The Jewish Community of Ioannina

The Jewish Community of Ioannina
The Jews of Ioannina
http://yiannina.tripod.com/Romaniotes.html
                          
OUR  HISTORY

Oral tradition in loannina maintains that the first Jews who settled in the
 area did so in 70 CE, after the destruction of the Second Temple in 
Jerusalem. 
According to the tradition, the Roman emperor Titus, after capturing Jerusalem 
in September 70, was transporting many jews to Rome as slaves when his ship 
was driven by a storm onto the Albanian coast. 
Instead of throwing his captives into the sea, he allowed them to disembark,
 and they eventually made their way  to the area in which loannina later was
 established.
Rae Dalven
                                                                               
                             
JANINA


   According to an old tradition, there was a jewish community in Janina as
 early as the ninth century; the archaic Greek spoken by the jewish 
inhabitants suggests that this may be true. The janina community is the
 largest and most representative Romaniote Greek jewish community,whose
 members are descendants of the Greek Jews living in the Byzantine Empire. 
The jews of janina reigned over the now extinct jewish communities in Arta, 
Preveza, and Parga.
During the first half of the 13th century the town was part of the despotate
 of Epirus and the jewish community suffered from persecutions. 
Jewish serfs are mentioned in two bulls, dated 1319 and 1321 respectively,
 issued by Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus (1282-1328).
 During his reign the emperor placed the Jews under his direct protection. 
In 1431 when  the town was taken by the Turks, there was a sizable Jewish
 community which continued to grow  in succeeding generations. When jewis
 refugees from Spain settled there, they assimilated into the local Romaniote
 population and adopted their Greek dialect. There were two synagogues, 
one known as the "old community", the other as the "new". In 1612 the Jews
 were falsely  accused of having handed Bishop Dionysios, the leader of a
 revolt, over to the Turkish  authorities,who executed him. Ali Pasha, who 
as governor of the area from 1788 to 1822, imposed a heavy tax burden on 
the wealthy Jews.In 1821 when the Greek rebellion broke out, some jews 
found refuge in Janina.
In 1872 there were anti-Jewish riots in the town. In 1919 the jewish
 population was 3,000, and on the eve of the Holocaust it was 1,950. 
On March 25, 1944,1,860 Jews were seized by  the Nazis and deported to 
Auschwitz.
 In 1948 there were 170 jews living in the town,  and by 1967 their number
 had dwindled to 92. By the 1990's only approximately 45 remained.
  In the past Janina Jews maintained trade relations with Europe and the 
East, and also engaged in silk weaving and the manufacture of scarves, veils
 and silver belts; there were also goldsmiths, dyers, glaziers, tinsmiths,
fishermen, and coachmen among them.
The jewish quarter is located within the walls of the old city. it includes 
the area to the right of Joseph Eliyia Street. It was also named 
"Megali Rouga", which means "Big Road".
 The old synagogue within the fortress walls is preserved by loanniote jews 
from around the world.
janina (French spelling) is also spelled loannina (purist Greek), Yannina
 (Demotic Greek) and Yanya (Turkish).
                                  
                       
                      
kahal     Kadosh   Yashan
Janina  (Ioannina)



  Oral history claims that Jews inhabited the Epirus area from the period 
just after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 7OCE. 
The earliest documented evidence of a Jewish presence in janina is recorded
 from the 9th century.
When Sephardim arrived after the expulsion from Spain, there was so much 
friction with the Romaniote community that the original community petitioned
 the high rabbi in Constantinople to forbid other jews from settling or 
doing business in janina.
The original synagogue just within the fortress walls was built in the 
17th century. 
Kahal Kadosh Yashan was built on the same site in 1829. The wall and gate 
surrounding the building and its courtyard were built in the late 19th century.
  The Romaniote building has some typical features: An arbor was naturally 
built in the courtyard as a supporting frame for a Sukkah; the ehal is on 
the east wall with the bimah  on the west; women had an outside entrance
to the balcony; the seating arrangement is along the central axis, east-west.
  During the German occupation the synagogue was turned into a municipal
 library. Much of the synagogue's artifacts were hidden in a crypt until 
the war was over.
A second synagogue, Kahal Kadosh Hadash, was built in 1841 as the jewish
 community expanded outside the castro. The Nazis turned that into a stable
 and it was razed around the end of the war.
Most of the remaining Jewish population resides in the building constructed
 on the site on Joseph Eliyia Street.
Kehia Kedosha janina and Bet Abraham and Ohel Sarah each have a torah 
donated by the  janina jewish community.
      
                 
 Kehila  Kedosha  Janina
 New York City



At the turn of the century, a group of our parents and grandparents began 
to emigrate to the United States. In 1906, they organized themselves by 
forming a minyan group to perpetuate their heritage and traditions. 
The second important facet to the community was a burial society. 
The congregation was called Kehila Kedosha janina, so named after the 
town of loannina in Greece, from whence they came. The benevolent society 
was originally  called Society of Love and Brotherhood. The Kehila still 
bears its original name and the benevolent society is now known as the 
United Brotherhood/Good Hope Society of Janina.
After many years of conducting services in temporary facilities, 
Joseph I. josephs, the founder of our Kehi Ia, with the financial support 
of the community, finally found and built the permanent synagogue at its
 current address.
There are elements of Romaniote and Sephardic background in the building,
 yet it's polar-axial is north-south and not the traditional east-west.  
(That may have been a prior restriction because the lot is narrow east-west)
The bimah facing the ark from a center  position is Sephardic. The seats 
running parallel along the sides of the bimah is reminiscent of the Janina 
synagogue. The women's section taking up three sides of the balcony is 
Romaniote.
The torahs are encased in ornate olive wood or metal tiks, distinctly 
Romaniote. One originally was brought as a gift from Janina(another Sefer 
Torah from janina is in the jerusalem Synagogue.)
The years from 1927 to the beginning of World War II were the most 
successful for the Kehi Ia. There were three rabbis conducting services:
 jessula Mordechai Levy, Simon Menachem Asser and Jessula Moshe HaCohen
 The services drew a goodly crowd so much so that during the high holy days
 it was standing room only. After the war, however, there was an exodus to
 the other boroughs and Long Island and membership dwindled. But, there was 
an influx of new immigrants who came to our shores after surviving World 
War II and the Holocaust, who helped augment our congregation once again. 
Kehila Kedosha Janina is still a functioning synagogue. In fact, the ONLY 
one conducting services in the Greek/Judeo minhag in the country. Services, 
are held every Saturday morning and all holidays. Without a rabbi, the 
congregation, led by President Hy Genee, conducts its own service.
As the Romaniote community expanded, a minyan spread to Harlem and later,
 a synagogue to The Bronx. In Brooklyn, the Sephardic Jewish Center synagogue 
in the Maplewood section was opened by Romaniotes. Both synagogues have 
since closed.

                                   
                     
 The Holocaust  and   Greek Jewry 




Greece did not necessarily want to enter the war, but with the incursion 
of Italy into Epirus from Albania in 1940, the country had no choice. 
President Metaxa's famous "Oxi", no, became the rallying cry to push the 
Italians back into their own province and became the main reason for
 Germany's attack. Swooping through Yugoslavia in ten days, it took a month to
 overwhelm  Greece.
 The Country was split into three areas. Germany took Macedonia, including 
Salonica, and the very Eastern part of Thrace, some of the Northern islands,
 Crete, and coadministered Athens with Italy. Most of Thrace and part of 
Macedonia was ceded to Bulgaria, while the rest of Greece came under Italian
 control.
 While Italy remained in the war, its Jews were relatively safe. It was 
another story in the Bulgarian and German sectors. In trying to "Bulgarize" 
the sector, Jews in that section had a choice to renounce their faith or 
face expulsion. Most chose the latter. (Many of the Jews in Bulgaria itself 
were saved which is an irony in itself.)
On the night of March 3, 1943, 4,200 Jews in the Bulgarian sector were 
rounded up and sent to Kavala. From there they were transported through 
Gorna Dzhumaya to Lom, Bulgaria, put on boats headed up the Danube to 
Vienna, where they were transferred to German authority. Final destination:
 Treblinka.
The Germans, between March 15, 1943, and the end of August, 1943, decimated
 the Jewish population in their sector including the approximately 56,000
 living in Salonica. From the Baron Hirsch Concentration Camp, the railway
 route led to Vienna as well. The jews of the Italian zone fared better 
until Italy surrendered in September of 1943. It was then that the complete
 extermination of Greek Jewry began its final phase.
 March 25 (Greek Independence Day) 1944 is remembered quite vividly by the
 jews of Athens  and most all of the provincial towns formally administered
 by Italian forces. Most Jews were sent to the Haidari Concentration Camp
 in Athens and by rail north to Auschwitz. 
Others from  janina went through Trikkala to Larissa and then north by rail 
to the same destination. The 20-day trip from Corfu (roundup in June of 1944) 
was by boat and rail and in some areas like Zakinthos, most of the jews 
were saved by righteous, yet the community was completely  devastated by
 earthquakes in the 1950's.
 Athens gained in numbers after the war as victims returned to the capital.
The total statistics vary. Some sources say that 89% of all Greek Jews 
perished. The statistics posted in the janina jewish community office are
 slightly different since they hadn't included  some of the cities.

                             
 The Greek Language

 Although Greek was spoken in the synagogue outside of the actual service
 which was in Hebrew, a judeo-Greek language had evolved where:
 1)Many Hebrew words had Greek endings ie: Chanukkah was the root for 
Chanukaria (menorah)  and chanukaria (candles).
 2)It contains elements of Aramaic and later, Turkish.
 3)It was written with Hebrew characters.

 During the Nazi occupation of Greece, some Jews communicated with each
 other in Judeo-Greek as a protective measure. Romaniote jews, post 
World War II, spoke standard Greek with a Hebrew influence.
There are several collections of judeoGreek hymns one of which is 
"Yanniotika Evraika Traghoudhia" compiled by Joseph Matsas.
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The Jewish Community of Ioannina
