SHARED LAMENT AT THE ABBEY

THE remembrance service at Westminster Abbey on Monday for the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One included a passage from Jeremiah’s Lamentations — the same book that was read in synagogues up and down the country that very night to mark the fast of Tishah b’Av.

An abbey spokesman told me the choice was coincidental and they were unaware of the link with the Jewish calendar. Lamentations was chosen for its general theme of loss and destruction.