Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Jewish Greek Festival on New York's Lower East Side

In 70 C.E., when the Roman emperor Titus conquered Jerusalem and carried Jewish slaves with him to Rome, the ship holding them was driven by a storm onto the Albanian coast. 

Instead of throwing his captives into the sea, he allowed them to disembark, and they eventually made their way to the area in northwest Greece where the city of Janina was established. 

In 1927, descendents of the Jews of Janina built a Greek synagogue, Kehila Kedosha Janina, on New York's Lower East Side. It was declared a New York City landmark, and last month it was the focus of a Jewish Greek Festival.

Here is a video with scenes from the festival and a video describing the founding of the synagogue.

Enjoy!

A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.




 

Jewish Traces in Unexpected Places: Hava Nagila in a Greek Taverna

During the last three years we have been following the popularity of Hava Nagila as it made its way all over the world. If you scroll down the Labels section of this blog in the left column, you'll see 22 posts involving what's arguably the most popular Jewish song on earth. But until now we haven't found a video of it being performed in Greece.

Karpathos is the second largest of the Greek Dodecanese islands, in the southeastern Aegean Sea. From its remote location Karpathos has preserved many peculiarities of dress, customs and dialect, the last resembling those of Crete and Cyprus.

Karpathos is known for its tavernas, restaurants where music and dancing prevails, usually Greek songs. But last week, our old favorite found its way into a taverna called Pelagos, where the patrons eagerly adopted it as a Greek dance, singing the Hebrew words to the sounds of guitar and bouzouki music. Opa! 

(A SPECIAL NOTE FOR NEW EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS:  THE VIDEO MAY NOT BE VIEWABLE DIRECTLY FROM THE EMAIL THAT YOU GET EACH DAY ON SOME COMPUTERS AND TABLETS.  YOU MUST CLICK ON THE TITLE AT THE TOP OF THE EMAIL TO REACH THE JEWISH HUMOR CENTRAL WEBSITE, FROM WHICH YOU CLICK ON THE PLAY BUTTON IN THE VIDEO IMAGE TO START THE VIDEO.)