The Greek Jews

THE GREEK JEWS INTRODUCTION In 1821 on the southernmost por0on of the Balkan Peninsula, a Chris0an people known as the Greeks revolted against 400 years of OComan rule and successfully established a fully independent state recognized by the European powers. The Greeks would be the first na0onal group to win its independence and would inspire other na0onalist groups among the subject peoples of the OComan Empire to do the same in Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania. The young Greek state announced to the world that it was not sa0sfied with its original boundaries. Over the next century, this vibrant and energe0c state sought to expand its territory by incorpora0ng into it all those territories that were ethnically and historically Greek since ancient 0mes. The ideology upon which this phenomenon is based has come to be known as the Megali Idea. The Greek state had as its immediate goal acQuiring the Greek Orthodox popula0ons of Macedonia, Epirus and Thessaly. Over the next 100 years they achieved this reality. And as the Greek state expanded, it acQuired the various Jewish communi0es that lived in these areas. It is oSen said that Greece became a country for the first 0me in its long history in the 1820s during the Greek revolu0on. Historians of ancient Greece history describe the Greeks not as a country, but as a civiliza0on that extended throughout much of the Mediterranean world forming a brilliant cultural zone which influenced many of the civiliza0ons around. However, it is important to make note of that which many historians seem to neglect. And that is the following: the Greek speaking people have lived in an organized state longer than any other Chris0an ethnic group in the Mediterranean world. For 1600 years they lived in the Roman Empire. This was the most advanced civiliza0on on European soil and the closest thing resembling a pre--modern state that the world would see up to that 0me. It had the only standing army financed by a sophis0cated governmental apparatus that succeeded in protec0ng its people for two millennia. That empire began in the 0ny village of Rome on the Tiber River in 500 BC and ended 2000 years later in Constan0nople in 1453 AD when the last Emperor donned his armor and died in baCle defending his people. A new age had dawned and that was the age of the OComan Empire. THE ROMANIOTES But another important observa0on is eQually as important. We must not forget that alongside the Greek speaking neighbors for those 1600 years was a Jewish community that went through the good 0mes and the bad 0mes of Orthodox Chris0an history. They refer to themselves in Greek as the Romaniotes, the Roman Jews. They would derive their name from the name of the Roman Empire as it was known in the old 0mes, Romania. They have been speaking the Greek language for over 2000 years. They have adopted Greek names. They have dis0nct customs which have incorporated many of their Orthodox Chris0an neighbors' tradi0ons. The liturgical language of their synagogues is conducted in a Judeo-Greek dialect known as Yevanic. The rabbis were advanced intellectuals genuinely interested in world affairs. This genuine interest may be related to the fact that they lived in a Roman state with a con0nuous history over a 2000 year period. If you were to YouTube "Greek Jew", you would find a three minute recording of a Greek Fes0val on the Lower East Side of ManhaCan much like the fes0vals that Greek Orthodox Chris0ans have all over the United States. The streets are blocked off and the music you are hearing is Greek. The instruments they are playing are Greek. The language they are using is Greek. The food that they serve resembles the very items that are sponsored at Greek fes0vals. They think Greek; they act Greek; they look Greek. There is only one difference. When you walk into the temple of worship, it is obvious that you've just entered a synagogue, but one which echoes the sounds of the Greek language. This is the Greek Jewish community that the expanding Greek state found in her newly acQuired territories; a community that has been assimilated with Greek culture for over 2000 years. THE SEPHARDIC JEWS During the First Balkan War of 1912, the Greek Armed Forces won the great prize of the Balkans, the city of Thessaloniki. What had been a Greek city for 1700 years was conQuered by the OComan Empire in the 15th century. What the Greeks found in 1912 in Thessaloniki was not a Greek city. It was not a Turkish city. It was an OComan city and a most uniQue one at that. Slightly over 50% of that city's popula0on was Jewish. This was the largest Jewish popula0on of any city on the European con0nent at the 0me. And certainly, no such city on the European con0nent or for that maCer in the OComan Empire had a Jewish majority. When did they arrive? Where did they come from? How did they get there? Answers to these Ques0ons lie in their name--- Sephardic Jews, Sephardim as they are known in Hebrew. Sephard in Hebrew has come to be synonymous with Spain. These were the ancient Jews of the Roman Empire who found themselves under the rule of the Visigoths, one of the Germanic groups which divided the western territories of the Roman Empire in the fiSh century. They would lose their Roman iden0ty along with the rest of the Chris0an popula0on of the Iberian Peninsula. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that the eastern part of the Roman Empire survived in Constan0nople for the next 1000 years and preserved the heritage and inheritance of its people both Orthodox Chris0ans and the Jews within its lands. The greatest era of the Sephardic Jewish presence in what are now the countries of Spain and Portugal began in the year 711 when Arab and Berber armies established Muslim rule in Spain. The Sephardic Jews would reach dizzying heights of cultural and societal advancement never before seen by Jews living in any of the lands of the Gen0les. They were steeped in Arabic philosophy and science which was built significantly on ancient Greek philosophy and science. This would have a significant influence on the development of Sephardic Jewish thought. They had their own dis0nct iden0ty among the Jews of the world. They had their own ritualis0c customs, architectural styles for their synagogues, foods and arts. They had a strong ethnic iden0ty. The language they spoke was based on 15th century Spanish of the Kingdom of Cas0le. All of this would come to an end during the Spanish ReconQuista. The Spanish had driven the last of the Muslim kingdoms from their lands in 1492. Forced conversions of Jews to Chris0anity had diminished the ranks of prac0cing Jews. A remnant of the once thriving Sephardic Jewish popula0on remained when the Kingdoms of Aragon and Cas0le were united to form what is now the modern country of Spain. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree. Their concern was that the last freestanding remnant of Judaism in Spain might represent an en0cement to those recent Jewish converts to Chris0anity to revert back to the Jewish faith. The Decree offered the remaining Jewish community conversion to Chris0anity or expulsion. Salva0on came to the Sephardic Jews from an unsuspec0ng Quarter. Bayezid II, whose father had recently made Constan0nople the capital of the OComan Empire, learned of the plight of this beleaguered popula0on in the country of Spain. He sent a leCer to King Ferdinand and mocked him for impoverishing his country through the expulsion of a group of people that have contributed so much to his civiliza0on. He welcomed all Sephardic Jews who wished to live in his realm. He literally deployed the OComan Navy and secured the evacua0on and passage of tens of thousands of Sephardic Jewish refugees to OComan lands where they would become OComan ci0zens. Tens of thousands would seCle in the city of Thessaloniki. When those Greek boys in 1912 entered Thessaloniki they would've heard the Spanish language as the dominant sound in the streets of its ci0es. This was a city where Jews were not confined to gheCos. They were not restricted to specific professions. Therefore, voca0ons extended across a very wide spectrum. They filled the ranks of physicians, rabbis, merchants and journalists. They were the vendors in the streets, the cobblers and the bakers. They provided the manual labor as the port workers who unloaded and loaded ships on the docks of this most important city which was the commercial gateway to the en0re Balkan Peninsula. This city would come to a stands0ll on the Jewish Sabbath. If a ship were in the harbor to be unloaded, it would have to wait un0l the Sabbath had ended. It was during the interwar period in Salonika between World War I and World War II that a genuine Greek Jewish culture was beginning to take form. Greek entered the Jewish schools as a language which was taught to Jewish children. An interwar genera0on of Jews in Thessaloniki gradually was coming to view Greece as its Patrida, their Fatherland. The Jews of Thessaloniki would demonstrate a remarkable ability to adapt to the process of transforming that city into a Greek city. World War II would rupture this process and bring it to an end with the Nazi occupa0on of Thessaloniki. What the Nazis found in Thessaloniki was a city that had not yet formed a completed organic community. 1. Five years aSer the Greek libera0on of Thessaloniki, a devasta0ng fire occurred in 1917 which placed a dispropor0onate burden upon the Jewish community.

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