The Jewish Community of Ioannina before the Holocaust
The Jewish Community of Ioannina before the Holocaust
Ioannina was the capital of the administrative region Epirus in northwestern Greece, and one of the country's oldest cities. The Jewish community comprised Romaniote Jews and was Greek-speaking – as opposed to the Jews of Thessaloniki and Larissa, who spoke Ladino. Legend has it that the first Jews settled in Ioannina as early as the reign of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, or after the destruction of the Second Temple in the first century AD. However, the first written sources documenting the presence of Jews in the city date back to the 14th century.
Photo by Fred Boissonas, the 1920s. Courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Greece and Kehila Kedosha Janina, New York
Purim celebrations in the synagogue outside the fortress walls. Ioannina,1930s
Courtesy of the Jewish Museum of Greece and Kehila Kedosha Janina, New York
Josif Pepo Batis, his wife Eftihia Batis, and his children Artemis and Solomon Makis Batis, at the doorway to their home. Ioannina, before the Holocaust
In July of 1943 the Germans arrested Josif Pepo in his home, on the charge of aiding partisans. Artemis’s grandfather, Nisim, was arrested with him. The two were murdered in retaliation for activities of the Greek underground. In April 1944 Artemis, her mother and her brother were deported to Auschwitz along with the rest of the Jews of Ioannina. Artemis’s mother and brother were murdered in the gas chambers.
Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 6946/16 Courtesy of Artemis Miron.
The women of the Batis family together with non-Jewish women in the wheat fields of a village near Ioannina, 1930s
Standing, first from right – Mazalto Matza. Standing, first from left – Elisabet Batis, Mazalto’s granddaughter. Both women were murdered in Auschwitz in April 1944. Seated, left – Eftimia Batis, Mazalto’s granddaughter. Eftimia immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) before the Holocaust.
Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 6946/10 Courtesy of Artemis Miron
In the courtyard of a house in Ioannina, 1930s
Among those photographed: two of the members of the Batis family. Right - Elisabet Batis, who was murdered in Auschwitz in April 1944. Fourth from right – Yitzchak Batis, who immigrated to Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine) before the Holocaust.
Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 6946/15 Courtesy of Artemis Miron
The Batis family in a wheat field together with non-Jewish women from one of the villages in the Epirus region during the 1930s
Back center – Eftihia Batis. Her daughter, Artemis, is standing in front of her. In April 1944 Artemis, and her mother and brother were deported to Auschwitz along with the rest of the Jews of Ioannina. Artemis’s mother and brother were murdered in the gas chambers.
Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 6946/8 Courtesy of Artemis Miron
Eftihia Batis wearing the traditional dress of the villages in the Epirus region. Greece, 1930s
In April 1944 Eftihia, her daughter Artemis and her son Solomon Makis were deported to Auschwitz with the rest of the Jews of Ioannina. Eftihia and Solomon Makis were murdered in the gas chambers.
Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 6946/11 Courtesy of Artemis Miron
Members of Janet Salomoni née Bohoropoulos’s family before the deportation of the city’s Jews to the death camps in June 1943. Ioannina, Greece
Janet lived in Vlora, Albania, where she was hidden during the Holocaust by a Muslim family. She donated the photograph to Yad Vashem. Middle row, left – Janet Salomoni. First row, second from right, Rashel, Janet’s sister. Rashel was deported to Auschwitz and survived. Most of those photographed were deported from Ioannina in March 1944, and transferred in April to Auschwitz, where they were murdered in the gas chambers.
Yad Vashem Photo Archives 7869/1
Jewish Professional Life in Ioannina before WWII
Religious Life in Ioannina before the Holocaust
Religious Life in Ioannina before the Holocaust
The market square in Ioannina, Greece, prewar
Purim celebrations in the synagogue outside the fortress walls. Ioannina,1930s
Josif Pepo Batis, his wife Eftihia Batis, and his children Artemis and Solomon Makis Batis, at the doorway to their home. Ioannina, before the Holocaust
The women of the Batis family together with non-Jewish women in the wheat fields of a village near Ioannina, 1930s
In the courtyard of a house in Ioannina, 1930s
The Batis family in a wheat field together with non-Jewish women from one of the villages in the Epirus region during the 1930s
Eftihia Batis wearing the traditional dress of the villages in the Epirus region. Greece, 1930s
Members of Janet Salomoni née Bohoropoulos’s family before the deportation of the city’s Jews to the death camps in June 1943. Ioannina, Greece
Jewish Professional Life in Ioannina before WWII
Religious Life in Ioannina before the Holocaust
Religious Life in Ioannina before the Holocaust
After the expulsion of the Jews from Spain at the end of the 15th century, Spanish and Portuguese Jews also settled in Ioannina; however, the original community retained its distinctive identity. Some of the immigrants integrated into the local Greek-speaking Jewish community, and others established the Sephardic synagogue outside the city.
In the mid-19th century the Jewish community of Ioannina was one of the central Jewish communities in Greece, with approximately 2,400 Jews who comprised some 15% of the city’s population. At this time a local committee of the "Kol Israel Haverim" (Alliance Israélite Universelle) was established in Ioannina in order to promote Jewish education and culture.
At the end of the 19th century, several educational initiatives took shape among the Jews of Ioannina. allocated funding to “Beit Ha'omanut” (The House of Crafts) to provide professional training for Jewish youth who were also pursuing religious studies at the same time. A new “Society for Torah Studies” was established to promote Jewish education; this institution was funded on the basis of a membership fee.
Baron Hirsch
Baron Maurice de Hirsch (1831-1896) was a Jewish philanthropist who helped establish professional and agricultural training in Eretz Israel (Mandatory Palestine), Europe (primarily in Eastern Europe), and Argentina. He founded the Jewish Colonization Association, or the JCA, and contributed among other things to the Alliance Israélite Universelle ("Kol Israel Haverim"), as well as to schools for professional training in Galicia and Bukovina.
During this time the Jews of the city lived in two quarters – one inside the city’s fortress, and one that lay outside its walls. Most of the Jews of Ioannina were traveling merchants, laborers and shop clerks, and some of them were store owners and importers. Ioannina was a gateway for products that were sold on to other cities in the Epirus region. Other Jews worked in industry, and in the production of kosher wines and cheeses.
Education
In 1904 "Kol Yisrael Haverim" established two schools. The boys’ school had 420 students, only half of whom paid for their own tuition. The languages of instruction in the school were Greek, Hebrew, Turkish and French. The girls’ school was located within the fortress walls and had 160 students. The financial support from KIH and from the small number of affluent Jews from Ioannina was used to pay for the poorer students’ tuition, and to provide clothing and food for students in need. A number of Jewish youths attended a local school for the arts, as well as a vocational school established by the Italian government.
At the turn of the century
With the end of the Balkan Wars, fought between the years 1912–1913, Ioannina passed from Ottoman to Greek control. Jewish soldiers from Ioannina were among the Greek soldiers who were killed in action. During the fighting the city was cut off from the rest of the country, and as a result its residents suffered deprivation and hunger.
The population exchange between Greece and Turkey caused a problematic resettlement situation in the city. The Greek government passed a law that forbade commerce on Sundays, creating difficulties for many of the Jewish merchants. In 1922 the Jews of Ioannina wrote to a rabbi in Jerusalem, telling him that they would be unable to provide financial aid due to their impoverished situation. “Our community is suffering and our treasury is empty, and indeed we find ourselves forced to turn to other, more affluent, communities to help fill our coffers.”
Culture, religion and community life
Many charitable associations operated in Ioannina, among them the Hevra Kadisha (The Jewish Burial Society), Bikur Cholim (visiting the sick), and Kupat Nosei Yetomot (assisting orphan girls to marry). Leon Matsas, a philanthropist from Ioannina, established a cultural club to which the educated Jewish residents belonged, as well as a home for the aged. Matsas later also established “Beit Yeshuah and Rachil”, named after Yeshua Solomon and his wife Rachil Solomon, who returned from New York to Ioannina. During the Holocaust Yeshua and Rachil were deported to Auschwitz and murdered.
There were a number of Zionist associations as well as a Zionist newspaper in Ioannina. Many Jews left the city and immigrated to Eretz Israel and the United States. Others moved to Athens. This emigration in which many young people took part, brought the community to the brink of bankruptcy. Emigrants from Ioannina became active in religious and public matters in their new countries of destination. For example, in 1924 emigrants from Ioannina founded the Beit Avraham and Ohel Sara synagogue in the Machane Yehuda neighborhood in Jerusalem. In 1932 Jewish women from Ioannina founded a Jewish women’s association in New York.
Most of the Jews of Ioannina were traditional, and the city had two synagogues – the Kahal Kadosh Yashan (the Old Holy Community, or the “Inner Synagogue”), which exists to this day, and the Kahal Kadosh Hadash (the New Holy Community, or “Outer Synagogue”). Each of these synagogues was adjacent to another synagogue. The old synagogue was located in the Jewish quarter within the city walls. The community did not have an appointed rabbi, but only an “acting rabbi” who was a local merchant. Most of the community’s intellectuals and religious figures studied in Thessaloniki.
The Jews of Ioannina had their own style of lamentations and eulogies, as well as their own Ketubah (marriage contract), which was influenced by an early Ketubah from Eretz Israel. The versions used in Ioannina were those of the Romaniote Jews, whose traditions were distinct from the Sephardic Jewish traditions (in Ladino) common to most of the Jewish communities in Greece.
The community in Ioannina had other unique traditions, among them the celebration of Rosh Chodesh Adar (the beginning of the Hebrew month of Adar). The children of the community would go from door to door among the Jewish houses, collecting sweets and fruits. Some of the children’s gifts were later passed on to their teachers, the custodians of their schools, the beadles of the synagogues (a managerial role in the synagogue, whose holder helps organize the running of the services), and to the rabbis. The Jews of Ioannina also had a custom whereby they would hang silver plaques on the Parochet, (the ornamental curtain covering the front of the Torah Ark) in order to commemorate people or events. A collection of such plaques from Ioannina is on display at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.
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