Clara Aboaf was born in 1946, in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice, into a world still marked by the scars of war. Her family’s roots stretched deep into Italian Jewish history: her father, born in 1903, was Venetian, while her mother, born in Rome in 1917, brought with her strong ties to the Roman Jewish community. Clara grew up alongside her two brothers—Umberto, born in 1939, and Enzo, born in 1944, “right in the middle of the war,” during a time of fear, displacement, and uncertainty.

The postwar years in the ghetto were difficult. “Life here was quite poor,” Clara recalls, shaped by loss and by divisions within the community itself. There was a clear distinction between the de su—families who had the means to leave the ghetto after 1797 and settle near San Marco—and the de xo, those who remained, working quietly and struggling to rebuild. “It was felt a lot,” especially by her parents’ generation, even if it was rarely spoken aloud.

Religious life, too, was fragile. “Because in the community a lot had been lost… the sense of religiosity, and I had also lost it,” Clara reflects, pointing to the rise of mixed marriages and the uncertainty surrounding how children would be raised. Yet she also notes “a certain awakening of the community” in later years, a return to traditions once weakened.

Clara’s own life reflects both continuity and independence. After spending time in Israel, she left home young—“when everyone thought I was crazy”—becoming one of the first women in her circle to live on her own. She balanced independence with commitment, attending Shabbat and Hebrew lessons while forging a demanding career in a male-dominated workplace.

For Clara, being Jewish comes first, but being Venetian remains inseparable from who she is. Her bond with relatives in Rome remains strong, reaffirmed through weddings, bar mitzvahs, and shared memories. Family, across cities and generations, is what ultimately holds her story together.