VII preface greece. PREface

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1 VII PREface In 1938, Joseph Nehama, one of Salonica s greatest historians and pedagogues in the period between the two World Wars and post-holocaust era, composed a book in Judeo-Spanish on the culture and history of Byzantium. This book is a fair reflection of the distress and cultural confusion characteristic of Greek Jewry in the interwar period. In this book, which begins with a series of popular lectures delivered at the B nei Brith social club in the city, Nehama aimed to present the Jews of Salonica with the formative events which shaped the culture of modern Greece. His having chosen to write the book in Judeo-Spanish still the prevailing language of the city s Jews is also significant. The book had another aim to draw the Jews closer to Greek culture and the Greek national narrative by highlighting cultural factors common to Jews and Greeks during the long history of mutual ties between the two nations and cultures. According to Nehama s discourse, a common past and cultural similarities had the power to ensure the coexistence of Jews and Greeks in modern Greece, Byzantium s successor ( J. Nehama, Bizansyo i Sivilizasyón Bizantina, Thessaloniki 1938). Nehama s attempt to convince his readers of the possibility of coexistence reflected the real distress felt by many Jews following the annexation of Salonica to Greece. Ties between Greeks and Jews, and between the two cultures, are of the longest existing between Jews and any European culture. The points of contact between Jews and Greeks were many and varied, and the mutual influences and cultural borrowings over the generations are beyond doubt. However, it seems that since the beginning of this relationship, the Greek and Jewish cultures were sometimes perceived as representatives of different, and even opposing, worldviews. This perception was consolidated mainly once the Greeks adopted Orthodox Christianity, which then became a central part of their identity. Even though Jews had always lived in Greece since the adoption of Christianity, the term Greek Jew was seen almost as an oxymoron. Moreover, although the Byzantine Jews, known as Romaniotes, used Judeo- Greek as their day-to-day language and main language of culture, following the arrival of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula in the Ottoman state at the end of the 15th century, most of the Jewish communities on Greek soil were Judeo-Spanish speaking, as the Sephardi Jews preserved their language. Apart from the small Romaniote communities, there was therefore a distinction between Jews and Greeks not only on a religious but also on a cultural and linguistic basis. This distinction was maintained throughout the entire Ottoman period. Even the growing openness of Jews to Western culture in the second half of the nineteenth century brought them no closer to Greek culture. Enlightened Jews in Salonica at the end of the Ottoman period, as well as speaking Judeo-Spanish, also spoke French and sometimes even Italian and German; there were also those who learned some Turkish. Very few local Jews thought of Greek as a language which carried with it any benefits. The Jews who lived within those areas of the Ottoman Empire which eventually were to be part of Greece became better acquainted with Greek language and culture only after the annexation to Greece. Most of the Greek Jews in the interwar period came under Greek rule only at the beginning of the twentieth century. The integration of Jews into Greek culture was usually achieved under legislative pressure exerted by the Greek state. It was also sometimes initiated by members of the community. In a chapter in this book, Katherine E. Fleming claims that it was only after the Second World War that a Jewish-Greek identity of any substance was formed. According to her, part of the formation of this identity took place in Israel. Various factors, such

2 VIII greece preface as the success of Greek music, the presence of assumed Greek-Jewish figures in the popular culture scene in Israel (such as Salomonico who starred in a number of films in the 1970s), as well as the story of Salonica Jewry which is studied in schools, primarily within the framework of Holocaust studies, created in the eyes of the Israeli public a familiar Jewish-Greek identity, albeit a stereotypical one. However, as can be seen in various chapters in the present volume, this image of a Greek identity prevailing among Greek Jewry or their descendents living outside Greece is, also today, far from being clear or coherent. The local identity that of a specific city or community of origin continues to play a central role in both collective memory and personal awareness. It is first and foremost the community of Salonica which serves as the example of a community which is defined, in the eyes of its sons and daughters, mainly against the backdrop of the cultural heritage and historical memory as shaped within the city. In Israel, the Jews of Salonica are identified primarily with their Jewish Sephardic heritage and with Greek culture. However, it should be kept in mind that many of the Jews of Salonican origin or their parents who live in Israel arrived there mostly in the 1930s. For them, Greek culture and awareness was only a small part of their identity mainly due to the fact that they were Greek citizens for no more than two decades at the most. This is even more noticeable in the case of the "Rodoslis", the Jews from the island of Rhodes. At the beginning of the twentieth century, about six thousand Judeo-Spanish speaking Jews lived on the island, which was still under Ottoman rule. Some of them also spoke French due to the activity of the Alliance Israélite Universelle organization there. After the island was transferred to Italian rule in 1912, Rhodes Jews underwent a rapid process of Italianization, and a few of them even moved to Italy, where they established a community of their own. In the 1930s, following a deterioration in the status of the Jews of Rhodes, which came under fascist rule (which was not of an anti- Semitic nature until 1938), thousands of the local Jewish community emigrated to South Africa, Rhodesia, the Belgian Congo and the United States. At the time of their deportation to Auschwitz by the Nazis in July 1944, less than 2,000 Jews remained on the island. Only a few survived. In 1947, when the island was annexed to Greece, only several dozen Jews remained. Almost anyone who sees themselves as a Jew from Rhodes lives elsewhere today and outside Greece. In spite of this, the connection between Jews from Rhodes and the island is strong even today, and the Rodosli diaspora is still able to support, through donations and frequent visits, Jewish religious institutions on the island, especially during Jewish holy days. The question is, therefore, to what degree do the Rodosli Jews view themselves as Greek Jews and what role does Greek identity play in their identity? There are also Romaniote Jews: Greek-speaking Jews who view themselves as Jews with the longest presence on Greek soil in the whole of Europe, in fact. The Ioannina community is a prominent example of a Romaniote community and the community most active today in the preservation of a Jewish Romaniotic identity. In regard to Ioannina as well is it possible to speak of a community which is mainly dispersed. Members of the community who have emigrated to the United States and Israel, as well as those who have relocated to Athens, alongside a small local community, have worked to enable the preservation of the Romaniote Jews unique culture language, customs, awareness and memory all differ from those of Greece s Jewish Sephardic communities even if this preservation concerns mainly the cultivation of memory. In the case of Ioannina s Jews, the connection to the city is manifest mainly in their identification with the local language, Judeo-Greek, which also forms a strong connection with the country s culture. In the case of the Jews of Corfu, another Jewish community with unique local cultural characteristics, there is a noticeable connection to Italian culture. This community, together with that of the nearby island, Zakynthos,

3 were the only Jewish communities in Greece which did not come under Ottoman rule, but were rather ruled for centuries by Venice. Only in the first half of the nineteenth century did Corfu, like all the Ionic islands, come under British protectorate before being annexed by Greece in Even though Sephardi Jews and Romaniote Jews lived alongside Italian Jews on the island, the links with Venice and Italian culture created among this community a unique awareness which gives these connections a prominent place in its identity. In fact, it was only after the Balkan Wars and the post-first World War treaties that all the Jewish communities indentified today with Greece (apart from that of Rhodes) came under the rule of the Greek state. The interwar decades were therefore the first time when all the communities were under the same rule and faced with attempts to integrate them into the Greek state. The state and Greek society at that time were bringing pressure to bear upon non-greek speaking minorities to integrate culturally and linguistically. The state education system and mandatory military service either imposed or enabled a gradual process of Hellenization among the various Jewish communities. In the late 1930s, the younger generation of Greek Jews began to integrate into Greek culture and to adopt the language. Interestingly, it was during the time of the right-wing dictatorship of Ioannis Metaxas ( ) that many Jews felt that they were indeed Greek citizens of equal standing. For most of Greek Jewry, the Holocaust ended this process of cultural acclimatization, and diabolically, the catastrophe of the Holocaust was to be the first major event shared by all of Greek Jewry. The various communities, however, faced different fates: some, chief among them Salonica, were destroyed entirely, and only a handful of people survived. There were also other communities which, although greatly harmed, more than half of their members survived; this was the case of Athens community. On the other hand, the small community of Zakynthos came through the war unscathed. The Holocaust dealt a lethal blow to the Jews of Greece, but Jewish life there continued, and the story of Greek Jewry in the twentieth century is also the story of the rehabilitation and rebuilding of some of these communities. From a demographical point of view, the Jews of Greece are but a shadow of the Jewish life that once existed there Jews in Greece today number less than 10% of their number in the interwar period. However, there are at the present time active communities with various sustainable organizations and institutions which are able to ensure Jewish communal life in Athens, Salonica, Larissa and a few other small communities. These communities are all Greek-speaking and mainly secular, but local Jewish identity continues to play an important part linking members of the community to institutions, historical memory and pride in a unique heritage. It is possible that the community of Athens the largest in Greece today but also the youngest, since most of its members are immigrants or descendents of immigrants from other places in Greece is the only one which views itself first and foremost as Greek and only secondly as indentifying itself with its locality. But even the Jews of Athens still preserve identities which connect the members of the community with their or their parents origins elsewhere in Greece. This volume examines various aspects of Jewish life and identity in Greece in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The chapters of this volume reflect the impact of two main processes: the transition from a multi-national, multi-religious empire the Ottoman state to a Greek national state, and the process of modernization undergone by the communities. The growing openness to Western culture, especially in its French guise, and its integration into the local culture, transformed Greek Jewry in the period examined in this volume. This was a gradual and multi-faceted process which began in the Ottoman period and continued under the Greek state. Other religious groups in the Ottoman state were undergoing similar processes. Generally speaking, one could say that as long as the Ottoman state held sway over areas such as Salonica, IX

4 X attitudes toward the Jewish Sephardic tradition as it developed in the Ottoman state ranged from acceptance to indifference, on behalf of both Jewish and non-jewish society. The transition to a Greek state brought about a change in this respect, and the Greek national narrative viewed the Jewish Sephardic culture, like the Ottoman heritage, as manifestations of Oriental backwardness and foreignness, and they were perceived as cultural elements which could no longer exist in the Greek state. Through a discussion of historical, social and cultural processes which took place in Jewish communities in Greece over the last 200 years, the various chapters in this volume aim to describe the changes these communities underwent, while paying attention to the differences between them and the diversity within the communities in Greece. One of the main purposes of this volume is to present the cultural diversity of the Jewish communities in Greece. In light of the size of the community in Salonica, its cultural richness and the amount of attention given to it by scholarship, most of the discussion in the chapters of this volume focuses on this community. In spite of this, we have tried as much as possible to combine the stories of other communities and cultures prevailing among Greek Jewry. This was achieved by appealing to scholars living and working in Greece, Britain, the United States and Canada. It is my hope that this book will encourage further research which will shed light on other Jewish communities in Greece. The volume on Greece, like all others in this series on Jewish Communities in the East, is the result of cooperation between the Ben-Zvi Institute and the Ministry of Education and it is a project founded on the work of many. The list of thanks would be too long for me to recount here in full. I do wish, however, to thank the colleagues without whom this project would never have been completed. My thanks and appreciation go of course to the various contributors who gave of their extensive knowledge and even wrote new studies intended specifically for this book. I owe special thanks to Ms. Zanet Battinou, the director of the Jewish Museum of Greece in Athens, for her warm and professional cooperation and for her response to our every request. I would also like to thank Mr. Moshe Zafrani, the Director of the Heritage Wing, The Ministry of Education, who has accompanied this series from its inception; thanks also to the staff of the Ben-Zvi Institute: Dr. Haim Saadoun, who initiated and shaped the Jewish Communities series and laid a solid foundation for the Greece volume as well; to Mr. Michael Glazter, Dr. Miriam Frenkel, Dr. Menashe Anzi and Ms. Sarit Noy, who assisted greatly in the reading and proofing stages, and encouraged and supported the production of the volume; to Dr. Dov Cohen, who assisted in the location and translation of documents in Judeo-Spanish; to the staff of Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi's Library, who put at our disposal texts from the Library s rich and unique Ladino collection. The late Professor Yom Tov Assis convinced me to take on the editorship of this volume, accompanied the work, was involved in the various stages of its preparation and helped us overcome all obstacles with his sage advice, good spirits and every kind of support. Unfortunately, he did not live to see the publication of this volume. May his memory be blessed. Professor Meir M. Bar-Asher, long may he live, was the Director of the Institute during the final months of its preparation, and I thank him for all help during the last months of the work on the volume. A large share of my thanks and appreciation go to the dedicated staff of the Jewish Communities Project at the Ben-Zvi Institute. My student, Mr. Eyal Berlovich, accompanied the volume from its beginning and assisted greatly in the editorial work. His erudition and devotion made sharing the editorial load possible. About a year ago, he left the project for other employment and his place was taken by Ms. Yael Aizic. Even though Yael joined us at the later stages of the production of this volume, she quickly became part of the

5 XI project and thanks to her extensive knowledge and sensitivity to detail and accuracy made many contributions. Her sharp eye and attention to detail have allowed us to present a volume clearer of typos and factual errors. Ms. Dafna Lavi was charged with the style editing, but did not limit herself to matters of style and language. Her critical and considered reading of the various chapters also drew attention to essential issues related to content. Working with her has been, for me, a learning experience from which I have gained much. Dr. Gitit Holzman translated from English those chapters written by contributors whose mother tongue is not Hebrew. Dr. Nehama Baruch translated the chapter on Judeo-Greek from English. Dr. Nivi Gomel worked intensively on the transcription and translation of Ladino, and Mr. Shay Eshel was charged with the transcription and transliteration of Greek. Ms. Tal Pockard-Tsalel gave the volume its gracious design. Finally, it is my happy duty to extend special thanks to Ms. Naama Shai-Katrieli. During the years I worked on the Greece volume, I witnessed her great devotion, patience, extensive knowledge and rich experience all attributes which contributed greatly to the production of the volume in all its stages. As well as managing all the various stages of the production, Naama was also charged with the research necessary to supply the photographs which are vital to this book. It is my view that Naama s contribution to the volume is priceless. The Greek volume is the largest in the series. This is not a reflection of the relative importance of the Greek community or of its size. The size of the volume is, in the main, a reflection of the historical and cultural diversity of the Jewish communities in Greece, as well as of the terrible impact of the Holocaust on these communities. Accordingly, the production of this volume called for additional financial resources beyond those put at our disposal by the Ben-Zvi Institute and the Ministry of Education. It is therefore my pleasant duty to thank the Claims Conference; the Carasso Family and Carasso Group; Misgav Yerushalayim, The Center for Research and Study of Sephardi and Oriental Jewish Heritage at The Mandel Institute, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and Rachel Nahmias-Gaon, Eli Nahmias and their families for their financial support of this volume. Finally, on a personal note, since my childhood, Salonica has never been merely a dot on the map. As far as I am able to reconstruct my childhood memories, I learned to know the city and its Jews while sitting next to my late grandmother, Miriam Ginio, and leafing with her through old photograph albums. While looking at these albums and trying my hand at recognizing various family members, I came across pages of black-and-white photos of children more or less my age, dressed up for Purim (it was only while editing the present volume did I discover that these photos were probably taken for the Greek carnival), playing or strolling through unfamiliar landscapes. These children all smiled confidently at the camera. When I tried to identify them as well, my grandmother said quietly that they were all dead. I think that this same incomprehensible knowledge is what led me, in my adult life, to deal at some length with Salonica and its history. These children were my distant relatives. My father s family left Salonica in the mid-nineteenth century and settled first in Hebron and then in Jerusalem, but most of the Ginio family remained in Salonica. The family in Jerusalem and the family in Salonica stayed in touch, and in the inter-war period visited each other and corresponded, sending letters and photographs. Almost the entire family from Salonica perished in the Holocaust. Therefore, and with due humility, I dedicate this volume to the memory of the Greek Jews who died in the Holocaust, among them the Ginio family. Eyal Ginio Jerusalem, July 2014