The Jewish community in the hard-hit country of Italy celebrated its first wedding at the Great Synagogue in Rome since the beginning of the coronavirus crisis.

The chasan, Marco Del Monte, a native of Rome, and the kallah, Elinor Honoka of Israel, originally planned to marry in Jerusalem in March. Their plans were dashed when both countries went into lockdown and they decided to wed at the Great Synagogue in Rome instead. But then the Italian government closed all shuls in Italy and those plans were dashed as well.

Italy’s shuls were given the green light to reopen last month and the couple finally celebrated their wedding on Sunday at the Great Synagogue of Rome. Rabbi Menachem Lazar of Rome’s Chabad Piazza Bologna was the mesader kiddushin at the wedding, attended by the chasan’s parents and a small number of guests.

The kallah’s parents, who live in Israel, were unable to attend the wedding since upon arrival in Italy they would be required by the Italian authorities to quarantine for two weeks, according to Dror Eydar, Israel’s ambassador to Italy. The kallah is currently living in Rome, where she is a sixth-year medical student.

“Great happiness – albeit not in the cities of Yehudah and the courtyards of Jerusalem, like was initially planned, but in Rome,” wrote Eydar on his Facebook page about the happy event.

“But still, ‘kol sasson v’kol simcha, kol chasan v’kol kallah…’ Italy in general and the Jewish community in Rome are still healing from their wounds and we hope that this simchah will bring even more simchas.”

“In the Great Synagogue of Rome, where the Jewish ghetto was located in the past, the chasan Marco recited the vow of the Jewish expellees in the sixth century B.C.: ‘If I forget Jerusalem, my right hand should forget…'”

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)