International Conference , Hellenic Diaspora

Abstracts

DIASPORA , IDENTITY AND NATION -BUILDING

Pascalis M. Kitromilides Institute for Neohellenic Research National Hellenic Research Foundation

In this paper I consider two broad subjects connected with the intellectual history of the in the early modern period. One has to do with the conceptualization of the idea of diaspora in early thought. The second considers the ways the Greek intellectual diaspora attempted to respond to the challenge posed by the question of changing identities in diaspora communities in the early nineteenth century. By examining these two issues one may reach a better sense of the historicity of such concepts as diaspora, diaspora-nations, and national community, which we very often use in scholarly discourse without being fully clear about their precise meaning.

THE CHARACTERS OF ANCIENT GREEK COLONISATION

Louisa D. Loukopoulou Research Centre for Greek and Roman Antiquity

The Greek term diaspora is absent from the vocabulary of Ancient Greek colonization. The paper aims at underlining the specific characters which identify the Greek colonization as a unique historical phenomenon, analyzing the following aspects: - causes for Greek colonization - traditional colonizing procedures – the role of the oikist - colonial variants: emporia and clerouchies - relations between colony and mother-city - relations between colonists and indigenous populations Greek koine and the oikoumeme concept: the realization of the first cultural “globalisation”.

EXILE – THE BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES

Bustenay Oded University of Haifa

This paper focuses on Exile not as a historical episode - that event in which and Judah were carried off from their homeland, first by the Assyrians and then by the Babylonians - but on the ideological-theological interpretations by the biblical scribes of the traumatic and significance turn in the history of ancient Israel. The subject is how the biblical historiographers, prophets, poets, and sages understood and interpreted the Exile. In fact only scant information is found in the about everyday life in Exile, about the exiles’ socio-economic conditions in the land whither they had been dispersed. However, the multitude of verses dedicated to the theological interpretations of the Exile cannot serve the argument that the mass deportations of Israel and Judah, as described in the Bible, are only a metaphor, a late literary invention, a myth, made up to justify the taking of lands in Palestine from the indigenous inhabitants by new Jewish immigrants during the Persian or even Hellenistic periods.

The paper presents the biblical perspectives as follows: (1) Exile as divine punishment. (2) Metaphors for Exile and not Exile as a metaphor. (3) The didactive purpose of Exile. (4) Exile as a means to cause sinning people to repent and to purify the contaminated land. (5) Exile as the end of the nation in its homeland or as a necessary step towards Restoration.

WESTERN GREEK COLONIES UNDER THE ROMAN RULER

Panagiotis Doukellis Ionian University –

Phenomena of crisis, either of expansion and creation of colonies, or of tension between locals and colonists, between central state and foreign communities, are often recalled in order to attempt a definition of the Diaspora. Besides, the differenciations of every kind between locals and “foreigners” constitute one of the main presuppositions for the (self) determination of the peripheral communities. The experience of the Greek Diaspora in Magna Grecia and especially in Sicily during the roman times demands a special analysis due: - to the role and the increasing importance of the Greek cities on the island for more than 700 years since their foundation, - to the policy adopted by the Romans during the years after the military conquest of the island and of course - to the problem arised by the definition of the roman identity itself, regarding the Hellenistic culture – the culture of the Greek cities at Sicily. The problem is more complex, if we take into account the historical evolution of the roman empire and its transformation during the late antiquity: the preferred to be considered as the heir of the roman legacy than of the greek/pagan tradition. So during the period from the fourth to the seventh and more centuries, while the Byzantines required South Italy and Sicily for their own empire, romanitas was stressed and grecitas depreciated. How can we approach the question of the Greek Diaspora in Sicily within such a cultural and political context?

HELLENIC /H ELLENISTIC COMMUNITIES IN ERETZ -ISRAEL AND JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE HELLENISTIC -ROMAN WORLD

Uriel Rappaport University of Haifa

Immigration and settlement far away from homeland were common in the ancient Mediterranean world, mangy among and Phoenicians. Yet, except of some ephemeral settlements, it began in Eretz-Israel after the conquest of the Persian empire by . An interesting perspective of this kind of settlement can be gained from the epigraphic material found in Maissa and its surroundings.

The graffiti found there supply us mangy with onomastic data, which illuminates the ethnographic composition in this area: a) Autochtonic Idumean, though hellenized, population. b) Hellenized settlers, mainly Phoenicians. c) Greeks. Among the questions related to these data is that of secondary immigration, probably through Alexandria, of Greek settlers in Eretz-Israel.

Jewish immigration became prominent in the Hellenistic era (before that is was mainly exile). In it appears again the phenomenon of secondary immigration (E. g. - Jewish military settlers from Babylonia installed in Lydia and Phrigia). A similar phenomenon is well known among Greek and Phoenicias, though under different circumstances.

A major question about this phenomenon is the cultural belonging of such diasporic settlers and immigrants - Do they stick to the original culture of their homeland, or are they in a different stage of cultural development, which is meaningfully new one? I think that a comparison between Greeks and can be illuminating, from various perspectives, like the vernacular of each one of them, The religious inheritance they preserve, their attitude to their “metropolis”/homeland, and probably more.

THE JEWISH POLITEUMA IN ALEXANDRIA: A PATTERN OF JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE IN GRECO -ROMAN DIASPORA

Aryeh Kasher University of

The desire of Jews in antiquity to maintain their national and religious identity when scattered among the nations found in its expression in self-organization. Colonists, Hellenic and others, which dotted the Mediterranean basin, wee allowed to maintain their ancestral traditions and to organize themselves in accordance to their own religious, social, and political frameworks. As the Jewish community at Alexandria was the largest and the most famous among all other Jewish communities, it is common accepted that it served as a model for Jewish communal life. It even won the recognition of the central authorities, if to judge, for example, from the World Edict promulgated by Emperor Claudius (Josephus, AJ, XIX, 286ff.) in 41 CE. Until recent years, most researchers believed that the Jewish community in Alexandria was explicitly designated as a politeuma, since early days as stated in the Letter of Aristeas, 310. The term titled the Jewish community of Berenice in Cyrenaica and the end of the first century BCE and at the beginning of the first century CE (see e.g. CIG, III, 5361-2). As this was the only parallel example, reservations were raided by several scholars, starting with C. Zuckerman in 1985/88, with regard to the commonly accepted legal and political meaning of the world politeuma, as well as to the very existence of such a Jewish organization in Alexandria. Zuckerman even sought to totally reject the generally accepted opinion that the politeuma mentioned in the Letter of Aristeas, referred to the Jews of Alexandria, daring to relate to that opinion, rather cynically, as “historiographic legend”. He even has maintained that politeuma meant no more than a private voluntary organization, and that, therefore, it should not be credited with an exaggerated amount of political or legal significance. In utter contrast to his proposal, I shall try to re-examine the whole subject, taking into consideration some new discovered papyri documents dated 139-132 BCE, which clearly indicate the existence of a Jewish politeuma in Herakleopolis in the Fayunn under the leadership of Jewish archons and a politarch. It appears that the new papyrological evidence set at naught the above mentioned reservations, so as to support the old theory, namely that the politeuma should not be anymore an historical legend, but rather an historical reality. BETWEEN CENTER AND PERIPHERY – EMISSARIES FROM PALESTINE TO THE JEWISH COMMUNITIES IN THE HELLENIC DIASPORA

Ruth Lamdan University of Tel Aviv

One manifestation of the close ties that existed between the (the Palestinian Jewish population) and the Diaspora in various periods was the institution of emissaries – representatives of the Jews of the Holy Land who visited Jewish communities in the Diaspora, collecting donations for institutions, congregations and even private individuals in Palestine. The sources on their itineraries and activities range from letters of introduction they were given before they left, articles and booklets they wrote, references to them in the Responsa literature, collections of sermons and funeral orations, and endorsements and introductions to printed books. After the Expulsion from , and particularly from the mid-16 th to late 17 th century, the Jewish communities in and the , particularly Salonika, became the main focus of emissary activity. During that period, over twenty emissaries visited Salonika and its environs. The emissaries did not restrict themselves to mere fund-raising activities, despite the fact that the Jews of Palestine developed a complex ideology to explain and justify fund-raising in the Diaspora. In time, a symbiotic relationship grew up between the recipient (Palestine) and the donor (Salonika). The more dependent the Jews of , Safed, and Hebron became on their “wealthy” brothers in the Balkans, the more the latter relied on the traditional support, advice and opinions of the Sages of Palestine. The emissaries who visited Salonika and its environs, brought with them news and ‘souvenirs’ from the Holy Land, delivered public sermons, and settled halakhic disputes that were brought before them. Although Salonika symbolized the economic center, and Palestine the spiritual center, the boundaries between them became blurred during the two centuries under review. Salonika began producing its own public personalities and decisors of note who were capable of holding their own on halakhic and social issues. Regulations adopted in Salonika served as a paradigm for other communities, and legal documents that were drawn up in Salonika became the prototype for similar documents not only in the immediate vicinity, but also in places as remote as and Jerusalem. Sometimes it was even hard to know which was the true halakhic center. Salonika’s rise as a spiritual center went hand in hand with its decline as an economic center, due to the political, economic and commercial changes that took place in the , and the Jews of Salonika found it increasingly hard to meet the financial expectations of the emissaries. This paper sets out to examine the shifting roles between the two centers. In it, we shall examine the changing attitude toward the emissaries throughout the period under discussion, and the importance of Salonika for the Jews of Palestine. We shall also consider whether Palestine still retained its pre-eminence as a spiritual center for Jews in the Diaspora, in practice as well as in theory.

COLLECTIVE EXPATRIATIONS OF GREEKS (15 TH - 17 TH CENT .)

Anastassia Papadia-Lala The University of

In the context of the extensive phenomenon of emigration, which characterizes the history of New Hellenism, our topic will focus on one of its different aspects, the collective expatriations of Greeks from the 15th to the 17th century. The term “collective expatriations” means the massive and organized departures of population groups of the same descent, from their homes, based on legal agreements with foreign leaders. This category, on the one hand, consists of Greeks from regions under Latin domination. As their homelands were been occupied by the Ottoman Turks, in departing they followed the Western dominators of that time (Venetians, Genoans, Wrights of St. John). On the other hand, this category also consists of Greeks from regions dominated by the Turks, such as Greeks from and Mani, who were expatriated at different times for political and economic reasons. The two main topics under examination will be the places-starting points of expatriation and the places of destination. In the first part, the historic conjunctions that enforce expatriation (homeland occupation, participation in unsuccessful antiregime movements, civil conflicts, economic recession) will be presented and grouped. In addition, the statistics of emigrants, in relation to the total number of compatriots that remained, will be analyzed and the social and ideological parameters of both sides will be presented. On the other hand, in the second part the emigrants’ methods of adapting to the social and economic environments of their new location, their relationship with the native population and central political authorities and their social framework in comparison to the structure and hierarchy of their prior society will be examined. Emphasis will be placed in exploring the concept “homeland”. The standpoints of the emigrants themselves and of the successive generations will be identified as to the place of origin, as well as to the place of settlement, targeted at showing their identities progressively during that time period and on. Likewise, the following matters will be examined: how emigrants feel about their expatriation (on a permanent or temporary basis); the intensity and form of connection that they feel for their “homeland”; the contribution of this massive and organized type of expatriation to the protection or gradual fading of the special characteristics of this group. Lastly, “collective expatriation” will be briefly compared to other forms of Greek emigrations of that time. CENTRAL AND PERIPHERAL COMMUNITIES IN THE GREEK DIASPORA : INTERLOCAL AND LOCAL ECONOMIC -POLITICAL CULTURAL NETWORKS IN THE 18 TH -19 TH CENTURIES

Olga Katsiardi-Hering University of Athens

In this paper I propose to point out the common or the divergent elements who can explain the existence of two groups of communities/” paroikiai ”, central and peripheral, especially in the economic but also in the political-cultural sector, as well as to explain the reasons of the development of the peripheral communities in the 18. and 19th centuries in concrete areas. Looking at the map of the greek communities of the same period, who belong, according to the classification of the Greek Diaspora after the 15th cent., to the second group of the clear commercial-urban communities, we can easily observe the existence of big or smaller centres of commerce and ship-or bank enterprises. Causes of flight before or after the wars, invitation on the pad of the west european leaders in the form of personal or group-privileges, mass or individual migrations, removements of rural and stock-breeders in order to cover the need of settlement in special areas of the West, establishment of commercial agents or enterprises in principal centres of West and Central consist only a part of the factors concerning the periodisation of the Greek Diaspora of the modern era. At the end of the 18th century the map of the greek communities shows the following picture: western of Vienna there are only central communities/ paroikiai . Eastern of Vienna in the era of a) Hungary of today, Transylvania, Rumania of today, b) Ukrania, South Russia as well as c) in Egypt we meet small and large communities. In those areas we have central and peripheral communities as well. In this paper 1 intend to put forward the factors which explain this differenciation and I think that these factors are: 1) the geographical and 2) the economic-political one. Rivers, the kind of soil, the orientation to the see, the socioeconomic conditions after the wars, the position of these areas in the local and translocal commerce, the colonisation programs of the emperors or of the kings is of a great importance for this new classification. I shall also try to point out the significance of these peripheral and central communities in the “circulation” of cultural and political ideas.

RESHAPING COMMUNITY . IDENTITY MAKING AND POWER RELATIONS IN THE CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX COMMUNITIES OF THE LATE OTTOMAN ERA

Haris Exertzoglou University of the Aegean

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of cultural and social transformation of Christian Orthodox communities during the 19th century and to re- examine the concept of community. As it is widely acknowledged these communities were affected, although to uneven extent, by a variety of factors. The rapid commercialization of ottoman agriculture, the increasing trade with the western economies, the intensification of internal immigration and urbanization as well as the policies of Ottoman reform and the growing impact of nationalism all played their part in this process. Issues of transformation have been until recently discussed in a framework of understanding that took many things for granted. Primarily the premise was that these communities represented a coherent entity of almost a-historical nature either at local or regional level. Coherence and unity were confirmed once more despite the new powerful challenges unleashed by the forces of transformation during the 19th century. The paper will discuss these issues from an entirely different angle. What I want to argue is that the boundaries of community were not given or stable but constantly negotiated in specific historical circumstances. Rather than seen community as a coherent entity whose fundamental elements remained unchanged I want to argue that changes in the 19th century generated such powerful processes of cultural differentiation and institutional orientation that reshaped the boundaries of community. Rather than being static perceptions of community and self were radically reconsidered under new influences and challenges. In the context of rapid social transformation, particularly in the urban areas, gender, class and eventually community-as-nation were defined anew as much as criteria of inclusion and exclusion from the community were refashioned. Yet, these processes were both a field of contest and a field of establishing power relations. The making of social identities involved a complex negotiation, with diverse and often competing local variations, highlighting the rise of new dominant groups and forms of power. Obviously this approach disregards neither the intense cultural and linguistic fragmentation of Christian Orthodox communities nor their geographical dispersion. In fact in this general framework various local patterns are involved. This discussion draws upon two case studies regarding different aspects of community making: the case of Constantinople and that of Mersina.

THE GREEK DIASPORA IN VENICE Chryssa Maltezou Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Studies in Venice

AFTER THE TURKISH CONQUEST OF CONSTANTINOPLE , LARGE NUMBER OF GREEKS SOUGHT REFUGE IN VENICE , THUS FINDING A WAY OUT OF THE HISTORICAL IMPASSE CREATED BY THE DISSOLUTION OF BYZANTIUM . THE GREEKS WHO WERE ARRIVING AT THE LAGOON FROM THE REGIONS OF THE GREEK WORLD WHICH HAD BEEN CONQUERED WERE VIEWED AS “SCHISMATICS” AND “HERETICS ”, AND THEY WERE HELD TO BE A THREAT TO THE FAITH OF THE CATHOLICS . FOR THIS REASON , THE VENETIAN AUTHORITIES ADOPTED FOR A LONG TIME A NEGATIVE ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE GREEK ELEMENT . THE YEAR OF 1498 IS A TURNING - POINT IN THE HISTORY OF THE GREEKS OF VENICE . WITH A PETITION TO THE COUNCIL OF TEN , THEY SOUGHT PERMISSION TO BE ORGANISED INTO AN ASSOCIATION OF ETHNIC MINORITY , THE SO - CALLED “S CUOLA ” OR “NAZIONE ”, ON THE BASIS OF VENETIAN INSTITUTIONS . WITH THEIR IDENTITY NOW RECOGNISED , THE GREEKS OF THE DIASPORA - THE NAZIONE GRECA - WOULD ATTEMPT TO PUT DOWN ROOTS IN THE CITY OF SAINT MARC . THEIR HISTORY SHOWS THAT THE CONFRATERNITY WAS NOT CONFINED TO THE CLOSED FORM OF AN ASSOCIATION EXCLUSIVELY SERVING RELIGIOUS AND CHARITABLE NEEDS , BUT THAT IT FUNCTIONED AS THE CENTRE , PAR EXCELLENCE , OF THE NATION IN EXILE . THE NAZIONE WAS IDENTIFIED IN THE MINDS OF THE REFUGEES WITH THE LOST HOMELAND .

A study of the behaviour through time of the confratelli leads us to note a series of stable characteristics. Resilience in the face of change and adaptability to a new environment are basic features of the Greeks of the Diaspora. Love of beauty is another characteristic of the Greeks of Venice. An incontestable witness to this is the Campo dei Greci , which contains the Flanginian College building, the Scoletta with the meeting hall of the confraternity, and the elegant church of the San Giorgio. However, a further characteristic of the greatest importance is to be found in the mentality of the Greek community of Venice. The Greeks were conscious of the importance which the confraternity had for the world of the Diaspora. The term “ nazione greca”, apart from its special meaning of the ethnic brotherhood, came to be identical with the whole “race (genos ) of the Greeks”. THE GREEK SETTLEMENT IN VIENNA 1780-1850

Vassiliki Seirinidou University of Athens

From the point of view of Greek historiography, the inclusion of this particular theme in the History of the Hellenic Diaspora and the use of broader conceptual and chronological categories to describe the presence of Greeks in places far from their homeland Tom ancient times up to the present constitutes the starting point of my reflections on the composition and meaning of the concept of Diaspora, as well as its limits as a conceptual tool for studying the Greek communities of central Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The presentation with which I would like to take part in the conference on the subject “Jewish Diaspora - Hellenic Diaspora” organised by your university in March of 2001 comes under the first framework of the conference discussion (The meaning of Diaspora through generations; what is centre, what is periphery?) and I will inform you of its precise title in the immediate future.

In the Greek and the international literature on the Hellenic Diaspora, there is a commonplace perplexity and inability in describing both the content of the term and its flame of reference. In my presentation an effort will be made to identify common elements and contradictions in the discussion about the Diaspora and the selective use of the term that has been observed.

The perplexity and contradictions in determining the content of the Diaspora are interpreted as the result of a viewpoint that perceives the Diaspora as groups of people with specific identities, whereas the Diaspora is itself a particular identity with no prior existence, it does not refer a priori to particular groups, but is made up.

Then the wake-up of this identity is examined in the Greek case, as well as its historicity and the different Suctions it has been carrying out Tom the mid-14 th century to the present time. The basic position of this presentation is that the Diaspora constitutes above all a political identity, and that the role of the state is crucial in determining its content.

Finally, based on the above, a change is proposed in the historic perspective of the “History of the Hellenic Diaspora”, in the way in which identities and groups come together under migration conditions and, within this Homework, there is a brief analysis of the Greeks in Vienna in the 18th and 19th centuries. THE GREEKNESS OF ROMANIOTE JEWRY

Julia Krivoruchko University of Haifa

The question, who are the Romaniotes and how long did they stay in Greece, is not a simple one to answer. The Romaniotes believe themselves to reside on Greek territory since the Babylonian exile which, in terms of Greek history, corresponds to the times of Solon, - i.e. they think of themselves as virtually indigenous. This conviction is expressed in them calling themselves Palaioelladi/tej or Palaioi/ E(/llhnej. On the other hand, in their legends they appear as “true Jews”, the exiled inhabitants of ancient Israel, who reached the Greek shores directly from their homeland. Until now no archaeological proof has been provided for this impressive claim and no evidence for such migration has been found in the historical sources of the classical period. No research using modern genetic techniques has verified the Semitic origins of the Romaniotes, and the results of historical research differ substantially from this popular ethnic self-description. There is a common opinion that the hellenization of Jewry in the last centuries BCE has been a causa finalis of the formation of Romaniotes as an ethnic minority. The impact of Greek civilization and its successor - the Roman Empire - is known to be both deeply penetrating and all-embracing. Insofar as the Jews studied Greek poetry, strove to build Greek-styled architecture, participated in the Greek rhetorical schooling and philosophical discussions, they shared the Greek lifestyle and might be classified as Greek by virtue of being e)llhnikh/j paidei/aj mete/xontej. The Greek universalism was broad enough to include Jews - they were just one more barbarian tribe professing an exotic oriental cult, whose assimilation seemed only a matter of time. So much about the externally ascribed identity. The Greekness that the Jews themselves felt is suggested indirectly through the rabbinical cautions against Hellenization. The most important consequence of Hellenization for the later historical developments was the language shift, namely the transition from the /Greek or Hebrew/Greek diglossia to the Greek monolinguism in the last centuries BC. The functions of the were no longer limited to oral communication: the children were taught to read and write Greek; Jewish authors quoted Greek literary works. In the Hellenistic period we witness the emergence of the first Judaic populations who knew no language but Greek. Greek became not only their mother tongue, but a language firmly associated with the ideology of : as many Jews that were unable to read the Scriptures in the original Hebrew, they translated them into Greek creating what has later come to be known as the Septuagint. Greek was used as a language of the service and religious instruction and, for a certain period, acquired a status of a superior cultural language, comparable to that of Hebrew – the language through which divine inspirations could be conferred. The existence of monolingual Grecophone Jewry was not only the sociolinguistic fact, it also had its repercussions on the self-consciousness of these communities. Jews were the last to retain the Greek language in the remote provinces of Gallia and Hispania. The retreat of Greek throughout the Mediterranean was surely painful and tragic for them. But in the territories where the main population was Greek, no severe changes occurred, and the Romaniotes could continue to cherish their Grecophonia. However, during the early Byzantine period the Greek language not only lost its territory, - it was also limited in its functions, as the tendencies to revive Hebrew strengthened. The emperor Justinian in his Novella #146 (553 AD) ordered the Bible to be preached in Greek in the , as in this language it could be easily understood. Yet the very necessity for the emperor to interfere in the internal regulations of the religious service shows how great was the pressure exercised on the community by the revanchists of Hebrew. The latter finally succeeded and approximately after the 9 th century the sociolinguistic situation once more turned upside down. Original regained its status of primary heritage, but the religious instruction was given in colloquial Greek, and this language continued to be used in the liturgy. An interesting question that has not been sufficiently studied is that of the specific coloring of Romaniote Greek in general, and its role in the minority’s self- consciousness in particular. We know, e.g. that Ebraiogiannio/tej at the end of 19 th century spoke a dialect different from their Christian and Muslim neighbors, but the origin of these peculiarities is unknown. No clear picture can be reached about Chalkis, Patra and other communities. One wonders whether distinctive phonetic or lexical features were given emblematic significance and to what extent the sociolects of Jewish Greek were really distinguishable. Be that as it may, Grecophonia played a decisive role in the Romaniote history, since it created what I would call “transparent subculture”, a different but an understandable otherness. The common language left less room for suspicion and xenophobia, and therefore facilitated the situation of the Romaniotes in comparison with many other Jewish groups. The Romaniotes were much more integrated in Greek society, as they pursued rural occupations, owned domestic animals and enjoyed freedom of dwelling inside the towns. Later the Sepharadi reflected this dissolution of the Jewish element in the Greek sea in the proverb ‘casaliko medio kristianiko’ (‘the villager is half-Christian’) Certain scholars tend to present the Romaniote communities as autarkic groups: “The Jews …had no point of mutual contact with either their compatriots, their rulers or other minorities” [S. Bowman, p.114]. From the same source, only four pages later, we learn that the Romaniotes produced kosher cheese in which was exported to Constantinople by Greek Christian merchants to be consumed there by local Jews. In such a network, to refrain from communication with Greek speakers of a different religious affiliation would be highly unpractical and unlikely. Being involved in the agricultural production or in the trading of agricultural products, the Romaniote were constantly exposed to Greek popular culture. No wonder that almost all the spheres of their everyday life became profoundly hellenized. However, this part of Romaniote heritage has been often misinterpreted for the following reason: the modest amount of Romaniote anthropological research accomplished until now was performed by the researchers with Jewish backgrounds, such as J. Starr, D. Jacoby, R. Dalven et al. The latter tended to explain all customs unfamiliar to them as Christian. As a result, e.g. the ritual of stefanw/mata during the wedding ceremony is called “Christian” although the church tried to abolish this tradition for centuries. When silver plates shaped like body parts were discovered in the synagogue of Ianniotes, they were interpreted as influences of a Christian cult, although the phenomenon of ta/mata obviously predates it. Greece was the only place where the feast of H/rtaman was celebrated at the beginning of the month Adar. No other Jewish communities share such tradition. The children visit the households, just like the ka/landa-performers do, and sing a song, which bears certain similarity to xelidoni/smata, as the festival takes place towards the end of winter. These and other like examples surely represent not the “Christian influences”, but vestiges of pagan Greek practices. Such ancient rites were often widespread throughout the peninsula, and may be numbered together with what S. Vryonis called “religious balkanisms”. Generally, Greek folklore provided the basic building elements for various forms of the Romaniote creative writing. The Ianniote para-liturgical chants, edited by J. Matsas, Schwarz and Athanasakis, styled after Ianniote stixopla/kia may serve as an illustration. The liturgical music of Romaniotes was recognized as Greek-inspired by its investigators A. Shiloah and L. Levi. While editing the manuscript of the Romaniote Bible translations, used in liturgy and religious instruction, I was extremely surprised to discover that these translations were composed in the language of klephtic songs. The influence of the Greek folklore on the poems written in Hebrew, both published by L. Weinberger and still in manuscript, awaits its researcher. The affect of the mainstream Greek culture on the elite Romaniote learning of the late Byzantine period was noticed by S. Bowman, Z. Ankori and others. The Romaniotes tended to devote themselves to the same spheres of knowledge as their Orthodox neighbors. The educated upper class of the communities must have been literate in Greek; they studied medicine, astronomy and mysticism. Moreover, they translated Greek philosophical works into Hebrew for the sake of their Sepharadi co- religionists, which shows that Greek science was viewed as an integral part of their tradition. After 1492, as the Spanish- and Italian-speaking Jewish immigrants became a majority, the demographic proportions reversed and the Romaniotes – probably for the first time in their history - had to protect their identity and their Greekness. Their battle was not victorious. The Greek-speaking Jewry quickly became marginalized on the great part of Greek territory, for several reasons. First, Mehmet II deported the Romaniote communities from Thrace and to newly conquered Constantinople, and in doing so partly destroyed the economic basis of their well being and the inter-communal network. Second, the millet system could not provide sufficient autonomy for minorities inside minorities. Third, the Sephardim were more advanced in Judaic scholarship, and the Romaniotes had to accept their superior religious authority. There is plenty of evidence that Sephardim regarded Romaniotes as excessively Greek – and insufficiently Jewish - and used to refer to them as “Gregos” or “Yavanim”. The identities remained distinct and intermarriage limited. Nevertheless, contacts were unavoidable, and the process of slow integration began its inevitable course. In those parts of Greece where the immigrants were less numerous, the Romaniotes succeeded in preserving their independent communal structures and in assimilating the newcomers, imposing on them their traditions and regulations. The Paradenbeispiel of Romaniote success is, of course, . In Epirus not the Romaniotes, but the settlers from abroad felt a need to protect their ethnicity by introducing new identity-markers, such as Siciliano. The achievements of the communities in the south of the country were less impressive and are frequently described by historians as “barely noticeable” and as a “shadowy survival”. Ottoman domination initiated a new period, when the Greekness of the Romaniotes was subjected to major devaluation. Paradoxically, in the very historical circumstances when Romaniotes became more conscious of their Greekness, in many places they became physically and socially separated from Greeks. In Ioannina and Chalkis the Jews moved to the castles together with Turks, while the Orthodox resided outside the walls. As a social identity, Greekness became an identity of a conquered population; as a cultural identity it was largely underestimated because of the emphasis that Rabbinical Judaism made on Hebrew. On the other hand, the works of Romaniote poets were composed in the despised vernacular dhmotikh/ which, at that time, enjoyed no esteem. Creativity and self-expression of second class citizens in a second-class language were surely unattractive enough; nevertheless, Greek was not abandoned for the sake of Turkish. The degree of support for the Turks differed substantially between communities, so that during the War of Independence quite contrary reactions took place. The Jews, e.g. of Chalkis welcomed independence, while those of , closely associated with their Turkish masters, fled with them. In the new Greek national state Romaniote Jews were rapidly integrated in almost every aspect. The Jews had equal rights with the rest of population and participated in the nation’s economic development. They fought in the Armed Forces and later in Resistance brigades. No statistics on the relative participation of Romaniotes and Sepharadi in various wars have been collected, but the fact that the most prominent hero of Jewish origin, Colonel Mordechai Frizis, originated from the Greek-speaking community of Chalkis, speaks for itself. Secularization constantly diminished the differences between the Greek citizens of different religions. As Judaism ceased to be the way of life and Weltanschauung , it metamorphosed into a romantic reminiscence of exotic descent. The religious horizons of the Romaniotes widened, and pride in their own tradition no longer prevented from appreciating the values of Christianity. One thinks of Joseph Eliya’s poems Idaniko/, Ihsou/j and O/rama Golgoqa/. The ideology of Greek secular nationalism also found its echo among the Greek-speaking Jewry, as the book Peri/ thj ellhniko/thtaj thj Makedoni/aj by Asher Moisis demonstrates. Current research indicates that the behavioral patterns of modern Greek- speaking Jews do not differ substantially from those of other Greeks. As for the contemporary Romaniote diaspora, Greekness remains an important part of its identity. The American Romaniotes provided generous support for the revival of Romaniote life after the Second World War. Dozens of second and third generation emigrants participate in so-called “pilgrimages” to their mother-community in Greece. A number of Romaniotes educated in the “Alliance Israelite” schools emigrated to France, where they achieved considerable economic success. Yet many of them chose to emigrate back to Greece, uniting their fate with that of the Greek people. Even in Israel, where the official ideology remains suspicious towards local identities, persons of Romaniote origin visit Greek meeting points and socialize with Christian Greeks. With the flow of time, the intricate situations that took place during the Turkish occupation, as well as occasional violence, have tended to be forgotten, while the sheer duration of coexistence has become increasingly important. In this new context the flattering mythologeme of the Romaniote Jews as Babylonian exiles proves especially useful, because such a self-image allows the Romaniotes to contrast themselves positively with Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewry as both closer to the ultimate authority of Zion and more genuinely Greek. For the popular Romaniote self-consciousness the very fact of staying in a certain environment for thousands of years implies social loyalty to this environment. Quantity is dialectically transformed into quality, and the Romaniotes are felt to be Greek, while the recent arrivals cannot be entitled to claim true Greekness. SPAIN , GREECE OR JERUSALEM ? THE YEARNING FOR A MOTHERLAND IN THE POETRY OF GREEK JEWS

Shmuel Refael Bar-Ilan University, Israel

The yearning for a motherland, in its most simple interpretation, is one of the central characteristics in nationalist poetry. This kind of poetry usually wishes to express the feelings of a people, a nation, a country or a large number of people united by their common ancestry and history. Nationalist poetry carries the banner of a defined territory.

In the poetry of the Greek Jews, who never had a defined territory to identify with, an interesting phenomenon occurs, a triple-rooted link to three “motherlands”, all of which become a part of the special identity of these Jews - Spain, Greece and Jerusalem. It must be noted that in the poetry of Greek Jews at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century, the three motherlands - Spain, Greece and Jerusalem, continue to be amalgamated, and it can be said that, paradoxically, these Jews greatly identified with three completely different territories. The connection to Spain is clearly rooted in the period of Jewish settlement in Spain before the inquisition. The link to Greece is a result of historical and political processes that took place at the beginning of the twentieth century, and the attachment to Jerusalem is a function of their deep connection to the Zionist ideal and the land of their forefathers - the land of Zion and Jerusalem.

In the proposed lecture, an attempt will be made to characterize the various texts in a literary aspect, pointing to lines of similarity between the different literary texts in which the Jews express nationalistic links - each time to a different motherland. This will be done by presenting poetic examples that were collected from the written and the oral literature of the Jews of Greece. An important point that will be investigated in the lecture is the measure of national loyalty by the Greek Jews after . Did the link to Greece become stronger? The connection with Spain? Or their attachment to Jerusalem?

The tangle of roots that is reflected by the texts will show us the literary problematics that are only the tip of a very extensive subject - the issue of the Sephardic Jews’ nationalism throughout the generations. PERIPHERY OR CENTER : AMERICAN ZIONISTS IN THE FORTIES

Zohar Segev University of Haifa

In the forties, the crisis of European Jewry following Hitler’s ascendancy generated changes in power relationships in the Jewish world. In parallel to the strengthening of the Yishuv and the establishment of the Jewish State of Israel, vast changes took place in the status of American . The watershed year of 1938 marked not only an increase in the scope of Zionist activity in the , but also a basic alteration of the nature of the Zionist leaders’ activity there. In the 1920s and ‘30s, American Zionists gave up on the political basis of their Zionist activity. The American Zionist leadership during this period showed no involvement in the key questions that the movement was contending with and satisfied itself with collecting money in the context of Zionist funds in the United State. The nature of this activity may be defined as philanthropic and passive. Toward the end of the 1930s, however, significant changes began to take place in the patterns of activity of this Zionist leadership, which now began working toward changing its standing in the world Zionist movement. The goal was to create an organizational structure that would ensure the independence of the U.S. movement and bring about its special status. One can point to a repeated pattern of struggle over the centrality and role of American Zionism in the context of the world movement, beginning with the Brandeis-Weizmann struggle. Brandeis’ struggle was not a one-time occurrence or something exceptional. The desire to affect the structure of the Zionist movement arose repeatedly during this decade leading up to the establishment of the State of Israel, the process of the strengthening of American Zionism serving as a stimulant. The aspiration for change was manifested in criticism of the performance of Zionist institutions, in objecting to emissaries to the United States, in the demand to expand the independent Zionist infrastructure in the U.S., and in the attempt to set up independent financial institutions. That American Zionists wanted to go beyond their passive status stemmed from a desire to influence the world Zionist movement and the Yishuv in Palestine. They presented an overall outlook in regard to a solution to the central issues with which the movement was contending: the relationship of the Yishuv and the future state to Jews in the Diaspora, the social character of the Jewish community in Palestine, the nature of Zionist democracy, and the means of financing the Zionist enterprise. A test case for the struggle of American Zionists for budgetary independence and release from dependence on the Zionist executive was the attempt to set up the American Zionist Bank as part of a repeated pattern of American Zionists’ attempts to make use of their economic power and its institutionalization in order to influence the structure of world Zionism. The bank affair joins the repeated attempts by American Zionists to gain greater control over the use of their money. The struggle in the Keren Hayesod affair was concluded in the 1920s, a period in which American Zionism suffered from political weakness, and it arose once more in the early 1940s together with the strengthening and awakening of American Zionists. The attempt to set up an American Zionist bank expressed in an extreme manner the aspiration of American Zionists to influence and take part in Zionist activity. Between 1938 and 1948, American Zionists operated in the shadow of the Holocaust of European Jewry as well as in the light of opportunities to realize the goal of the Zionist movement, which was the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. These facts enabled an extraordinary mobilization of the American Jewish community for Zionist activity and presented American Zionist leaders with an unusual window of opportunity to influence Zionist activity and the nature of the Jewish state in the making. An investigation of Zionist activity during these years shows the centrality of the struggle between the American Zionist leadership and most of the Zionist establishment in Palestine and the world. The struggle was conducted around the issue of the status of American Zionists in the world Zionist movement and their ability to influence the way in which Zionist democracy operated, the structure of the economic system in Palestine, and the place of the Jewish state in international arrangements after the war. The establishment of the State of Israel towed in its wake a return to the patterns of Zionist activities of the 1920s, when American Zionists served mainly as a passive factor, supplying only economic and political support services.

WHO IS THE CENTER AND WHO THE PERIPHERY WRITERS IN THE UNITED STATES AND THE STATE OF ISRAEL (1950’ S)

Rachel Rojanski University of Haifa

Yiddish culture was brought to America at the turn of the 19 th and 20 th centuries, and flourished there for approximately three decades, reaching its peak during the years of World War I. During the inter-wars years, although suffering some decline, New York was still an important center of Yiddish, with a strong inter-relationship with the prospering main centers in . This situation changed entirely after the holocaust. In Eastern Europe Yiddish centers were wiped out. In pre-state Israel, Yiddish was rejected, and in the State of Israel Yiddish was suppressed. Yiddish center in New York, although weakened and less influential, remained the only active Yiddish center. Nevertheless we find that during the early 1950’s Yiddish intellectuals were involved in a feud over the status of Yiddish in Israel, and led a battle over it. Taking into consideration that some of them adhered to Non-Zionist ideologies, and even opposed the establishment of the State of Israel, this deserves our attention. If we assume that the center of Yiddish was in America, why should American Yiddishists take any interest in the status of Yiddish in Israel? If American Yiddishists denied the importance of the existence of the State of Israel, why do they fight over the nature of its culture? And vice versa. If the State of Israel aspired to be the center of the Jewish people, why did its leaders make efforts to atone Yiddish intellectuals in America? My paper will try to show that in this case, center and periphery are not dichotomic terms. Although claiming to be the international center of Yiddish culture and an important Jewish center, American Yiddishists look upon Israel as the center of the Jewish people. And the state of Israel, although declaring itself as the only center of the Jewish people, recognizes New York, as an important and influential Jewish cultural center. The analysis of this case will aspire to show the dialectical and ambivalent character of this question.

THE DIASPORA MUSEUM IN TEL AVIV : PRESENTING EXILE TO A NATION -STATE

Dina Porat University of Tel Aviv

The Diaspora Museum (Beit-Hatefutzot) located in the campus of Tel Aviv University, and named after Dr. Nahum Goldman, was established in order to present the 2000 years of exile in the context of , old and new. Goldman, president of the World Zionist Organization, argued constantly with David Ben- Gurion, the first prime minister of Israel, about the role of the diaspora in the public Israeli arena. He claimed that Jewish history, traditions and wealth of creativity during the long exile should be presented in all their splendor, and that the new state should treat today’s diaspora with utmost respect, as equal. Ben-gurion was convinced that Zionism needed, as an educational and opinion-building tool, just the periods during which the people lived on their land, when the First and the were at the heart of national life; and that Zionism is far superior to any exile and community in the diaspora from every point of view. The museum, conceived by the poet and partisan Abba Kovner, who fully agreed with Goldman, exhibits the 2000 years between the destruction of the Second Temple and Zionism as a bridge, not as a gap, as a chain, not as a series of ruptures, and as imbued with achievements that future generations should be proud of, and not shun away from It is the aim of this paper to analyze how the Diaspora museum was planned to visualize the ideas of its initiators.

ISRAEL'S LAW OF RETURN

Yfaat Weiss University of Haifa

In his article, published in 1999, Ian Lustick takes great pains to reconstruct the presumed number of non-Jews among the olim: a figure which official circles in Israel take trouble to conceal. Lustick attributes the covering up of the figures to an Israeli conspiracy of silence, which in his paper assumes proportions bordering on intrigue. In this conspiracy of silence, there exist side by side differing and even conflicting vested interests. Lustick’s fascinating article paints a picture of a contemporary situation. The facts and dynamics exposed by the paper create the impression that the most recent developments - i.e. the sweeping interpretation of the Law of Return as a law for the immigration of non- Arabs - not only serve the demographic interests of the Jewish majority against the Palestinian minority in the State of Israel, but also point to the Israel legislator’s original intention: anti- Palestinian “ethnic mobilization” at any price. I accept the picture of the current situation which Lustick draws, and I am even inclined to agree with the picture of the “conspiracy of silence” which he puts forward. However, the Israeli legislator was operating in 1950 and 1970, and certainly did not anticipate the geo-political developments of the 1990s. Lustick chooses to focus on the reality of the Nineties, and to base his argument on the contemporary press and face-to-face interviews. He refrains from any historical analysis of how the laws came about. What I want to do is to examine whether this was indeed the legislator’s intention, or whether this is a genie which has escaped from the bottle. What was the Israeli legislators’ motivation during the legislative process, and by what historical awareness were they guided? Were these laws enacted deliberately with the goal of establishing a “non-Arab majority” come what may, or were the legislators motivated by utterly different considerations, which ultimately led in a cumulative development to what for me is a problematic reality of the last wave of aliya. It is my assumption that the political experience that shapes the Israeli legislator was primarily Central and East European. When the legislators drafted these laws - the Law of Return and the Law on Citizenship - they were copying an East European life experience which they imposed on a Middle Eastern reality. It is a moot point whether these were models worth the copying.

FROM DIASPORA TO TRANSNATIONALISM : REVISITING CONCEPTS , ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORKS AND HISTORICAL EXPERIENCES OF DISPERSION

Ioanna Laliotou University of

This paper explores the relation between two fields of study: diaspora studies and transnationalism studies. The aim of this exploration is to trace the shift of concepts and analytical tools as we move from the one framework to the other. Both areas of study focus on the analysis of phenomena related to the geographical dispersions of populations as well as the subsequent development of culture and politics beyond and across the geographic and conceptual borders of the modern nation-state. Diaspora as an analytical concept was formed with reference to the particular historical experiences of people whose dispersion coincided with the peak of nationalist politics (i.e. Greek diaspora) or as a result of catastrophic experiences such as holocausts, slavery or ethnic/religious genocides (e.g. Jewish diaspora, Armenian diaspora, Black diaspora). On the other hand transnationalism is an concept particularly constructive in the study of politics, economy and culture in the globalizing context of late modernity (South Indian transnationalism, East Asian transnationalism etc.). Questions addressed in this paper concern the relation between historical experience and the production of analytical frameworks. Also, what does the intersection between notions of diaspora and transnationalism mean for the ways in which we understand community, identity, representation and politics in the late modernity?