Greek food for the soul with memories of Thessaloniki, family history and stories of the Jewish communities

The Jewish Museum in Thessaloniki … the city was known to Jews as ‘la Madre de Israel’ or ‘the Mother of Israel,’ and to non-Jews as ‘the Jerusalem of the Balkans’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Despite yesterday’s refreshing boost that came with rediscovering and listening to some inspirational Greek songs and music, I am still feeling a little low and more than a little sorry for myself following my surgical procedures in Oxford a week ago.

However, I also took some comfort this week in coming across reports of a new book with recipes for and stories about my favourite Greek food and with recollections of the stories of the Jewish community in Thessaloniki. It is a combination that is balm for my soul: Greek food, reminiscences of Thessaloniki, family history and stories of the Jewish communities in Greece.

In a very peculiar way, I have found Thessaloniki is second only to Crete as the part of Greece that I feel most at home in. I first visited Thessaloniki in 1996 – 80 years after my grandfather had been there during World War I and had been sent home with malaria. Since then, I have returned to Thessaloniki at least half a dozen times, walking in my grandfather’s footsteps, writing from there for The Irish Times, attending academic seminars at the Aristotelean University and exhibition, and exploring the story of the Jewish community in a city that was once known in Ladino as La Madre de Israel or ‘Mother of Israel’ and that once had the largest Jewish community in Europe.

The story of the Jews of Thessaloniki reaches back more than 2,300 years, and the Jewish community was boosted in size with arrival of Sephardic Jews who migrated there after the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492.

During World War II, the Jews of Thessaloniki were forced into a ghetto near the railway lines, and then deported to the concentration camps. On 11 July 1942, known to this day as the ‘Black Shabbat’, all the men of the community between the ages of 18 to 45 were rounded up in Eleftherias Square (Freedom Square) in the city centre. More than 90% of the total Jewish population of the city was murdered in those years, and only 1,200 Jews live there today.

To this day, 80 years after the end of World War II, the descendants of the Jewish communities of Thessaloniki maintain their distinctive language, Ladino, their cultural traditions, their way of praying, their music and their cuisine.

Shaily Lipa’s grandparents, Levana and Angel, at their wedding in September 1946

Shaily Lipa was born and raised in Tel Aviv to a Jewish family with Jewish-Greek origin. She is a culinary and lifestyle expert, and a TV personality. She invites her audience to take part in her daily life with cooking and hosting adventures at home through her Instagram account. She has written 11 best-selling cookbooks in Israel, and Yassou: The Simple, Seasonal Mediterranean Cooking of Greece, published earlier this year (11 March 2025), is her first English-language cookbook.

Levana and Angel lived in Israel, but their world was Greek. ‘All of their friends were Greek — from Thessaloniki,’ Shaily explains. They spoke Ladino with one another, played cards together on Friday nights, listened to Greek music, and ate Greek food. Most of their friends, she believes, were Holocaust survivors like her grandfather Angel. He was born in Thessaloniki, but, like most Jews in the city, his family was deported to Auschwitz in 1943.

His parents, two sisters, and one brother died; only Angel and his brother Dario survived. However, the two were separated during the war and did not know that each other had survived until they both reached Puglia in Italy as refugees. Angel lived there in a home with several other Jewish refugees. Eager to find a place to pray, they converted one room into a small synagogue. Angel knew how to write in Hebrew and inscribed the parochet, a curtain that covers the Torah ark, for the small sanctuary.

When Dario heard that another member of his family was alive, he went to the home and spotted his brother’s handwriting on the ark, only to learn that Angel had left for Israel the day before. The two were finally reunited in Israel and built new lives there — including the Shabbat breakfasts at Angel and Levana’s home.

Both of Shaily’s grandparents have died. But her memories of those Shabbat breakfasts remain strong and have had a lasting impact on her. Today, Shaily keeps her grandmother’s tradition alive, hosting Greek Shabbat breakfasts when her family is together, making Greek salad, her grandmother’s white beans, and her own version of spanakopita, which she serves as a large pie.

In ‘Yassou’, Shaily Lipa celebrates Greek and Jewish food in a delicious journey (Photographer: Armando Rafael. Food stylist: Judy Haubert. Prop stylist: Vanessa Vazquez)

In her new book, Shaily Lipa recalls how ‘Shabbat breakfast was iconic’ in her family. Every Saturday, they would gather on her grandparents’ balcony for a Greek spread of flaky spanikopita, tangy white bean salad, creamy tzatziki, hard boiled eggs, and a classic horiatiki or Greek salad.

Shaily tells how her Shabbat clothes were always dusted with powdered sugar on Saturday mornings. Her grandparents Levana and Angel hosted the whole family for a Greek Shabbat breakfast on their balcony in Holon, south of Tel Aviv. Before the meal was served, Shaily and her cousins would steal sugar-dusted Greek butter cookies, kourabiedes, from the secret stash their grandmother kept under her bed. But the sugar that dusted their clothes always gave them away.

In a recent interview, she told Jewish Foood Society that when her grandparents lived in Israel, their world was Greek: they spoke Ladino, listened to Greek music, and continued to make the recipes they knew from Thessaloniki where they were born. Their Shabbats have left a lasting impression on Shaily, and inform every page and image in Yassou, in which she celebrates the original Mediterranean diet in a delicious journey.

Greek food embraces abundant fresh vegetables and fish, and includes generous and ample use of olive oil, tomatoes, whole grains, legumes, artisanal cheeses and fruit, accompanied by a healthy glass of wine. In Yassou, the traditions and the rich appeal of this food is captured in the recipes and gorgeous photographs. They include mezes like tzatziki and fried zucchini, through a menu of stuffed vegetables, soups for all seasons, zingy white bean salad with lemon and vinegar, grilled mains like souvlaki, and savoury pies like spanakopita, with 80 dishes in all to prepare, cook, eat and savour.

Now, when Shaily Lipa looks back at those Shabbats at her grandparents’ home, dusted in sugar, she says: ‘I think this is the reason I love Shabbat — thanks to them. I like to host and be social — these are the things I learned from them.’

Shabbat Shalom, Buen Shabat, שבת שלום

• Sally Lipa, Yassou: The Simple, Seasonal Mediterranean Cooking of Greece (Artisan, 2025), 272 pp, ISBN-13 978-1648291852

Belfast’s oldest surviving purpose-built synagogue is in need of immediate rescue

The former synagogue on Annesley Street, near Carlisle Circus, Belfast … a working synagogue from 1904 to 1965 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

In my recent walk about the streets of Belfast, in search of Jewish history, sites and memories, I visited both the site of the former synagogue on Great Victoria Street and its successor, the former synagogue on Annesley Street, near Carlisle Circus.

The synagogue on Annesley Street, at the Crumlin Road end of Antrim Road, was built in 1904 and continued in use for 60 years until 1965. Since the disastrous demolition of the earlier synagogue on Great Victoria Street in the 1990s, the former synagogue on Annesley Street is the oldest purpose-built synagogue in Northern Ireland. But it has been derelict and abandoned for many years now, and severe intervention is needed to ensure its survival as part of Jewish heritage and as part of the architectural heritage of Belfast.

The foundation stone of the new synagogue was laid on 26 February 1904 by Lady Jaffé, wife of Sir Otto Jaffé, Lord Mayor of Belfast, who paid for its construction, and the new synagogue was consecrated on 31 August 1904.

The synagogue was designed by the Belfast-based architectural partnership of Young and Mackenzie, with Benjamin Septimus Jacobs of Hull as the consulting architect. Young and Mackenzie was formed by Robert Young and his former pupil John Mackenzie in the 1860s. Young’s only son, Robert Magill Young, became a third partner in 1880.

By the early 20th century, Young and Mackenzie was the most successful architectural practice in Belfast. They were the leading architects for the Presbyterian Church in the north-east, including the Assembly Hall on Fisherwick Place, as well as more than a dozen Presbyterian churches in Belfast and Magee College, Derry. Their work in Belfast included the Northern Bank, Ocean, Robinson and Cleaver and Scottish Provident buildings on Donegall Square, the Linen Hall Library and Victoria College, as well as the Italianate villas on Lennoxvale, including Edgehill.

Young and Mackenzie also designed Bryce House on Garinish Island, off Glengarriff, Co Cork, for the island’s owner, John Annan Bryce (1841-1923), a Belfast-born Scottish politician. Young retired in 1912 at the age of 90 and both he and John Mackenzie died in 1917. The partnership continues in Belfast.

The consulting architect for the synagogue on Annesley Street was Benjamin Septimus Jacobs (1851-1931) of Hull, who designed the mikvah and baths. Jacobs also designed the mikvah or ritual baths at the Adelaide Road synagogue in Dublin, and the Western Synagogue in Hull. He designed many prominent buildings in Hull and was also the first Mayor of Keighley.

The new synagogue was built in the Rundbogenstil style, a 19th-century historic revival style of architecture once popular in Germany and in the German diaspora. It is a German expression of Romanesque Revival architecture that combines elements of Byzantine, Romanesque and Renaissance architecture with particular stylistic motifs. The Annesley Street synagogue is a unique example of this style in Belfast.

The brick and stucco synagogue was built by James Henry and Sons. The internal features are said to be largely unchanged. The small single-storey projection was used as the mikvah. Small extensions in 1928 provided additional facilities.

A Star of David above the door of the former synagogue on Annesley Street, near Carlisle Circus, Belfast (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The ministers and rabbis during the six decades the synagogue was served the Jewish community in Belfast have been traced in recent years in research by the Belfast Jewish historian Steven Jaffe, by Stuart Rosenblatt in his work on Jewish genealogy in Ireland, in the work of JCR-UK (Jewish Communities and Records), an online project on Jewish communities in Britain and Ireland, and through listings, reports and entries in the Jewish Year Book and the Palgrave Dictionary of Anglo-Jewish History.

The Revd (later Rabbi) Jacob Rosenzweig (1875-1956), later known as John Ross, was the minister, reader, teacher and secretary of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation in 1905-1914. He was born in Ravah in Poland and was the brother and son-in-law of rabbis. He was in Wales from the 1890s as the minister of Bangor Hebrew Congregation (1894-1905), and lectured in Hebrew at Bangor University College and the University of Wales.

While he was in Belfast, he returned to Poland in 1911 for his semicha or rabbinical ordination. He resigned in 1914 and became involved in the linen trade in Belfast and twice served as President of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation (1924-1928 and 1936-1938). He died in in 1956 and left a large library of Jewish books to Queen’s University Belfast, the Ross-Rosenzweig collection.

An early contemporary of Jacob Rosenzweig or John Ross was Rabbi Gedalia (George) Silverstone (1871-1944) who was in Belfast from 1901 to 1906. He was born Gedaliah Zylbersztejn in Jasionowka, now in north-east Poland but then in the Russian Empire. His father and grandfather were also rabbis, and when he was a child his family moved to Liverpool. He was a rabbi in Belfast in 1901-1906, working mainly with the immigrant community in North Belfast. He then moved to the US, where he was the first Orthodox rabbi in Washington DC. He died in Jerusalem and is buried on the Mount of Olives.

Rabbi Zusman Hodes (1868-1961) was the rabbi in Belfast from 1906 to 1916. He was born in Lithuania and lived in Baltimore, Maryland (1889-1896), before moving to Dublin, where he lived from 1901 to 1906. He was the rabbi of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation (1906-1916), principally serving the immigrant community in north Belfast, until he moved to Birmingham in 1916 as rabbi of the Birmingham Beth Hamidrash, later Birmingham Central Synagogue.

No 33 Bloomfield Avenue in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ was the home to successive Chief Rabbis of Ireland (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Undoubtedly, the most famous rabbi in Belfast was Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog (1888-1959), although he was only in Belfast for three years (1916-1919). He was born in Lomza, Poland, the son of Rabbi Joel Leib Herzog, and his family moved to Leeds in 1898. He studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and University College London, where he was awarded a doctorate (DLitt).

Rabbi Herzog was minister of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation in 1916-1919, and then moved to Dublin in 1919 as chief rabbi of Dublin, including six congregations in the city. He was appointed the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland in 1922. During his time in Dublin, he lived at No 33 Bloomfield Avenue, off the South Circular Road, in Dublin’s ‘Little Jerusalem’ area in Portobello.

He moved to British Mandated in Palestine in 1936 as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Palestine. The story is often told that after World War II, Rabbi Isaac Herzog set out on a mission to bring lost children back to Jewish homes. As he went from orphanage to orphanage and convent to convent across Europe, he had no documentation to prove children were Jewish. Yet he had heard the stories and deep down knew there had to be hundreds, if not thousands, of missing children still in orphanages and convents.

One day, he devised a plan. He walked into orphanages and spoke out loud, Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad. Instinctively, many of the children raised their right hands to cover their eyes, showing their undoubted Jewish origins. And so, Rabbi Herzog saved 500 children and brought them home.

Following Israel’s independence, he became the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel in 1948. He died in office in Jerusalem in 1959. His Belfast-born and Dublin-educated son, Chaim Herzog (1918-1997), was the President of Israel in 1983-1993; his grandson, Isaac Herzog, has been the President of Israel since 2021.

Rabbi Jacob Shachter (1886-1971) was in Belfast from 1926 to 1954. He was born in Romania, where he obtained semicha in 1911. He was a rabbi in Galatz before moving in 1920 to become the rabbi of the New Romanian Synagogue in Manchester. He was appointed the rabbi of the Belfast Hebrew Congregation in 1926, and became the longest serving rabbi in Belfast (1926-1954).

He was an army chaplain in Northern Ireland during World War II, and also had responsibility for the welfare of the Jewish community evacuated from Gibraltar to Saintfield, Co Down. When he retired in 1954, he moved to Jerusalem, where he died.

Rabbi Dr Alexander Carlebach (1908-1992) was in Belfast from 1954 to 1965. He was born in Cologne and studied at a yeshiva in Lithuania and at universities in Cologne, Leipzig, Paris and Strasbourg, and from 1933 at Jews’ College, London. He served in Golders Green and after World War II was with the Jewish Relief Unit in Germany. He was minister of the North Hendon Adath Yisroel Synagogue in London when he was invited to become the rabbi in Belfast (1954-1965).

Rabbi Carlebach was awarded a doctorate by the University of Strasbourg in 1955. He retired in 1965, moved to Israel, and died in Jerusalem in 1992.

The synagogue on Annesley Street continued in use until 1965, when it was replaced by a new synagogue built at 49 Somerton Road. The new synagogue was designed by the architect Eugene Rosenberg, assisted by Karl Kapolka. The foundation stone was laid on 3 May 1964 and the synagogue was consecrated on 25 October 1964. The synagogue on Somerton Road was designated a Listed Historic Building in 2015.

Meanwhile, the building on Annesley Street was acquired by the Mater Hospital and was used by the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust as a physiotherapy gym and storage facility. It has been empty for many years but remains the oldest purpose-built synagogue Northern Ireland.

The former synagogue was designated an historic building in 2002. The proposals for its future have included a centre for participative democracy and a semi-permanent exhibition on Belfast’s Jewish community. But it looks sad and lonely today and continues to deteriorate, covered in graffiti and subjected to vandalism, and without intervention in the immediate future it is in danger of being lost to future generations.

Shabbat Shalom, שבת שלום

The former synagogue on Annesley Street, Belfast, is covered in graffiti and its condition is deteriorating (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

‘Our grief and fury could wash away creation Will anyone survive, clinging to this battered ark? Is there an olive tree left anywhere?’

A Holocaust memorial at the Jewish cemetery in Berlin … Tisha B’Av, begins this evening and recalls major disasters in Jewish history, including the Holocaust (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Tisha BeAb or Tisha B’Av (תִּשְׁעָה בְּאָב), literally ‘the Ninth of Av,’ is an annual fast day in the Hebrew calendar. The fast commemorates the destruction of both the First Temple and Second Temple in Jerusalem, which occurred about 655 years apart, but on the same date in the Hebrew calendar. This year is the Hebrew Year 5784, and Tisha B’Av begins at sundown this evening (12 August 2024) and ends at nightfall tomorrow (13 August 2024).

Friday and Saturday last (9 and 10 August) was known as Shabbat Chazon, or the Sabbath of Vision, and is also known as the ‘Black Sabbath. It takes its name from the Haftarah that is read that Sabbath immediately before the mournful fast of Tisha B’Av from the words of rebuke and doom coming from Isaiah (1: 1-27).

It is known as the ‘Black Sabbath’ because for Jews it is the saddest Shabbat of the year, as opposed to the ‘White Sabbath’ Shabbat Shuvah that comes immediately proceeds Yom Kippur.

Tisha B’Av recalls many disasters in the course of Jewish history, particularly the destruction of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans.

Tisha B’Av is regarded as the saddest day in the Jewish calendar and it is associated with many other disasters in Jewish history.

Traditionally, the day is observed through five prohibitions, including a 25-hour fast. The Book of Lamentations, which is read in synagogues, mourns the destruction of Jerusalem, followed by the recitation of kinot or liturgical dirges that lament the loss of the Temples and of Jerusalem and recall events such as the murder of the Ten Martyrs by the Romans, massacres of mediaeval Jewish communities during the Crusades, the expulsions of Jews from Spain by the Inquisition, and the Holocaust.

According to the Mishnah (Taanit 4: 6), five events occurred on the Ninth of Av that are recalled in the traditional fasting.

The First Temple built by King Solomon was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 587 BCE, and the people of Judah was sent into exile in Babylon. The destruction of the Temple destruction began on the 7th of Av (II Kings 25: 8) and continued until the 10th (Jeremiah 52: 12).

According to the Talmud, the actual destruction began on the Ninth of Av and it continued to burn throughout the Tenth of Av.

The Second Temple was built by Ezra and Nehemiah and was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and commencing the exile of the Jewish people. The Romans later crushed Bar Kokhba’s revolt and killed over 500,000 people, and then razed the site of the Temple in Jerusalem and the surrounding area in 135 CE.

Over time, Tisha B’Av has come to be a day of mourning not only for these events, but also for later tragedies, including:

• The First Crusade began on 15 August 1096 (24 Av), and 10,000 Jews were slaughtered in its first month in France and the Rhineland.
• The Jews were expelled from England on 18 July 1290 (9 Av).
• The Jews were expelled from France on 22 July 1306 (10 Av).
• The Jews were expelled from Spain on 31 July 1492 (7 Av).
• Germany entered World War I on 1-2 August 1914 (9-10 Av).
• Himmler formally received approval from the Nazis for the ‘Final Solution’ on 2 August 1941 (9 Av).
• The mass deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto began on 23 July 1942 (9 Av).
• A bomb attack on a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires killed 85 people on 18 July 1994 (10 Av).

Many religious communities mourn the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust on Tisha B’Av, adding the recitation of special kinot related to the Holocaust. Additionally, as members of the Cork Jewish Community were reminded in preparation for commemorations two years ago, ‘contemporary Jews often use this day to acknowledge that evil exists in the world, whether we want it to or not, and to reflect how we can make the world a kinder, more welcoming place for everyone. What can you do to give back in a meaningful way?’



In the Sephardic tradition, on the Shabbat before the fast of Tisha BeAb, communities begin to read the Book of Debarim (Deuteronomy 1: 1 to 3: 22). In the beginning of Parashat Debarim, Moses recounts the call to appoint judges for the people, so that the burden of leading the people does not fall on his shoulders alone.

Deuteronomy consist of three sermons or speeches delivered by Moses to the people in an extensive farewell on the plains of Moab after 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and shortly before they enter the Promised Land.

Moses rebukes them for their failings and iniquities, and urges them to keep the Torah and observe its commandments in the land that God is giving them. They are not to forget their past slavery and the sufferings they have been through. Reflection is how we learn in life from what has gone before. The journey has been difficult, but a new journey is about to begin: to establish a new society based on the values of justice they have been taught.

In his call to appoint judges, Moses emphasises the need for them to be wise and knowledgeable, and whose true characters are known to the people. He values the personality, characteristics and morality of those chosen to serve as judges.

This is intimately connected to Tisha BeAb, as the destruction of the Temple is attributed to a lack of justice in society. In the Haftara which is read on this Shabbat, Joshua laments the lack of justice in Jerusalem, and prophesises that the redemption will ultimately be achieved through the restoration of the judicial system.

This day is significant in the Sephardic tradition in ways that surpass how other holidays are observed, or even how this date is observed in other Jewish traditions. The reason lies in the convergence of this date and the date when Spanish Jews were exiled from their home in Spain in 1492. That year, the King and Queen issues their Edict of Expulsion on 31 March and it was to be completed in four months by the end of July. That date was the day before 9 Ab, making the link to the earlier destruction of Jerusalem particularly strong for Sephardic Jews.

This connection is even stronger because, according to the prophet Obadiah, the Jews of Sepharad were descendants of the exiles of Jerusalem (Galut Yershushalayim Asher B’Spharad), and the the rabbis of Spain understood Sepharad to mean Spain.

The fast on Tisha B’Av lasts about 25 hours, beginning at sunset on the preceding evening lasting until nightfall the next day. The five traditional prohibitions on Tisha B’Av are:

• eating or drinking;
• washing or bathing;
• application of creams or oils;
• wearing (leather) shoes;
• marital or sexual relations.

If possible, work is avoided during this period. Ritual washing up to the knuckles is allowed, as is washing to remove dirt or mud from one’s body.

Torah study is forbidden as it is considered a spiritually enjoyable activity, although one may study texts such as the Book of Lamentations, the Book of Job, portions of Jeremiah and chapters of the Talmud that discuss mourning and the destruction of the Temple.

Before the evening services begin in synagogues, the parochet covering the Torah Ark is removed or drawn aside, lasting until the Mincha prayer service. Old prayer-books and Torah scrolls are often buried on this day.

Plaza de Juda Levi in Córdoba … recalling Judah Halevi, who wrote ‘kinot’ for Tisha B’Av (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The scroll of Eicha (Lamentations) is read in synagogues in the evening, and in many Sephardic congregations the Book of Job is read in the morning. The morning is spent chanting or reading kinot mourning the loss of the Temples and the subsequent persecutions, often referring to post-exilic disasters.

The most popular kinot were written by the eighth-century liturgical poet Elazar Hakallir, Judah Halevi (1085-1145), the Spanish philosopher regarded by many as the greatest post-biblical poet, and Solomon ibn Gabirol (1021-1058).

Other kinot were written in response to tragedies in Jewish history, including the public burning of the Torah in Paris, the massacres of Jews during the first Crusade, the slaughter of the Jews of York, and the annihilation of European Jewry in the Holocaust.

This year, Bevis Marks is welcoming Hazzan Nachshon Rodrigues Pereira from the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam to lead the services on Tisha BeAb, this evening and tomorrow morning, and to speak about the Holocaust in Amsterdam and its impact on the Sephardi community. This evening’s service is an opportunity to hear haunting melodies and to see the synagogue draped in black, illuminated by candlelight.

In western Sephardi Tisha BeAb services, there is a tendency to emphasise hope for ultimate redemption and national and spiritual restoration, as part of the recalled collective grief.

This is reflected in one the most celebrated compositions by Judah ha-Levi often heard in synagogues on Tisha B’Av:

Zion, wilt thou not ask if peace’s wing
Shadows the captives that ensue thy peace
Left lonely from thine ancient shepherding?
Lo! west and east and north and south – worldwide
All those from far and near, without surcease
Salute thee: Peace and Peace from every side.

The way Tisha BeAb is marked at Bevis Marks Synagogue in London, for example, poignantly evokes melancholy emotions. The Hehal (ark) is draped in a black cloth, as is the Sepher (Torah scroll). Furthermore, the synagogue, famous for its chandeliers, instead uses ‘low lights’ for illumination. These candles attached to the benches themselves, provide just a minimal glow so that the prayers can be recited.

This is one of the most intricate musical services of the year in a synagogue with such an elaborate liturgical tradition. Each kinah (‘lamentation’) is read according to a unique melody, reflecting the significance of the sufferings remembered on this day.

The traditional greeting for 9 Ab in Spanish and Portuguese communities is Morir habemos, to which the reply is Ya lo sabemos.

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat, who has been named by the Forward as one of ‘America’s Most Inspiring Rabbis’, recently wrote ‘Eikhah for Israel and Gaza’ as part of the Liturgical Arts Working Group at Bayit, and shared it there as part of their Tisha b’Av collection this year. She also posted this poem on her blog, Velveteen Rabbi, last week (8 August 2024):

Eikhah for Israel and Gaza

Walls burned or broken
Peacemakers kidnapped and slaughtered
Children terrorized

Buildings bombed to rubble
Hospitals destroyed
Cisterns emptied

Everywhere pictures of the hostages
Everywhere reminders of the martyrs
Everywhere parents burying children

Our grief and fury could wash away creation.
Will anyone survive, clinging to this battered ark?
Is there an olive tree left anywhere?

Rabbi Rachel Barenblat

‘The Irish Times’ view on Christmas 2023: Remembering the hope that the season brings

Palestinians walk in the empty square outside the Nativity Church in the Biblical city of Bethlehem ahead of Christmas amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip (The Irish Times)

‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’

The lamenting words of the Prophet Jeremiah are an integral part of the first Christmas story. They are quoted in Saint Matthew’s Gospel to describe the weeping of mothers over the massacre of their children by King Herod who felt insecure and threatened in his rule in Judea.

Death, weeping and the inconsolable laments of mothers, and the violence of the capricious and the despotic, have long been part and parcel of the religious, political and social history of the region that has become known as the ‘Holy Land.’ Today, Ramah is a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, on the north-east edges of Jerusalem, but isolated from its neighbours by the Israeli-built ‘security wall’.

The massacre of the innocent children, the Christmas Gospel says, came after the visit of the Wise Men from the East, but only after Joseph had managed to flee from Bethlehem with Mary and the new-born Christ Child, finding refuge in Egypt.

The Christmas cribs and decorations in brightly decorated windows and shopfronts for the past few weeks appear distant and disconnected from that first Christmas story, which is always challenging and discomforting. The only bright light is the star over Bethlehem, but that first Christmas story is one of a family on the move, far from home and without home comforts, unable to find affordable accommodation and eventually forced to flee as refugees.

Indeed, the first Christmas story finds echoes in today’s heartbreaking reality for many on the move: mothers weeping for their children, families grieving for their loved ones, in Gaza, in kibbutzim across southern Israel, throughout the West Bank. The violence that has continued for eleven weeks since October 7th renders meaningless many plans to celebrate Christmas in the coming days in the land of the birth of Christ.

The daily news from the Middle East has made many of us forget the other dark news that continued to engulf the world throughout this year: the continuing war in Ukraine and Russia and the new refugee crisis it has created throughout Europe; accelerating climate change that has made this the hottest year on record; the looming prospect of Donald Trump’s return to office; the rise of the far-right across Europe; and the increasing antipathy towards refugees, expressed in the legislative priorities of the British government, last month’s riots on the streets of inner-city Dublin, the burning of an hotel in Co Galway and low-level but persistent and pernicious protests throughout Ireland.

Those who claim their aggressive and confrontational attitude to refugees and migrants is rooted not in prejudice and intolerance but in traditional values, need to be reminded again that – as a Meme that is popular this year says – the traditional Christmas story rejoices in the birth of a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern, undocumented migrant child.

Those who would say No to the refugees at the door of their local hotel reflect the attitude of that innkeeper who says there is no room for a family on the move and not the values that would be proclaimed by the child born at Christmas. When Donald Trump ranted in New Hampshire last weekend and again in Iowa this week about immigrants coming to the US ‘destroying the fabric’ and ‘poisoning the blood of our country,’ bringing crime and disease, he was reflecting the values of a cruel and despotic Herod and repeating words in Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and denying the priorities expressed in the Sermon on the Mount.

But the Christmas story remains persistently the story of hope coming into a world racked by violence, of light breaking into a world shrouded in darkness; it is the promise of rest for the sleepless, of peace in times of war and oppression, of sanctuary for refugees on the move, of joy in the midst of sorrow. The hope Christmas brings has inspired some of the greatest works of art in Western culture, from paintings and poetry to song and stained-glass. It is, as the Poet Laureate John Betjeman once said, ‘the most tremendous tale of all.’

Following the death of Shane MacGowan earlier this month, the Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’ has a new-found popularity this Christmas and almost became this year’s Christmas No 1. It is a song filled with images of poverty, pathos and despair, and with images of the downward spiral that fills so many with dread at this time of the year: couples and families, the elderly and the lonely, those whose dreams have been shattered and stolen.

Yet, some lyrics in this song also summarise the hopes that so many cling to in the season of Christmas:

I’ve got a feeling
This year’s for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true.

This full-length Christmas editorial is published in The Irish Times today (23 December 2023)

‘Yes, the wars they will be fought again The holy dove, she will be caught again …Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering’

‘Salaam, Shalom, Peace’ at a recent exhibition in Coventry Cathedral … three words in Arabic, Hebrew and English (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I plan to attend the Remembrance Sunday commemoration later this afternoon on Horsefair Green in Stony Stratford later this afternoon.

There are similar commemorations across the land today, and many churches observed a minute’s silence during their services this morning.

We are in constant need of reminders of the horrors of war, the brutal impacts of war on combatants and civilians alike, and the brutalising effects of war for both combatants and those caught up in war zones and violence.

I refuse to accept the term ‘innocent victims of war’ – it implies that some people deserve to die or be killed in war. It is a term that has the same ugliness as the one that refers to a victim of street crime as ‘the wrong person in the wrong place.’

All people who are victims of war are innocent, and everyone has the right to expect to be safe in any place at any time.

In a similar way, I refuse to accept the term ‘collateral victims of war’ – no one, no matter who they are, should be written off as one more number or one more consequence in violence.

‘Reonciliation’ … a sculpture in the ruins of the old cathedral in Coventry, destroyed during World War II (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

After more than half a century of active involvement in peace movements, of being an advocate of pacifism, and of speaking out against racism, bigotry, hatred and discrimination, I am still bewildered how the world has failed to outlaw war, just as the world has outlawed slavery, the slave trade, torture and genocide.

I am bewildered too that people I know, respect and value have failed to condemn the Hamas attack in Israel civilians over a month ago (7 October), killing civilians in their homes and taking hostages, and allow themselves to be pereceived as advocates for Hamas, a murderous terrorist organisation with an extreme ideology that is shocking to the overwhelming majority of Muslims.

I am bewildered too that people I know, respect and value might balk at my criticism of the present military policies of the Netanyahu government, when many people inside Israel express the very same criticism. Since I first spoke in a school debate as a teenager after the Six-Day War in 1967, I have spoken for Israel's right to exist, but I have been critical of the military policies of Israeli goverements and supoortive of the Palestinian right to statehood.

Peace and Shalom … words in frosted glass on the doors of the Peace Chapel in Saint Botolph without Aldgate Church, London (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

It is not a paradox, it is a matter of principle and consistency to condemn Hamas outright, to demand the unconditional and immediate release of the hostages, and at the same time to demand immediate access of aid convoys to the hospitals and people of Gaza and to speak out against the ferocity of Netanyahu’s indiscriminate onslaught on the people of Gaza.

It is not a paradox to be disgusted at the horrific rise in incidents of antisemitism across the globe and at the same time to be fretful about the rise of Islamophobia too.

Perhaps a minute’s silence is an appropriate way to reflect on the horrors of war on this day, and to remind ourselves of the need not just to hope for peace but to call out for it, to demand it, to clamour for it.

‘Ring for Peace’ … the peace bell in Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Defence of the Realm Act forbade ringing some church bells during war-time. So to ring out the bells is a sign of peace, a hope for peace.

Three bells that rang out in York more than 500 years ago were given new homes in the city in recent years as part of the events marking the centenary of World War I, and now carry a resounding message of peace.

Three mediaeval bells that were once part of the old church of Holy Trinity or Christchurch in King’s Square in the centre of York are now symbols of peace. The bells were made by Chamberlain’s of London ca 1440 for the mediaeval church once known as ‘The Butchers’ Church.’

The congregation was declining by the late 19th century and the parish was merged with Saint Sampson’s Church in 1886. Soon the church was disused, and by 1896 it was a place to house sheep on their way to slaughter. The furnishings were moved to Saint Mary Bishophill Junior, and Saint Everilda's Church, Nether Poppleton, and the church was finally demolished in 1937.

However, the three bells of the church were rescued. In 2016, as part of York’s commemorations of the centenary of World War I, they were placed in the grounds of Holy Trinity Church Goodramgate, the garden of the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall off Fossgate, and Saint Paul’s Bookshop, Fossgate. In recent visits to York, I have seen two of these bells, in the grounds of Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, and the grounds of Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate. Both are hung from wooden beams carved with the words ‘Ring for Peace.’

Each bell has a Latin inscription: Sancta Margareta Ora Pro Nobis, ‘Saint Margaret, pray for us’; Sit Nomen Domini Benedictum, ‘Blessed be the name of the Lord’; and Eternis Annis Resonet Dominis Johannes, ‘Through eternal years, let John resound for the Lord.’

‘Ring for Peace’ … the peace bell in Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, York (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

My photographs this afternoon are signs of peace in churches and cathedrals, including those bells in York: ‘Ring the bells that still can ring / Forget your perfect offering / There is a crack, crack in everything, / That’s how the light gets in.’

In recent days, I have found myself once again turning to the words of Leonard Cohen’s poem-song ‘Anthem’ on his album The Future (1992):

The birds they sang, at the break of day
Start again, I heard them say.
Don’t dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be.

Yes, the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold, and bought again
The dove is never free.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything,
That’s how the light gets in.

We asked for signs. The signs were sent.
The birth betrayed. The marriage spent.
Yeah, and the widowhood of every government,
Signs for all to see.

I can’t run no more, with that lawless crowd
While the killers in high places say their prayers out loud
But they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up a thundercloud
They’re going to hear from me.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

You can add up the parts, you won’t have the sum.
You can strike up the march, there is no drum.
Every heart, every heart to love will come,
But like a refugee.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in,
That’s how the light gets in,
That’s how the light gets in.

‘Pax, 1919’ … the Gardens of Remembrance in Lichfield, with one of the three spires of Lichfield Cathedral in the background (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

‘Our sages have taught, whoever takes a single human life, it is as if they have destroyed an entire world’

The Torah scrolls in Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue, including scroll No 970 (left) from Pacov in the Czech Republic (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Throughout this week, my prayer diary on my blog each morning this week, I am drawing on the prayers and resources produced for the Week of Prayer for World Peace this year.

Of course, as I prepare my prayers and reflections for each morning, I find myself under the shadow of the escalating violence in Israel, Gaza and Palestine, watching as it spreads to neighbouring Lebanon and Egypt, and as the Middle East threatens to both explode and implode, while antisemitism continues to spread throughout northern Europe and north America.

On this Friday evening, I am very conscious that every Shabbat begins, continues and concludes with the greeting Shabbat Shalom שַׁבַּת שָׁלוֹם. It is not merely an expression of hope for domestic, family and community peace, but an expression of hope for peace and justice for the whole creation, as well as harmony, wholeness and prosperity.

The Kaddish prayers usually include a prayer like this or a variant of it: ‘May the One who causes peace to reign in the high heavens let peace descend on us, on all Israel, and on all the world, and let us say: Amen.’

Last Saturday morning, as many were still reeling from the news of the murders and kidnappings by Hamas that sparked the latest violent crisis, I attended the Shabbat Morning Service for Milton Keynes and District Reform Synagogue, led on Zoom by Student Rabbi Shulamit Morris-Evans, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Jews and a student rabbi at Leo Baeck College.

Everyone who attended online seemed to appreciate the use of ‘A Prayer in a Time of War’ in the Movement for Reform Judaism Siddur or prayer book:

At this time of conflict we turn to You, God, as the Creator of all human beings, each of us made in Your image, each of us equal in Your sight. Our sages have taught, whoever takes a single human life, it is as if they have destroyed an entire world.

They also taught, in that hour when the Egyptians drowned in the Sea of Reeds, the angels wished to sing a song of praise before God. But God rebuked them saying, My children are drowning in the sea, would you utter a song before Me in honour of that!?

Be with Your children of all nations and religions, and give them strength and courage in this time of uncertainty and fear. Any war claims its victims on all sides. Have mercy on them and bring this conflict speedily to an end, so that its casualties may be few and damage light; so that acts of violence and bloodshed may be replaced with words and acts of conciliation. Shelter under Your care those who perish and show compassion to those who mourn for them. For those injured in body or mind, bring a perfect healing, so that their lives are not destroyed.

A prayer for peace adapted from the texts of the prayers for peace found in the Sim Shalom (1985) and Lev Shalem (2016), the siddurim or prayer books of the Rabbinical Assembly, the international association of Conservative rabbis, prays:

May we merit to bring about the day when war and bloodshed cease,
and a great peace embraces the whole universe.
‘No nation will lift up a sword to another,
and the art of war will no longer be studied.’ (Isaiah 2: 4)

May we live to see the leaders of all the nations
inspired to do good with their peoples
and with all other peoples of the world,
bringing about the fulfilment of the Scriptural blessing,

‘I will bring peace to the Earth,
and you will lie down with no one to terrify you,
and I will bring calm to all vicious creatures on Earth,
and the sword will no longer pass in your Land.’ (Leviticus 26: 6)

Let knowledge fill the Earth as water fills the ocean,
and let all people of all ethnicities, races, beliefs, genders and orientations
enjoy true equality, security, safety and livelihood,
in a true spirit of co-existence and cooperation.
And let us say, Amen.

A prayer for peace found in various forms in many Jewish traditions prays:

Grant us peace, Your most precious gift, O Eternal Source of peace, and enable our people Israel to be its messenger to all the world. Bless our country, that it may ever be a pursuer of peace and its advocate in the council of nations. May contentment reign within our borders, health and happiness within our homes. Strengthen the bonds of friendship and harmony among the inhabitants of all lands. Plant virtue in every soul and may our love for You hallow every home and every heart. We praise You, O God, Giver of peace.

Well-known sayings found among the Sayings of the Sages include:

Hillel used to say: ‘Be a disciple of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving your fellow men and women, and drawing them near to the Torah.’

Rabban Simeon ben Gamaliel used to say: ‘The world is sustained by three things: justice, truth, and peace.’

‘There are four kinds of actions that bring benefits in this world but whose full reward is reserved for the world-to-come, and they are: Honouring father and mother; deeds of loving kindness; making peace between enemies; and the study of Torah, which is equal to them all.’

Shabbat Shalom שַׁבַּת שָׁלוֹם

‘Walls and Trumpets’: a triumph in blue on a grey, dreary office block in Southwark

‘Walls and Trumpets’ by Ofra Zimbalista on the walls of Maya House in Southwrk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Patrick Comerford

Over the years, I have become very familiar with Borough High Street in Southwark, through my visits to Southwark Cathedral close to London Bridge and USPG offices at the other end of Borough High Street on Trinity Street.

Between the two there are so many place of interest: the literary connections with Chaucer, Shakespeare and Dickens; the many reminders of John Harvard, who gives his name to Harvard University; Saint George the Martyr, the church of Little Dorrit; the old coaching inn courtyard of the George; and the array of enticing and appetising food stalls in Borough Market.

Walking along Borough High Street, I might never have noticed Maya House on the west side of the street, but for the Costa coffee shop. It is a dreary, drab-looking, almost soulless 1970s office block at Nos 134-138.

However, as I said earlier this week, I benefit from walking around London instead of taking the tube, with my head up and my eyes open. And Maya House has an impressive art installation of three blue figures that make the building worth looking at.

‘Walls and Trumpets’ is an art installation on the walls of Maya House created in 2007-2008 by the late Israeli artist Ofra Zimbalista (1939-2014).

Ofra Zimbalista was one of the most important female artists in Israel, where she was born, lived and worked. She studied lithography, etching and screen-print at the Kalisher Art Academy, in Tel Aviv. She exhibited throughout Europe and Israel, and her works are displayed in public spaces around the world. Her human-sized figures casted from aluminium and bronze were often engaged in acrobatic activities.

A common feature of her public artworks was to show her groups of people in transitional situations: hanging and climbing as though trying to find their place.

Blue figures are a recurring motif in Zimbalista’s work. The figures are created by moulding real people in fibreglass, coloured with a deep blue pigment she imported specially from Morocco where it is used in house paint. This Yves Klein-like deep blue is one of Ofra Zimbalista’s signature motifs.

Maya House on the west side of Borough High Street in Southwark (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Her installation at Maya House, ‘Walls and Trumpets’, consists of three life casts. They were cast from real people who adopted their poses and then held them while they were covered in alginate and plaster. She created her initial moulds from these, and then shaped the final figures in blue fibreglass.

These three figures, each a vivid shade of brilliant blue, appear to be clinging to and climbing the wall of Maya House; they might be window cleaners, they might even be absailing. Looking more closely, you see two climbing figures, one holding a trumpet, the other holding a bugle, and a third seated figure who seems to be marching triumphantly atop the others, playing a drum – perhaps celebrating the fact that he has reached the top place he was trying to get to.

These three figures, with their vivid shade of blue and their musical instruments, add a splash of colour and joy to the drab façade of Maya House and they brightened up my rainy autumn day.

The best-known Biblical encounter between ‘Walls and Trumpets’ is, of course, at the Siege of Jericho, when the priests marched around the city walls for seven days, blowing their trumpets until the walls came tumbling down (see Joshua 6: 1-20). Being so close to Southwark Cathedral, it might not be too difficult to find priests seven days of the week. But, did the artist wish to see the drab and dreary walls of Maya House come tumbling down as these three blue figures blew their trumpets?

The three figures in vivid blue appear to be clinging to and climbing the wall of Maya House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2023)

Who are the Christians caught in the conflict between Israelis and Palestians?

Archbishop Hosam Elias Zakaria Naoum preaches at his consecration as the Anglican Archbishop of Jerusalem

Patrick Comerford

There is an apocryphal story about Liam Cosgrave’s address to the United Nations as the Irish Minister for External Affairs in 1956. Ireland had just joined the UN, and Cosgrave was speaking in the wake of the Suez crisis and a war between Egypt and Israel. The story says the future Taoiseach embarrassed himself and his country by calling on the Muslims and Jews in the Middle East to settle their differences like Christians.

His speech was drafted by Conor Cruise O’Brien, and Cosgrave suggested to Frederick Boland, the Irish ambassador, that the speech should include: ‘I appeal to the Jews and the Muslims to settle their differences in accordance with Christian principles.’

O’Brien pointed out that this was likely to impress neither Jews nor Muslims, and Boland told Cosgrave it would not ‘go down all that well in the Middle East.’

Cosgrave smiled enigmatically, and Boland turned to O’Brien and said: ‘It may not go down well in the Middle East, but the minister seems to think it will go down well in Dún Laoghaire Rathdown.’

The words in question were not included in the actual speech, but the story has become one of the most enduring anecdotes in Irish journalism and political history. It points too to the way Christians are often marginalised by or seen as irrelevant to accounts of conflict in the Middle East.

The recent conflict between Israelis and Palestinians has been caricatured – by journalists and protesters – as a conflict between Jews and Muslims. In all the reports and narratives, the plight of Christians in the region was ignored and forgotten.

As the latest conflict raged, few news outlets reported the installation and enthronement of Archbishop Hosam Elias Zakaria Naoum as the 15th Bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Jerusalem. The new bishop, who also carries the title of archbishop, was installed in Saint George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem, on Ascension Day (13 May).

Although Anglican clergy and laity from Israel and the West Bank were present, none from Jordan, Lebanon or Syria could attend. Scenes of serious disorder close to the cathedral, as well as in the mixed towns and cities inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders, were cause for great concern, while all-out confrontation in and near Gaza was causing many deaths and injuries.

The large congregation included Muslims and Jews, and Archbishop Hosam preached in both Arabic and English. He is a former dean of Saint George’s Cathedral, and a former coadjutor bishop of Jerusalem. The ecumenical guests included the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, Theophilos III, the Latin Patriarch, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Lutheran bishop and clergy from other Christian traditions.

Archbishop Naoum soon issued an urgent appeal for financial support for Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. He said the diocese was continuing its ‘Christian mission of bringing healing to the wounded, relief to those who have lost their homes and livelihoods, and comfort to those who mourn the loss of loved ones.’

Archbishop Hosam Elias Zakaria Naoum with his family after his consecration in Saint George’s Cathedral, Jerusalem

The first Anglican Bishop in Jerusalem, Michael Solomon Alexander (1799-1845), who was bishop from 1842, was ordained in Dublin by Archbishop William Magee in 1827. Today, the diocese has 7,000 Anglicans, 29 parishes, 1,500 employees and 200 hospital beds.

Palestinian Christians belong to a diversity of churches or denominations, including the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Western and Eastern Catholic, Anglican and Lutheran churches. They are estimated to account for 20% of the 13 million Palestinians, but 70% live outside Palestine and Israel.

Estimates suggest there about 50,000 Palestinian Christians in the West Bank. There are four groupings of Christians in Israel: migrant Christians without permanent status (150,000), Palestinian Arabs who are citizens of Israel (120,000), Hebrew-speaking Christians who are sociologically part of Jewish society (40,000), and expatriate Christians working in the Church (1,000). Only 1,300 Christians are left in the Gaza Strip, and their numbers are declining rapidly on a weekly if not daily basis.

Around 50% of Palestinian Christians belong to the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, led by Theophilos III. The Latin Patriarch, Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, is an Italian-born Franciscan. But there is a variety of churches in communion with Rome, including the Latin Rite, the Melkite Church (which has many similarities with the Greek Orthodox Church), the Maronite Church, and a branch of the Chaldean Church.

In recent years, Christians in Palestine and Israel have felt forgotten by outside Christians, and often see Christian tourists and pilgrims as interested in Biblical sites but not in the ‘Living Stones’ who are the Christians in the region today.

Prominent Christians in the ‘Holy Land’ include the theologians Naam Ateek (Anglican) of the Sabeel Foundation and Archbishop Elias Chacour (Melkite), the Palestinian negotiator Dr Hanan Ashrawi (Anglican), the writer and critic Edward Said, who was raised an Anglican but later became an agnostic, the nonviolent peace activist Mubarak Awad (Greek Orthodox), and Yasser Arafat’s widow Suha Arafat (born a Latin-rite Catholic).

During the latest conflicts, the patriarchs and heads of the Churches in Jerusalem joined in expressing deep concern over growing Israeli-Palestinian violence. They said: ‘The special character of Jerusalem, the Holy City … compels all parties to preserve the already sensitive situation in the Holy City of Jerusalem. The growing tension, backed mainly by right-wing radical groups, endangers the already fragile reality in and around Jerusalem.’

The patriarchs and heads of the Churches in Jerusalem have joined in expressing deep concern over growing Israeli-Palestinian violence

This full-page feature is published in the July/August 2021 edition of ‘Newslink,’ the Diocesan Magazine of the United Dioceses of Limerick, Killaloe and Clonfert (p 4)

Murder in the Name of God

Murder in the Name of God: The Plot to Kill Yitzhak Rabin by Michael Karpin and Ina Friedman. (Granta, £8.99 in UK).

Book Review

Patrick Comerford

Yitzhak Rabin was the sort of man who should have been a life-long hero in Israel: as chief-of-staff of the Israeli army, he was responsible for Israel’s victory in the Six-Day War in 1967, and, despite the claims made for Moshe Dayan, for the capture of Jerusalem and the West Bank. He was known as “Mr Security”, and was keenly aware of Israel’s security needs. But the Oslo peace accords with the PLO and his White House hand-shaking ceremony with Yasser Arafat made him an immediate target for vilification and hatred among those who had once hailed him as their hero.

When nationalism and religion mix, they inevitably produce a poisonous cocktail. Karpin and Friedman, two leading Israeli journalists, trace the vile campaign and incitement that lead to Rabin’s murder in September 1995, and paint a chilling picture of his murderer, Yigal Amir, and the intellectual, spiritual and political world to which he belongs.

The authors argue that Amir is not the only one to blame for Rabin’s murder and trace the political, social and financial links between right-wing Orthodox Jewish organisations in the US and the right-wing groups that pilloried and protested against Rabin in the weeks leading up to his murder. This new edition has a valuable after-word on the election defeat of Benjamin Netanyahu and the difficulties facing the current Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Barak.

This book review was published in ‘The Irish Times’ on Saturday 8 April 2000

Jews, Muslims at one on cloning

By Patrick Comerford

In a rare example of Islamic-Jewish dialogue and Israeli-Egyptian accord, the Chief Rabbi of Israel and a prominent Islamic theologian in Cairo have strongly condemned the latest advances in cloning.

The Chief Rabbi, Dr Meir Lau, speaking at a conference in Tel Aviv's Bar-Ilan University, said the cloning of living creatures is prohibited by Jewish law. “The use of genetic engineering to create life is totally prohibited.”

Responding to advances by scientists in the US and Scotland who have cloned monkeys and a sheep, Rabbi Lau said: “The genetic manipulations being carried out by some scientists are not aimed at healing and thus are violations of Jewish law.”

He continued: “Our sages are given permission to heal but there isn’t anything implicit in this that allows any penetration into the role of the Lord in forming new life in unnatural ways. Cloning doesn’t heal, it is a complete diversion from science.”

As Rabbi Lau was speaking in Tel Aviv, an Islamic theologian in Cairo called for an end to research on cloning, saying it did not meet an Islamic requirement that the benefits outweigh the harm.

“I say this research must be stopped because it will lead to things which are forbidden by Islamic law, ideologically and ethically, rather than benefiting mankind,” said Dr Abdelmuti Bayyoumi, Professor of Doctrine at al-Azhar University.

Al-Azhar is one of the most prestigious seats of Islamic learning in the Sunni Muslim World. The Mufti is Egypt’s chief exponent of religious law, issuing fatwas (rulings) on any subject referred to him. The Grand Sheikh of al-Azhar and the Mufti of Egypt have not yet responded to requests for a ruling on cloning.

“Anything which does more harm than good is karam (forbidden) and so far the harm done by genetic engineering and cloning has proved to be greater than the benefit,” Dr Bayyoumi said, according to the government newspaper al-Gomhuria.

He said cloning humans would raise legal questions over which of two genetically identical humans was responsible for criminal acts, for example. “What if this reckless science goes further and thinks of cloning criminals, or mummified Pharaohs or even cloning prophets?” he asked.

This news report was first published in ‘The Irish Times on Thursday 6 March 1997

An Israeli warrior for peace

Book Review:

Yitzak Rabin: Soldier of Peace, The Jerusalem Report Staff, ed David Horovitz

Patrick Comerford

On the morning of Saturday, November 4th last, the Torah or scripture reading in synagogues was the portion preceding the episode in which God orders his servant Abraham to prove his faith by sacrificing his beloved son Isaac (in Hebrew, Yitzhak), the father of Jacob, who grows up to become Israel.

In a small Yemenite synagogue near Tel Aviv, those listening intently included a young man who believed he too had a command from God to kill another Isaac Yitzhak Rabin.

This book gives a chilling account of the rise of the ultra-right in Israel and the climate that bred an assassin like Yigael Amir. According to one of the contributors, Rabin was “a lion slaughtered like a sheep”, because he refused to take his marching orders from “those who worship land more than they worship life”. He bitterly castigated the Likud opposition leader Bibi Netanyahu, for failing to take a stand against right wing extremism, but continued to insist: “I don’t believe a Jew will kill a Jew.”

How wrong he was.

Yitzhak Rabin was the very antithesis of the right-wing Israeli settlers on the West Bank who combine political and religious zealotry without care or consideration for the views and beliefs of their neighbours. He was a Zionist and idealist from a previous generation, the son of refugees from the former Russian empire who had been imbued with socialism and secular values. His early life is also the story of those early socialist and secular Zionists, the Palmah and the Haganah, fighters like Yigael Allon and Moshe Dayan, and the early conflicts of a left wing activist with David Ben Gurion.

At the height of the Israeli political crisis in 1974 that brought about Golda Meir's resignation, Rabin half joked: “All my life I have been collecting ex’s. I am ex-Chief of Staff, ex-ambassador to the United States, and now an ex-potential Defence Minister.”

And he soon became the ex-Prime Minister when he was forced to resign over his wife’s American bank account in 1977. But while defeated in political battle, he had not yet lost the political war. He returned to government in 1984, and immediately presented proposals for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.

Rabin underestimated his achievements. Although Dayan stole most of the credit, it was Rabin who drew up the battle plans for the Six Day War, who took the Sinai, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and who trebled the territory controlled by Israel. He democratised his own party. With his election victory in 1992 he won the support of his political colleagues and most Israelis for his plans for peace with the Palestinians in 1993 he shook hands, albeit reluctantly, with Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn, agreeing to autonomy for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And he worked until the end in the hope of reaching peace with Syria.

He was a soldier who despised war. As far back as 1967 he was ready to trade the newly conquered territory for peace. And when the Hebrew University of Jerusalem honoured him with a doctorate in 1967, he spoke with pathos of the enemy’s anguish and the terrible price of victory: “War is intrinsically harsh and cruel, bloody and tear stained.”

This book profiles Rabin in all his strengths, and in all his weaknesses too. He was the calm, calculated, proud voice of Israel, “a son of Israel and the father of its future”. But he was also harsh to the point of contemptuous rudeness, he held politicians and politics in disdain, he was painfully inept at small talk, an ambassador who was uncertain on the party circuit and the dance floor.

He could make bad political decisions in anger and in fury, such as the alleged order to troops in 1988 to break the bones of Palestinians in an effort to crush the intifada, or the expulsion of over 490 activists to the cold mountains of Lebanon in December 1992. He was cautious, pedantic and analytical, and only with great difficulty did he find the strength on his last night at a rally in Tel Aviv to join in singing a popular peace song:

So sing only a song for peace,
Do not whisper a prayer,
Better sing a song for peace
With a great shout.

But as Yigael Amir has shown, Israel does not need men with manners who regard themselves as saints. It has too many of them. It needs politicians and statesmen with the wisdom of a man like Rabin.

Had Rabin survived there is little doubt he would have led his Labour Party to victory in the current election campaign. His opponents in Likud still have to answer for their part in right wing rallies and protests that heard calls for Rabin’s death, at which Rabin was branded a traitor, and at which placards and posters regularly portrayed him in a Nazi uniform or with his features overlaid with the cross hairs of a rifle sight. Outside the Rabin apartment, demonstrators shouted at his wife Leah: “Next year we will string you up.”

Rabin had few friends. Ezer Weizman begrudged him his successes and achievements ever after the Six Day War, and made a dark promise to do everything to end his political career. The bitter personal enmity Rabin shared with Shimon Peres, lasting for three decades or more, was resolved only in the past few years. But his friends included one of the contributors to this book, Hirch Goodman of the Jerusalem Report, who knew Rabin for 28 years, having been assigned to him as a bodyguard during the Six Day War. In his prologue, Goodman admits Rabin “became my instant hero. He was Israel, that new generation of Jew, all that I aspired to be.”

Too many books suffer from being the collective work of too many writers. But this book is enriched by the experiences of its contributors, Israel’s leading journalists who have followed the career of a true “Soldier for Peace.” David Horovitz has done his colleagues on the Jerusalem Report – and the memory of Yitzhak Rabin – a service in the way this book has been edited.

This book review was first published in ‘The Irish Times’ on Saturday 13 April 1996.