The Jews of Greece

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The Jews of Greece

Steven Bowman

This chapter is part of: Leonard H. Ehrlich et al. 2004. Textures and Meanings: Thirty Years of Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst

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Description
With Steven Bowman’s essay, we turn from the study of individuals in historical cultures to the study of the diverse groups of Jews in the history of Greece. Bowman begins in the present, with the generational tensions within the current miniscule (5500) Greek Jewish community. In a masterly historical summary, Bowman then points back to the richly various Jewish presence prior to WWII, especially in Salonika, where over 55,000 Jews formed a thriving community. In smaller numbers, Jews populated myriad parts of Greek and Ottoman territories and came from Askanazic lands as well as Spain prior to 1492. Bowman observes, for example, that “from the 14th century on Askenazi refugees from Central Europe and through the 19th century floods of Jews from southern Russia, the two major branches of European Jews – Askkenazim and Sephardim – intermingled in the homeland of the Greek-speaking Romaniotes and produced a vibrant renaissance of Jewish creativity that was intimately linked with the fate and fortune of the Ottoman realm that welcomed them.” Well before the Holocaust, the fortunes of the Greek and Ottoman Jews suffered painful declines, and with the emigrations of the early 20th century the community “lost its most energetic element.” Then, in the astonishingly brief period of a few weeks in 1943, the Nazis annihilated almost all the Jews of Greece and the Bulgarian territories to the north, and half of the few remaining Jews migrated in the decade following WWII. Bowman is forced to conclude that “it has been my task to outline the tremendous changes that have crippled the Greek Jewish community in the twentieth century.”

Description

With Steven Bowman’s essay, we turn from the study of individuals in historical cultures to the study of the diverse groups of Jews in the history of Greece. Bowman begins in the present, with the generational tensions within the current miniscule (5500) Greek Jewish community. In a masterly historical summary, Bowman then points back to the richly various Jewish presence prior to WWII, especially in Salonika, where over 55,000 Jews formed a thriving community. In smaller numbers, Jews populated myriad parts of Greek and Ottoman territories and came from Askanazic lands as well as Spain prior to 1492. Bowman observes, for example, that “from the 14th century on Askenazi refugees from Central Europe and through the 19th century floods of Jews from southern Russia, the two major branches of European Jews – Askkenazim and Sephardim – intermingled in the homeland of the Greek-speaking Romaniotes and produced a vibrant renaissance of Jewish creativity that was intimately linked with the fate and fortune of the Ottoman realm that welcomed them.” Well before the Holocaust, the fortunes of the Greek and Ottoman Jews suffered painful declines, and with the emigrations of the early 20th century the community “lost its most energetic element.” Then, in the astonishingly brief period of a few weeks in 1943, the Nazis annihilated almost all the Jews of Greece and the Bulgarian territories to the north, and half of the few remaining Jews migrated in the decade following WWII. Bowman is forced to conclude that “it has been my task to outline the tremendous changes that have crippled the Greek Jewish community in the twentieth century.”

Details

Published	Published By
Aug. 1, 2004	University of Massachusetts Amherst
Citation
Bowman S. 2004. The Jews of Greece. In Leonard H. Ehrlich et al. 2004. Textures and Meanings: Thirty Years of Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst