2 3 Jottings Jottings Editorial Editorial 3 Anja Zuckmantel Editorial ‘A Tree of Life’ (2) 4 Nicholas de Lange This edion of Jongs reaches you in very strange mes. we hope that aer reading the arcle, you will start The Hebrew for Egypt Means Narrow 6 Ruth Padel We were all confined to our homes for weeks, facing making travel plans again. uncertaines and unfamiliar challenges; at the same On a more sombre note, this edion of Jongs also Holidays and Havurah Community Life: Before and During the Corona Crisis 7 Anja Zuckmantel me, pre-Corona-crisis lives and rounes have begun to includes obituaries for two long-standing friends of Etz Pesah 2020 - Amidst a Pandemic 9 Lea M. Ventura take on the aura of idyllic memories. Hayyim who both sadly passed away in December 2019. Etz Hayyim Synagogue was closed on 9th March; for over Ida Mordoh and Giray Ertas were also close friends of From the Board New Leadership and Appreciaon for 10 Anja Zuckmantel two months, no services (notably no community Pesah Nikos Stavroulakis. Memories of Nikos are shared in this Accomplishments Seder) took place nor did any visitors or school classes edion by Brish author and friend Ruth Padel whose Upcoming Events ‘Tel Aviv & Jerusalem through My Eyes’ 11 Maria Konstantelou pass by. This edion of Jongs is thus a reflecon of this poem “The Hebrew for Egypt means narrow” we have current situaon. Looking back at the pre-Corona events printed here. At Pesah, Nikos used to focus on the Recent Events Celebrang Twenty Years of Etz Hayyim Synagogue 12 Alexandra Ario and projects which you will read about is almost like symbolism of “Mizraim/narrow”: life as a struggle with Address by the President of the Board of Trustees 17 Marianna Vinther looking back to another reality: the celebraons of the the narrowness of one’s own ‘Egypt,’ the narrowness of 20th anniversary of Etz Hayyim one’s own existence. Nikos will be Address by the General Secretary of the Central Board 18 Victor Eliezer when the synagogue was filled especially on our minds when, over of Jewish Communies in Greece (KISE) well beyond capacity with the next two years, we will be Address by the Rabbi of Athens 19 Gabriel Negrin friends and visitors, the cataloguing what will become the Internaonal Holocaust Memo- ‘Nikos Stavroulakis Collecon’, a 20 Years of Etz Hayyim in 20 Pictures 21 Etz Hayyim Staff rial Day in January which was resource for researchers and a First Public Observance of HMD in Hania 24 Anja Zuckmantel officially observed for the first repository for keeping Nikos’ me in Hania, our EU-funded The Internaonal Day of Commemoraon in Memory 24 Vassiliki Yiakoumaki legacy alive. of the Vicms of the Holocaust Heritage Contact Zone project Your interest in Etz Hayyim and and the Gedenkdienst your ongoing support for the Etz Hayyim and Holocaust Memory in Hania 26 Anja Zuckmantel collaboraon. There is also news maintenance of the synagogue, as Ongoing Projects Heritage Contact Zone Partner Meeng in Hania 28 Anja Zuckmantel from the Etz Hayyim Board of well as our work, is more Trustees and its new leadership appreciated than ever parcularly Beyond the Mainstream 29 Konstann Fischer team. now that the current worldwide You will also read about planned, crisis is affecng all of us in so Educaonal Outreach Update on Educaonal Outreach at Etz Hayyim 31 Anja Zuckmantel upcoming events that have had many ways. With the synagogue ‘The Sleeping Jewish Beauty of our School’ 32 Kostas Dandinakis to be cancelled or postponed now operang under the general and projects which have had to Corona crisis restricons, Cretan Jewish History & ‘The Jewish presence in Crete, 19th – 20th c.’ A Work- 33 Vassiliki Yiakoumaki be adjusted to new realies such community life will connue to be Academic Trajectories shop in Hania as our educaonal outreach impacted and, at the same me, Promong Cretan Jewish Studies … 36 Vassiliki Yiakoumaki programme which we will now the number of visitors and their What Happened to the Roma in Greece during WWII? 36 Anja Zuckmantel adapt to online formats. The donaons (Tzadakah), which map for a self-guided walking usually covers a good poron of The Nikos Stavroulakis Collecon 37 Anja Zuckmantel tour through Hania’s historic our annual budget, will be limited. An-Semism in Greece (Part 1) 38 Alexandros Massavetas Evraiki neighbourhood, now We would therefore be very happy ready for prinng, will be supplemented by a virtual tour if you stay in touch and connue your support where Etz Hayyim’s Mikveh and the Climate Crisis 44 Jonas Baumgartner that visitors, who probably won’t be able to come to possible. News & Notes The Story of Leicester’s Flame 45 ljtoday Hania in sizable numbers for some me, will be able to Sending you all best wishes from Hania and looking take online. We have also included an arcle by one of forward to hearing from you and welcoming you all again Ora et Labora. Poems by Nick Germanacos 46 Vassiliki Yiakoumaki our favourite tour guides about her culinary tour of to Etz Hayyim, hopefully sooner than later. A Taste of Crete 48 Gabi Ancarola Hania. If you haven’t missed Crete (and Etz Hayyim) yet, Anja Zuckmantel (Admin. Director) Obituaries Ida Mordoch (z”l) 50 Marianna Vinther Contact us and stay in touch Jottings Giray Ertas 51 Anja Zuckmantel Newsleer of Etz Hayyim Synagogue, Hania, Crete Gedenkdienst & Volunteers My First Very Own Daily Roune 52 Jonas Baumgartner Phone: +30-28210-86286 Co-editors of Jongs A January in Hania 53 Gwen Ellis Alex Ario, Jonas Baumgartner, Giorgos Psaroudakis, Anja Zuckmantel Email: [email protected] cover illustraon: George Sfougaras | cover layout: Jonas Baumgartner From the EH Office Updates, New and Greengs 54 Anja Zuckmantel Web: www.etz-hayyim-hania.org Disclaimer: Views expressed in the arcles are those of the authors and do Facebook: Synagogue Etz Hayyim not necessarily reflect the views of the editors. Fundraising How to support Etz Hayyim 55 Etz Hayyim staff 4 5 Jottings Jottings bol for Jews all over the world. Long before the six- teachings are life-giving and life-enhancing. The Torah is pointed star came to be a Jewish symbol, the menorah a light, which illuminates our path, a light which shines was the main Jewish symbol, appearing in synagogues, out into the world. on tombstones, and indeed on oil lamps. And the sym- All these intertwined thoughts are suggested by the ‘A Tree of Life’ (2) bolism of the menorah was precisely as we have seen it name of our synagogue, ‘Tree of Life’. in the Sermon on the Mount and the vision of Isaiah: the In these difficult days, I wish you all a very joyous Pesah light of the menorah, illuminang the world, symbolised and Shavuot. May the light of the Torah shine into your the ‘good works’, God’s ‘ways and paths’, and indeed home and your life, and light up your path. the Torah, the ‘word of the Lord’. There is a special reso- Nicholas de Lange nance in Hebrew between the sounds of the word me- _____________________________ can mean ‘tree’ or ‘wood’. In Greek עץ norah and of the word torah, and the connecng link 1 In Hebrew the word between them is the word orah, which means “light”. ξύλον normally means ‘wood’, but in Hellenisc Greek The Chrisan scholar Jerome, who lived in Bethlehem (including the Septuagint translaon), and occasionally earli- er, it can also mean ‘tree’. Chrisan writers use it in this and translated the Bible into Lan, commenng on the meaning to refer to the Cross. solid gold lampstand menoned by the prophet Zechari- 2 L. Yarden, The tree of light: a study of the Menorah, the sev- ah (4:2), says that the Jews, “by whom we are instructed Water of Life (Dilmun, Eridu), where it was guard- en-branched lampstand (London, 1971). about the Old Testament”, interpret it as the Torah 3 Yarden, Tree of Light, p.35. ed and tended for the chief deity by the primordi- 3 (νόμος). And the Midrash (Numbers Rabba 14:10) also Illustraons: (p. 4) Reconstrucon of the original painng over al Man-King”. It is easy to see what a short step it sees the menorah as a symbol of Torah, as it says the Torah niche in the Dura Europos Synagogue, now in the rd is from this myth to the Tree of Life of the Garden (Proverbs 6:28): “For the commandment is a lamp, and Naonal Museum in Damascus (3 century CE); (p. 5, le) of Eden in Genesis. In Indo-Iranian mythology, the the Torah is a light.” The Midrash adds: “Why is the To- “Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace juice or fruit of the tree bestows the gi of eter- rah called a light? Because it lightens us about how we have kissed each other.“ (Psalm 85:11) From the marriage nal life, exactly as in Genesis 3:22, where Adam is should act.” document of Namer son of Elkanah and Evdokia daughter of expelled from the garden “lest he reach out and Caleb, in Mastaura in Asia Minor, 9 March 1022; (p. 5, right) We say in our prayers, about the teachings of the Torah, take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ‘Tree of Life: Encounter’, sculpture by Helaine Blumenfeld OBE, that “they are our life and give length to our days.” Pe- ever”. Sacred trees play a large part in the reli- installed at the Woolf Instute, Cambridge.