March 2001 Vol. 82 No. 7
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| March 2001 Vol. 82 No. 7 |
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The Jewish Traveler: History Community Sights Sidetrips Personalities Books and Music Recommendations When in May 1998 King Juan Carlos came to Greece to visit Thessaloniki's Jewish community—the first Spanish monarch to do so since the Jews' expulsion from Spain more than 500 years before—community head Andreas Sefiha presented him with a silver box engraved with an old key. a It was a reminder that from generation to generation Jewish families had kept the keys to their homes in Spain in the hope they would someday return. The connection to Spain lives on, but the community's history goes back long before 1492. History By the twelfth century, when Benjamin of Tudela found 500 Jews in Thessaloniki, the city was already in decline. It was Sultan Murad II who in 1430 encouraged Jews to return, offering them administrative autonomy. But it was the expulsion from Spain in 1492 that propelled Thessaloniki to true greatness. Within a few decades, 15,000 to 20,000 Spanish Jews joined the 2,000 Jews in the city; they came, too, from Portugal, Italy and Sicily. Thessaloniki became not only a first-class financial center but a center of Jewish and secular studies and printing, producing the famous Soncino Talmud and earning the name "Jerusalem of the Balkans." During the sixteenth century Thessaloniki became a reknowned Kabbala center and attracted such religious thinkers thinkers as Solomon Alkabez who wrote "Lekha Dodi." And Jews kept coming—from Provence, Poland, Italy, Hungary and Northern Africa until they outnumbered the Christians and Muslims. The Ottomans' constant warring in the seventeenth century drove the city into economic and cultural decline. In 1655, when Shabbetai Zevi arrived from Smyrna, he found himself well treated—until he declared himself the Messiah. Condemned to death by the Turks, he saved his life by converting to Islam. After his death, some 300 families of his followers became Judeo-Muslims known as Donmeh (apostates), who professed and practiced Islam in public but in secret practiced a type of messianic Judaism.
Jews—about half the population—owned most commercial enterprises and formed the majority of the city's work force, especially in the port, which shut down on the Sabbath and holidays. In 1908 Jews joined the nationalist Young Turks to overthrow the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II. On the eve of World War II, about 56,000 Jews remained in Thessaloniki and thousands served in the Greek army. The persecutions began just after the Germans entered the city on April 9, 1941. On July 11 the following year Jewish men 18 to 45 were taken for forced labor until the community raised an enormous ransom. By the end of the year, though, Jewish businesses were confiscated and the cemetery was turned into a huge quarry. On February 6, 1943, Dieter Wisliceny and Alois Brunner arrived from Germany to set in motion "the Final Solution" and appointed Chief Rabbi Zvi Koretz president of the community. He urged punctilious obedience to the Germans, and the survivors have never forgiven him. Partisan units comprised entirely or primarily of Jews were formed and a few Jews fled to Athens. Some were saved by courageous non-Jews, including members of the clergy, the Resistance movement and the state police. The Hirsch neighborhood near the railway station became a transit camp. On March 15, 1943, inmates were herded into cattle cars bound for Auschwitz-Birkenau. The last transport left on August 7 and 96 percent of the city's Jews perished. Their greatest heroic act was the mutiny of 135 Greek Jews in Auschwitz; they were members of a Sonderkommando charged with cremating corpses from the gas chambers. With a group of French and Hungarian Jews they blew up two crematoriums before all 135 were killed. Conditions after the war were harsh, and though the Greek government passed a law restoring confiscated property, it was honored only in part. For all this, the community, which numbers less than 1,000, is but a fading shadow. Most marriages are mixed. There is a day school with some 60 pupils, but formal Jewish education stops after primary grades. The community's backbone is its wealth, mainly from real estate. A few of the half-million tombstones from the old Jewish cemetery have been recovered and are displayed in the meticulously tended new cemetery in the Stavroupolis neighborhood. Newer tombstones hint at recent changes: Greek has replaced the customary Judeo-Spanish inscriptions. But for the older generation, people like Sarah Frances Arditti, 70, and her cousin Beni Djahon, 77, the past lives on. "Solomou Street had only Jewish-owned shops before World War II," Djahon recalled of the narrow street just south of Egnatia. So did Iraklio Street, "where Dass was the butcher, Cohen sold fruit, and the Modiano market was the best market of all." The Alpha Odeon Plateia, a mall on Iraklio Street, now covers the block where Djahon's father once directed 2,000 employees of the Austro-Elleni Tobacco Factory. Greece usually supports the Arab side in disputes at the United Nations, but there is trade with Israel. Sights
Community headquarters and the Jewish Community Center are nearby, at 24 Tsimiski, in the Hirsch arcade (275-701).
Northeast of the White Tower, the emblem of Thessaloniki, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki stands on the site of the old Jewish cemetery. To see how well-heeled Jews lived at the turn of the century, start east of the tower and follow Vassilisis Olgas Street, which parallels the waterfront and leads toward the airport. Before you get to those mansions, Olgas crosses Saadi Levi Street, named for the publisher of one of Thessaloniki's first Jewish newspapers. Two streets to the southeast is Fleming; the Jewish primary school is at No. 7. At 68 Olgas (corner of 28 Oktovriou Street) stands the Villa Modiano, an orange brick building with arched porticoes. It was built in 1906 for Jacob Modiano, but in 1913 the city bought it and offered it as a palace to King Constantine. Today it houses the Macedonian Folklore and Ethnographic Museum (830-591). The Villa Mordoch, at 162 Olgas (corner of 25 Martiou), was bought by the Mordoch family in 1930. Today this stately gray building with an onion-domed turret is a municipal art gallery. The Saoul D. Modiano Old People's Home, at 83 Kimonos Voga Street, is close by. Designed by an Italian architect in 1910 for Jewish businessman Dino Fernandez, the Villa Fernandez (or Casa Bianca) stands at the intersection of Olgas and Themistokoli Sofouli. Villa Allatini, at 198 Olgas, was built in 1888 as the summer residence of the Allatini family, manufacturers of biscuits and other flour products. Today it houses the offices of the prefectural government. The factory still bearing the family's name is at the intersection of Papandreou and Sofouli. North of Fleming, near the intersection of Zaimi and Delfon streets, is the Donmehs' house of worship, Yenni Djami, built in 1902 and now the city's Archaeological Museum. Northeast of Fleming, the Holocaust memorial stands in a little park at the intersection of Papanastasiou and Egnatia, behind the Ippokratio Hospital (formerly the Jewish-owned Hirsch Hospital). The bronze sculpture is a seven-branched menora on which flames engulf stylized human figures. General Sights No trip to Thessaloniki can be complete without a visit to the Archaeological Museum (830-538). Besides the exquisite objects in its excellent permanent exhibition, "The Gold of Macedon," there is an explanation of how the gold was mined and an unforgettable second-century B.C.E. description of the miners' lives. The museum also displays marble Jewish tombstones. Side Trips Combine this trip with a visit to Veria, just a few miles away, where Jews lived for 2,000 years. It was to Veria that the Apostle Paul fled when the Jews of Thessaloniki drove him out. A plaza near Ta Evraica, the ancient Jewish quarter, commemorates his preaching here. Hebrew inscriptions are still visible on some of the houses. The synagogue, now unused, is on Merarchias Street, to the right of the quarter's entrance, near a creek whose waters served the mikve. Kastoria, about 125 miles northwest of Thessaloniki, is another must. Greeks consider it their most beautiful town, and rightly so. Kastoria lies on an isthmus and the serene lake around it is almost never out of sight. Though Kastoria had a Jewish community at least from the sixth century, it was in the sixteenth century that Jews became leading furriers and gained fame worldwide. Jack Eliaou, 46, is the last Jew in the business. He sells sewing machines in a shop that belonged to his grandfather and his father, at 30 Eleventh of November Street (opposite the National Bank). Eliaou's family is the last Jewish family in Kastoria. "Everyone looking for Jews comes to me," Eliaou says cheerfully in fluent English. His Greek neighbors, too, never let him forget he's Jewish. "I'm going to the Jew's shop," they say when they head for his store. There is no overt anti-Semitism, Eliaou says, but a Holocaust memorial was erected only after a few town council members who objected were overruled. Today, the only indications that Jews ever lived here are the crumbling houses and mansions on Odos Evraidos (Street of the Jews), just east of the Plateia Omonia, and the Holocaust memorial on the northern side of Plateia Dexamenis. To reach the memorial, turn right from Athanacios Street onto Merarchias for about 30 feet. The marble memorial is on the left, below a grove of pine trees. The sumptuously furnished seventeenth-century Nerantzis Aivasiz Mansion, at the eastern end of Orestiados, the lakefront drive, is now the city's folklore museum. Personalities The Recanatis, who came to Palestine in 1935, have been dubbed "the Rockefellers of Israel." Settling in Tel Aviv, Leon Recanati established the Discount Bank, which became one of the largest in the country. Moshe (Moise) Carasso came to Palestine in 1924 and opened Tel Aviv's first "talkie" movie theater and in 1935 cofounded the Discount Bank with Recanati. In 1964 the Carasso family became the exclusive importers of the French Renault. Books and MusicThe concluding section of Mr. Mani by A.B. Yehoshua (Doubleday) evokes the Jewish community of Thessaloniki in the nineteenth century. The Illusion of Safety: The Story of the Greek Jews During the Second World War by Michael Matsas (Pella) details the tragic events, community by community. The Synagogues of Salonika and Veroia by Elias V. Messinas, in English and Greek (Athens, Gavrielides Editions), reconstructs the history of these Jewish communities and their places of worship. For an introduction to the culinary traditions of the Thessaloniki community, try Nicholas Stavroulakis's The Cookbook of the Jews of Greece (Jason Aronson). The Web site for Kol Hakehila, an English-language quarterly about Jewish communities in Greece, is www.yvelia.com. A feature film, Triumph of the Spirit, tells the story of Salamo Arouch, a Jewish stevedore and boxer who survived Auschwitz by fighting more than 200 opponents for the entertainment of SS officers. Jacko Razon, a Thessaloniki Jew who was also a boxer, claimed the story told in the film was actually about him. Music is a delightful way to enter the culture of Thessaloniki's Jews. Jewish-Spanish Songs of Thessaloniki (Oriente; www.oriente.de), by folk singer David Saltiel, has an excellent booklet in English. Savina Yannatou's CD, Spring in Salonika, includes 16 haunting Judeo-Spanish folk songs. George Dalaras, the most popular singer in Greece, is known especially for his revival of the rembetica genre, the blues of Thessaloniki, which Jews sang, too. All are available at Greek Video, Records & Tapes in Queens, New York (www.greekmusic.com). A hybrid of nineteenth-century songs from the lowlife hashish cafés around the port and Arab-Persian music from sophisticated Middle East cafés, rembetica is sometimes mournful and may incorporate Eastern-style trills. The bouzouki is the usual instrumental accompaniment to themes of unrequited love, prison, poverty, betrayal—and hashish. Recommendations |
In the middle of the nineteenth century new winds blew in, bringing the Enlightenment and modern neighborhoods with water, electricity and streetcars. The first Jewish newspaper appeared in 1865. The Alliance Israelite Universelle, built in 1873, provided European education and vocational training. 
It's just a couple of blocks to the Yad Lezikaron Synagogue, at 24 Iraklio (223-231) opposite the Modiano market. In the lobby of this office building the door to the synagogue is on the left. Inside, marble memorial plaques list the more than 30 synagogues established by the waves of immigrants; only two survive. The marble bima is in the center, as is customary in Sefardic synagogues. 
Cross Egnatia (parallel to Tsimiski) to see the synagogue of the Monastiriotes (dedicated in 1927 by Jews from Monastir in Yugoslav Macedonia), at 35 Syngrou (524-968). The entrance to this light-gray stucco building is through a triple arch, but a cage-like fence surrounds the door and the synagogue is used only for the High Holidays.