Last week, I wrote my blog from Basel in Switzerland, the city where Theodor Herzl imagined a national home for the Jewish people. We were in transit, driving from London to Modena, carrying with us the usual assortment of luggage, books, medication, and ideas.

Modena is a relatively small city in northern Italy, known for three very different contributions to civilisation: balsamic vinegar, Lambrusco, and high-performance cars. Ferrari, Maserati, and Pagani all have roots in this region. The city is also affectionately known as the city of the pig, much of its celebrated cuisine revolving around pork in one form or another.

For observant Jewish travellers, this requires a certain amount of culinary navigation. Fortunately, Modena offers more than enough alternatives, and what we were seeking was not pork, but something quieter: elegant piazzas, remarkable food, and a temporary sense of calm.

We were not disappointed.

At the heart of the city stands the magnificent cathedral and the Ghirlandina tower, both rising above streets that feel measured and composed rather than chaotic. Nearby, at the top of Piazza Mazzini, stands Modena’s grand synagogue, constructed after the emancipation of Italian Jewry on the site of the former ghetto, much as the Great Synagogue of Rome emerged as a visible statement that Jewish life no longer needed to remain hidden.

Today, Modena’s Jewish community is small. During our visit, a solitary army truck stood guard nearby, a reminder that even in places of great beauty, Jewish life is never entirely detached from the realities of security. Yet there were no fences, no sense of siege, only a quiet confidence.

For a few days, we allowed ourselves to relax.

Coming from London, where vast demonstrations of very different political persuasions seem increasingly to occupy the streets, Modena felt like a welcome pause.

And then, on Saturday afternoon, in this same tranquil city, a vehicle-ramming and stabbing attack left several people seriously injured. Italian authorities began investigating whether the incident constituted an act of terrorism, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni travelled to Modena to express solidarity with the city and its citizens.

The irony was difficult to miss.

In attempting to avoid the perceived risks of larger and more visibly tense cities, we had chosen somewhere smaller and calmer, only to be reminded that risk has an unsettling habit of disregarding our plans.

That thought stayed with me.

Because whether in medicine, criminology, travel, or ordinary life, risk is rarely something we eliminate.

At best, we relocate it.

And sometimes, despite our most careful calculations, it finds us anyway.

Risk has been very much on my mind over the past three years, since the sudden death of my father.

There was a particular irony to the way he died.

He was........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)