20F2 Romaniote Jews

Romanaiote Jews, native to the Eastern Mediterranean, are still active in communities in Greece, Israel, New York and beyond. With a rich heritageof their own, neither Sephardi or Ashkenazi, Romaniote Jews have their own traditions, including their own Judaeo-Greek dialect, a distinct order of service, special holiday observances and cuisine. Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos, a member of this community, with expertise in its history and culture, will provide a very special introduction to this venerable, but little known, world.
Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos is the Director of the Kehila Kedosha Janina Museum in New York City, associated with the Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue, an active Romaniote congregation

[@yiannimil1]

1:03:16..... CORRECTION: non Muslim were considered milliet

[@stellaKAU]

It saddens us when people from US or UK talk about Ottomans as being great for Jews. Maybe in Greece, but certainly not in other Balkan areas. Masses of jews were tortured, killed and forced to convert to Islam, from the Balkan areas by Turks and were trying to escape that hostile empire for centuries by travelling up north towards Croatia and Hungary. Actually all of them quickly accepted Christian religion as soon as they arrived up north and together with Christians fought against the ottomans. We must not rewrite the history because we found out that very few Jews were able to live somewhat freely during ottomans. Or because they did whatever they needed to survive. Many more were not finding Ottomas hospitable and did everything they could to run away from it. Since 1690 most of the areas ruled by Ottomans were freed and Romaniote (and Sephardi) kept tradition to give at least one male in the family Jewish name, like Moshe, Avram, Elias, Moislo, etc. that was all that was left from their past as a reminder of who they were during centuries of hardship.. That tradition died off after 1860 as new difficulties arose for them with arise of Serbian nationalism. At this point, we have many Romaniotes living in the area of Balkans forgotten and washed out by communism. Younger generations have no clue that they stem from Romaniotes and no one is talking about it, not even Jewish communities in the area. The only evidence of them existing is in the births, deaths and marriages Catholic and orthodox books for the area. As said before, they left the mark by giving the Jewish first name to one of the children in the family. They may or may have not being able to influence the surnames at that earlier time as there were different rules for surnames that applied at the time.

[@BBWahoo]

Long live the Romaniotes!