The Jewish Community of Ioannina – A Journey Through Time
THE HISTORY – the romaniote jews
The Jews that have lived in Greece since Hellenistic times (3rd century B.C.), were called Romaniote Jews in Byzantine times and formed the vast majority of the Jewish population in Greece until the 15th century. They used Greek as their everyday language of communication from the moment they settled. They were inspired by the local culture and customs, and were versatile enough to blend them with their own to create the unique Greek-Jewish tradition. They retained their religious identity, as can be seen in the synagogues they built and also in the survival of Hebrew their liturgical language. All Romaniote Jews maintained a distinct form of religious observance; that is laid out in different variations in the Mahzor Romania, the common Romaniote prayer book, the Mahzor Kastoria, the Mahzor Candia and the Mahzor Corfu. Relations with local people were, on the whole, good, and there were no cases of anti-Semitism apart from a few isolated incidents of religious fervour.
THE HISTORY
With the arrival of the Sephardim in the late 15th century, things changed. Populations in most of the Romaniote Jewish communities, those of Epirus, the Peloponnese and Crete excluded, had dwindled because of migration and were therefore absorbed into the culture of the Sephardim, whose traditions held sway. The most notable differences between Romaniote and Sephardim were in the language they used, their dress, food and form of religious observance. Even so, the Romaniote Jews were persistently more numerous until World War II in towns and cities like Arta, Preveza, Patras, Trikala, Volos, Chalkis and Chania.
The city of Ioannina was definitely the centre of the Romaniote Jewish population. It is generally assumed that an inscription was extant prior to 1800, which would have alluded to the existence of a synagogue since the 9th century C.E., almost coinciding with the founding of a city of the same name on the same site as present day Ioannina. Jews are known to have lived in Nikopolis, Aktio and Arta in the surrounding coastal area since late antiquity, and there is a clear historical reference to there having been a Jewish population in Ioannina under Andronicus II Palaeologus in the 14th century. The Byzantine era was a difficult time for the Jewish population of Ioannina because of frequent attacks from abroad, but also because of domestic imperial, administrative realignment and reclassification, which frequently heralded a change in attitudes towards Jews.
Jews were treated reasonably under Ottoman rule. They were allowed freedom of religious observance, given special privileges in trade and work, and they were allowed autonomy within their own communities. The Sephardim Jews settled in Ioannina in the 16th century, were assimilated into the Romaniote Population and were soon joined by others of the same faith from Southern Italy and Sicily. The Jewish population lived in their own quarter inside the city walls / fortification. This was by no means a ghetto; it was merely the Jewish quarter of the Ottoman city where, as in all Ottoman cities, every minority religious group had its own neighbourhoods. After 1611, the Jewish quarter within in the city walls, a district known as the “Castle” (Kastro) where the Old Synagogue still stands today, grew significantly.
THE HISTORY – the jews in Greece
Long before the Diaspora of 71 A.D., Greece was the gateway through which Jewish people reached the rest of Europe. Its Jewish population was made up mainly of Greek-speaking and Spanish-speaking Jews. Greek-speaking Jews, or Romaniotes, have lived in Greece continuously, since Hellenistic times (3rd century B.C.), as testified by archaeological and historical evidence.
The second wave of Jewish immigration took place under Bayezid II in the early years of the Ottoman Empire, i.e. late 15th century. These were Spanish-speaking Jews who had been expelled from the Iberian peninsular, the so-called Sephardim, who sought asylum in the Ottoman Empire. They settled in large numbers in key commercial cities in northern Greece and the Aegean islands, such as Thessaloniki, Kavala and Rhodes, bringing with them their own traditions, language, craftsmanship and occupations, such as trading, manufacturing, weaving, printing and financing. Along with the Romaniote Jews and all people of other faiths, the newly-arrived Sephardim were classed as the Sultan’s djimmi, subjects with certain obligations but also with a degree of intra-community freedom, such as the freedom to practice their own religion.
Until 1940, 80.000 Greek Jews enjoyed life in the knowledge that they were free citizens with equal rights and their Jewish way of life was still intact. They played a prominent role in the financial, social, political and intellectual life of the country and defended it patriotically in its hours of need. Their own dark hour came with the Nazi occupation. Despite all the efforts of the clergy, the state, the Resistance and the public at large, the Final Solution translated into 87% of the Jewish population of Greece being murdered in concentration camps, into Jewish communities such as those of Preveza and Serres being totally annihilated, and those of Thessaloniki and Ioannina is changed beyond all recognition.
Though 10,000 Greek Jews survived the Holocaust, approximately 5,000 live in Greece today. They live in nine Jewish communities; those of Athens, Thessaloniki and Larissa being the largest and best organised, and those of Ioannina, Volos, Trikala, Chalkis, Corfu and Rhodes, each with fewer than 100 people.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF IOANNINA early 20th century to 1940
The Jewish community of Ioannina saw its heyday in the early days of the 19th century when the city was under the authority of Ali Pasha (1788-1822). Many members of the community worked in administration offices, trade flourished and manufacturing was promoted. The Jewish population increased in number, as did the city’s population in general, and the habitation was also expanded to the area outside of the city’s fortification. The crisis which struck the Ottoman Empire early in the 20th century with internal political friction, constant nationalistic and autonomist movements, loss of land and population, struck Ioannina too. Financial difficulties, low standards of living and strife between different religious communities in the city affected Jews, Christians and Muslims alike.
The 4000 Jews living in Ioannina at that time faced similar, related problems. There was a dire need of up-to-date knowledge and occupational training, and these things were taken on board, with a good deal of success, by schools that the Alliance Israèlite Universelle founded in 1904, and by a number of societies that were set up in the community by private individuals. As a result of this crisis, a significant number of Jewish people of Ioannina were influenced by the general wave of emigration from Greece and left for the United States of America and Palestine.
Such was the general state of things in the community when the Balkan Wars started (1912-1913). These wars ended with the liberation of Ioannina by the Greek army on 21st February 1913, whereupon it became part of the Modern Greek State along with most of Epirus.
Following its liberation, and despite the problems that racked it, the area was eager to be part of the changes and reformation taking place in the rest of Greece. The Jewish people of the city played an active role in local social and political affairs, and in those of the country as a whole. Like many other Greeks, they gave their support to Eleftherios Venizelos’ vision of Greater Greece, and this was made apparent in practical terms when many Jews enlisted for the campaign in Asia Minor.
With the exception of a few isolated incidents, the Jewish people of the city lived peacefully and maintained good relations with their Christian fellow townspeople until 1940. The shared the same joys, the same sorrows, the same problems and hopes. They were fully aware of their Greek identity but also preserved their Jewish identity in certain aspects of their everyday life.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF IOANNINA 1940-1945
When the fascist axis declared war on Greece late in October 1940, a lot of Jews, including many from Ioannina, were serving as ordinary military personnel, officers, or auxiliary personnel at the front, where they and their Christian compatriots gave the whole of Europe a lesson in the meaning of patriotism and self-sacrifice.
When Greece fell to the Axis forces, Ioannina was in the Italian occupied zone. There were at that time approximately 1950 people in the Jewish community. The Italian administration was lenient and placed no restrictions on them. So life carried on as normal for the city’s Jewish population. Of course, there were those among the young who joined the resistance forces and took to the surrounding mountains, more out of hatred of the fascist conqueror than out of hope of deliverance. Salvador Bacola and Yosef Matsa were among them and earned a mention here.
German forces led by General Jurgen von Stettner entered the city on 20th April 1943, taking over its occupation in July 1943. The Germans put malicious pressure on the Jewish community right from the start. They approached Sabbethai Kambilis, a prominent member of the Jewish Community who believed that the Jews would be safe from danger and persecution if they obeyed the orders issued by the forces of occupation. Despite initial German reassurances, things took a serious turn for the worse.
The Germans destroyed the new Kahal Kadosh Hadash synagogue. With the help of mayor G. Vlachleidis, the community hid the sacred vessels and cloths of the synagogue in the crypt of the city’s old Kahal Kadosh Yashan synagogue, which is how they survived. All those who foresaw the catastrophe tried to find a way to escape. The Christian clergy stood by the fugitives. Metropolitan Bishop Spyridon saved a lot of objects, including a number of sewing machines from abandoned Jewish homes. One ordinary cleric, Father Athanasios, produced fake police identity cards with Christian-sounding names on them and distributed them to as many Jewish people as he could. In mid March 1944 the Jewish families of Ioannina were catalogued and their homes marked with crosses.
In the small hours before dawn on 25th March 1944, the Final Solution was suddenly and without warning enforced in Ioannina. Those who dwelt outside the castle walls were made to gather in Mavilis Square while those dwelt within the Castle were made to gather at the Military Hospital, and from there, on that snow-covered 25th day of March 1944, these 1870 Romaniote Jews were uprooted after twelve centuries of Jewish presence in the city. Taking with them whatever they could carry in bundles weighing up to 40 kilos, they were transported in 97 covered lorries, to Trikala then Larissa, and from there, in shocking conditions, by train to Auschwitz. There, and at many other Death Camps, 92% of the Jewish people of Ioannina were annihilated.
THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF IOANNINA 1945 – to present day
There were 181 people in the Jewish community of Ioannina when World War II ended. Of these, 112 were Death Camp survivors and 69 survived by being hidden in the homes of Christian people or by taking to the mountains, where some fought with the Resistance. Despite the efforts of resistance members and the Christian clergy, those who returned found their property in rack and ruin, their homes deserted and their shops looted. In addition to the practical problems of finding shelter, medical care and settling back into society, there was the crushing emotional upheaval of returning to a decimated community.
The Jewish Community of Ioannina was a community with no elderly people, one that had lost a huge chapter of its collective memory and traditions. A gaping hole that would be hard to fill.
A new Jewish Community Council was formed almost immediately with Iosif Koen as its president. The council immediately established contact with international organisations like the American Joint Distribution Committee, and Greek ones such as the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece, asking for moral and material support for Holocaust victims, especially orphans, widows, single young women and those whose livelihoods were in ruins. Many survivors immigrated to USA, others to Israel. The Janina Relief Fund which was set up by Jews from Ioannina who had immigrated to New York needs to be mentioned for its help in the community’s recovery; it demonstrates just how strongly the members of this community stood by one another. The Synagogue was soon rebuilt, the cemetery put to rights, the Jewish Primary School re-opened, and life started to regain order.
Internal migration, mostly to Athens for professional or educational reasons, continued for a few more decades. Today there are 50 Jews in Ioannina and they live in the old Jewish quarter. The old Kahal Kadosh Yashan synagogue still stands and religious festivals are still celebrated there led by a specially-invited rabbi.
The Jews of Ioannina still maintain ties with their Romaniote past, and do their best to nurture the awareness that they are the inheritors of a unique tradition that has reached them through many centuries.
RELIGIOUS LIFE synagogual architecture
The synagogue is the centre of a Jewish community and a place of communal prayer and study. Synagogue architecture obeyed certain religious dictates, called the halahot, and state building regulations, but was also influenced by architectural traditions in the local community. There are two main types of synagogue in Greece, the Romaniote and the Sephardic, and they differ in the way certain basic features are arranged.
Both synagogues of Ioannina, the Old Synagogue Kahal Kadosh Yashan and the New Synagogue Kahal Kadosh Hadash that was built by Jews from Italy and Sicily who settled in Ioannina in the 16th century, were reconstructed in accordance with the Romaniote type, but with visible Byzantine and Romanesque influence.
As the centuries went by, the Old Synagogue Kahal Kadosh Yashan in the Jewish quarter within the castle walls has passed through several building phases. However, the most extensive construction work was carried out in 1829, which gave the synagogue its present form. There is a fountain in the courtyard and a permanent structure for the sukkah, the Sukkot hut for the feast of booths (tabernacles). The entrance to the spacious ground floor, intended exclusively for men, is on the west. Women reach the mehitzah, a screened off balcony for women, via a flight of outdoor steps on the north wall. Four pillars joined to one another by arches delineate the square space in the centre of the main hall. The two most fundamental features in any synagogue are the ehal, a niche or cabinet in the east wall where the sacred books of the Torah are kept (in this synagogue it is integrated into a marble superstruction) and on the west wall the raised bima (pulpit) from where the Torah was read on Saturdays, feast days and during religious ceremonies. There is also a floor-level tevah, or book stand directly opposite the ehal.
The synagogues of Ioannina also had a special feature in the form of a small building, known as the minyan, next to the main synagogue and used as auxiliary space. Services were held here on weekdays when the minimum number of attendants required was present.
RELIGIOUS LIFE synagogual liturgy
In addition to being religious leaders of the community, rabbis were also its administrative leaders. They found solutions to internal problems, represented the community to local authorities, answered people’s questions and were custodians of its laws and customs.
From time to time, the extremely pious Romaniote Community of Ioannina was host to renowned rabbis such as Moshe Halevi of Hebron and Itzhak Yehuda Hacohen of Safed in the 17th century, while prominent local rabbis lived there in the 19th century, during which time the standard of education in the community improved. Among these local rabbis were, Shmuel David, known as the Great haham (religious leader), and Hashmal or Haim Shmuel Halevi, looked up to as a holy figure by Ioannina’s Jews. Haham Ezra and Haham Davos were much-loved rabbis and teachers in the early 20th century.
Prayer books are essential to worship. There are two different sorts; the siddur for ordinary, everyday prayers, and the mahzor for the high holidays. There are different versions for Sephardic and Romaniote religious practice.
The Romaniote prayer book, the Mahzor Romania, was widely used among the Jewish population of Greece by the 15th century. The first printed edition was made in Venice in 1520. It was soon reprinted at Sephardic printing presses in Constantinople and Thessaloniki. It contains the prayers used throughout the year on Sabbath days and holy days and includes the piyyutim religious poems and moral-religious hymns for high holy days, as well as special Shabbat (Sabbath days) prayers and kinot laments. The piyyutim and kinot were written in fifteen-syllabic lines in Greek and bore the influence of local tradition. Also included in the book, translated into Greek but written in Hebrew characters, were the Books of Ruth and Jonah, and the Song of Songs, which were read at Yom Kippur, Shavuot and Pessah respectively. The Mahzor Romania also has a Judeo-Greek version of the prayer for the new month or new moon called Rosh Hodesh. Because of constraints imposed on printing in the Ottoman Empire, Romaniote Jews were obliged to use Sephardic prayer books, to which they added hand-written notes.
Prayer books changed over the course of time, becoming longer or simpler as the case may be. Present-day Jews in Greece mostly use the Sephardic prayer book in the form it acquired during the 16th and 17th century, based on comments made by Isaac Luria.
Hebrew religious observance has two different sets of rites and customs or minhagim, in Greece; the Romaniote and the Sephardic. They share the same basic language, Hebrew, but differ in local linguistic traits and in some finer points of worship, mainly in the synagogue.
Romaniote services are mostly in the Graeco-Hebrew form of vernacular Greek. Even to this day the few remaining Romaniote Jews in Greece, especially in Ioannina and Chalkis, use the form based on the Mahzor Romania and the Minhag Bene Roma, the Italian rite. Romaniote synagogue liturgy has its own peculiarities for each feast day. Services on important feast days, such as Rosh Hashanah and Pessah, include hymns, piyyutim, and songs in Graeco-Hebrew are added to the synagogue practice.
RELIGIOUS LIFE synagogual textiles and objects
The holy book of Judaism is the Pentateuch and is called the Sefer Torah or Scroll of the Law, handwritten on parchment. It is always stored in an upright position in a special niche in the synagogue, in accordance with age-old dictates on the storage of precious books. Jews all over the eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and Near East still keep the Torah scroll in a tik, which derives from thiki, the Greek word for a case. The tik has a fabric covering and is only opened for the Reading of the Law. Romaniote religious practice requires the Holy Books to be read while still in the tik and still upright. Sephardic Jews secure the scroll with a binder approximately halfway up, drape it with a cloth and hold it at a slight angle while reading.
The outside of the wooden tik is decorated with scenes engraved or drawn on its surface, or it may be covered with silver leaf, often parcel gilt. It is usually draped with an embroidered cloth called a mappah. The parchment scrolls are rolled up on wooden or ivory staves, the etzei haim, or Trees of Life, tipped with silver or mother of pearl rimonim, i.e. pomegranates, an ancient symbol of fertility and life. The rimonim often have small bells dangling from them to represent the joy of reading the Torah. Each scroll with its staves is placed in a wooden or ivory receptacle. In Sephardic custom, a metal crown, called the keter or atarah, is placed at the top to signify the importance of the Crown of the Pentateuch.
The tas, a silver plaque, which recalls but does not resemble the breastplate worn by Biblical high priests, and the yad, a pointer, often decorated with a tiny silver hand, which protects the parchment from damage, are both associated with the Reading of the Torah.
For centuries now Jewish people have been decorating the interior of their synagogues and the sacred objects in it with heavily embroidered cloths. The Jews of Greece uphold this tradition in their synagogues.
The most definitive of all synagogue embroideries is the parohet, the curtain draped in front of the Sacred Ark that separates the recess or cabinet containing the Torah scrolls from the main hall. Many of the synagogues in Greece have different parohot for weekdays, Sabbath days and holy days. The Romaniote parohot were usually made from festive gold embroidered dresses or bedspreads. The most usual designs from the late 19th century onwards are fluted, twisted pillars reminiscent of Jachin and Boaz at the entrance to the Temple of Solomon, the Tablets of the Law, which symbolise the Torah, with the Keter Torah, the Crown of the Pentateuch, or the Star of David. Parohot usually have their donators’ dedications embroidered on them. Romaniote Jews in Ioannina used to sew silver dedicatory plaques, or tahshitim onto their parohot.
The mappah, a cloth wrapper, covers the tik. The motifs embroidered on it are similar to those embroidered on the parohet; floral motifs and Jewish symbols, such as the Tablets of the Covenant and the Keter Torah. Romaniote Jews in Ioannina used to dedicate parts of their clothing or gold embroideries and incorporated them to the mappot. The Romaniote mappah is broad, has loops along the top and covers the outside of the tik. The mappot in Ioannina dating to the second half of the 19th century have dedicatory ribbons on them, which are made by the women of the city and called garters, referring to the equivalent component of the male costume. The Sephardic me’il is different. It is like a sleeve made of cloth and hugs the tik closely. It is open at the bottom, closed at the top and has circular openings to accommodate the tips of the staves.
The mappah, an embroidered cloth which covers the lectern, is embroidered with motifs similar to those on the parohet and meil. The Torah rests on it while it is being read.
RELIGIOUS LIFE jewish holidays
Shabbat
Observance of the Sabbath day is one of the most fundamental requirements of Judaism. The Sabbath day is devoted to prayer, study of the Law and abstinence from any form of productive work. Every Friday afternoon the town crier walked through the Jewish neighbourhoods in Ioannina announcing the Time of the Sabbath. Jewish shops shut, women called an end to their domestic chores, the food was ready and candles lit just before sunset. Men made their way to the synagogue and then went home to the Sabbath meal, at which they blessed the wine and wished their children good fortune. On the morning of the Sabbath day a Christian neighbour would light the oil lamp in Jewish homes and bring in burning coals for the brazier in winter months. Weather permitting, the Romaniote Jews of Ioannina would walk along the shore of the lake, otherwise they would congregate in one another’s homes.
Sukkot
Summer ended with Sukkot’.
Sukkot, the Feast of Booths which is in October, is called Kalyvia (the Huts) in Ioannina. I marks the forty years that the Children of Israel spent wandering in the desert beforecoming to the Promised Land. The main custom I that of building a booth, sukkah, out of canes and dry branches in gardens and on verandas. In the grounds around Kahal Kadosh Yashan there was a permanent booth where foo was provided for the needy. During the service in the synagogue the congregation was given a small posy, called a lulav, which they then fixed to the mezuzah on the door post.
Fruit and flowers were hung from the roof and the family had their meals and said their prayers in the booth they had made.
Rosh Hashanah
Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, is celebrated in September and marks the beginning of the ten days of Repentance or Terrible Days of Yamim Noraim. The ten-day period ends with the Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, which Jews of Ioannina call simply Kippur or High Day. A town crier would walk the streets of the Jewish quarter two or three hours before dawn, shouting,
‘Time for Selihot.’
This was how he called the men of the community to the Synagogue at 06.00 for the Prayers of Repentance.
The tashlih, or symbolic depositing of sins in the lake to the accompaniment of rabbinical psalms, is the most dramatised part of Rosh Hashanah celebrations. Christian townspeople of Ioannina often used to attend celebrations of Jewish New Year. Sometimes local officials also came to watch and share the joy of their Jewish fellow citizens.
Hanukkah
Falling in December, Hanukkah celebrates how the Jewish people were saved from Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Jews in Greece associate Hanukkah with the legendary young Jewish woman called Judith, who saved her people from Persian conquest.
In Ioannina, Hanukkah is regarded as a celebration for the home, since that is where all customs pertaining to it take place. The eight-day lighting of the eight-candled Hanukkah lamp takes precedence, each lighting taking place during a family meal. The most popular of the delicious foodstuffs that local housewives prepare are the lallagit pancakes, as local children call them, honey doughnuts and fritters.
Yom Kippur
The Romaniote people of Ioannina developed many customs of their own to mark the Day of Atonement. On the Eve of the Day of Atonement, every family would take one flower-decorated candle to morning service at the synagogue for each male member it had. The candles would stand in the family’s designated place and remain lit throughout the service. Large candles were often taken as votive offerings. This made the synagogues of Ioannina bright and colourful on these days.
Kapparah is one of the most interesting customs associated with Yom Kippur. On the eve of Kippur, every family would sacrifice a cockerel for each male person in it, so as to receive atonement for sins and transgressions.
Irtaman
Irtaman was a holiday of the people and was unique to Ioannina. Irtaman took place two weeks before Purim, in obedience to the Biblical order to double people’s joy in the month of Adar, and was seen as its forerunner. Nearly every boy in the Jewish community between the ages of five and fifteen took part. The boys would take to the streets early in the morning, each with a cloth satchel hung round his neck, and they would weave their way through the city’s Jewish neighbourhoods singing this little song:
We’re here and happy to find you Now Rishhodesh is here The Praised and the Lauded Fifteen days to Purim And thirty to the belts Abraham Leto got the cockerel Muli muli the violet
All nails and horseshoes To Aman to Arour To bicotser Yiamim
At the end of the song they would be given treats, which were usually nuts, grain, bread rolls and brioche with a dyed red egg, money or paffles, little tin boxes.
Little Purim
The Romaniote Jewish Community of Ioannina was the only place where Sicilian Purim, also called P(u)r(i)mop(ou)lo in the local dialect, was celebrated until 1954. It fell in January or February and commemorated how the Jews of Syracuse escaped from the humiliation and scheming of king Saragosanos in the early 15th century. All Jews who had roots in Sicily took part in this celebration, thereby making their different origin known. Celebrations mostly took the form of meetings and communal meals. Such was the assimilative ability of the Jews of Ioannina that the legend soon became a folk song.
Come closer, my king, and listen to my story, the Jews mock you, and bow in pretence.
They honour you with no learning, and only ask their lives.
His slave Efraim, who worked for his honour, and was his right-hand man, Elia sent as his messenger.
Wake up, Efraim, don’t sleep, decorate the synagogue and get busy, and decorate the sefurim, fill the letters, Decorate them with stars, and tell no one.
They hanged Marko, like a dog. Praise to God the Almighty, grace on the Jews to bestow, And bring out Elia Ηαnavi for this great day.
Purim
‘Eat, drink till you’re merry, and enjoy yourselves’
Purim is the Jewish carnival, which takes place in March, almost coinciding with the Christian carnival. A time for good cheer and rejoicing for the Jewish people having been saved from the tyranny of Haman, the 5th century BC Persian Vezir’s advisor, thanks to queen Esther’s intervention.
The main features of Purim are fancy dress, parties, dancing, singing and the performance of plays. Groups of children used to roam the streets of Jewish neighbourhoods hoping for Purim treats. The fancy dress costumes worn by young and old were mostly improvised; girls would dress up as Esther and boys as Mordochai or Ahashveros. A mask made of paper or cloth was essential, and dressed like this they would roam the streets and go to school dances and plays which were based on the Biblical story and often written in verse.
Some people copied customs from Christian carnival celebrations, such as the “Gamila” and dancing round the May pole. From 1950 and on, young Jewish women in Ioannina would join in both Purim celebrations and the Christian carnival. Prominent and ordinary Christian townspeople joined Jews in their celebrations at home and in taverns serving wine.
The focal point of celebrations in the homes of Ioannina Jews was the ceremonial reading of the Book of Esther, or the miglah, as the Meggilat Esther was called in local dialect. Until 1940, celebrations would include people telling funny stories parodying sacred passages, and also songs. The best known Purim song is a verse narrative in Greek of the story of Esther. It is called Kina Glossa and has verses of five rhyming lines.
Start to speak o tongue of miracles unsung Awaken those who inertly recline, Make them inebriate with wine.
Housewives made special goodies, such as almond bread in the shape of Haman’s ears, or koubetta, also called sousamato, toffee sesame seed cake, and Haman’s fleas.
Pessah
Pessah is one of the most important celebrations in Judaism and takes place in April. Women undertake the preparations; i.e. thorough cleaning, the best dinner service and other special things related to Pessah. In Ioannina it is customary to sterilise all the ordinary crockery in boiling water. Until World War II all the women of the neighbourhood did this together.
The Eve of Pessah was the time for bedikat hametz when the whole family searched the house from top to bottom to get rid of every crumb of leavened bread. The following morning these crumbs were thrown into the lake while prayers were said asking for forgiveness of sins. Housewives baked their own matzot, or unleavened bread. This was the only kind of bread eaten during the eight days of Pessah. There was a community bakery in Ioannina, which met the needs of the whole community.
Family gatherings were held on the first evening of Pessah, which was known as hova (a derivative of the Hebrew word Hov, meaning duty), and the eldest person there would read the story of the Exodus from Egypt, or Haggadah, in Hebrew and in Greek. On the table there would be a Seder tray or basket full of symbolic foodstuffs like bitter greens, lamb, haroset and eggs dyed with onion skin. At the end of the meal the wish ‘be both a bride and a lady’ was said to girls, and ‘be a bridegroom’ was said to boys.
Shavuot
On Shavuot, which celebrates Moses being given the Tablets with the Ten Commandments, the synagogue in Ioannina, especially the Bima and Ehal were decorated with floral garlands and vases of flowers as a reminder of the flower festival of nature. This is why Turks living in Ioannina called Shavuot the Festival of Flowers or Gioul Bairam. The season that begins with Pessah ends fifty days later with Shavuot. That is why Greek speaking Jews often refer to Shavuot as Pentekosti (Pentecost = fiftiest) probably equating it with the Christian Pentecost.
RELIGIOUS LIFE the cycle of life – part a
The Jewish identity is kept alive through specific customs pertaining to the three most important milestones in the lives of people in the community; marriage, birth and death.
The Romaniote Jews of Ioannina maintained the demographic balance of their community by upholding strict customs regarding intermarriage which also applied to nearby communities like those of Trikala, Preveza and Corfu until the mid 20th century. In the 19th century marriages had often been arranged by young people’s parents, while until 1940 marriages made through a matchmaker were more common, with lots of comings and goings between the homes of the future bride and groom. As well as a sum of money, the dowry would include everything that necessary to set up a new household, and these things would be displayed at the bride’s home on the Thursday before the wedding. The reading of the wedding contract, or ketubbah, was a very important moment in any Jewish wedding. The document was drawn up by special assessors and as well as giving a detailed description and evaluation of the dowry, it also made a clear statement of the marital duties of each spouse.
It was also customary for the bride and groom to exchange presents. The bride was usually given a long gold chain. Weddings took place within the first two weeks of the lunar month when the moon was waxing, but not during important religious feasts. The bride-to-be had a ritual bath, called a mikva, on the day before the wedding. It was one of the most important obligations a woman had because it left her spiritually cleansed and pure. Romaniote homes in Ioannina often had a cistern in the basement which served as a bath, or mikva. Weddings took place in the synagogue and were usually held on Sunday afternoons. The couple stood under a huppah, a canopy made of white cloth or a tallit stretched over four poles, symbolising the new household and the sacred roof.
RELIGIOUS LIFE the cycle of life – part b
The purpose of marriage was always to produce children. For forty days following a birth, the new mother and her newborn child were protected from evil spirits, especially from Lilith, with various customs and talismans to ward them off. In the Romaniote community of Ioannina, as in every traditional community, the birth of a boy called for a great celebration. His circumcision, or Berith Milah, took place eight days after his birth and was followed by his naming ceremony. This ceremony takes place in the home, is led by the mohel, and symbolises the confirmation of God’s Covenant with the Jewish people. There was a uniquely Romaniote custom that was observed in Ioannina. It was the writing of the Alef, the certificate of circumcision, which was decorated with wishes and prayers written in beautiful script and served the purpose of a charm for both mother and child as it hung on the wall along with a broad ribbon and florins threaded on strings. The most usual edible treat among Romaniote Jews at the circumcision celebration was the so-called fnaroh, a sweet made of eggs, sugar and honey. A small family celebration would be held at home after the naming ceremony of girls.
At the age of 13 boys became adults in the eyes of their religion. From that time on they were equal members of the community with responsibility for upholding the Law and also for their own actions. The event was celebrated with a Bar-Mitzvah ceremony in the synagogue. After the ceremony the young ‘men’ were given presents, called tefilin, which would be leather cases containing verses of the Torah, a tallit, or prayer shawl to be worn at the synagogue, a kippah or prayer cap and a siddur or prayer book for everyday use.
Finally, death is marked by simple preparations in accordance with Hebrew law, which are undertaken by the Hevra Kedoshah, a Holy Brotherhood of a voluntary and honorary nature. The close family observes a seven-day period of mourning, called the shivah. A candle lit in memory of the deceased in the home of the mourners is kept burning for a whole year.
EVERYDAY LIFE Costumes
There was no recognisably Jewish form of dress by which the people of the Diaspora could be distinguished or identified. They dressed in accordance with the norms of the various places they lived in, taking account of climate and local materials, and influenced by local customs and the dictates of local authorities.
This was true of communities in Greece too. Apart from the Sephardic Jews of Thessaloniki, who had Hispano-medieval origins, Jewish people dressed no differently from their fellow countrymen of other religious beliefs from late antiquity through Byzantine times and down to the Ottoman period. Under the multi-cultural, multi-religious Ottoman Empire, dress was frequently dictated officially in decrees issued by the sultan, imposing or prohibiting things such as certain colours or fabrics. Clothes then developed into a sort of communication code signalling financial, social and family status, age and even religious belief. From the 16th century down to the 19th century, a long dark overcoat, the traditional tzube, was the norm for all male subjects of the Ottoman Empire, including Jewish men. When outside the home, women had to cover their whole body with a veil or feratze. In private and on important religious and social occasions they were allowed to wear whatever was customary in their own community.
The clothes worn by the Jewish men of Ioannina were no different from those of the Christian townspeople. A long dark overcoat, an equally long wraparound inner garment of thinner fabric, a wide belt around the waist, a turban made of blue cloth, a fez or felt cap on the head and yellow leather shoes were the typical dress worn by Jews in Ioannina as well as in most towns and cities. The Jewish women of Ioannina didn’t wear on festive occasions the heavily embroidered pirpiri or sleeveless cape over their robe as their Christian neighbours, but dressed in one of the older fashions for women in Ottoman towns and cities, consisting of the very basic long chemise or smock with embroidery round the neck, cuffs and hem. With this they wore a wide shalvari or toumani (pantaloons) reaching down to their ankles and made of silk or taffeta. They wore a sleeveless waistcoat on the upper body. The most important garment obviously had its origins in the east and was the long-sleeved anteri, close-fitting and open down the front, but wide and gathered across the back, rather like a long-sleeved robe or overcoat. Over this they wore a cloth sash round the waist and a filigree belt with a buckle on top of that. An older version of this type of dress may also have had an apron which served a ritual or ornamental purpose rather than a practical one, given the fact that Ioannina was a large, urban community. On their heads they wore a small beret held in place with a scarf and secured with a gold embroidered chin strap. The crown of the beret was usually adorned with a round piece of silver jewellery called a tepeliki, there would also be a tassel made of spiral gilt thread. Beret decorations reflected the woman’s financial and social status.
Historical events like the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the development of closer ties with the West, the modernisation of the new state of Greece, and the rise of its urban society and urban mentality all contributed to the decline of the traditional form of dress which began in the mid 19th century and was even more noticeable in the early 20th century. Even in its early days this general tendency was encouraging and the more progressive Jews of Ioannina certainly followed it. By the end of World War II traditional forms of dress had ceased to be a feature of everyday life.
EVERYDAY LIFE life at work
From the time they first settled in Ioannina, the Jews had all sorts of occupations, but the most common were occupations that fulfilled the needs of an urban society so people occupied in them prospered. In Byzantine times there were money-changers and pawnbrokers as well as merchants.
During the subsequent Turkish occupation they still had a large part of the city’s trade in their hands. Many were pedlars or hawkers in the city of Ioannina and the area around it. There were many small Jewish-owned shops in the market; mostly family businesses with father in charge. There were also a number of butchers who supplied kosher meat products, but even without shop-keepers, the people were able to make their own kosher cheese, such as kaskavali cheese, and wine, which was mainly for religious purposes. There was also someone who was very adept at making the renowned Ioannina bougatsa. Larger companies were in the import-export business and supplied the whole of Epirus with consumer goods.
For no apparent reason, the number of Jewish people in Ioannina who worked in traditional skills and manual labour was low, even though they were, in theory, not excluded from craftsmen’s trades. There is, for example, no information regarding Jewish carpenters or smiths, and there were very few Jewish tinsmiths, cobblers and quilt makers. There were Jewish members of the guilds of gold and silversmiths and gold embroiderers, indeed, some of them achieved a certain amount of fame.
There was, of course, no dearth of well-educated people among the Romaniote community. The most prominent among them were doctors, dispensing chemists and lawyers, as well as researchers, historians and teachers of foreign languages. Under the Ottoman Empire many well-educated Jews occupied important public positions such as that of community president, interpreter, treasurer and such like. It should also be borne in mind that quite a few Jewish families lived in neighbouring villages and towns, usually for reasons of work, but they still maintained close links with the Jewish Community of Ioannina.
EVERYDAY LIFE language and education
While Hebrew remained the language of religious observation and was also a unifying factor for the Jews of the Diaspora, local communities used the language of the country they lived in, embellishing it with Hebrew words and phrases. Romaniote Jews had, for the greater part, been familiar with Greek since Hellenistic times and this helped them assimilate into the communities that received them. They used Greek as the language of communication in their everyday lives, but used Hebrew characters when writing it. They also imported Hebrew words and phrases into it, Hellenicising the Hebrew syntax and lexical features. This, and the influence of all those who conquered Western Greece at various times, the Venetians, Franks, Ottoman Turks and Albanians, led to the birth of the Graeco-Judaic idiom, a lilting form of language that sat comfortably with the Romaniote communities of Epirus, especially those of Ioannina, and which survived until World War II.
As everywhere in the Diaspora, education was the foundation of the religious identity of Jewish communities in Greece. The Talmud Torah community school for boys in Ioannina had been operating since 1875 with the support of the Jewish Educational Society, which was established at the same time. As well as teaching Hebrew language, Jewish history and Greek, the school also taught Turkish until 1913. There was no official provision for the education of girls until the early 20th century. Jewish girls seeking an education had to attend Christian schools. In 1903 a group of private individuals set up the Agudath Ahim society and managed to convince the people in charge of the Alliance Israèlite Universelle that they ought to open a Α.Ι.U. school in Ioannina. Sure enough, in 1904 the Α.Ι.U, school opened and worked alongside Talmud Torah school, teaching Hebrew language and history, Greek, Turkish and the principles of arithmetic and trade. Particular focus was placed on French language and culture with the result that the school was soon called the Alliance Française. There were also schools for girls and departments for occupational and technical training. Because of the high standard of education they provided, non-Jewish people frequently enrolled at A.I.U. schools.
When Ioannina was liberated and became part of the Greek state in 1913, the Α.Ι.U. schools were recognised by the state and operated under its auspices until the German occupation of Greece. After the war, Jews of Ioannina who had survived the Holocaust did their best to secure a basic Jewish education for the younger members of the community. A small school which taught Hebrew language and Jewish history did operate in Ioannina for a period of approximately ten years, starting in the middle of 1950, but then closed down because of a lack of pupils.
EVERYDAY LIFE community institutions
As in all Jewish communities, the strict internal organisation of the Romaniote Community of Ioannina guaranteed its smooth running, especially when under the Ottoman Empire. The rabbi, who bore the title Marbitz Torah from the 16th century, was both religious and administrative leader. He was chosen for his wisdom and sound judgement and there was no specific duration to his term of office. He was assisted in his administrative tasks by the Maamad, a seven-member strong legislative and executive body with authority, a president called the gabbai and a treasurer called the guizbar. He represented the community to the Sublime Porte and other national bodies. There was also a religious court, the Bet Din, which was officially recognised by the Ottoman authorities. It was presided over by the rabbi and dealt with intra-community issues in accordance with Talmudic scripture and common law.
The ordinary everyday life of those in the community was regulated by certain people fulfilling a vocation; among them were the shohet, who slaughtered animals the kosher way; the melamed, or teacher of religion; the shamas, or synagogue caretaker and community land keeper. When the new Greek State came into being and its national institutions gained power, this community organisation still retained some of the important role it had held in the past.
Charity and solidarity, the cornerstones of Judaism, are far removed from any form of self-gain or self-promotion in the community. They are fundamental values, vital to the survival of the community and through its charitable societies they have led to people getting the help they need ever since the middle ages. Thus it is that in the community of Ioannina there are many records of charities. Hevra Kedoshah, an honorary brotherhood of volunteers who oversaw the burial of the dead, was one of the first, as was Bikur Holim, a charity that arranged visits and care for the sick and needy. Community bodies and wealthy individuals saw that religious schools were protected and able to provide canteen meals for needy pupils. There was also Aruhat Aniyim, which distributed school books, stationery and clothing, and Matanot Levionim, which sometimes exempted pupils from school fees. Hevra Talmud Torah, the Jewish Society for Education, was very active in this respect. Then there were charities that supported young mothers and provided dowries for young women of little or no means (Hevra Nose Yetumot). During the Turkish occupation, Pidyon Shevuyim, a charity that collected for the liberation or purchase and release of Jewish slaves, proved absolutely necessary and was active over a wide area. There were also community institutions such as Beth Yeshua ve Rachel care home for the elderly.
Organisations of a community, cultural, political or Zionist nature began to make their appearance in the latter 19th century. The Zionist society Hevra Amele Zion was founded in Ioannina in 1918 for the purpose of spreading propaganda about the need to establish an independent Jewish state in Palestine. It collected money in aid of this mission and helped those who wanted to immigrate to Palestine. The Jewish Youth Society, which brought the young people of the community together, was founded at the same time.
EVERYDAY LIFE life at home
EVERYDAY LIFE arts and letters
Romaniote Jews played a significant role in every field of the arts in Ioannina and in the rest of Greece, too. The Romaniote Jews of the city contributed to its theatrical productions, and since drama is inalienable from Jewish tradition and is an important feature of religious festivals, their plays were mostly inspired by religious themes. So plays written for Purim told the story of Esther in Judeo-Greek and attracted great interest because of the imaginative costumes that the actors wore.
Myths, fairy tales, folk stories and proverbs of the Romaniote Jews of Ioannina brought together local tradition and features of Jewish mythology and theology. The Greek-Jewish literary output of the 20th century was peppered with interesting authors of poetry and prose, the most prominent among them being Joseph Eligia of Ioannina. Yosif Matsas, the indefatigable historian who conducted research into Romaniote Jewish history and customs, stood out in the more scientific field. In the wake of the Shoah many of its survivors had been so affected by the harsh experience of mass annihilation that they gradually began to put their trauma into words and published autobiographies. Eftyhia Nachman from Ioannina stands out among them, as does Mihail Matsas, also from Ioannina but now living in the USA.
The influence of the folk music of Epirus as it evolved under the Ottoman Empire is recognisable in Romaniote music, which uses the same instruments, be they violins, lutes, clarinets or tambourines, and has the same rhythmic patterns and melodic phrases. It is a noteworthy point that the musicians who played the instruments at Romaniote celebrations were often Christians. Romaniote hymns had a strongly Byzantine ring to them and the Jewish folk songs of Ioannina bring those of the Christian population to mind. The typical form that of the stihoplakia, a type of urban music, was the fifteen-syllabic rhyming couplet with regular rhythm. The subject matter was mainly moral-religious, but there were also narrative songs in praise of nature and love. The songs were written in Greek using Hebrew characters, and some were mixed songs, with Greek and Hebrew lines alternating.
Romaniote Jews observed the religious prohibition of the representation of the human form. In their folk art, embroidery, gold and silverware the prominent motifs are geometric forms and sacred religious symbols. In the rare cases where the human form is depicted, as in a Megillah from Ioannina which tells the story of Esther, Christian influence is apparent. In post war times, art became more liberated in form and works of art often now capture the tragic experience of the Genocide, while the memory, the loss and the unbreakable ties with the land of Israel and its history are the dominant themes. Artemis Alcalay is one of our contemporary Jewish artists working in Greece, whose family come from Ioannina.
JOSEPH ELIGIA AND HIS TIMES life and works – part a
A Jew and a Greek in one…
The first Jewish poet to write in Greek…
Christos Christovasilis
Joseph Elias Kapoulias, better known as Joseph Eligia, was born in Ioannina in 1901. Joseph Eligia was the only son of a humble family. He was brought up in poverty in Arsaki Street in the Jewish quarter of Ioannina, but had the tender loving care of his mother, Hanoula. He differed from other children of his age in his great love of reading and study. From a very early age he took delight in Writings, often under the supervision and guidance of Sabethai Kambilis. Joseph attended the Alliance Israèlite Universelle School, where he acquired a good grounding in French language and culture. Unlike most of his contemporaries, he also studied Modern Greek language and literature, and gradually acquired a comprehensive understanding of Jewish life and Judaism. A multifarious personality, he was only 18 when he started publishing poems in the Zionist publications that were produced in Ioannina and its neighbouring towns and villages; one such publication being the newspaper Israel, published in Trikala. He spent his military service doing a desk job, which left him time to devote to private study.
That is how Joseph Eligia’s Zionist oriented period began; a period when his approach to Jewish identity in the communities of the Diaspora was different from the prevailing conservative point of view. The depth of his knowledge was brought eloquently to light in the text of his lecture On Post-Biblical Poetry, which he delivered at Zosimaia School in December 1924. Not satisfied with a straightforward reading of the sacred passages, Eligia delved deeper into them with his critical sense in order to demonstrate their timelessness and applicability to every age. With great sagacity he touched upon the finer points of their metaphysics and theology, sparking thought-provoking social issues, but also expressing wise views on Greek-Jewish identity. His views soon became assimilative and he was dubbed the Alliancist. As Victor Behoropoulos, then president of the Jewish Society of Ioannina, so aptly put it in a literary memorial to the poet in 1935, ‘Joseph, very rightly, would have the Jew in Greece first a Greek and then a Jew.’ His integrity of character and unbiased nature made such an impression that Professor G. Beis thought he should be given the post of Professor of Jewish Studies that was soon to be announced at the University of Thessaloniki.
His academic career was hampered by the state of his family’s finances, which deteriorated after the death of his father in 1921, as well as by his own political activities. He had only recently graduated from the Alliance, when he started teaching French at the Jewish Community School. As for his poetical production between 1921 and 1924, Eligia clearly starts to lean towards symbolism, making him the forerunner among his contemporary Greek poets and justifying literary critics who classify his work as early Karyotakism.
JOSEPH ELIGIA AND HIS TIMES life and works – part b
In 1922, with his intellectual development still in progress, his perception of the world widened and his interest shifted from involvement in Jewish issues to active involvement in the socio-political issues of his age, wherein he took a radical stand. His work now took on the mood of the times and was laden with politically left sentiment; social problems, class conflict and popular causes all found expression in his poetry and in his active participation in class struggles. He often gave talks at the Workers’ Centre in Ioannina. He published his poetry in local newspapers like Neos Agon, Kiryx, Epirus and Epirotiko Echo under the pen-name Julios Sigoulieros, later changing it to the more literary Joseph Eligia. On 21st December 1924 he lost his job as French teacher at Zosimaia School in the midst of controversy triggered by the lecture On Post-Biblical Poetry that he had delivered despite repeated cautions by the police and both local and community authorities.
As time went by, Joseph Eligia became more and more aware of the differences that set him apart from the local people and from others of his faith. In 1924, when the core group of Neo Agona, the city’s communist faction, broke up, Eligia was forced to leave Ioannina and settle in Argyrocastro because he refused to conform and stay away from the circles he associated with. In 1927 he settled in Athens, where he obtained his diploma in French from the French Academy. He spent hours studying Jewish affairs in the National Library and contributed to the production of the Great Greek Encyclopaedia published by Pyrsos by writing 203 entries on Jewish matters. He had acquaintances in intellectual circles in Athens, like Markos Avgeris, Fotis Kontoglou, Kostas Varnalis, Stefanos Dafnis and Miltiadis Kalakasis, and also had links with Petros Pikros and Galatea Kazantzaki (1931) in the Protoporon circle. He returned to Ioannina for a short while in 1927, before taking up a post as a French teacher in Kilkis. He spent a whole year trying to get a transfer to Thessaloniki. Then in 1931, clearly worn out, disheartened and suffering from typhus, he went back to Athens. He died in Evangelismos hospital that same year shortly after his thirtieth birthday, and is buried in the old part of Athens First Cemetery.
Throughout his short life, his poetry remained a true reflection of his socio-ideological searching. In short, it would be true to say that Eligia lived and created poetry between two worlds; the microcosm of his city’s Jewish community and the wider socio-political reality of Greece in the 1920s.
JOSEPH ELIGIA AND HIS TIMES the local community
In the early 1920s, the Jewish Community of Ioannina numbered about 3000. The rough mannerisms that were characteristic of the highland people of Epirus also characterised the Jews of Ioannina, who were known as difficult, intransigent people. The inflexible internal organisation imposed even more isolation on the Jews of Ioannina, trapping them in an illusion of local, intra-communal independence, which led to their being almost totally annihilated during the Nazi occupation. In the 1920s, the Community of Ioannina was one of the most conservative and isolated, not only in Greece, but elsewhere too, and this was to have profoundly negative consequences during the Occupation, two decades later.
A large proportion of the Jewish population came from the lower social strata and earned their living in lowly, itinerant trading as travelling pedlars, tinkers, rag and bone men and so on. Their standards of living, education and intelligence were low. The life led by the Jews of Ioannina was very close to that led by people all over Modern Greece and many of the features that typified Greek society in the 1920s were also seen in this Jewish microcosm. In the Jewish Community, the decade was marked by a huge wave of emigration to the USA and Palestine, and by the rise of Zionist ideology, which soon became a movement with a political purpose. In fact, the Zionist movement strongly believed that the founding of a Jewish State in Palestine was the only viable solution to Jewish poverty. Though conservative circles were initially very wary of Zionism, it was not long before they lent it their support.
The Jews of Ioannina were known for their piety and were mindful of their distinctive tradition. ‘Rich and poor, they all congregated around the synagogue; they were all pious and nobody lit a fire or worked on a Saturday,’ says Dimitris Hadjis in his narrative work Sabethai Kambilis. This is the likely cause of the community’s conservatism. Sabethai Kambilis was the epitome of this attitude, one of the most prominent Jewish people in the city and an important figure in the more extended local society. Hadjis depicts this merchant as a deeply religious man who studied the Scriptures and had a simple lifestyle. A conservative introvert who was suspicious of innovation and radical ideas. He had close ties with Joseph Eligia and was one of the first to note his literary talent. He was later to clash with Eligia when the latter became more socially active. Their conflict reflected the antagonism between progressive and conservative forces within the Jewish Community Ioannina.
JOSEPH ELIGIA AND HIS TIMES political and social conditions
While the Jewish Community of Ioannina was locked in a struggle to maintain its balance at a time of radical social reformation, the whole local society in the city at large was on a parallel course, dealing with similar conflicts and problems. And Ioannina was certainly not an isolated or exceptional case; on the contrary, in the 1920s the city was a microcosm of Greek society at that time; social reform, visions of grandeur in Greater Greece, the failure of the Asia Minor campaign, the influx of refugees and the rise of working men’s movements and unions all had their effect.
A number of clubs and societies with a social or labour union purpose were founded in Ioannina around that time. Every worker, from baker to shoe-maker, felt the need for an official body that would stand up for his rights. So it was that the Pan-Epirus Workers Centre was set up in 1920 with shoe-maker N. Mavromati as its president. The May Day celebrations of 1923 saw the official appearance of a socialist-communist group in Ioannina, whose mission was to keep its own members and ordinary working people in Ioannina informed about what was happening in the social-communist cause all over the world, in America, for instance, or in Bolshevik Russia. In response to this radical activity, politically conservative organisations soon sprang up too. And as was only to be expected, the emergence of these newly-formed societies triggered a flurry of activity in publishing; newspapers, magazines, and all sorts of flyers and announcements informed the public about the activities of the various factions they represented.
In addition to this activity of a clearly trade unionist nature, a small, but very active group of left-wing intellectuals also emerged. Their mission was to make people in the local community aware of ideological issues. They used the printed word and held public meetings to bring issues that concerned the rest of Europe into the ordinary life of people in Ioannina. A case in point would be the requiem mass that Joseph Eligia’s group held in Ioannina cathedral in memory of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.
Joseph Eligia could not stand by and do nothing in the face of all this socio-political activity. After all, he did not interpret his role as a poet to mean one who was cut off from the political and social issues of his time, as other poets of his generation did. He was, as Nietzsche put it, ‘The child of an as yet unproven future.’ Eligia saw a huge gap separating him from his complacent peers, and also from a large number of Jewish and Christian people of that time. This perception prompted him to join groups of intellectuals and set him on a course of radical activity that fed his poetical outpouring and put him in conflict with the political regime and conservatism of his city’s Jewish Community.
Exhibition Contributors
EXHIBITION CURATOR
Zanet Battinou
RESEARCH – TEXTS
Panagiota Andrianopoulou
TEXT TRANSLATION
Kay Elvira Sutton
TEXT EDITING
Anastasia Loudarou
Christina Meri
Eleni Beze
EXHIBITION DESIGN
Hayia Cohen
PRINTING
Stavros Belessakos, Photosynthesis
PHOTOGRAPHIC ARCHIVE
Leonidas Papadopoulos
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS
Orietta Treveza
All photographs from the Photographic Archive and the Collections of the Jewish Museum of Greece, unless otherwise specified.
Etchings from the personal collection of Ms. Zanet Battinou
Consultant on the subject of Joseph Eligia: Dr. Eleni Kourmantzi, Lecturer, University of Ioannina
With the cooperation of the institutions:
Municipality of Ioannina
Jewish Community of Ioannina
International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
Municipal Gallery of Ioannina
With the kind contribution and support of the British Embassy, the Embassy of Canada, the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Embassy of Israel
