VENTURA Origin of surname
Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name derives from a personal characteristic or nickname.
Ventura means "fate" in Italian. rabbis and scholars called Ventura were prominent in Italy and Greece in the 15th/18th centuries. In 1944, during World War II, in Rustchuk, Bulgaria, the historian Dr. Shimon Markus wrote an article about the history of the Ventura family from Bulgaria, at the request of Abraham Shmuel Ventura.
Distinguished bearers of the Jewish family name Ventura include the 16th century Italian rabbis Eliezer Ben Samuel Ventura and Jehiel Ventura; the rabbi and scholar Eliyahu Ventura, rabbi of the Jewish community of Vidin, Bulgaria at the age of 28 (1794) and author of a book called 'Kochba De Shavit'; the Italian soldier, Rubino Ventura (1795-1858), who served as an officer in the armies of Persia and India. In the 18th century, Ventura is recorded as a Jewish family name in a 'ketubbah' from Tunis dated May 24, 1792, of Moise son of Isaac Ventura, and his wife Esther, daughter of Menahem Baruch.
Moshe Ventura
(Personality)Moshe Ventura (1892-1978), rabbi, scholar and educator, born in Izmir, Turkey. He attended the Talmud Torah and then studied at the Alliance Israelite Universelle school in Izmir. He moved to Istanbul, where he studied at the Rabbinic Seminary. During WW I, he was drafted into the Ottoman army and served as officer in Baghdad, Iraq. At the end of WW I, he first stayed in Baghdad, working as a teacher of Hebrew at a local Jewish school, and later moved to Beirut, Lebanon, where he headed a Talmud Torah.
After 1922, he continued his academic studies in Paris, studying philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne and earning a PhD. During that period, he edited Eliacin, a Jewish youth periodical.
In 1938 he became Chief Rabbi of Alexandria, Egypt, where he was instrumental in the founding of the Rambam Jewish secondary school.
In 1948, on the day the State of Israel was declared, he was expelled from Egypt. Moshe Ventura then moved to New York, where he was a lecturer of Jewish philosophy at the Yeshiva University. In 1951, he went to England where he headed Montefiore College, the rabbinic and teachers' seminary. He immigrated to Israel in 1953, settling in Jerusalem, where he taught and lectured at several institutions.
His works include Ivrit be'Ivrit (“Hebrew in Hebrew”) (1919), Soupirs et Espoirs (1948), The Abridged Mishneh Torah by Maimonides (2 vols., 1960), and Psychology for Teachers (1966).
Mardochee Venture
(Personality)Mardochée Venture (c.1730-1789), rabbi, scholar and translator, born in Nice, France (then part of Kingdom of Sardinia). He served as Hebrew secretary and interpreter at the Kings’s Library of France. Venture was Rabbi Haim Joseph David Azulay’s guide during his visit to Paris in 1777. His works include Prières Journalières à L´usage des Juifs (1770), Prières journalières à l'usage des juifs portugais ou espagnols (1772), and Prières des jours de Ros-haschana et du Jour de Kippour à l'usage des juifs portugais ou espagnols traduites de l'hébreu, auxquelles on a ajouté des notes élémentaires, pour en faciliter l'intelligence par Mardochée Venture (1773). He is the author of Seder ha-Kontres (1765), a collection of liturgical chants for the use of the Jews of the county of Venaissin that includes a piyut partly composed in Hebrew and partly in Provencal. Venture also composed special prayers for the recovery of King Louis XVI in 1774, and on the birth in 1781 of Louis Joseph Xavier François de France (1781-1789), the son of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, the Dauphin of France (the heir apparent to the throne of France).
Ana Ventura
(Personality)Ana Avram Ventura (1925-1944), partisan and Zionist, born in Ruse, Bulgaria, into a well-off family. She became a member of the Zionist organization Maccabi and later joined the Communist Party of Bulgaria. Ana's anti-fascist fiancé, Izidor Eisner, had a significant influence on her life. After he died of tuberculosis in prison, Ana left her family and the French college in Ruse to join the communist anti-fascist resistance.
Despite her wealthy background, Ana lived underground, hiding around town with a fake identity card. Even though she was searched by the police, she was never caught. Her father was arrested and harassed to hand over his daughter, but he did not know where she was and was forced to renounce publicly.
Ana became a member and secretary of the District Committee of the Workers Youth Movement in Ruse and later of the District Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, responsible for the Workers Youth Movement. She participated in subversive actions, bribed police officers, and carried out sabotage in the "Life" factory. Ana disguised herself as a Muslim woman in traditional dress and went around in the villages around Ruse to organize armed combat squads. She was one of the leaders of the resistance in the Ruse region and became the face of the struggle against the Holocaust in Ruse.
In the winter of 1944, Ana hid in the Metropol Hotel, but she was betrayed by her hairdresser. During a shootout with the police, Ana was mortally wounded, along with three other activists. The killers of Ana and the others were rewarded with cash and a banquet, but they were later shot after September 9, 1944, when Bulgaria was under the government of the Patriotic Front.
A street in Ruse was named after her. The book Anna Ventura by the Bulgarian writer and poet Salis Tager was published in 1963.
Bulgaria
(Place)Bulgaria
България - Republic of Bulgaria
A country in south eastern Europe, in the Balkan peninsula, and member of the European Union (EU)
21st Century
Estimated Jewish population in 2018: 2,000 out of 7,100,000 (0.02%). Main umbrella organization of the Jewish communities:
Организация на евреите в България "Шалом"
Organization of Jews in Bulgaria-Shalom
Phone: 359 2 40 06 301
Fax: 359 2 988 46 937
E-mail: info@shalom.bg
Website: http://www.shalom.bg/