Marcia's Archives

Archives

Published items gathered and shared by our Scholar in Residence, and Director of the Kehila Kedosha Janina Museum,
Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

DEPORTATION OF JEWS OF IOANNINA

By Alekos Raptis and Thumios Tzallas
The Epirote Struggle: Thursday, July 28, 2005
Translated by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

Front Page: March 25, 1944: Accompanying a dramatic photo of the deportations of Yanniote Jews was the following text:
This was the way the Jews of Ioannina were deported.

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THE JEWS OF ARTA

By Constantinos A. Tsiliyianni
Chronika [issue 192: July/August 2004]
Translated by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

The first Jews in Arta were Romaniotes. They came from the Peloponese, mainly the cities of Corinthos and Patras, during the 10^th century. The reasons for leaving were local persecutions and, in the case of the populace city of Nikopoli, Barbarian invasions and acts of destruction. When Benjamin of Tudela visited the Jewish Community of Arta in 1173, they had already been living in the city for many centuries. Later many Romaniotes from Corfu would flee to the city in 1246 during a war between Robert of Sicily and the Byzantine Empire.

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THE PARTICIPATION OF YANNIOTE JEWS
IN THE WAR

By Alekos Raptis
The Epirote Struggle: October 28, 2005
Translated by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

Research on the events relating to the Greek-Italian War of 1940-1941 [Greece’s into World War II: translator’s note] has been extensive and has revealed many meaningful and shocking things of which we could speak. There are still many aspects of this conflict that need investigation. One of these that would deserve our attention is the participation of Greek Jews who served their country in the Greek Army. The sacrifice and the blood shed by the Jewish community for their country were heavy. We are all aware of the hero of the conflict on the Albanian Front, Colonel Mordechai Frizis, who was killed in an air attack at Premeti on December 4, 1940.

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PROOF OF MERTEN'S RANSOM IS FOUND

Reported by Stellios Vradelis
Ta Nea [The News]: Athens, October 8, 2005
Translated by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

Seven checks prove that the ransom of 1.5 billion drachmes that the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki paid from 1942-1943 was seized by the treasury of the German State.

The mystery is solved. The door is open to claim compensation.

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THE JEWS OF PREVEZA

By George Moustaki
Chronika: January/February 2005: issue 195.
Translated by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

It is difficult for anyone to speak regarding the Jewish community of Preveza. After more than 57 years, the memories are limited and detached. Nothing has been written by those who lived in the past.

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THE MOURTZOUKOU FACTORY
[LEVIATHAN] IN VOLOS

By Raphael Frezis
Chronica: issue 192 [July-August 2004]
Translation by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

One of the largest factories in Greece, which was located in Volos, was “Leviathan” which provided first quality men and women’s garments.

The steam-powered factory, originally small in size, was built on a piece of land about 100 square meters in size on Anapavseos Street, next to the Krausidon River. It began to operate under the name “Leviathan-Mourtzoukos-Sigaras-Levis and Sia” in 1908 with the participation of the entrepreneur Kalamara.

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SPEECH GIVEN BY EFTIHIA NACHMIAS NACHMAN

Community Center of the Jewish Community of Athens November 7, 2005
Translated and edited by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

A few words of explanation: As one of the editors of Eftihia Nachmias Nachman’s English edition of “Yannina-Journey To the Past,” I asked Eftihia to add some thoughts on her personal reaction to the events in Berlin in May of 2005, when she was invited to be present at the unveiling of the new Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe. Of the fifteen stories chosen to represent the millions who perished at the hands of the Nazis in Europe, one was that of a family from Ioannina, the family of Eftihia Nachmias Nachman. Materials for this story were gathered from her book and from information in the archives of Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum.

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THE UNFORTUNATE FATE OF MENTY:

Memories from the Occupation
By Yvonne Ouziel
Chronica: issue 197: May/June 2005
Translated by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

April 1941. The time of the Italian and German occupation of Greece. Hunger, poverty, and misery would follow in the wake of the Greek-Italian war and the German invasion.

In March of 1943, the Germans began the deportations of the Jews. In spite of the official protest of Archbishop Damaskinos to stop those deportations, they continued with regularity.

In Thessaloniki, the Jewish neighborhoods were closed off: ghettos were created. The Jews had to wear a prominent sign [Jewish Star] on their garments and other discriminatory measures were put into force. Many Jews from Thessaloniki decided to flee, moving to other large cities in Greece.

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ROMANIOTE JEWS OF IOANNINA GREECE:

Lecture presented on August 15, 2006
at the International Jewish Genealogical Conference

While the terms “Ashkenazim” and “Sephardim” are geographical terms designating Jews whose ancestry originated in “German Lands” or Spain, the term “Romaniote” is an historical term, denoting Jews who date their ancestry back to the Roman Empire. When, in the early 4th century, Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to a city on the Bosphorus, named Byzantion, renaming it after himself [Constantinopolis, the City of Constantine], Jews were citizens of the Roman Empire and, in their dialect, denoted themselves as such: Romaniotes-citizens of Roman. The term has come to mean “Hellenized” Jews, Greek-speaking Jews, who like Jews throughout history, living in most circumstances as small minorities surrounded by non-Jewish majorities, have absorbed many of the attributes, customs, traditions and, certainly, language of the surrounding non-Jewish majority, in this case, the Greek world of their time, whether it be pagan or Christian.

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THE JEWISH PRESENCE IN THESSALY AND LARISSA

By Esdras Moisis*

Chronika: issue 203 May/June 2006

Translated by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

Even before the arrival of Spanish Jews, significant numbers of Jews lived in both Macedonia and Thessaly, dating back to the 5^th century B.C.E. [actual documentation of Jews on Greek soil dates to the 4^th century B.C.E.-translator’s note].

O.L. Barkan, a Turkish historian notes that at the beginning of the 16^th century the total population of Thessaly was 3,870 families. In an article titled “The Economy and Territory of Thessaly during the Turkish Occupation” by R. Rawles published in “Trikala”, a periodical [volume 1, Trikala 1981] we learn that, from the beginning, Muslim and non-Muslim communities stayed geographically and socially separate. Orthodox Christians [who were the majority of the population in Thessaly], Jews and Muslims were separated according to religion into autonomous communities called “millets.” The members of each “millet” were free to follow their own faith, preserve their institutions, laws and traditions under the instruction of their religious leaders who, also, had political authority. In addition, the adherents of the different religions separated themselves from each other. The “millet” system enabled the Ottomans to exploit the wealth of the inhabitants without protest or friction.

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THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF AGRINION

By Michael Matsas
Rom Chronika: issue 168: July/August 2000
Translated by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos

On the New Year, the families of Eliezer, Yiossoula, Reví, Elia Mizan Savva Mizan, Leon Matsas and Isaak Matsas families would gather in Nisim Mionis’ home to read the book of prayers since Nisim Mioni knew Hebrew. The only one who did not take part in the religious service was Nisim’s brother, Yonas, the teacher and member of the Communist Party who was one of the five leaders of EAM [left-wing resistance movement] in the area of Agrinion. The Eliezer family, who were also members of EAM, had a dog who was much beloved by the andartes [resistance fighters]. His name was Hitler.

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THE STORY BEHIND THE STATISTICS:

Variables Affecting the Tremendous Losses of
Greek Jewry During the Holocaust

Originally published in The International Sephardic Journal
[Vol. 1. No. 1/Summer 2004/5764] and reprinted in
The Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora [Volume 32.1&2, 2006].

Greece has the ignominious distinction of having lost the largest percentage of Jews in any occupied country during the Holocaust: 87% of Greek Jewry was lost. Many attempts have been made to explain these losses: the complicity of a quisling government, Greek anti-Semitism, inadequate Jewish leadership (especially in the case of Head Rabbi Koretz of Salonika), the conservative mentality of Jewish communities in Greece and, especially, that as late as 1943/44 (when deportations took place in Greece) little was known of the concentration camps and that the railroad cars were taking the Jews of Greece to their deaths.

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THE ROMANIOTE JEWISH COMMUNITY
OF NEW YORK

Published in The Journal of Modern Hellenism,
Numbers 23-24/Winter 2006-2007

Romaniote Jews, the indigenous Jews of Greece, have lived on Greek soil for over 2,300 years. The first documented evidence of their presence dates to the establishment of the city of Thessaloniki, when Jews from Alexandria were invited by Kassandros, the brother-in-law of Alexander the Great, to settle. Wanting to establish Thessaloniki, with its natural outlet to the Northern Aegean, as a center of maritime trade, Jews were invited because of their growing expertise and connections throughout the Mediterranean. These Jews, Hellenized Jews, Greek-speaking Jews, would become what we refer to as ‘Romaniotes’. The term would not be coined until much later: estimates vary from the 4^th century to the 11^th century C.E. The primary criterion distinguishing them from Jews of other cultures was their language, Greek, and they had been Greek-speaking Jews as early as the 4^th century B.C.E. Romaniote Jews would establish communities throughout the Eastern Mediterranean, settling along the shores of the Sea and along inland trade routes. By the 1^st century C.E., communities were present in Thessaloniki, Verroia, Corinthos, Patras, Athens, and Rhodes, as attested to by the writings of St. Paul, a Hellenzied Jew who preached the new religion of Christianity from the bemas of existing synagogues.

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JEWISH YANNIOTES FROM AMERICA VISIT IOANNINA WITH THE AIM OF BECOMING ACQUAINTED WITH THE SPECIAL MOTHERLAND OF THEIR GRANDPARENTS

By George Siobotis
Article appeared in an August edition of a major morning newspaper of Ioannina

“On the 20^th and 21^st of July, a group of Yanniote Jews from New York visited our city. The purpose of their visit was to acquaint themselves with the special motherland of their grandparents. The leader of the delegation was Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos, the Director of the museum in the Yanniote Synagogue of New York (Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum).

On the occasion of this visit, the family of Chaim and Suzanne Kofinas (descendants of the large Kofinas family who used to live in Ioannina) celebrated the Bar Mitzvah (religious coming-of-age custom) of their son, Seth Kofinas, on Saturday, July 21^st, in the synagogue in Ioannina. There were many Christians invited to the event.

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GREEK AND JEWISH: THE YANNIOTES IN NEW YORK

By Marcia Haddad-Ikonomopoulos.
Paper published in the Bulletin of Judeo-Greek Studies,
Cambridge University, No. 42, Summer 2008

Leaving the soil of our homeland often forces us to redefine our identity. Too often assimilation into the surrounding majority culture causes the loss of original ethnicity, especially when the emphasis is placed on leaving the “Old World” behind. Hellenes, throughout their history have continually, and often successfully, stressed the importance of preservation of culture, tradition and, especially, language, aspects so important in preserving one’s identity. Most studies on diasporic “Greeks,” transplanted Hellenes, have concentrated on Greek Orthodox Christians and, yet, one of the most understudied group of Greeks, Greek-Jews, offer us valuable insights into the processes of assimilation and acculturation. What is preserved? What is lost? What is important?

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REMEMBERING AND NAMING THE GREEK-JEWISH WAR HEROES OF WORLD WAR II

by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos
Exclusive for the National Herald for Oxi day, 2009

On October 28, 1940, when Mussolini issued an ultimatum to the Greek people, announcing that he was planning to invade Greece across the border of Albania, and Metaxas answered back with a resounding ‘Oxi’, there were 76, 000 Jews living on the soil of Greece, 1% of the total Greek population of 7 ½ million. By October of 1944, four years later—only 10, 000 Greek Jews would remain; 87% would perish in Nazi concentration camps.

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THE CRYING WOMAN

by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos
as published in the Hellenic Voice

It is often said that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” that thoughts, feelings, ideas can be captured in a single image, a process that otherwise may take countless words. A picture that we labeled “The Crying Woman” captured, in a solitary icon, the anguish, heartbreak and pain of the destruction of the Jewish Community of Ioannina and, by extension, that of the Jews of Greece during the Holocaust. From the moment that I first saw the photo, I knew that I must find out who she was. It would take years. Our journey is over. The “crying woman” has been identified and her story, in many ways, sheds light on the plight of the Jews of Greece.

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IN THE SHADOW OF THE ACROPOLIS

by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos
as published in the Hellenic Voice

Laura Zelle is not a filmmaker by profession. She is director of Tolerance Minnesota, an award-winning educational initiative of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas. She came to make this film, “In the Shadow of the Acropolis,” with the collaboration of Maxine Davis, a professional film producer and director, because who better could tell the story of her own family?

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GENEALOGY OF YANNIOTE JEWS

by Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos, as published in
AVOTAYNU Volume XXVI, Number 1, Spring 2010

Ioannina, a small city in northwestern Greece near the Albanian border, was home to Jews for more than 1,300 years from the eighth century until the present. Due to its location west of the Pindos Mountain Range, the community was isolated geographically from the mainstream of Judaism, even that within Greece. Consequently, it developed its own traditions, customs, and minhag, (prayer rites), and remained Greek-speaking even after most other Jewish communities on Greek soil were absorbed into the traditional Sephardic world following the post-1492 influx of Spanish-speaking Jews. Yanniote Jews, as they called themselves (only the scholars used the term Romaniote) remained a small community throughout its existence, probably never numbering more than four or five thousand at its peak.

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THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF TRIKALA

The presence of Jews in Trikala is mentioned in sources of the Byzantine period. Their population was increased significantly after the settlement of Spanish Jews - "Sepharadim" - in 1492, who were later joined by immigrants from Valona, Portugal and from Sicily. The Turks who had returned from their campaign in Hungary - in 1545 - brought back a number of Jews to Trikala and other Greek cities, where they settled. The local Jews preserved the "Romaniote" character of the community and historians refer to the Jewish quarter and its Synagogues.

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