler, with the Diocese of Oxford.

She spoke of the increasing numbers of Chinese people who are coming to the UK, including Chinese students, who are both Cantonese and Mandarin speakers; families who have been moving from Hong Kong in large numbers in the last five years or so; and the English-speaking ethnic Chinese people who are the next generation who have grown up in Britain.

This third group were born here or moved here in their childhood, and speak a language native to them but foreign to their parents.

The new generation that has arrived from Hong Kong has strong, visible communities in Reading, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham, as well as Milton Keynes. She spoke of her work as a process that helps to move people forward from being welcomed to belonging.

During the day, I also visited Trinity Church, Fishermead, and the neighbouring mosque. But more about Fishermead and its faith communities in the days to come, I hope.

Chinese-language Bibles on the shelves of the bookship at COCM in Fishermead (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Praying with the ‘in-between’ people caught in these ‘in-between’ times of uncertainty and unrest

The Ascension depicted in a window in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

In this week, we find ourselves in an ‘in-between’ time, between the Ascension and Pentecost, between the Son ascending to the Father and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.

But this is also an ‘in-between’ time, with uncertainty at the top of government, and with uncertainty on the streets, with open expressions of hatred and racism and threats of violence.

In a poem he posted on his Facebook page this morning, the priest poet Jon Swales of Leeds prayed:

Christ, show us a unity
not crafted in statements,
not shouted in streets,
but broken in bread,
poured in wine,
birthed at your table.

In preparing the intercessions for the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford, this morning(Easter VII, 17 May 2026), I adapted a well-known prayer by Bishop Thomas Ken (1637-1711) that seems so appropriate at this time of marches, tension and the deliberate hijacking of Christian symbols and language:

O God, make the door of this house
wide enough to receive all who need human love and fellowship,
and a heavenly Father’s care;
and narrow enough to shut out all envy, pride and hate.
Make its threshold smooth enough to be no stumbling block to children,
nor to straying feet,
but rugged enough to turn back the tempter’s power:
make it a gateway to thine eternal kingdom.

His prayer was inscribed on the door of Saint Stephen’s Church, Walbrook, in London, which I have visited a number of times, and it is found inside the doors of many churches in the Church of England. The prayer is found in many sources, including the King’s Chapel Prayer Book at King’s Chapel, one of the oldest churches in Boston, and The Oxford Book of Prayer, edited by George Appleton.

Bishop Thomas Ken is one of the founding figures in Anglican hymnody. He had an often-fraught relationship with the Church of England and was one of the Non-Juring bishops at the time of the Williamite Revolution.

Thomas Ken was born in 1637 at Little Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. His father was Thomas Ken of Furnival’s Inn; his mother was the daughter of the poet John Chalkhill; and his step-sister Anne married Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler and biographer of some of the key Caroline divines and poets, including George Herbert and John Donne.

Ken was educated at Winchester College, Hart Hall, Oxford, and New College, Oxford. He was ordained in 1662, and was the rector of parishes in Essex, the Isle of Wight and Hampshire, before returning to Winchester in 1672 as a prebendary of the cathedral, chaplain to the bishop and a fellow of Winchester College. There he prepared manuals on prayer and wrote many of his hymns, including ‘Awake, my soul, and with the sun,’ ‘Glory to thee, my God, this night’ and ‘Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.’

Ken visited to Rome with Izaak Walton in 1674, and the journey seems to have confirmed him in his commitment to Anglicanism.

King Charles II appointed Ken chaplain to Princess Mary, wife of William of Orange, in 1679. However, he incurred William’s displeasure at the court in The Hague, and when he returned to England in 1680 he was appointed one of the king’s chaplains.

When Charles II visited Winchester with his court in 1683, Ken refused to provide lodgings for Nell Gwynne, the king’s mistress. Later that year, he accompanied Lord Dartmouth to Tangier as chaplain to the fleet.

When the fleet returned, Charles II appointed Ken as Bishop of Bath and Wells. He was consecrated at Lambeth on 25 January 1685, and one of his first duties was to attend the king on his deathbed. That year he also published The Practice of Divine Love.

When James II issued the Declaration of Indulgence in 1688, Ken was one of the seven bishops who refused to publish it. Ken and the other his six bishops were sent to the Tower of London on charges of high misdemeanour, but were acquitted at their trial.

When the Williamite Revolution followed, however, Ken believed his sworn allegiance to James II prevented him from taking an oath of loyalty to William of Orange. He became one the Non-Jurors, and in 1691 he was replaced as Bishop of Bath and Wells by the Dean of Peterborough, Richard Kidder.

For the next 20 years, he lived in retirement as a guest of Lord Weymouth at Longleat in Wiltshire. There he wrote many of his famous hymns, including ‘Awake my soul.’

Queen Anne failed to persuade him to return to Bath and Wells when Bishop Kidder died in 1703, but he persuaded George Hooper to accept the vacant see. At Hooper’s request, Queen Anne granted Ken a pension of £200. He died at Longleat on 19 March 1711.

One of Ken’s last sayings was, ‘I am dying in the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Faith professed by the whole Church before the disunion of East and West; and, more particularly, in the Communion of the Church of England, as it stands distinguished from both Papal and Protestant innovation, and adheres to the Doctrine of the Cross.’

At dawn on 20 March 1711, while his friends sang ‘Awake, my soul,’ he was buried below the East Window of Saint John’s Church in Frome, Somerset, the nearest parish in the Diocese of Bath and Wells.

Thomas Ken is remembered in the Church of England with on 8 June and in the Episcopal Church on 20 March. He is also commemorated with a statue in a niche on the West Front of Salisbury Cathedral.

‘O God, make the door of this house wide enough to receive all’ … Bishop Thomas Ken’s prayer was inscribed on the doors of Saint Stephen’s Walbrook (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When you vote, consider the people who feel the need to ‘always keep a packed suitcase by the front door’

Tomorrow is polling day in local elections in many parts of England and in assembly elections in Wales and Scotland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

There is an old adage among football fans that ‘you don’t choose the club, the club chooses you.’

So, on Sunday night, as I stood in the bar in the Old George, I really wanted – hope against hope – as five minutes of added time stretched into an agonising six, that Aston Villa would clinch an equaliser, and rise back into the top four in the Premier League.

I have been a Villa fan since my teens for no other reasons than that Villa Park is a few stations south of Lichfield on the trainline from Lichfield into Birmingham. I seldom go to football games these days, but I still watch Villa matches in my local pub, and I have benign, avuncular feelings when I see Villa fans at Lichfield Trent Valley and Lichfield City heading off to games.

In the present political climate, I recall that Aston Villa has a proud tradition of standing up against antisemitism and racism. When Aston Villa was invited on a three-match tour of Germany in 1938, the players refused to give the Nazi salute. Later, during World War II, local lore says, the Villa reserve team were all captured at Dunkirk, and in captivity they thrashed their SS guards.

But on Sunday night I had something of an internal conflict – I didn’t want to see Tottenham Hotspur relegated either. Spurs have been my second team since my teens too, but for very different reasons.

Part of Spurs’ traditional support base was for long in the Jewish community in London, so that to fans of Chelsea and other clubs, Tottenham Hotspur is a Jewish club. In response to racist and antisemitic taunts, Spurs fans long ago adopted as their own chant: ‘We are the Yids’, embracing the label to render the abuse impotent.

Since 1982, Spurs have had three chairs who were Jewish businessmen with pre-existing degrees of allegiance to the club. It is said about 5 per cent of the Spurs fans at games may be Jewish.

The Jewish community in Tottenham began to grow early in the last century. East European Jews fleeing pogroms in Russia arrived in London from the 1880s on, and a fresh wave in 1905-1906 as the persecution intensified. Many Jews settled in the East End, and other families then moved further north to the Tottenham area. In time, Tottenham Hotspur became part of the lives of working-class Jewish men in the Tottenham area.

Jewish numbers at home matches rose after World War I, when improved public transport made it possible to be in synagogue in the morning and to catch a tram from Aldgate in time for a 2:30 kick-off at White Hart Lane. In the 1920s, the Jewish Chronicle claimed, almost all Jews who followed soccer were Spurs supporters, and the Jewish fanbase continued to grow in the 1930s. Several reports in 1935 estimated as many as 10,000 Jews in a Spurs crowd, or about one-third of the total.

When White Hart Lane was the venue for an international between England and Germany, the choice seen as an affront to the Jewish community. The swastika flew over White Hart Lane on 4 December 1935 and the German team gave a sinister Nazi salute to the crowd before kick-off. But a fan climbed onto the roof of the West Stand and tore down the Nazi flag. Perhaps it was irony, certainly it was justice, that Germany was defeated 3-0 that day.

After the war, Jewish fans still felt they belonged at White Hart Lane, although the local community was shrinking from the 1960s on. In the late 1960s, fans from opposing clubs began chanting abuse at Spurs fan using the ‘Yid’ word. When Spurs beat Chelsea in the 1967 FA Cup Final, the antisemitic abuse from Chelsea fans was so undiluted that many were deeply disgusted.

Throughout the 1970s, opposition fans openly labelled Spurs fans as Jews, and the chants descended into extreme racism. These chants raged from ‘does your rabbi know you’re here?’ to ‘I’ve never felt more like gassing the Jews,’ and ‘Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz.’ Nazi salutes were common, and hissing sound that resounded was intended as a reminder of the gas chambers.

In response, Spurs fans embraced the label and on the terraces, they took to chanting, ‘We are the Yids.’ They do not use the word in a derogatory way, nor is it an example of cultural appropriation. They use the label imposed on them by others to celebrate their history, continuity and identity in a form of defence mechanism against virulent and often uncontrolled antisemitism.

At a game between Spurs and West Ham some years ago, songs about Hitler and gas chambers could be heard from the away crowd, and Nazi salutes were also seen. In recent years, Chelsea supporters have chanted anti-Jewish songs on the London Underground, a group of Chelsea fans forced an Orthodox Jewish passenger to move carriages after targeting him for abuse, and a Chelsea season ticket-holder was banned for three years after making 13 Nazi salutes at Spurs fans.

This reminds me of behaviour by Nigel Farage that he refuses to acknowledge, to accept responsibility for, or to accept how offensive his refusal and responses to continue to be. The leader of Reform UK has faced significant allegations regarding antisemitism and racism, largely stemming from his time as a student at Dulwich College in the late 1970s and early 1980s, alongside criticism of his political rhetoric in later years.

Over 20 former classmates and teachers report having witnessed Farage engage in racist and antisemitic behaviour, including singing ‘gas ’em all’ songs, mimicking gas hissing sounds, and telling Jewish pupils that ‘Hitler was right’. Jewish contemporaries have recalled him as a school bully who targeted them and other ethnic minority students with abusive language.

Farage has either denied these claims, calling them ‘complete made-up fantasies’, or, in an apparent admission of their truth, has claimed he never intended to be hurtful or racist, dismissing his past comments as nothing more than ‘banter’.

A 1981 letter from a teacher previously described him as a ‘publicly professed racist’ with ‘neo-fascist views’, according to reports. In recent months, 11 Holocaust survivors have joined calls for Farage to apologise for the alleged school-era antisemitic remarks, but Farage’s response has not been to deny or to apologise, but to claim his critics are ‘politically motivated’.

Jewish groups and MPs have also criticised Farage for using the term ‘globalist’ to describe public figures, describing it as an antisemitic ‘dog whistle’. Farage has been accused of adopting antisemitic tropes by labelling financier George Soros ‘the biggest danger to the entire western world’ and alleging a ‘globalist’ plot, themes often linked to far-right conspiracy theories. Farage has gladly been guest on far-right US shows, with hosts such as Alex Jones and Rick Wiles, who has made overtly antisemitic claims, such as calling a political event a ‘Jew coup’.

And so, it is nothing less than galling to see Farage visit Golder’s Green after last week’s attack, trying to make political capital in advance of tomorrow’s local elections out of the mounting fears of antisemitism in the Jewish community, and accusing the government of failing to respond adequately to rising antisemitism, arguing that political considerations are preventing stronger action, particularly fear of offending a key voting bloc of Muslim South Asians.

My worst experience of racism was at a bus stop late one evening, when two burly men stood by me, one on either side, and started a conversation across me with each other with one saying: ‘’itler was right about ’em.’ I have no doubt it was my beard, black hat and black coat.

The coward’s response would have been to tell them that I’m not Jewish. It may have implied it was not OK to victimise me but was OK to victimise people who are Jews. And once one group of racists identify or perceive you as a Jew, you are always going to be a Jew in the eyes of racists and antisemites everywhere, no matter what ruling is made by a beth din, no matter what definitions are built into the Law of Return, no matter how narrow interpretations and applications of Halakha may be. On the other hand, even Chabad activits approach me on the streets, from London to Paris or Krakow, and ask me very direct questions about my identity.

In a recent discussion on a social media platform on how people are perceived as being Jews, one contributor wrote: ‘You will always be a Jew no matter what. When I was a kid I told my father I hated being a Jew and did not want to be one anymore, he told me you will always be a Jew. When the nazis come, you will be a Jew. When the PLO hijacks a plane and takes the Jews, you will be a Jew.’

My father grew up playing on the streets of ‘Little Jerusalem’ in Portobello in Dublin, where many of his uncles and cousins lived and where his schoolboy friends included Chaim Herzog and the Levitas brothers. I was born a few doors a way from the synagogue on Rathfarnham Road and I too played on those same streets in my younger schooldays, familiar with the small shuls on Walworth Road, Lennox Street, Lombard Street, Saint Kevin’s Parade and Oakfield Place, and the larger synagogues then on the South Circular Road and Adelaide Road. The late Kevin Martin, ‘a cousin of cousins’, was an expert in Sephardic genealogy, and constantly encouraged me to explore our shared stories of the Comerford, Mendoza, Martinez and Nunez families and his descent from the family of the Irish-Jewish prize fighter Daniel Mendoza.

But in today’s climate of induced fear, many Jews are increasingly afraid of openly discussing or displaying their identity, of having that long beard and black hat and coat. For my part, I have suspended my once regular blog postings, often on a Friday evening, discussing the history, architecture and heritage of synagogues, for fear of adding to the feelings of vulnerability among the people and congregations using those synagogues. This fear was confirmed yesterday with news of a fire at the former East London Central Synagogue on Nelson Street in east London. I have written about this synagogue many times in the past, including its recent sale to a Muslim group. Police are concerned that the attack on Tuesday morning may be part of an arson campaign linked to Iran, and now I am concerned about writing about other synagogues and their locations in the weeks, possibly months, ahead.

None of these fears and concerns takes away in any way from the reality of the disgusting misogyny that makes women feel afraid on our streets, the open Islamophobia that sees verbal and physical attacks on Muslims on the streets and on mosques, and the unfettered racism that is expressed against refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants but, is in fact, targeting all minorities of Africa and Asian heritage or descent, and even many with European origins. All this combines in a lethal cocktail that is being stirred by the far-right and that is being served up by their candidates in these elections.

The Labour politician Margaret Hodge, who was born in Alexandria in 1944 to Jewish parents who had fled Germany and Austria, has spoken of how her father advised her always to keep a packed suitcase by the front door. That fear has returned to many Jewish people in recent years, in an atmosphere that must not be linked only with the current crisis in the Middle East, but also with the actions and statements from far-right parties, their candidates and their leaders.

We have nation-wide local elections tomorrow. I shall be up early in the morning to vote: democracy has come at a very heavy price in too many countries, and once it is eroded it is very difficult to recover, as people in Hungary have learned, and as voters in the US are going to realise later this year.

How we vote tomorrow may determine whether the racist atmosphere on our streets is given permission to become even more vocal and more extreme, whether Farage becomes more smug about the past he agressievly sidesteps away from whenever he is challenged about it, hectoring and berating the interviewers while smiling smugly, and whether many people feel the need now to pay greater heed to the advice from previous generations to ‘always keep a packed suitcase by the front door’.

I shall be hoping for a better result tomorrow evening in the second leg of the Europa League semi-final between Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest. But I fear for the results from tomorrow’s elections.

Democracy has come at a very heavy price in many places, and once it is eroded it is very difficult to recover (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Daily prayer in Easter 2026: 19, Thursday 23 April 2026, Saint George

Saint George’s flag flying from the church tower in Stony Stratford … how can the Church of England find a healthy way to challenge the misuse and hijacking of this sacred symbol? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Easter is a 50-day season that continues until the Day of Pentecost, and this week began with the Third Sunday of Easter (Easter III, 19 April 2026). Today (23 April) is the feast of Saint George (Martyr, Patron of England, ca 304). Saint George’s Day continued is being celebrated in many ways today, including Saint George’s flag flying from the tower of Saint Mary and Saint Giles in Stony Stratford throughout the day, a Saint George’s Day Eucharist in All Saints’ Church, Calverton, this morning, celebrations in Saint George’s Church, Wolverton, at 7 pm, and the traditional Saint George’s Court at Noon in the Guildhall in Lichfield, now held in a light-hearted manner but which still appoints the ancient officers of the Manor.

Meanwhile, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

Saint George depicted in an icon by Alexandra Kaouki in Rethymnon (Photograph © Alexandra Kaokui)

John 15: 18-21 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 18 ‘If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. Because you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world – therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, “Servants are not greater than their master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also. 21 But they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.’

An icon of Saint George by Hanna-Leena Ward in her recent exhibition in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Today’s Reflection:

Saint George may be the patron saint of England, but it seems that every town in Greece has a church dedicated to Saint George, and Rethymnon has at least two.

The Greek name Georgios means ‘farmer’ or ‘worker of the land’. Saint George was the son of a rich and aristocratic family in Cappadocia in Asia Minor. He became an officer in the Roman army at the end of the third century and lived during the reign of the Emperor Diocletian in the early fourth century. After his father Gerondios died, his mother Polychronia, who was from Lydda in Syria Palaestina, returned with George to her hometown, present-day Lod between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in Israel.

The story of Saint George rescuing the princess from the dragon is set in the city of Silene in Libya. In later Greek tellings of the story of Saint George, the dragon came to symbolise Turkey and the princess he rescues symbolised a Greece that was struggling for liberation.

Saint George is revered by many Muslims too, especially in the Balkan region, Turkey and parts of Lebanon and Syria. According to some Muslim traditions, Saint George is associated or confused with a Muslim saint who died multiple times. Turks have known him as Hidir Elez, and there are traditions that Hidir or Hizir was a prophet contemporary with Moses.

Over the past four decades, I have visited many churches in Greece dedicated to Saint George, including two contrasting churches in Rethymnon: a tiny, ancient church in a hidden corner off Patriárchou Grigroíou Street, and a large modern church on Egeou Street in the eastern suburbs, close to the landmark tower of the former Bio olive oil factory and facing onto an open, expansive square.

Among the other churches in the Rethymnon area named in honour of Saint George, the one I am most familiar with is the modern church dedicated to the Ascension and Saint George.

Saint George is also the patron saint of Portugal, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Ukraine, Malta, Ethiopia, as well as Catalonia, Aragon and Moscow. The Council of Oxford in 1222 declared Saint George’s Day a public holiday in England, but his feast day only became truly popular after the Battle of Agincourt in 1415, and the Saint George cross was not used to represent England until the reign of Henry VIII.

In recent months, many far-right extremists in England hijacked the flag of Saint George in a particularly nasty expression of nationalism, hatred and racism. In their feigned zeal, they fail to realise how inappropriate is their use of Saint George’s flag.

Saint George was born a Greek-speaker, spent his early childhood in what we now call Turkey and his later childhood in Israel or Palestine, spent much of his military career in Egypt, the story most associated with him is set in Libya, and he was executed and buried in the Middle East.

Should Saint George come to England today, many of those who wave Saint George flags as they play around with dangerous slogans such as ‘Stop the Boats,’ I imagine, would want to send George and the princess back, and probably keep the Dragon in England.

Saint George flags popped up everywhere last summer, on lampposts, street crossings and roundabouts and in windows, and the flag became part of the far-right protests outside asylum hotels. Against this backdrop, many church leaders are wondering whether they should fly the flag for Saint George’s Day.

Saint George’s Day should be used to consider how to foster a healthy kind of patriotism, the Bishop of Leicester, Martyn Snow, wrote in the Church Times last week (17 April 2026). He suggested the day and the flag should be used as an opportunity to reflect on how the Church of England can foster a healthy kind of patriotism. Healthy patriotism, he argues, has three marks: honesty, particularity without exclusion, and an orientation towards the common good.

A patriotism that is healthy, he writes, is willing to look at wrongdoing carried out in the nation’s name as well as its genuine achievements, it refuses to draw hard lines around who truly belongs, and it is oriented towards the common good and the responsibilities the nation has to the wider world, serving the well-being of creation and people around the world who are suffering.

He identifies what he describes as ‘two characteristic pathologies of nationalism’: nostalgia or the mythologising of a golden past that never quite existed, which underwrites a politics of grievance and loss; and a rootless progressivism that severs a people from its history and leaves it without the resources of memory.

He agrees that if a church raises the flag without explanation, some people will read it as a statement that they find troubling. ‘Church leaders, in this political climate, will need to speak about this directly to both their congregation and the wider community, explaining that love of place is a gift to be received with gratitude and held with humility; that it goes alongside, not against, the welcome of the stranger; and that the cross at the centre of the flag speaks not of national superiority, but of sacrifice, suffering, and the redemption of all things.’

‘If the world hates you, be aware that it hated me before it hated you … If they persecuted me, they will persecute you’ (see John 15: 18, 20).

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Christ is Risen!

Saint George depicted on the sign outside the George and Dragon on Beacon Street in Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Thursday 23 April 2026, Saint George):

‘Turning Waste into Wonder’ provides the theme this week (19-25 April 2026) in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), pp 48-49. This theme was introduced on Sunday with a Programme Update from Linet Musasa, team member of the Partners in the Gospel Comprehensive Climate Change initiative of the Anglican Council of Zimbabwe.

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Thursday 23 April 2026, Saint George) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe in its wider work combatting HIV stigma. Bless the dioceses and programmes that restore dignity, offer support, and educate communities with compassion.

The Collect:

God of hosts,
who so kindled the flame of love
in the heart of your servant George
that he bore witness to the risen Lord
by his life and by his death:
give us the same faith and power of love
that we who rejoice in his triumphs
may come to share with him the fullness of the resurrection;
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.

Post Communion Prayer:

God our redeemer,
whose Church was strengthened
by the blood of your martyr George:
so bind us, in life and death, to Christ’s sacrifice
that our lives, broken and offered with his,
may carry his death and proclaim his resurrection in the world;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

Saint George depicted on the sign outside the George and Dragon in Eaton Socon in Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire (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

Saint Peter’s Church on Saffron Hill is at the heart of ‘Little Italy’ and the oldest Italian church in London

Looking out on Clerkenwell Road and Hatton Garden from the loggia and portico of Saint Peter’s Italian Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

When I was in Holborn and the Hatton Garden area recently for an event in Saint Alban’s Church, Holborn, organised by USPG and SPCK, I visited a number of churches in the area, including Saint Alban’s, Saint Etheldreda’s Church on Ely Place, the City Temple, and Saint Peter’s Church on Saffron Hill on Clerkenwell Road, facing the top end of Hatton Garden.

Saint Peter’s Italian Church has been described as one of the most beautiful churches in London and is the oldest church for Italians in London. It just within the boundaries of the London Borough of Camden, but it is the spiritual home of the Italian community in Clerkenwell (‘Little Italy’), with its hub in the Borough of Islington.

The church has a modest outer appearance and seems to be hemmed in between the neighbouring tall buildings, including an Italian restaurant to the left, and the Bryson Hotel to the right, so that only the later, narrow entrance front and loggia can be seen from the street. But inside the church has a large and splendid interior.

Saint Peter’s Italian Church has been described is the oldest church for Italians in London and is the spiritual heart of ‘Little Italy’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

In the early 19th century, Saffron Hill was a poor neighbourhood with crowded and decadent streets, known for pickpockets and fences. By 1850, about 2,000 Italian immigrants were living there, many working as street musicians, artisans, framers, and makers of mirrors, barometers and scientific instruments. These Italians did not have their own church and so used in the Capella Reale Sarda in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Saint Vincent Pallotti (1795-1850), an Italian priest and founder of the Union of the Catholic Apostolate or Pallotine Fathers, decided in 1845 to build a church for Italian emigrants in London. After the restoration of the Catholic hierarchy in England, sensitivities about the ‘papal aggression’ were still high. Saint Vincent Pallotti was supported by the prominent Italian politician and activist Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), who was living in exile in London at the time.

Inside Saint Peter’s Church, designed by the Dublin-born Irish architect Sir John Miller-Bryson and consecrated on 16 April 1863 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The church was designed by the Dublin-born Irish architect Sir John Miller-Bryson (1822-1864), whose name is recalled in the Bryson Hotel to the right of the church. Bryson worked from plans drawn up by Francesco Gualandi of Bologna and modelled on the Basilica of San Crisogono in Trastevere in Rome. At first, the new church was to hold 3,400 people, but the original grand designs were never fully realised due to a shortage of funds.

In the course of work, as the church was built in 1862-1863, its size was greatly reduced. Yet, it was the largest Catholic church in Britain for the next 40 years and the only church the built in Britain in the style of a Roman basilica style.

The church was consecrated on 16 April 1863 as the Church of Saint Peter for All Nations, and was the first Italian church outside Italy. The architect Bryson died the following year (3 October 1864) and was buried in Brompton Cemetery.

The statues of Christ, Saint Bede and Saint George and the mosaics depicting scenes in the life of Saint Peter (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Saint Peter’s Church is 19 metre high church with a capacity for 2,000 people. The front section has a loggia and portico with twin arches. Above them are three niches: the central alcove has a statue of Christ, while the side alcoves have statues of Saint Bede and Saint George. Between the alcoves, two large mosaics depict two scenes in the life and ministry of Saint Peter: the first miraculous draught of fish (see Luke 5: 1-11), which results in Peter, James and John following Jesus; and Christ giving the keys of the Kingdom to Saint Peter (see Matthew 16: 19).

Above the façade, a 33-metre-high bell tower built in 1891 houses a bell known as the ‘Steel Monster’. The great bell was cast in 1862 by Naylor Vickers of Sheffield and was one of several bells exhibited at the International Exhibition that year. At the time, the only other large bell in London, apart from Big Ben in Westminster, was Great Tom in Saint Paul’s Cathedral.

The ‘Steel Monster’ remains one of the largest bells in England, though there are larger Roman Catholic bells at Downside, Ampleforth and in Liverpool Roman Catholic Cathedral.

The organ is part of the original organ built by the Belgian company Annaesens in 1886 and at the time it was considered one of the best in the country.

The organ is part of the original organ built by the Belgian company Annaesens in 1886 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

There are two wall memorials in the loggia: one, installed in 1927, remembers veterans, mostly Italian Britons of World War I; the other, installed in 1960, commemorates the 446 Italians who died on the SS Arandora Star in 1940.

Mussolini declared war on Britain on 10 June 1940, and after Churchill’s famous outburst, ‘Collar the lot!’, many Italians were interned. The SS Arandora Star sailed from Liverpool for Canada on 1 July 1940 with 712 Italian internees on board. The remaining passengers included 479 interned German men, among them a number of Jewish refugees, and 86 German prisoners of war – 1,216 detainees in total – and there was a crew of almost 400 British military guards and merchant sailors.

The SS Arandora Star was without escort and had no Red Cross insignia. On 2 July 1940, it was sunk by a German U-boat about 75 miles west of Bloody Foreland, Co Donegal, with great loss of life. One of the internees on board, the German Captain Otto Burfeind, went down with the ship having organised the lifeboat evacuation of British, German and Italian men alike. Over 800 people – British, Italian and German – were lost. It was the worst mass loss of life of any foreign-based Italian community.

During World War II, when many Italian immigrants were interned, the Irish Pallottine fathers took care of the church. During the war, Polish Catholics were permitted to worship and hold services in Polish in the church, as they had no other church. The church returned to the Italian Pallottines in 1953, and since then it has been substantially remodelled. Today it is a Grade II listed building.

Two memorials in the loggia recall the tragedies of World War I and World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Little Italy’s core historical borders are usually placed at Clerkenwell Road, Farringdon Road and Rosebery Avenue, comprising the Saffron Hill part of Clerkenwell. The Clerkenwell area spans the London boroughs of Camden and Islington. Today, the Italian community in London is more dispersed, but the church remains a major venue for the community of Little Italy.

A highlight in the community calendar is the annual processione in mid-July. The annual procession began in the 1880s, and is believed to be the first of its kind in England since the Reformation. It remains a focal point of the calendar in Little Italy.

Sunday Masses in Saint Peter’s are at 7 pm on Saturdays, and 9:30 am, 11 am (Sung), 12: 30 and 7 pm. Masses on Holy Days are at 10 am, 12:15 pm and 7:30 pm. Weekday Masses are at 12:15 pm, Monday to Friday.

Saint Peter’s remains a major venue for the community of Little Italy (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The grave of Job, the former Jewish communities of Muscat and Oman, and a lost presence in the Gulf

The traveller Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela visited a Jewish community in Muscat in the 12th century (Artwork: Sefira Lightstone / Chabad)

Patrick Comerford

My hasty furtive rush through the airport in Muscat in the early hours of Friday morning got me to Gate C6 just three minutes before boarding began. Looking back on it all at the end of the day after, it is an experience I am glad to have behind me.

On our way through Muscat two weeks earlier, the airport was much calmer and more peaceful, with enough time to have coffee and a modest breakfast. The atmosphere has changed so dramatically since then and so unexpectedly.

Oman sits on the strategic Straits of Hormuz, a mere 29 km from Iran at its choke point. in normal times, 30 per cent of the world’s liquified natural gas and 25 per cent of the world’s oil pass through it on tankers. It is the most strategic spot on all of the world’s oceans, which explains why Oman is at the centre of the political and military tsunami that has overwhelmed the world in the past week.

But Oman has long played a quiet role as mediator between countries in the Gulf that have accepted it as an honest broker, which explains how it has come to be a safe place to many thousands of people trying to get away from the present crises.

Oman has a reputation for being gentle, friendly and warmly welcoming, while Dubai in the neighbouring United Arab Emirates is known as being brash, noisy, full of bling, supercars and temptations, and the people of Abu Dhabi are regarded as more conservative, and less brazen and expressive.

I had hoped when we were booking these flights that I might have had more time in Muscat to learn about the religious traditions of Oman, including the history of Jews and Christians in Oman as well as its Ibadi Muslim community, which is neither Sunni nor Shia.

Oman does not provide official statistics on religious affiliation, but it seems Muslims are 85.9 per cent of the population. They predominantly follow the Ibadi school of Islam, with smaller numbers following the Shafi’i school of Sunni Islam and the Twelver school of Shia Islam. Most non-Muslims in Oman are foreign workers, and the religious minorities include Christians (6.4 percent), Hindus (5.7 per cent), Buddhists (0.8 per cent), Jains, Parsees and Sikhs. The Christian communities, mainly in Muscat, Sohar and Salalah, include Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and others, and are organised along linguistic and ethnic lines.

Although there is no longer a Jewish community in Oman, the history of the Jews in Oman dates centuries. The grave of the prophet Job is said to be 45 miles from Salalah, in the south of Oman and close to the border with Yemen. But this is only one of three supposed gravesites of Job: another is in the village of Deir Ayyoub near Ramle, and a third is in Istanbul.

The Jewish presence in Oman probably dates back to the ninth century, with a Jewish presence for many centuries, mainly in Muscat and Sohar.

Ishaq bin Yahuda, a ninth century merchant, lived in Sohar and sailed to China between the years of 882 and 912 CE after an argument with a Jewish colleague. He made a great fortune, returned to Sohar and sailed for China again. But his ship was seized and bin Yahuda was murdered in Sumatra.

The traveller Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela mentioned a community in Muscat in the 12th century. He undertook a journey from 1165 to 1173 to visit far-flung Jewish communities that also brought him to the area that is modern Oman. His journey began as a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, although his travels may also have had a commercial motive. He was the first known European traveller to approach the frontiers of China and his account of his journey throws light on the lives of Jews and Jewish communities in Europe and Asia in the 12th century.

Benjamin of Tudela tried to catalogue the Jewish communities on the route to the Holy Land as a way of providing a guide to where Jews might hospitality. He often gave a count of Jews in the towns and countries he visited, and he reported a Jewish community in Muscat in the northern part of the Arabian Peninsula.

Later, in the 17th century, travellers reported the presence of Jews in Muscat in 1625 when the port was under Portuguese control, and a synagogue was built there in 1673.

The Jewish community in Oman grew with the arrival of refugees from Baghdad in the 1820s. A British naval officer, Lieutenant James Raymond Wellsted (1805-1842), documented the Jews of Muscat in his memoirs Travels in Arabia. He recorded ‘a few Jews in Muskat (sic), who mostly arrived there in 1828, being driven from Baghdad … by the cruelties and extortions of the Pacha Daud.’

Dawūd Pasha of Baghdad (1767-1851), was born Davit Manvelashvili in Tbilisi, Georgia, and was the last Mamluk ruler of Iraq (1816-1831). Under his rule, the Jews of Baghdad were grievously persecuted resulting, and many of the leading Baghdadi Jewish families such as the Sassoon and Judah families, fled to India.

Wellsted noted that Jews were not discriminated against in Oman, unlike other Arab countries. They did not have to live in ghettos, nor were they forced to publicly identify themselves as Jews, nor walk in the road if a Muslim was walking on the same street, as was the case in Yemen.

By the mid-19th century, Oman had as many as 350 Jewish families, many of them the descendants of Iraqi or Baghdadi Jews and Yemeni Jews. The merchant society in Sohar included Jews originating from Persia and Iraq. They worked mostly in making silver objects, trade, finance and selling liquor. Between 1830 and 1860 they represented British interests, as in the port of Aden. Wellsted also found 20 Jewish families in Sohar, where they had a synagogue and owned a few buildings.

By the early 20th century, the Jewish community in Muscat was in decline, many had left and some had converted to Islam. During World War II, a Jewish American army enlist, Emanuel Glick, met a small community of Omani Jews in Muscat, but this community consisted mostly of recent migrants from Yemen.

The last native-born member of the community is thought to have been Sulayman al-Yehudi. He left at the time of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and it is said his children and grandchildren converted to Islam.

Oman does not have any formal relations with Israel, but the two countries had exchange offices from 1996 to 2000. A series of visits by Israeli leaders have visited Oman in recent years, including Yitzhak Rabin in 1994, Shimon Peres in 1996, and the Omani foreign minister visited Jerusalem in 1995.

Diplomatic were cut off from 2000 at the start of the second intifada. But Tsipi Livni, then Israel’s foreign minister, visited Oman in 2008, and the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited in 2021, to the surprise of the international media at the time.

Professor Alexander Honeyman, once described as the ‘real India Jones’ … recorded the Jewish cemetery in Sohar in 1958

The surviving 19th-century Jewish cemetery in Sohar is known locally as Qumbaz Al-Yahud, the cemetery of the Jews. It has brick-built graves with Hebrew characters, and its size indicates how large the Jewish community in Sohar once was.

Wendell Phillips (1922-1975) and the archaeologist Alexander Honeyman (1907-1988), Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Languages at the University of St Andrews and once described as the ‘real India Jones,’ measured the cemetery in 1958 and they investigated a few of the then surviving 200 tombs.

But many of those graves have been lost over the years. The Italian archaeologist, Professor Paolo M Costa (1932-2019), recorded 95 graves or tombs in the cemetery in 1980.

Dr Aviva Klein-Franke has been a Senior Lecturer and Assistant Professor at the University of Köln in Germany, specialising in the history and cultural heritage of Yemenite Jews, Middle Eastern minorities, and Diaspora communities. She visited Oman twice to visit the Jewish cemetery in Sohar. There she took many photographs and documented the names written on the bricks of the Memorial Wall.

In her visit to Sohar in 2005, she could count only 12 full tombs and another five half-open tombs, and found bones were strewn across the ground. She copied many of the Hebrew names engraved into the bricks on the four sides of the wall.

Today there is no official, organised Jewish community in Oman, although a small number of expatriate western Jews live in the sultanate. The houses and the synagogue described by 19th century travellers have all disappeared.

A Map of Oman (1838) by James Raymond Wellsted … he documented the Jews of Muscat (Wikipedia / CCL)

A balcony view at night in Kuching gives insights into Chinese religious and cultural traditions

The Hin Ho Bio temple, seen from our kitchen window in Kuching, has been lit up throughout the night each night during the Chinese New Year celebrations (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

The Chinese New Year celebrations in Kuching began last week (18 February), and this is the Year of the Horse. The Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, marks the new year and the arrival of spring, and is the most important festival for Chinese communities everywhere.

While most Chinese-owned businesses reopened this week, the celebrations of the 15-day lunar festival continue, with lion dancers visiting restaurants and shops as they reopen, people exchanging traditional gifts or red-wrapped packets and mandarin oranges and visiting homes and temples. The celebrations here focus on family reunions, and there are red decorations everywhere and fireworks and firecrackers late into the night to welcome prosperity,and it all comes to a dramatic finale with Chap Goh Mei next week (Tuesday 3 March), when the Lunar New Year celebrations end with spectacular Lion Dances, fireworks and firecrackers, and colourful performances on the streets and in the temples.

This year, the celebrations of Chinese New Year coincide with Muslim observances of Ramadan and Christian observances of Lent, all part of the religious, cultural and ethnic diversity found throughout Kuching. From our flat we hear the bells of Saint Thomas’s Anglican Cathedral, the call to prayer from the neighbouring mosques, and the drumbeats from a variety of pageants and rituals in the four Chinese temples nearby.

The Hin Ho Bio temple is easy to miss on Carpenter Street, with its hidden rooftop location (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

From our kitchen area, we look out onto the Tien Hou Temple, also known as the Hin Ho Bio temple, which has been lit up throughout the night each night during the Chinese New Year celebrations. The other three Chinese temples in the neighbourhood are the Hiang Thian Siang Ti Temple, a 19th century temple around the corner in Carpenter Street, the Hong San Si Temple on the corner of Ewe Hai Street and Wayang Street, and Tua Pek Kong Temple on a small mound overlooking the Kuching Waterfront and the Sarawak River.

Kuching in the 1800s had two major Chinese dialect groups: the Hokkien from southern Fujian and the Teochew from Guandong province. Both are mostly merchants and tradesmen compared to the rural-based Hakka who are mostly farmers and miners.

The Teochews built the Hiang Thian Siang Ti Temple in 1863 on Carpenter Street, sandwiched between commercial shophouses, and the Hin Ho Bio temple is the main Hainan temple in Kuching.

A rooftop view from the Hin Ho Bio temple, looking down on Carpenter Street below (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Although we see it from our kitchen window, it is probably unknown to visitors and tourists because it is tucked away far above the street, sitting on the top floor of the Kuching Hainan Association building.

The ground floor has a hair salon and a traditional Chinese restaurant, and I had to climb the stairs to the top floor to see this small Chinese shrine with its rooftop views of Carpenter Street below.

The temple is dedicated to Mazu, the goddess of the sea or ‘Heavenly Sage Mother’, recalling the maritime traditions of the Hainan community.

There was a small number of Hainanese people in the area that is now Carpenter Street and China Street from ca 1840, and the first Hin Ho Bio Temple was on Carpenter Street by 1878. The temple was renovated following the Kuching Great Fire in 1884. In the early years, new Hainanese migrants lived in the temple while looking for permanent places and jobs. The temple also served as a martial art hall and a social gathering place for the Hainanese, and was used as a school too.

The temple had a major uplift in 1987-1991, and the Kuching Kheng Chew Association changed its name to the Kuching Hainan Association in 1992.

Inside the Hin Ho Bio temple in its hidden rooftop location (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Kuching Hainan Association marked its 140th anniversary last year (2025) with major events, including a visit from a grand Mazu statue from Meizhou Island in Fujian in China in November. A 14-member delegation from the Kuching Hainan Association travelled to the Mazu Temple on Meizhou Island to formally receive the statue.

The statue was escorted from Kuching Airport in a vibrant procession with a lion dance troupe through several key cultural sites, including Wisma Kuching Hing Ann Thien Hoe Kong, Tua Pek Kong Temple, Hong San Si Temple and Hiang Thian Siang Ti Temple, before arriving at the Tien Hou Temple on Carpenter Street, where a special enshrinement ceremony was attended by the Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Dr Sim Kui Hian and community leaders.

The association chair, Teo Kwang Hock, said the initiative for the visit of the statue came from the Fujian Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese, which is presenting 100 Mazu statues to Tien Hou temples worldwide.

There are plans for a Mazu Park in the grounds behind the temple. The project is waiting for official approval and will provide easier access to the temple, marking a significant new chapter in Kuching’s cultural and religious heritage. It may even may make for a more colourful view from our kitchen window.

Catching a glimpse of the Hin Ho Bio temple from below on Carpenter Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)