The Romaniote Jews, Europe’s oldest Jewish Community
The Romaniote Jews are one of the oldest Jewish communities and the oldest community in Europe. For over two thousand years, they have lived in the small city of Loannina, Greece. These Jews are ethnically unique from Ashkenazim and Sephardim and are rather “Romaniote” Jews.
This branch of Judaism can be traced back to the Roman Empire, and are considered hellenized or Greek Jews. While maintaining their Jewish identity, they also adopted the language and customs of Greek civilization. They speak a dialect called Judaeo-Greek. This is a prime example of acculturating but not assimilating.
In its conservatism and resilience to change, the Jewish community of Loannina reflected the wider Christian community and northern region of Greece in which it existed. It is this quality which kept the community intact for so many centuries, unlike the majority of other Romaniote communities in Greece, Loannina Jews never became absorbed into the prevalent and much larger Sephardic community, adopting neither its language nor traditions.
Romaniote vs Sephardic customs
The Romaniote customs differ from Sephardic customs in the incorporation of piyyutim (liturgical poems) in a mixture of Greek and Hebrew and the order of the service.
The differences in celebration of holidays is shown with the use of different foods. Sephardic Jews eat rice at Pesach, where Loannina Jews do not.
In a traditional Sephardic synagogue, the tevah is in the center, whereas at a Romaniote synagogue, it is on the far western wall facing the ark with the Torah scrolls.
Like many other diaspora Jews who live in isolation do, the Romaniote Jews have developed customs not practiced by others. One example of this is an Aleph.
An Aleph is a hand made birth certificate for a baby boy. It includes prayers, date of birth, and a sentence from the Torah. The sentence is then recited by father to child each Friday night.
The Loanninote Jews and the Holocaust
In World War Two, after the axis powers occupied Greece, many Greek Jews were murdered. It is estimated that 86% of Greek Jews died in the Holocaust. Some were even forced to pay for their own tickets to death camps.
On March 25, 1944, 1,860 Romaniote Jews (men, women, children, babies, and the elderly) were loaded into trucks and deported to Auschwitz. Only among 200 of them returned, many moving to the United States and other parts of the world, though some remained in Greece, and there are about 4500-6000 there today.
One Loanninote survivor named Artemis Batis (Miron.) She was just 15 when she was taken to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, her mother, little brother, grandmother, and most of her extended family were sent to the gas chambers, while she was sent into the camp for slave labor. In 1946, after her liberation, she married a man named Yosef Miron and had three children and many grandchildren.
A memorial for the survivors can be found in a synagogue in Loannina. Appearing on this panel are the names of Artemis’s family.
These Jews are another example of strength and endurance in the Jewish community. Despite their history of persecution, they still remain.
“If I was asked to sum up the Jewish community of Ioannina, I would say that it was an ancient community that despite two thousand years of different regimes, rulers, and laws, managed to exist and observe its Jewish customs and traditions without assimilating, and for that, it deserves a prize.” - Artemis Miron
