History of the Jews in Zakynthos

Moshe Moises Mazza, head of the community of Zakynthos and the Peloponnese. He also served as the head of the community in the 1920s

The Jewish Community of Zakynthos Island is about eight hundred years old. The community was originally Romaniote.

In Rafael Parisi's book "Pieces of the History of Greek Jewry", it is mentioned that in the 12th century there was a migration movement towards the Ionian Islands, especially to the island of Zakynthos - where they founded a synagogue. Another wave of Jewish migration occurred when Crete, then called "Candia", came under Venetian control in 1204.

In 1267, during the reign of the House of Anjou in Naples, several hundred Jews from Corfu were counted, who arrived from the territories of the Byzantine Empire and from Apulia in Italy.

After the expulsion from Spain, another wave of Jewish migration arrived, which assimilated into the Romaniote community. In the festive events held by the Jewish community, Italian words were incorporated, evidencing the assimilation of Italian culture and language during the Venetian rule in Zakynthos, which lasted about 300 years.

Synagogues

A street in the Jewish quarter of Zakynthos. On the left: the "Shalom" synagogue, adorned on its facade with three protrusions in the shape of triangles

In the early years of the 17th century, Jews gathered in one synagogue - Zakynthiot, which was always crowded as Jews continued to settle on the island. Later, a second synagogue was established - Cretan, also called Kofiu, by Jewish refugees who arrived from Crete in 1669. For 20 years they operated in harmony, but as the settlement of Jews on the island continued, bringing with them different customs and traditions, conflicts arose between the two synagogues. These conflicts ceased with the establishment of a third synagogue that met the needs of the new families settling on the island. The community was thus divided according to the families' origins.

The synagogues were destroyed in the earthquakes that occurred on the island in 1768, 1787, and 1789. The two synagogues - Zakynthiot and Cretan - were rebuilt. The community gave the Zakynthiot synagogue the name "Shalom" when it was rebuilt in 1833.

The central synagogue "Shalom"

The "Shalom" synagogue was located on Martingo Street (today Tertseti Street), and the Cretan synagogue was located 100–150 meters from it. In 1953, the Cretan synagogue was not active due to the small number of Jews remaining on the island after World War II. After the earthquake that occurred on the island on August 12, 1953, both synagogues were destroyed.

The Jewish Community of Zakynthos during the Holocaust

The monuments of the Jewish rescuers, the Righteous Among the Nations Metropolitan Chrysostomos Dimitriou and the Mayor Lucas Carrer. The monuments were erected in 1992, by the leadership of the Jewish communities in Greece, at the location where, before the earthquake, the "Shalom" synagogue stood, in the Jewish quarter of Zakynthos.

Further information: Rescue of the Jews of Zakynthos

The Holocaust of the Jews of Greece began with the occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany in April 1941 and ended with the liberation of Greece in October 1944. Most of the Jewish communities in Greece were destroyed.

At the beginning of World War II, there were about 275 Jews living on the island. On May 1, 1941, the island was occupied by the Italian army. Until 1943, the place was controlled by the Italians, and the Jews lived without fear. During the two years that the Italians ruled the island, there was a rather cheerful atmosphere: the Italian soldiers were revelers who liked to sit by the sea during the days, fish, and at night, visit the island's pubs and sing for hours. In the summer, the Italians organized camps for children. All this changed after the fall of Mussolini. The Germans conquered the territories controlled by the Italians, and on September 9, 1943, the Germans invaded the island.

Archbishop Chrysostomos Dimitriou ordered the Mayor Lucas Carrer to burn all the lists of Jews on the island, and appealed to the Germans not to deport the Jews, since they were Greek citizens in every respect and therefore should not be punished by deportation. Chrysostomos addressed the German commanders in their language to cancel the decree of deporting the Jews. Also, the appearance of the community leader Moshe Ganis, dressed in rags to give the impression that the Jews were poor and oppressed, and that the Germans would not gain much wealth from their deportation, did not result in the cancellation of the order. The Jews of Crete, whose economic situation was similar to that of their Jewish brethren in Zakynthos, were rounded up and put on a ship to be taken to the extermination camps. After attempts to cancel the deportation failed, the island's leadership, both religious and civil, Mayor Carrer and Metropolitan Chrysostomos - joined together to stop the extermination machine. The Germans wanted to concentrate the Jews for deportation and issued various orders for this purpose, including demanding the list of Jews on the island. The Archbishop ordered the Jews to flee at night and scatter in the villages, believing that the villagers would help the Jews with water and food supplies. The next day, the two presented themselves to the German forces commander and handed him the "list of Jews". When he opened the list, he discovered only two names: Mayor Lucas Carrer and the Archbishop of the island Chrysostomos Dimitri, who claimed they were Jews, and that they should be deported if the Jews were being deported.

In great anger, the German commander sent his soldiers to the city to take the Jews from their homes, but they were no longer there. Throughout the year, raids were conducted on the villages to find Jews. However, the Germans did not succeed, because the partisan commander on the island, Dimitrios Katsibatis, warned the villagers about an impending raid on their village by German forces to discover the hiding places of the Jews, and not a single Greek resident informed the German forces about the presence of Jews in his village. At the end of the summer of 1944, three ships of the German navy arrived - in an attempt to succeed in the mission that had failed so far - to take the Jews out of their hiding places - and to concentrate them for deportation to the extermination camps. The partisan commander Katsibatis, threatened that his men would protect the Jews at all costs, and that the human life casualties would be very high from both sides.

It was the German forces that on September 12, 1944, boarded the ships that were intended for the deportation of the Jews, as they fled from the island. A month later, Greece was liberated from the Nazi occupation, and the Jewish community on the island of Zakynthos remained unharmed. Thanks to the gesture of Archbishop and Mayor Lucas Carrer and their brave and ethical leadership, the Jews of Zakynthos were not sent to the death camps. At the end of the war, all the Jews of Zakynthos survived. It was the only Jewish community in Greece, west of the Peloponnese peninsula, that survived the Nazi occupation intact. At the end of World War II, most of the Jewish community, which was very Zionist, immigrated to the Land of Israel. 53 Jews remained on the island.

In 1978, Chrysostomos and Carrer were awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations by "Yad Vashem". The title for Dimitriou, who died in 1958, was received on his behalf by his sister Vasiliki Stravolaimos (Βασιλικη Στραβολαιμος). Her husband, the historian Dionysos Stravolaimos wrote a book on the rescue of the Jews of Zakynthos: (1988) "An act of Heroism-An act of Vindication. The Saving of the Jews of Zakynthos during the (Nazi) Occupation".

The Community After the Holocaust

Two days after the official surrender of Germany, on May 10, 1945, the Jewish community of Zakynthos sent a letter of thanks to the mayor of Zakynthos, Lucas Carrer, and to the members of the city council, expressing deep gratitude for the "patriotic attitude", the strong daily intervention, and the unparalleled concern - for the fate of the Jews during a dark period. This was manifested by the fact that not a single Jewish soul was harmed, and also, the property of the Jews that was left behind during their escape, remained. The community noted in its letter that its rescue was an exceptional act among the communities of Greece and Europe. On March 20, 1947, a letter of thanks and appreciation was sent to the head of the Orthodox Church in Zakynthos - Archbishop Chrysostomos Dimitri and to the (former) mayor Lucas Carrer. Against the backdrop of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day for the destruction of Greek Jewry (the beginning of the deportations from Thessaloniki) - the rescue of the Jews of Zakynthos was an exceptional act. "We owe our lives," the letter stated, "especially to you, His Eminence the Archbishop, and to our lord the mayor of Zakynthos Lucas Carrer" (ibid, page 83). Signed by: Moshe (Moisis) Gani, president of the community, and the secretary-general Yosef (Yosif) Konstantinis. In 1948, a group of Jews volunteered to install the stained glass windows in the new church of "Patron of the Island Saint Dionysius". Yaakov Delmedigo, a native of Zakynthos, serving as a cantor at the "Shalom" synagogue for Zakynthos expatriates in Tel Aviv, lists the names of the Jewish volunteers: his father Roberto Delmedigo, the brother of the community's mohel - Abraham "Binyo" Matza, Raphael Mordo, Eliyahu Amar, and Eliako Mordo (the brother of the last Jew remaining on the island, Armando Mordo). They finished saying they would install the stained glass windows without any financial compensation. They did this after work hours, laboring until the late hours of the evening, all as a deep expression of appreciation to the island's residents who did not hand over any Jew to the Nazis, and did everything in their power to help them survive and escape from the Nazis, under conditions of hunger and terror.

Most of the Jewish community in Zakynthos immigrated to Israel after the war. In August 1953, the Jewish quarter of the island was destroyed following a severe earthquake that devastated the city of Zakynthos. The Israeli Navy, sailing in the area, quickly came to the aid of the residents of Zakynthos and Kefalonia who were affected by the earthquake. The Jews of the island were saved from the earthquake, except for Liza Matza who perished in the disaster. After this event, the few Jews who remained on the island left Zakynthos. Most of them immigrated to Israel.

In 1982, the last Jew of the island of Zakynthos, Armando Abraham Mordo, passed away, thus closing the circle of Jewish life there.

Commemorating the Community's Story

In 1992, the Board of Directors of the Jewish Communities in Greece erected two marble memorials at the site where, before the earthquake in 1953, the "Shalom" synagogue stood - as a gesture to the bishop and the mayor, rescuers of the Jews. Descendants of the community visit the site, year after year, to express their gratitude and appreciation to the Jewish rescuers through various thanksgiving photos.

Yaakov Delmedigo, a Zakynthos survivor, a member of the Zakynthos municipal band in his youth and a cantor at the "Shalom" synagogue for Zakynthos expatriates in Tel Aviv, produced an audio tape in the eighties which he distributed among the community members and their descendants about the customs of the Jewish community of Zakynthos. Yaakov extensively described how the Jewish holidays were celebrated, as well as the reciprocal relations between the Jewish and Christian residents. Yaakov distributed the tape among the community members in Israel.

Shmuel Gani wrote an autobiographical book: "With Persistence and Ingenuity", published by "Dokustori", with the assistance of Yad Vashem, dedicating the first two chapters to his childhood in Zakynthos and the community's Holocaust stories. Chapter twelve, the last in the book, describes a multi-generational roots trip he took with his family to Zakynthos, as well as the commemoration ceremony on July 13, 2014, held at the old Jewish cemetery - where a memorial was inaugurated for Naomi's father, Moshe Porta, a soldier in the Greek army, who was killed on December 23, 1940, on the Greek-Albanian front in battles against the invading Italian army.

At the same event, a memorial was inaugurated for the sons of Zakynthos and their families who were murdered by the Nazis in Crete and Corfu. The Greek historian Dionysis Vitsos wrote the book "Jews of Zakynthos (from the 15th to the 20th century) and Their Rescue from the Nazis." The book was published in 2017, in Greek, by Ak'dosis Priflos.

Jews of Zakynthos 1489–2016 - A most comprehensive investigation into the history of the Zakynthos community, authored, edited, and compiled by Samuel Armando Mordeu, the son of the last Jew on the island of Zakynthos, Armando Abraham Mordeu, who passed away in 1982. The author compiled in his research a vast amount of Greek literature, articles in journals, and newspaper articles on the history of the Jews of Zakynthos and their rescue from the Nazis.

Further reading

• Bracha Rivlin, "Zakynthos", in: the aforementioned (editor), The Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities: (10) Greece, Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1998, pp. 117–123.