#in actual greek it's 'hellas'/'ellas' (from hellenic)

[leroibobo]

etz hayyim (“tree of life”) synagogue in chania, crete, greece. the building dates to the 14th-15th centuries, and was originally a venetian catholic church. it was acquired by chania's jewish community and converted into a synagogue in the late 17th century. chania's jews were deported due to the holocaust in 1944, after which the building remained abandoned until restoration in the 1990s.

romaniote jews are the oldest jewish community in europe and one of the oldest in the world, thought to have lived in and around present day greece since before 70 ce. they have their own liturgy that is unrelated to the more commonly used european ones (ashkenazic and sephardic).

#greece #architecture #interior #worship #jewish #romaniote #old & new #my posts #for all u Westerners 'rom' = constantinople referring to itself as the roman empire #so rome/italy is like 'west roman' constantinople/greece/anatolia is like 'east roman' #in the west its called 'byzantine' from 'byzantium' (proto-constantinople) #also it insinuates w roman empire was the 'real' roman empire (despite east lasting 1000 years longer) #in most mediterranean & w asian languages greece/greek is 'yunan/yawan/yavan' (from ionians) or 'rum/rom' (from roman) #in actual greek it's 'hellas'/'ellas' (from hellenic) #in georgian it's 'saberdzneti' for some reason but they also have their own names for a bunch of places #'greece' comes from the latin name 'graecia' #in a lot of slavic languages it's some variation of 'greece'. weird considering most were never/hardly under latin influence #if you think this is a lot just wait until u hear about the all the names for armenia #but yeah these guys were also in a lot of the balkans. if you're from the balkans and jewish you MAY have romaniote ancestry #(at least more recent romaniote ancestry than all other european jews) #not a guarantee though especially if you're ashkenazi #theres like. other jewish groups in europe that predated ashkenazi migration #most of them just got absorbed into the ashkenazi population