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Appendix: Albania |
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413 |
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Index of Names |
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425 |
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Index of Places |
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447 |
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English Preface |
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VII |
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English Abstract of the Introduction |
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IX |
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Maps: |
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Jewish Communities and Settlements in Greece |
Between page
ז and page 1 |
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"Old Greece" and Borders of Modern Greece |
Between page
12 and 13 |
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Jewish Communities in Occupation Zones |
Between page
32 and 33 |
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Salonika during World War Two |
Between page
272 and 273 |
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Jewish Communities and Settlements in Albania |
Between page
412 and page 413 |
PREFACE
This volume of Yad Vashem' 5 series Pinkas ha-Kehilot (Encyclopaedia of
Jewish Communities from their Foundation till after the Holocaust), which
aims to set up a memorial to European Jewry, portrays the Jewish presence in
Greece from its early beginnings until its near total destruction during the
Holocaust.
Structure of the book and the entries.
The Encyclopaedia of Jewish
Communities: Greece opens with an historical introduction that covers the
history of the Jewish community in Greece from its early beginnings until the
present, with particular emphasis on the period between the Balkan Wars and
the Second World War, as well as the events of the war itself. A selected
bibliography follows the introduction. The entries in this volume, as in the
other volumes of the series, appear in alphabetical order; the name of each
community is given in Hebrew and English, and additional names, as they appear
in various sources are given in parentheses, along with the Greek name.
Historical sites and ancient communities appear, in brief, along with entries
about settlements with no clear evidence regarding an organized community.
Most entries include a table of statistics, that has been compiled from
various sources. Official censuses held in Greece in 1928 and 1940 offer the
basic statistical data about the Jews in Greece during the inter wars period.
Each entry opens with brief background on the location of the community,
followed by a chronological description of the history of the Jewish
community. Larger entries are subdivided by topic. The period prior to the
Holocaust, as well as the Holocaust itself, are dealt with extensively if the
sources allow this. Each entry concludes with a brief survey of the
whereabouts of the Jews of the community since the Holocaust, followed by a
bibliography and the author's initials.
This volume includes four maps of Greece and an appendix about the Jews in
Greece's northern neighbor, Albania (along with a map). Although Albanian
Jewry was a tiny community on the eve of the Second World War, they maintained
a tradition of deep and close ties with Greek Jews. The occupation of Greece
by German troops came after bloody battles fought in Albania. Nevertheless,
whereas the Jews of Greece were deported to gas chambers, Albania became a
haven for Jewish refugees.
The Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities: Greece is based on various
sources: The Rabbinical Responsa Literature, archival material, testimonies,
journals and historical research. All these sources include the names of
places and personalities in a variety of languages:
Turkish, Greek, Italian, Ladino and Hebrew. In most cases, the names used are
those appearing in the sources, with an indication of the present names. The
index listing places and personalities at the end of the book is intended to
help the reader to locate topics of personal interest.
Acknowledgments. I wish to convey my deepest thanks to all those
who assisted me in the preparation of this book, in Greece and in Israel:
institutions such as archives, libraries and museums, as well as individuals.
The cooperation and encouragement of Israelis of Greek origin at all stages of
the project is worthy of deep appreciation and admiration. In Greece this
project received the full cooperation of the Central Board of the Jewish
Communities in Greece, the Jewish Museum in Athens and the Presidents and the
Boards of the Jewish communities in Salonika, Volos and Athens.
I wish to thank Dr. Jacques Stroumsa and Mr. Zvi Loker, who were active at the
inception of the project, as well as Mr. Itzchak Kerem and Dr. Lea
Bornstein-Makovetsky who wrote several entries. I am appreciative of the
assistance rendered by members of the Association of Survivors of
Concentration Camps of Greek Origin living in Israel and their chairman Mr.
Raul Sapporta, members of the Israeli Second Generation of Greek Survivors of
Death Camps, as well as members of the "Hellas-Israel League". Their advice,
criticism, actual help in translations of articles, as well as in directing me
to various sources, has been invaluable. I owe a special debt of gratitude to
several colleagues, especially Prof. Steven Bowman of the University of
Cincinnati and Robert Attal of the Ben-Zvi Institute, who helped the project
from its inception. I appreciate the support and encouragement from Greece: In
Athens, Dr. Yorgos Haniotis, Rabbi Yaakov Arrar, Dr. Nicholas Stavroulakis,
former director of the Jewish Museum of Greece in Athens and Zanet Battinou,
the Museum's curator, Abraham Minos Sasson and Nissim Mais, President of the
Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece. In Salonika, Andreas Sefiha,
President of the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, the Board of Directors and
Shelly Cohen-Karmi. In Corfu, Milka Toya. In Israel, I am especially indebted
to Dr. Immanuel Margalit, Rabbi Efraim Levi, Rabbi Dov Ha-Cohen, Yaron
Ben-Naeh, Renato Spiegel of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish
People, Arieh Koretz, Prof. Samuel Hassid, Artemis Miron, Moshe Ha-Elion,
Delia Cohen, Rivka Fishman, Gavra Mandil, Hayyim Cohen, Jacqueline Benatar and
Jack Handeli, as well as grateful to Yitzchak Kerem, Yaakov Weiman, Ilan
Karmi, Yoram Goren, Neta Gatenyo, Berry Nahmias, Intu Shimshi and Stella
Jakoel, who lent me photographs from their private collections.
My thanks to Mr. Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Directorate of Yad Vashem, Dr.
Shmuel Spector, director of the Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities,
and Bracha Freundlich, the devoted coordinator of the department. I also thank
all my colleagues at the Yad Vashem library, Archives and department of the
Righteous. Last but not least, I am grateful to Hanna Stern who prepared the
manuscript for printing.
Dr. Bracha Rivlin
Dr. Bracha Rivlin
HISTORY OF THE GREEK DIASPORA - ABSTRACT
On the eve of World War II, some 80,000 Jews lived in thirty-one communities
in Greece. By far the largest and best known was Salonika, a Jewish metropolis
since ancient times. Seventy thousand Jews, or 87 percent of Greek Jewry,
perished in the Holocaust. Only 10,000 persons survived. Today the Jewish
community in Greece is estimated at about 5,000.
The roots of Greek Jewry stretch back to antiquity. An early inscription
attests to a Jewish presence in Greece in the third century B.C.E., but it is
very likely that Jews moved there either by force or as a result of travel
during the Biblical period. In the aftermath of the Hasmonean uprising, when
many Jews were sold into slavery, the community expanded. In the second
century B.C.E. Jews are mentioned as residing in Sparta, Delos, Samos, Rhodes,
Kos, Chios, and Crete. The record of Jewish settlement in Salonika, which was
to become the largest and most famous Jewish community in Greece, begins
around 140 B.C.E.
It appears that during and after the Jewish War (66-70 C.E.), the Jewish
population of Greece grew considerably. Josephus relates, for example, that
the victorious Roman Emperor Vespasian sent some 6,000 Jewish young men from
Palestine as forced laborers to dig a channel at the Isthmus of Corinth.
Early on the Jews in the Greek Diaspora adopted the Greek language (retaining
Hebrew for liturgical purposes) and used the famous translation of the Bible
known as Septuagint, compiled in Egypt in the third century B.C.E.
The Byzantine Period (330-1204)
The split of the Roman Empire into the Eastern and Western parts and the
transfer of the capital to Constantinopole in the fourth century C.E. marked
the beginning of the integration of Greek national history with that of the
Christian Orthodox Church. This had profound consequences for the Greek-Jewish
Diaspora.
Following the fall of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, and, after 644, with the
completion of the conquest of the Persian Empire (including Babylonia) by the
Arabs, most Jewish communities in the world found themselves under Arab-Moslem
rule and influence. In the West, the existing Jewish communities in Anatolia,
the Balkans, and Greece now came into contact with Western communities,
particularly those of Italy in the ninth century, as the Byzantine emperors
added these territories to their dominion.
A series of anti-Jewish imperial decrees promulgated in the first centuries
after Constantine the Great (including the forced conversion decree by
Heraclius in 632 and a similar decree by Leo III in 721) proved ineffectual.
The Jews enjoyed relative prosperity and freedom from persecutions; with some
outward conversions notwithstanding. The legal status of the Jews (who were
called "Romaniotes") in communal and religious affairs continued to be
recognized, and their legal inequalities consisted mainly of exclusion from
service in the armed forces and the government. In religious matters Hebrew
remained the language of the Jews, with some incursions of the Greek into the
liturgy. Their unique rite was called "Minhag Romania". In the tenth
century Karaism made its appearance. Little is known about writings that might
have existed in the areas of Midrash, Talmud and halakhah.
Benjamin of Tudela, the twelfth-century Jewish traveler, recorded Jewish
communities in Corfu, Arta, Corinth, Thebes, Chalcis, and in the islands of
Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes, and Cyprus, among others; he also left a
detailed and reliable account of the Jewish community in Constantinopole.
During the Byzantine period the largest community was that of Thebes (with
2,000 Jews according to Rabbi Benjamin), which also gained a reputation as an
important center of Torah study. Salonika was home to 500 Jews. The Jews of
Greece engaged in dyeing, weaving, and producing silk garments. In most of
these communities the ancient communal structure prevailed: it consisted of a
rabbi (known as Rav GadoI), the parnas Naggid, and Maskil
(community heads).
Overall, during the last 250 years before the Fourth Crusade, Jews in the
Greek part of the Byzantine Empire seem to have enjoyed a relatively peaceful
existence, due mostly to either the absence of, or inefficacy of the attempts
made to convert them.
The Fourth Crusade and the Late Byzantine period (1204-1453)
With the fall of Constantinopole at the hands of the Crusaders in 1204, the
Byzantine Empire disintegrated into numerous territorial-political units.
These were largely under various West-European rulers (French, Italian, and
Spanish), but included also Slavs, the Byzantine emperors, and the Ottoman
Turks. The community of Thebes remained the most important in Byzantium,
producing prominent rabbis, Torah scholars, and paytanim (liturgical
poets). Sizable Jewish communities existed also in Chalkis, Chios, Corinth,
Corone, Crete, Janina, Methoni, Misitra, and Patras. The local Romaniotes
absorbed Ashkenazi as well as Sephardi Jews into their midst.
In the late fourteenth century, with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain,
and, later, from Portugal and Sicily, Jewish refugees immigrated to Greece,
bringing with them the Sephardi customs and language. They formed the nucleus
of the Sephardi communities that would come to dominate the Greek Diaspora. In
addition, Jews from southern Italy settled in Corfu.
The Ottoman and Late Venetian rule (1453-1821)
During the Turkish (and late Venetian) rule, which lasted from the fall of
Constantinopole at the hands of the Ottomans in 1453, until Greek independence
in the early nineteenth century, the Jews paid a heavy price for the struggle
being waged between the Ottoman Empire and Venetian rulers over Greek lands.
The Jewish communities of Patras, Thebes, Corone, Methoni, Chalcis, and
Naupaktos were destroyed; only a handful of the ravaged communities were
rebuilt. The policy of large-scale resettlement pursued by the Turks in the
newly conquered lands led to massive emigrations. The result was the serious
depopulation of Jewish Greek communities and the undermining of their
traditional structure. Only the waves of immigration from the West helped some
of them recover.
The impact of the refugees' homeland and its culture - especially those from
Spain and Portugal - proved to be lasting and deep. Salonika became a melting
pot. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries it developed into the
largest Jewish community in Greece and a center of Torah learning; until the
early twentieth century it was populated by a majority of the Greek Diaspora.
The Sephardi heritage left its mark on every facet of Jewish life -
institutional, religious, cultural, economic, and social. The merchants of the
Patras community were known for their wide-ranging travels, whereas Thebes and
Crete gained fame as the home of scholars, sages and rabbis. Among the
prominent religious figures during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
were Samuel di Medina (Rashdam), Joseph Taitatzak, Benjamin ben Mattathias and
Samuel Kalai of Arta (the author of Mishpetei Shemuel). The Responsa of
these rabbis were accepted as the proper interpretation of the halakhah
throughout the Sephardi world.
During the Turkish period the Jews engaged in international trade (owing to
their connections and command of languages) with Italy, France, Amsterdam,
Hamburg, and, in the East, with Constantinopole, Izmir, and Alexandria. The
main crafts of the Jews of Greece were spinning silk, weaving wool, and making
and dyeing of cloth, but they also engaged in commerce, money-lending and
tax-leasing. A minority engaged in agriculture.
In the Greek islands under Venetian rule, the Jews could engage only in retail
commerce, whereas under Turkish rule they all but dominated wholesale trade.
In Thessaly, the Peleponnesus and the Balkans, however, the Jews lived in
extreme poverty, seeking out an existence by tinsmith's work or peddling. In
Salonika the port was closed on the Sabbath and Jewish festivals, as the Jews
practically monopolized the harbor economy.
The refugees from the Iberian Peninsula, particularly the Marranos, made their
influence deeply felt in many areas of Jewish life, including the economy,
commerce, liturgy, as well as customs (weddings, inheritance and ritual
slaughter) and language (Judeo-Spanish, known as Ladino). The messianic
movement of Shabetai Zvi (who resided in Salonika in 1651-1654, after his
expulsion from Izmir) swept the Jews of the city from all walks of life. A
large-scale voluntary conversion to Islam by some 300 families (called
Donme), including influential and affluent Jews, prefigured the deep
crisis that was to engulf the city's Jewish community in the eighteenth
century, following the collapse of the textile trade and the political chaos
in the region.
From Greek Independence to World War II (1821-1940)
The bloody, ten-year-long Greek revolt, which broke out in Peleponnesus in
1821, brought destruction and suffering to the ancient Jewish communities,
mainly due to their traditional pro-Ottoman sympathies. The most tragic was
the massacre of 5,000 Jews in the Peleponnesus; the remaining survivors fled
to Corfu. Anti-Jewish riots, disturbances, and blood libels (in Rhodes,
Thessaly, and Corfu, among others) prompted Jews to flee or emigrate abroad or
to areas still under Turkish rule, such as Salonika. By the end of the century
the Jewish population had dwindled to 10,000 - 5,000. Only after the end of
the Balkan War (1912-1913), which resulted in the annexation of further
territories (Salonika, Chios, Crete, among others) to the nascent Greek state,
did the Jewish population grow to 100,000.
The Jews' civic and political equality was officially recognized with the
establishment of the Greek State in 1821; in 1882, legal status was accorded
to the Jewish communities. In the capital of Athens the organized Jewish
community came into being in the mid-nineteenth century; it grew in size and
influence, absorbing numerous Sephardi immigrants from Izmir, Istanbul, Chios
and other Aegean islands. With the territorial expansion of Greece in the
nineteenth century, further communities came under Greek r
