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MAY 6, 2021 | The Jewish Home MAY 6, 2021 | The Jewish Home
The Wandering
Jew
All Roads Lead to Rome Part II
View from Tivoli Gardens
L
ike many of the places we visited throughout Europe and the States, we also connected with Chabad in Italy. In the Bologna section of Rome, the shliach was Rabbi Menachem Lazar. I subsequently met his brother, Rabbi Beryl Lazar, twice in Moscow, and we previously met their father in Milan. When we were in Rome during
Tivoli Gardens
Aseres Yemei Teshuva of 2015, I met Rav Menachem every morning while davening at the Libyan Beit Shmuel Synagogue. He was very friendly to me and made the arrangements for Pesi and I to join his Friday night seudah which catered both to locals and tourists. The Kabbalat Shabbat davening was Sephardi style, beginning with the recitation of Shir Hashirim
aloud by individual mispallelim. The seudah that followed was very enjoyable. The food was plentiful and mostly Middle Eastern fare. We sat across a couple from Paris, with whom we conversed most of the evening. Rav Menachem asked everyone to introduce themselves, which is a staple icebreaker for people who are meeting for the first time. He also asked me to address the participants and give over a dvar Torah. Following dessert, we returned to our pensione to get some well-deserved sleep. The next morning, we returned to Beit Shmuel for davening. I bought an aliya for myself, and we joined the pareve kiddush that followed services. We then returned to our room and had our fleishig seudah from the takeout food that we bought on Friday. This was followed by our traditional Shabbos schluff (nap). After napping and learning for a while, we returned to the shul for Mincha and Shalosh Seudos, where Rav Menachem spoke for the shul members.
The plaque commemorating the burning of the Talmud in Rome in 1553
Before I took my nap, I was reading a magazine which happened to highlight a tragic event that took place in Rome in the year 1553. On September 9 of that year, which was Rosh Hashana, the Office of the Inquisition organized a public burning of the Talmud, where thousands of volumes – many that were handwritten – went up in flames by the decree of the Pope. For the remainder of the century, one could not find a
