Romaniotes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Romaniotes |
|---|
| Total population |
|
nn |
| Regions with significant populations |
| Greece: 6,000 (estimate) |
| Languages |
| Greek, Yevanic and the local languages of the areas where they live. |
| Religions |
| Judaism |
| Related ethnic groups |
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The Romaniotes (Greek: Ρωμανιώτες) are a Jewish population who have lived in the territory of today's Greece for more than 2000 years. Their language is Greek. Large communities were located in Thebes, Ioannina, Chalcis, Corfu, Arta, Corinth and on the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes and Cyprus, among others. The Romaniotes are historically distinct from the Sephardim, who settled in Greece after the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain.
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[edit] History
The earliest reference to a Greek Jew is in an inscription, dated c. 300-250 BCE found in Oropos, a small coastal town between Athens and Boeotia, and refers to him as "Moschos, son of Moschion the Jew" who may have been a slave [1]. The Romaniotes are Greek Jews, distinct from both Ashkenazim and Sephardim. Jews have lived in Greece possibly as early as the Babylonian exile. A Romaniote oral tradition traces the first Jews to arrive in Ioannina to shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70.
Benjamin of Tudela records the existence of Jews in Corfu, Arta, Aphilon, Patras, Corinth, Thebes, Chalcis, Thessaloniki and Drama. The largest community was in Thebes, where he found c. 2000 Jews. They engaged mostly in cloth dyeing, weaving and making silk garments. These Jews were at that time known as "Romaniotes".
When the waves of Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 settled in Ottoman Empire Greece, they were richer, prouder and more cultivated, separating themselves from Romaniotes. Thessaloniki, a city in northern Greece, had one of the largest (mostly Sephardic) Jewish Communities in the world and a solid rabbinical tradition. On the island of Crete, the Jews played an important part in the transport trade.
Eventually, most of the Romaniote communitites were assimilated by the more numerous Sephardim. Remnants of the Romaniotes have survived in Ioannina (Epirus) and the USA (Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue in New York City, built in 1927, is a gathering spot for these Greek Jews). The Romaniotes had their distinct customs, very different from those of the Sephardic Jews; unlike the Sephardic Jews, they did not speak Ladino, but the Yevanic Greek dialect and Greek. Romaniote scholars translated the Tanakh into Greek (see Septuagint).
At the beginning of the 20th century the Romaniote community of Ioannina numbered approximately 4000 people, mostly lower class tradesmen and craftsmen. Economic emigration caused their numbers to dwindle and at the eve of World War II there were approximately 1950 Romaniotes left in Ioannina. Centered around the old fortified part of the city (or Kastro), where the community had been living for centuries, they maintained two synagogues, one of which, the Kehila Kedosha Yashan Synagogue still remains today.
[edit] World War II and the Jewish Holocaust
During World War II, when Greece was occupied by the Axis, 86% of the Greek Jews, especially those in the areas occupied by Nazi Germany and Bulgaria, were murdered despite efforts by the Greek Orthodox Church and many Christian Greeks to shelter Jews. Although the Germans and Bulgarians deported a great number of Greek Jews, many were hidden by their Greek neighbours. Despite this though, roughly 49,000 Jews were deported from Thessaloniki alone and exterminated.
The Romaniotes were protected by the Greek government until the Nazi occupation. During the occupation the Romaniotes could use the Greek language better and more efficiently than the Sephardim, who spoke Ladino and whose Greek had a distinct, "singing" accent. That made the Sephardim more vulnerable as targets, and was one of the many factors that led to such great losses among Sephardic communities. In Ioannina 1860 out of 1950 Jews were deported to Auschwitz and Birkenau in April 1944. Most of them were exterminated by the Nazis.
The creation of the state of Israel in 1948, combined with the Greek Civil War, was the final episode in the history of the Romaniotes, the majority of whom migrated to Israel or the USA.
[edit] Present day
Today a small number of Romaniotes live in Greece, mainly in Yannena (Ioannina), in Israel and the U.S.A. (mainly New York). Greek Jews historically tended to follow the Jerusalem Talmud instead of the Babylonian Talmud, and developed their own Minhag and their own variety of Greek language, so called Yevanic.
There are approximately 4,500 to 6,000 Jews living in Greece today, both from the Romaniotes and the Sephardi subgroups. The majority now live in Athens.[citation needed]
[edit] Activities and Synagogues
[edit] In Greece
Romaniote Jews are now mostly concentrated in Ioanninia and Athens.
[edit] Ioannina
In Ioannina, the remaining Romaniote community has withered to a number of 50 mostly elderly people. The Kehila Kedosha Yashan Synagogue remains locked, only opened for visitors on request. Immigrant Romaniotes return every summer and open the old synagogue. The last time a Bar Mitzvah (the Jewish ritual for celebrating the Coming of age of a child) was held in the synagogue was in 2000, and was an exceptional event for the community. [2]
[edit] Athens
The Ioanniotiki Synagogue, situated behind the Jewish Community of Athens offices at #8 Melidoni St., is the only Romaniote synagogue in Athens. Built in 1903, it has services only during the High Holy Days, but is opened for visitors on request through the Jewish Community office.
[edit] In the United States
Only one Romaniote synagogue is operation in the entire Western Hemisphere: Kehila Kedosha Janina, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where it is used by the Romaniote emmigrant community.
[edit] Kehila Kedosha Yashan Synagogue
The synagogue is located in the cradle of Romaniote culture, Ioannina, in the old fortified part of the city known as "Kastro", at 16 Iounstinianou street. Its name means "the Old Synagogue". It was constructed in 1829, most probably over the ruins of an older synagogue. Its architecture is typical of the Ottoman era, a large building made of stone. The interior of the synagogue is laid out in the Romaniote way: the Bimah (where the Torah scrolls are read out during service) is on a raised dais on the western wall, the Aron Kodesh (where the Torah scrolls are kept) is on the eastern wall and at the middle there is a wide interior aisle. The names of the Ioanniote Jews who were killed in the Holocaust are engraved in stone on the walls of the synagogue.
[edit] Notable Romaniotes
- Rae Dalven, a prominent Romaniotissa, particularly noted for her translation of Modern Greek poetry.
- Amalia Vaka, a singer of Greek traditional and rembetic songs with a successful career in the United States.
[edit] See also
- Jews in Greece
- Judaism
- Yevanic language, the Judeo-Greek dialect of the Romaniotes.
- Thessaloniki and Ioannina, the two cities in Greece with the most prominent Jewish communities.
- Kehila Kedosha Janina, a Romaniote synagogue in New York
[edit] External links
- Vincent Giordano, Before the Flame Goes Out: A Document of the Romaniote Jews of Ioannina and New York, sponsored by The International Survey of Jewish Monuments.
- Kehila Kedosha Janina, Romaniote Synagogue in New York (official site)
- The Holocaust in Greece, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Edward Victor, Ioannina, Greece: account of the Kehila Kedosha Yashan Synagogue in Ioannina, with photos. (personal site)
- Deborah S. Esquenazi, The pre-Ashkenazi and Sephardi Romaniote Jews, Jerusalem Post Magazine, October 5, 2006.
[edit] References
- Rae Dalven, "The Jews of Ioannina", Cadmus Press (1989), ISBN 0-930685-03-2
