 |  | | Below Manhattan's skyscrapers, just around the block from today's Chinatown on the historic Lower East Side of New York City lies a hidden treasure few know about… |  A 2,000-year-old culture virtually unknown, even to its neighbors. A tiny group. A minority within a minority. They are called Romaniotes. An obscure branch of Judaism, which few Jews have ever heard of, with traditions dating back to Roman times.
They are Jews who, after the destruction of the Second Temple, were sent on a slave ship to Rome. Instead, a storm forced them to land in Greece, where over the next 2,000 years, they developed uniquely different ethnic and religious customs.
 Today, all these years later, you can visit the only synagogue in the Western Hemisphere of this tiny, obscure Jewish community. The Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum. Still operating in its original form. | | | |