Please join Adina Mindick, senior Journalism major and Jewish Studies minor, on Sunday, February 24, at noon in 220 Park Hall for her presentation, "Preserving Jewish Greece."
Adina spent the summer of 2007 researching the Jewish communities on two Greek islands, Rhodes and Crete. For many hundreds of years these two islands were home to unique Jewish communities that were a mixture of Sephardic and native Greek Jewish cultures. Sephardic Jews originated in Spain and, when they were expelled in 1492, they traveled to the eastern Mediterranean seeking new homes in what was then the Ottoman Empire.
When they settled on these islands they found already-established, Greek-speaking Jewish communities. The culture they created together with the already-established Greek Jews was a rich and textured one. The communities flourished until the early twentieth century, when many Jews (especially from Rhodes) began to emigrate to the United States and other countries.
Substantial communities were present on the islands when Greece was occupied by the Nazis, but both were almost entirely destroyed in 1944. The communities that exist now on Rhodes and Crete are attempts to renew what has been lost.
During her trip Adina photographed her research and work with the Rhodes Jewish Museum. She will be presenting her research and photos.
Adina is a recipient of the Golberstein Travel-Study Grant and generous funding from the Roy H. Park School of Communications.
The event is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served.
For more information, please contact Rebecca Lesses, coordinator of Jewish studies, Williams Hall 119H, rlesses@ithaca.edu, 607-274-3556.
