BOOK PUBLICATIONS

Books of Jewish Interest

Title: “Like hunted birds” Greek Jews after WWII

General Coordination: Zanet Battinou
Publication Editing: Dr. Eleni Beze
ISBN: 978-618-85829-9-6
Pages: 96
Publisher: The Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens 2025

This publication accompanies the temporary exhibition of the Jewish Museum of Greece titled “Like hunted birds” Greek Jews after WWII. It focuses on the reconstruction of the Greek-Jewish communities from the first years after World War II and the Holocaust through to the late 1970s. The post-war history of the Greek Jewry is for the first time introduced to the public discourse and dialogue, while at the same time offering a sense of hope and continuity after the immense destruction of the Holocaust.

Title: JEWISH INSCRIPTIONS

General Coordination: Zanet Battinou
Catalogue Editor: Anastasia Loudarou
ISBN: 978-618-85829-8-9
Pages: 80
Publisher: The Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens 2023

Continuing its recent successful cultural activities, the Jewish Museum of Greece is presenting the exhibition titled “Jewish Inscriptions”, consisting of selected epigraphic material under a long-term loan with the approval of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and its services. These inscriptions have been included in the museum’s permanent exhibition, strengthening and expanding the broad character of its collections. The inscriptions assist in the exploration of the early settlement of the Jews in Greece not as an isolated historical event, but as an integral component within a wider historical, geographical and chronological context. The aim of the new museum project, which includes nine (9) selected inscriptions from mainland and island Greece now on display in the museum’s “Makis (Samuel) Matsas and Maurice Saltiel” Hall, is to highlight Greece’s multicultural past, to present the archaeological evidence for one of Europe’s most ancient religious and cultural communities and to contribute to the museum’s desire for continuous and active promotion of inscriptions as significant pieces of historical evidence. The exhibition is accompanied by concise thematic bilingual texts and photographs, which clearly and eloquently reveal various aspects of the social, religious, political and cultural life of the Jewish communities of Late Antiquity. The exhibition also features an installation of the digital edition (e-book) of 108 Jewish inscriptions from Greece, based on the Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum Graeciae, a published corpus of Jewish inscriptions from mainland and island Greece. This new exhibition, as well as the accompanying bilingual catalogue from Melissa Publications, has been financed by the German Federal Foreign Office from the German-Greek Future Fund and with the support of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and its services, which granted permission to exhibit archaeological material under the authority of the Ministry of Culture. The Jewish Museum of Greece extends its heartfelt thanks to all its partners for their long-term and fruitful cooperation and for their essential support of its work.

Title: A Jewish Officer on the Asia Minor Front
UNPUBLISHED ACCOUNTS OF THE ATHENIAN SECOND LIEUTENANT DANIEL SEVILLIAS’ WAR ACTION AND DEATH

Edited, translated and introduction: Charalampos Minassidis
ISBN: 978-618-85829-7-2
Pages: 152
Publisher: The Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens 2023

Daniel Sevillia’s diary, as well as the archival material related to his life and action, constitute rare documents about the Asia Minor Campaign and, at the same time, about the catastrophic social changes that took place in Greece in the first decades of the 20th century. Reserve Second Lieutenant Daniel Sevillia of the Greek Army was not the only Greek officer of Jewish faith on the Asia Minor front, but his bravery, for which he received numerous honors, was considered incomparable by his superiors. He fought for months on the front lines and fell in battle on October 7, 1921. The publication includes the surviving part of his diary, which sheds light, from a microhistorical perspective, on the Asia Minor Campaign and the daily life of Greek officers. In addition, it is accompanied by extensive excerpts from the memoirs of his younger brother, Elias Sevillia, which reveal how his family viewed the fallen hero and how deeply his death affected them. These two texts are framed historically by Charalambos Minasidis in the extensive introduction to the publication. Photographs and documents from the military life of Daniel Sevillia from the collections and archives of the Hellenic Military Museum complete the book, which is available in two languages, Greek and English, with historical editing by Charalambos Minasidis.

Title: Jews in the Byzantine Emprie

Author: Nicholas de Lange
Editor: Anastasia Loudarou
ISBN: 978-618-85829-1-0
Publisher: The Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens 2022

Byzantine Judaism is one of the most unjustly neglected chapters in the history of Judaism. Most histories of the Jews barely mention Byzantium, and treat it as marginal. In fact Byzantium occupies the centre of the medieval Jewish world, and is in important ways the hub that links together the better-known regions (Iraq, Egypt, Italy, Germany and others). Judaism, which had very old roots in the Roman empire, was challenged and enriched by the encounter with Christianity. Most histories of Byzantium likewise ignore the Jewish dimension and focus exclusively on the Orthodox Church, ignoring the fact that Christianity grew out of Judaism and continued to be nourished by it.

Title: Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum Graeciae Corpus of Jewish and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mainland and Island Greece (late 4th c. BCE–15th century)

Editor: Zanet Battinou
Dimensions: 21 x 28.5 cm
Pages: 315pp.
ISBN: 978-960-88853-9-4
Publisher: The Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens 2018

The compilation of Jewish and Hebrew inscriptions is part of the research programs of the Jewish Museum of Greece, which focus on the recording, study and publication of tangible and intangible evidence of the archaeological and historical past of the Greek Jews.
The publication gathers all the epigraphic material of Jewish interest or content located in the Greek geographical area. The geographical distribution and division of the corpus of Jewish and Hebrew inscriptions generally follows the current location of the inscriptions, with the aim of facilitating researchers and scholars. Each inscription is accompanied, in addition to a photographic image, by an entry, divided into individual recording fields.
Aimed at the general public as well as the specialist audience of archaeologists, historians, educators, academics and researchers, the publication serves the historical record and documentation of the long-standing presence, as well as the distribution of Jewish settlements in the Greek lands.

Title: A Narrative of Evil

Author: Lisa Pinhas
ISBN: 978-960-88853-8-7
Publisher: The Jewish Museum of Greece, 2014

She was 27, married, and running a fur shop in the Greek city of Thessaloniki when she was deported to Auschwitz in April 1943. Lisa Pinhas (1916-1980) lost over 100 relatives in the Shoah. Her pledge to save her younger sister, Marie, and to be a witness if she managed to escape from hell gave Lisa the power to survive. Auschwitz, Birkenau, death marches, Ravensbrück, Rechlin, Malchow, liberation in 1945, and then only to return to a city that had shed no tears for her and her co-religionists who had perished in the camps. In the postwar period, Lisa carried her trauma, anger, guilt and despair with dignity and wisdom as she took up leadership roles in the areas of Holocaust compensation, remembrance, and education. To learn is to remember was one of Lisa’s credos. For 30 years, she wrote and re-wrote her memoir, an unadorned testimony of hell and the ways in which humanity was almost extinguished in the universe of the camps. Lisa’s terrifying story – the slow extermination of detainees through hard labour, medical experiments, acts of sadism, sexual abuse, illness and starvation famine, while corpses of gassed victims were burned in the crematoria – is told conscientiously and courageously. This account has a rare quality of moral honesty. Lisa tells the story of herself and millions of others, who fought to preserve their humanity while making painful compromises to keep themselves alive for one more day. Her appointment to the Kanada Kommando, a warehouse where the belongings of gassed Jews were sorted for shipment to Germany, was a mixed blessing. At the risk of death, Lisa stole and traded precious items for food and medication. In the 1980s, Lisa’s niece, Nana-Mazaltov Moissi, deposited the unpublished manuscript in the museum’s archive and her testimony is being published in three languages. In an era of increased antisemitism and racism, Lisa Pinhas’ gripping account of the camps, as well as her postwar story, are indispensable and timely contributions to our understanding of the victimisation, survival and postwar normality experienced by Jewish men and women. As the few remaining eyewitnesses pass away and the deeply troubling hatred against the Jews persists, a call Lisa made in 1970 – “REMEMBER… DO NOT ALLOW OBLIVION” – acquires a new meaning and urgency.

Title: The Jewish Museum of Greece Guide

Dimensions: 20×26,5 cm
Pages: 288
Images: 354
Available in English and Greek
Available in paperback and hardcover
ISBN Greek Edition: 978-960-88853-5-6
ISBN English Edition: 978-960-88853-6-3
Publisher: The Jewish Museum of Greece, 2013

Through the presentation of more than 200 exhibits, augmented by images, scientific monographs and notes, the Guidebook of Jewish Museum of Greece introduces the richness and variety of its collections, offering a timeless, representative image of the history and art of the Greek Jews. Based on the exhibits themselves, documented and analyzed by the Museum’s experts and internationally recognized specialists, 2.300 years of Jewish presence in Greece are traced back, revealing for the first time to such an extent, a world which despite the chasm left behind by the Holocaust, persists in preserving its colourful tiles, within the Greek cultural mosaic.

Title: Nazi Germany and the Jews – Volume 1: The Years of Persecution 1933-1939

Author: Saul Friedlander
ISBN: 978-960-435-348-4
Translation in Greek: Ilia Iatrou
Publisher for the Greek version: Polis Publishers
Source: http://www.gbip.gr/book/191400

Author:Marios Sousis ¹
ISBN 978-618-80464-0-5
Publisher:Turangalila books, 2013.
Source: http://www.gbip.gr/book/186179

Collective work
Editor:Stavros Zoumpoulakis ¹
Ιntroduction:Mitropolitou Alexandroupoleos K. Anthimou ¹, Pavlos Mitropolitis Sisaniou Kai Siatistis ¹, Mitropolitis Messinias Chrysostomos Savvatos ¹, Stavros Giagkazoglou ¹, Stavros Zoumpoulakis ¹, Vasileios Thermos ¹, Giorgos Kalantzis ¹
ISBN 978-960-8053-41-0
Publisher: Artos Zois, 2013
Source: http://www.gbip.gr/book/188621

Title: “Το dendro vlepei” (Les arbres pleurent aussi)

Author: Irène Cohen – Janca
Translation in Greek: Mariza Decastro
Illustration: Maurizio Quarello
ISBN: 978-618-5005-07-8
Publisher for the Greek version: Publications Kokkino, Kalamata 2012 – www.ekdoseis-kokkino.gr
Source: www.biblionet.gr/book

Title: The Penguin Dictionary of Judaism

Συγγραφέας: Nicholas de Lange
ISBN: 9780141917108
Εκδότης: Penguin Books – www.penguin.co.uk

The Penguin Dictionary of Judaism is a remarkable feat of Reference scholarship by renowned Cambridge professor and translator, Nicholas de Lange. With an approachable A-Z format the book covers everything from Jewish traditions and biographical entries on key historical figures to theology, religious law and practice, and the history of Jewish thought. Each entry is presented with clarity, precision and authority. With extensive cross-referencing and invaluable additional material such as a chronology of Judaism and the Jewish calendar, this is an essential companion for students of Jewish studies, Hebrew, Religion and Theology plus anyone with a general interest in this rich religion.
Πηγή: http://www.penguin.co.uk

Title: The emergence of a difficult memory: Essays on the Jewish Genocide

Author: Odette Varon – Vassard
ISBN 978-960-05-1548-0
Publisher:HestiaPublishers (http://www.hestia.gr/catalogue.pdf, www.hestia.gr)

Facing the traumatic event of the genocide of the Jews, which was planned and executed by the Nazis and their collaborators in the middle of the 20^th century and in the heart of civilized Europe, leaving a stain on European history forever, historians, sociologists, political scientists and psychoanalysts attempt to reach out and interpret in different ways what was consider for decades as “the untold”. The memory of this historical event because of the fact that it emerged slowly, triggered intensive debate, a variety of approaches, and disputes.

The collection of essays in this volume (written during a period of twenty years) illustrate the progress of the author’s research and critical reflection, who approaches the issue of the genocide of the Jews from different aspects.The thread running through the texts is the excruciating question which arises once more, that is the slow emergence of this memory and the reasons for oblivion and silence.

Seven texts deal with the extermination of the Greek Jews, suggesting an interpretive sketch of both the displacement and the silence that followed the events. Particular emphasis is given to Thessaloniki, from where the largest Jewish Community of Greece was deported. The imprint of the event on testimonies, historiography and literature is studied separately. The dialectic of memory and oblivion, silence and writing, are examined both in the testimonies of the survivors and in the major texts of concentration camp literature, such as Primo Levi’s regarding Jewish memory and Jorge Semprun’s regarding the memory of political prisoners.

The heavy silence of the first decades after the war was succeeded by an “explosion” of survivors’ testimonies, then came the scientific approach and in the last decades the institutionalization of this memory. The most recent texts refer to memorial places, museums, monuments and memorial days.