La Juderia
La Juderia is the name of the former Jewish quarter of the city of Rhodes in Greece . It is located in the eastern part of the fortified old town , which has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988 .
Name and identification
The Judería has this Spanish name because from 1523 mainly Sephardic Jews from Spain settled in the then Ottoman city after the Johanniter were successfully besieged and defeated in 1522 during the reign of Sultan Suleyman I and had left the island. The end of the Jewish quarter did not come until the end of the Second World War after the German occupation of the island in 1943. Most of the Jews were deported and killed in extermination camps. The area itself was badly damaged by the bombing. For this reason, only a few traces of the Jewish quarter and former Jewish life can be found. A central fixed point in this quarter, which is located in the south-eastern part of the fortified old town, is the only remaining synagogue, the Kahal Shalom Synagogue , with the Jewish Museum Rhodes located in the building complex . Furthermore, Alhadef Park is a reminder of the foundation of this public park by a wealthy Jewish banker in the pre-war period.
History of the Jewish Quarter
There have been Jews on the island since Roman times and therefore especially in the city of Rhodes. In the 12th century AD, Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela , Spain, reported on his trip to Jerusalem and the many Jewish communities in the Mediterranean. He mentioned that there were 400 Jews in Rhodes under the authority of Rabbis Hananael and Elijah. One can assume that in the city of Rhodes the Greek-speaking Jews - at that time still Romaniots - already lived together in one quarter.
The Jewish quarter in the time of St. John
During the reign of the Johanniter from 1309–1522, the Jews were restricted to the eastern quarter of the fortified old town. In this quarter, which probably corresponded roughly to the later Juderia, they lived for centuries until 1502, when the Grand Master Pierre d'Aubusson had all Jews expelled from Rhodes and ordered their children to be baptized. In the subsequent period up to 1523 almost all Jews seem to have left Rhodes. The siege of Rhodes (1522) and the withdrawal of the Crusader Order in 1523 were a second catastrophe for the city and the Jewish quarter after the unsuccessful siege in 1480 , which had already caused so much destruction.
The Jewish quarter in the time of the Ottoman Empire
Under the rule of Sultan Suleyman I , a new happy era began for the Rhodian Jews. The few Jews who were still in the city cheered the Ottomans' victory; many refugees came back from Turkey. Soon Rhodes was called "Little Jerusalem". Because economic and social privileges attracted Sephardi in large numbers. According to the Millet system, they were allowed to practice their religion freely and set up their own schools. They enjoyed autonomy and self-government rights and a number of economic and financial privileges.
The relationship between the few Romaniots and the increasing number of Sephardi was initially tense, as they differed not only in language, manners and customs, but also in religious ritual. But after a short time the Sephardi had assimilated the few others, the Jewish quarter of Rhodes had become a Sephardic community that could exist relatively undisturbed for several centuries and in which Jewish Spanish was spoken.
The end of the Jewish quarter during the time of Italian rule and German occupation
At the beginning of the 20th century, many young Jews - some with their families - left the island because they wanted to escape the poor and insecure conditions in the Ottoman Empire that had developed in the 19th century. Most of them emigrated to the United States of America. From there, they helped many community members to emigrate as well.
When the islands of the Dodecanese were occupied by Italy in the Italo-Turkish War in 1912 and later annexed, the fascist racial laws continued to prompt many to emigrate. Still, the Jewish population reached its greatest number in the early 1920s at around 4,500 people. This was also due to the fact that there was an immigration from the areas of Smyrna and parts of Anatolia, which were occupied by the Greeks. At the end of 1936, Cesare Maria De Vecchi, an arch-fascist, took over the office of governor of the islands of the Dodecanese and initiated many anti-Jewish measures and laws.
When the worries of the Rhodesian Jews seemed to have ended with the fall of Mussolini on July 24, 1943, the German troops conquered the island. In July 1944, the Jews were taken to Athens by ship to the Chaidari concentration camp there, and in August to the extermination camp by train to Auschwitz. Of the Jews deported from Rhodes, only 151 survived. Before that, the Turkish consul Selahattin Ülkümen had rescued around 40 Jews by giving them Turkish citizenship.
At the end of the Second World War, the Jewish quarter was also badly affected by the bombing of the port. Some Jews even perished as a result of such drops because they were not allowed to go into the shelters.
Today's condition after the extermination of the Jews and the bombing
When the island passed into Greek possession on March 31, 1947, after the occupation by the British Army, only a few surviving Jews had returned to Rhodes and thus to the Juderia. In March 1946 there were around 50. Despite the support from abroad, it was not possible to rebuild the Jewish community in Rhodes. Gradually, most of the Jews left the city, where only a handful remained.
There are a number of memorials that commemorate the Holocaust in the Jewish Quarter or in the New Jewish Cemetery. Some buildings - especially the complex of the Kahal Shalom Synagogue and Museum - have been preserved. Of others there are only ruins or foundations; or memorial plaques and plaques remind of their earlier purpose as Jewish residential or school buildings.
Memorial plaque at the entrance of the synagogue for the murdered families of the Juderia
Dedication at the fountain in front of the former AIU school
Entrance to the Kahal Shalom Synagogue and Museum
Memorial plaque in the Jewish quarter
Entrance gate to the new Jewish cemetery
View of the main path of the new Jewish cemetery
In the La Juderia district itself, apart from the Kahal Shalom Synagogue with the Jewish Museum integrated there, there are only a few remains or memorial plaques reminding of the former Jewish quarter. The latest memorial is the Holocaust memorial in six languages on the Square of the Jewish Martyrs, which was only inaugurated in 2002.
literature
- Marc D. Angel: The Jews of Rhodes. The History of a Sephardic Community. New York 1998.
- Aron Hasson: A Guidebook to the jewish quarter of Rhodes. Los Angeles 2012.
Web links
- Entry on the UNESCO World Heritage Center website ( English and French ).
- Website of the Jewish Museum Rhodes (English) accessed on April 21, 2018
- Description of the Jewish quarter (English) on the website of the Jewish Museum Rhodes, accessed on April 21, 2018
- Description of the Kahal Shalom Synagogue (English) accessed on April 21, 2018
Individual evidence
- ^ Aron Hasson: A Guidebook to the jewish quarter of Rhodes. Los Angeles 2012. p. 2.
- ^ Marc D. Angel: The Jews of Rhodes. The History of a Sephardic Community. New York 1998. pp. 8-19.
Coordinates: 36 ° 26 ′ 31.2 ″ N , 28 ° 13 ′ 48 ″ E