Organization: Penn State University
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 02:31:04 EDT
From: <PXP111@psuvm.psu.edu>  Andronikos Romanos
Newsgroups: soc.culture.greek,soc.culture.turkish,soc.culture.europe
Subject: Chios: Other things ommited by Shaw-HBM-KELLY.

Very amazingly and even more selectively HBM's and KELLY's Bible/Koran,
ie Shaw (sic), misses some more ground in the case of Jews in Chios...
<This is an actual island not as Patras and Mystras... Mutlu Ltd. !!!>

Anyway, Mr Davidian  most  eloquently  discredited one of Mr Shaw's (or
Mrs Shaw's?) books yesterday... Taking the risk of beating a dead horse
or giving one more blow in Shaw's TRADITION of omissions  I will add to
the long thread/story of Turkish atrocities against the Jews in Consta-
ntinople,Rhodes,Thessaloniki  (let us leave the well known Armenian Ge-
nocides aside)  by using descriptive extracts from the following book:

"THE RELIGIOUS MINORITIES OF CHIOS: JEWS AND ROMAN CATHOLICS" by Philip
P.Argenti and forwarded by Sir Steven Runciman  (Cambridge, at the Uni-
versity Press; 1970)

Contents here: --> Introduction
               --> Under turkish Rule,1566-1912
               --> Decline of Chian Catholicism
                                                              A.Romanos
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

                                                           INTRODUCTION

Page 7:   Jews probably  lived in Chios  from very early times,  having
          first settled there during the great dispersion of the Helle-
nistic period.  By Byzantine times  the community was well established,
having three rabbis and considerable size in the twelfth century.  When
Judah ben Moses Mosconi of Ochrida visited the island in 1360  he met a
learned rabbi named Elijah, the grandson of the renowned R.Benjamin, in
whose possession was a  commentary  attributed to  R. Caleb Corsinos of
Constantinople.
Thus, when the Genoese took control of Chios in the fourteenth century,
they found a Jewish community of  long historical continuity and tradi-
tions of learning.  From the Genoese period certain names have survived
in notarial deeds,  from which  the geographical-linguistic area of the
owner's origin can sometimes be established.  Not surprisingly,  in the
early Genoese period names of Jews in the island had become  hellenized
in form, suggesting that until the  close of the Middle Ages they were,
like others in the  eastern Mediterranean,  descended from Jews who had
dispersed into the Greek world from the third century B.C. onwards.
However,  the names that appear in  later documents,  although they are
often recorded in italianized or Latin forms, indicate that there was a
gradual  influx  of western European Jews into Chios from the beginning
of the fifteenth century. For this century most of the extant names are
of Italian origin, although names such as Alamanus indicate that German
Jews had arrived, while others can be traced to Provence. The appearan-
ce of names of Spanish origin  reflects  the arrival of Jewish refugees
from Spain, who were reaching chios at least a century before the offi-
cial expulsion of Jews from that country in 1492...


Page 12:   From the time of the departure of the Genoese in 1566  until
           the end of the Turkish rule in 1912,our evidence relating to
the size of the Jewish community consists of a long series of estimates
made by travellers and others,  from which a  general impression can be
obtained of the level of the population, although these various estima-
tes by no means tally exactly. The table shows a gradual decline in the
number of Jews throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the
more  rapid  decline which set in at the end of the eighteenth century,
and its subsequent complete disappearance...


Page 13:   Whereas there had been around  300 Jews  in Chios throughout
           the seventeenth century, 200 was the number usually given by
travellers and reporters during the eighteenth century.  By  the end of
that century the number had declined to 100, and twenty-six years after
the infamous massacre of 1822  the Jewish population  totalled  only 70
persons. The figure given by Tancoigne for 1811 (1,000 Jews)  is in all
probability either an error or an exaggeration, since it bears no logi-
cal relation to the preceding or subsequent evidence. The figures reco-
rded by Pasqua (2OO-300 Jews for the period 1822-3) also seem contrary
to the general pattern, and possibly the temporary influx of Jews from
Smyrna at the time of the massacres accounts for the divergence...


Page 14:   After 1912  the Jewish community in Chios  dwindled rapidly;
           when the island  became part of the  Greek state,  the Jews
tended to move to the larger centres of business,  such as Athens.  The
official Greek census  for 1928  recorded the presence of  ten Jews  in
Chios,  and by 1938 there were only four.  These were probably the mem-
bers of the  family of Alexander Manassi,  a Jewish shop-keeper popular
with the  Greek inhabitants  on account of his  active  support  of the
Greek cause against Italy.  These were  the only  Jews whom the Germans
found  when they occupied Chios in 1941, and they were subsequently de-
ported to Salonika.  On arrival there they were able to prove that they
were Italian nationals, were released and spent the war in Athens where
they were hidden by sympathetic Greeks.  Immediately after the war they
returned to Chios and later emigrated to the Congo.


                                          UNDER TURKISH RULE, 1566-1912

Page 153:   The Jews were peculiarly  vulnerable to material decline in
            conditions  such as  those which  prevailed in Turkey after
the sixteenth century.  In the case of the  Greek people,  the majority
were peasants, occupying the historic lands of the Greeks; only a small
minority could, therefore, be affected by economic trends.
The Jews,  however, were relative newcomers to Turkey.  Only a very few
of the richest and most privileged had  contrived to become landowners;
such a man as the Jew Joseph Nasi, Duke of Naxos,  who was said to have
owned the most famous vineyards in Chios, which he visited in 1567,  as
well as in Sicily and Cyprus was virtually unique.
Moreover,  even  those  Jewish communities whose  historical continuity
stretched back to pre-Christian times  had retained their separate cha-
racter by living closely in special quarters of towns, and by not spre-
ading on to the land. As city-dwellers the Jews required an open, vital
society for the full expression of their talents as artisans, merchants
and administrators.
But such a society was denied them in the Ottoman Empire after the clo-
se of the "golden age" of the sixteenth century. By the nineteenth cen-
tury, the Jews of Turkey had become by far the most pitifully situated
in the world;  while by the irony of history, in the lands whence their
forefathers had fled to escape persecution,  the same centuries witnes-
sed a vast improvement in both the economic condition and the political
status of Jews.


Page 154:   At the same time Jews fell from political and social grace.
            They ceased to be the  close advisers and ministers of Sul-
tans;  there were no later counterparts to Joseph Nasi and Solomon Ash-
kenazzi,both of whom had virtually taken control of the affairs of sta-
te under their respective masters. The reasons are several.
--> In the first place it was a case of,as the Chian proverb runs,"squ-
    eezing the lemon and throwing away the rind"; the Turkish hierarchy
    was no longer  so dependent on special Jewish skills,  and so could
    afford not to extend special favour to Jews.
--> Secondly,  after the sixteenth century power  gradually passed from
    the Sultans, through whom Jews had exercised power,  into the hands
    of the viziers and pashas,  who were concerned only with despoiling
    the Jews, now bereft of the protection of the palace.
--> Thirdly,  the  incorporation  of the Arabs  into the Ottoman Empire
    meant that for the first time Moslems constituted a majority;  this
    produced a reversion to strict Sunnite orthodoxy, and a greater in-
    sistence on the inferior status of the Dimmis. The hardening of the
    Moslem attitude affected both Christians and Jews;  but  in  effect
    the consequences were much harsher for the Jews  than for the Chri-
    stians...
Nor were the Turks  themselves  innocent of anti-Jewish manifestations.
Even during the period of Jewish influence,  the caprice of  a despotic
Sultan might lead him to decree    d e a t h   for   a l l   Jews ,  as
did Murad III on one occasion in a fit of rage at the extravagant luxu-
ry of Jewish apparel; on that occasion the intervention of Solomon Ash-
kenazzi and the payment of a   l a r g e   s u m   of   m o n e y  per-
suaded Murad to commute the order to a law  requiring Jews to wear caps
rather than turbans and to  forgo the wearing of silk garments.  In the
seventeenth century  anti-Jewish sentiments became apparent in the Mos-
lem population at large.   Under Murad lV  the Jews  of Jerusalem  were
p e r s e c u t e d    by the Arab governor of the province, and during
the following reign there occurred a   m a s s a c r e   of a number of
Jews in the grip of  messianic  delusions;  presumably the Moslems were
provoked by the demonstrations and congregations in which  the sons  of
Israel gave expression to their eschatological convictions.


Page 155:   Jews were also   p e r s e c u t e d   by Turkish officials
            and soldiers; particularly offensive was the unruly behavi-
our of the Janissaries, whose   f a v o u r i t e     amusement appears
to have been   s e t t i n g   f i r e   to the  Jewish quarter of Con-
stantinople.  In fact, the rabbinical responsa of the later Turkish pe-
riod are replete with accounts of robberies,  murders and assaults com-
mitted by the Turkish soldiery against Jews.
Another indication of the  altered  circumstances  of Turkish Jewry was
the keener disposition of the Moslem authorities to    i n s i s t   on
the  old  laws   d e t e r m i n i n g   the   i n f e r i o r   social
status of Dimmis, especially those concerning   d r e s s...


Page 156:   In the begining of the eigthinth century...  In 1702  a law
            was promulgated    f o r b i d d i n g    Jews to wear yel-
low slippers and prescribing that in future  black should be the colour
of any hats or shoes that they might wear.  In 1723, under Ahmed III, a
firman was issued to many provincial authorities, including the Cadi of
Chios, enjoining them to  ensure  that Jews and other Dimmis should not
evade taxation by  securing appointment as the dragomans of ambassadors
or consuls. In 1728, also under Ahmed III, Jews were ordered to    r e-
m o v e   their   h o u s e h o l d s    from the vicinity of the fish-
market of Constantinople, because the Jewish presence threatened a mos-
que in that quarter with   d e f i l e m e n t.   In 1757,  following a
great fire which broke out in the Jewish quarter and devastated a large
area of Constantinople, the law of 1702 was   r e - e n a c t e d.
Eventually, Turkish Jews  developed  as  their characteristic dress the
long black gown and black skull-cap,  still worn in the nineteenth cen-
tury.
 Jakob Bartholdy, himself a converted Jew  who travelled through Greece
in the years 1803-4, reported that in his opinion the reason why blue &
black materials were  more expensive  than materials of brighter colour
in western Europe was "because the Jews and the Armenians, who can wear
only dark colours,  buy up a great amount of it in the Levant for their
own use".
In the  absence  of evidence to the contrary,  it must be supposed that
the Jews of Chios complied with the sumptuary regulations of their Mos-
lem masters.  Being  aware  of the peculiar sensitivity of the Turks on
this question, Jews were doubtless as careful to   s u p p r e s s  any
inclination towards ostentation and luxury in their  outward appearance
as were the Greeks of the island, who on several occasions found it ne-
cessary to  pass  resolutions to curb    d a n g e r o u s l y     e x-
t r a v a g a n t   o r n a m e n t a t i o n  in the dress of Chians.
For instance,  in 1847  the women of Chios were warned by the Demogero-
ntes not to wear Jewelry in order not to stimulate Turkish greed or re-
sentment. It is also interesting to notice that the aristocracy of Chi-
os were forbidden to wear yellow slippers,  as were the Jews, although
all doctors in the island were excepted from this ruling.


Page 172:   During the nineteenth century there was an upsurge of anti-
            semitic hostility among the Greeks, not only of Chios,  but
of all Greek lands. The reason was that the Jews of the Ottoman Empire,
not unnaturally,  sided with their legitimate rulers in the long strug-
gle between the Greek section of the population,  which aspired to  na-
tional independence, and the Turks, who strove to preserve Ottoman rule
intact. The conduct of the Jewish community in Chios during the crucial
period of the Greek revolt,1821 to 1822, did most to inflame Greek pre-
judices. In Greek eyes Jews were the despicable accomplices ofthe Turks
in the perpetration of innumerable savage atrocities,  since it was the
Turkish custom   t o   e m p l o y   J e w s   t o   d i s p o s e   of
the   b o d i e s   of murdered Christians -a practice which affords an
interesting insight into both the Turkish attitude towards the Jews and
the wretched condition of Turkish Jewry in the nineteenth century.
The most  infamous  episode  was enacted in April 1821, when the Sultan
received news of the Morean uprising.  In order to demonstrate the fate
which those who dared to rebel against his rule might expect, he order-
ed that the Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregorius V,  should be hanged
outside the patriarchal palace, together with two of his bishops.   The
order was carried out, and the bodies remained on the scaffolds for se-
veral days; eventually certain Jews were employed to cut them down, and
after  dragging the corpses through the streets of Constantinople,  the
same Jews hurled them into the Bosporus.
Such conduct was   u n l i k e l y   to endear the Jewish people to the
Greeks of the Ottoman Empire. In Chios speedy reprisals followed.  Out-
raged Greeks captured a party of Jews sailing a cargo-boat in the stra-
its between Chios and the mainland, and hanged all of them...


page 173:   This outrage and the  murder of the Greek Patriarch in Con-
            stantinople were  grim forewarnings of what was to come for
many of the unfortunate Greeks who lived in,  or close to, the seats of
Turkish authority in  Asia Minor.  These naturally took    n o   a c t-
i v e   p a r t   in the great rebellion of the Greek people, which was
concentrated on the Greek mainland and the neighbouring islands,  where
there was a real chance of lasting success.   But   i n e v i t a b l y
the Turks were   i n c l i n e d    to  make  any Greeks who came under
their power the   s c a p e g o a t s   for the actions of their compa-
triots,  while  those who had successfully thrown off the Turkish yoke
found themselves powerless to go to the rescue.  Chios was   f a t e d
to become famous throughout the civilized world as the place where  the
T u r k s   gave the   h a r s h e s t   e x p r e s s i o n   to their
w r a th    against the Greeks...


Page 174:    The diary of Antonio Pasqua, at the entry  for 6 May 1822,
             reads:  "...the Pasha gave orders that the Jews take down
from the gallows the hanged.They immediately armed and with three flags
left the Castle and put into effect the order and they took the corpses
down and threw them into the sea. The Jews were about three hundred.(It
appears that about one hundred were imported.)
The corpses referred to in this extract were those of the  eighty Chian
notables,  who had been held as hostages in the Kastro since the begin-
ning of the revolt,  and were hanged on the trees of Vounaki Square by
the order of Vad Pasha on 6 May 1822.
The Turks were even   o b l i g e d   to  i m p o r t  Jews from Smyrna
to assist the island's own Jewish community in the gruesome task:  evi-
dently the   b u t c h e r y   had been so great that the Jews in Chios
were unable to cope with the job without outside assistance.
It appears, also, that Jews bought up jewelry at low prices from despe-
rate Chians who were prepared to  sell  any valuable in the struggle to
escape from the holocaust...


                                           DECLINE OF CHIAN CATHOLICISM

Page 365:   Despite the re-establishment of the Catholic Bishopric, the
             Catholics fared even worse after the days of Giovanni Bat-
tista Bavestrelli. The Jesuit Order was suppressed in 1773, the Domini-
cans disappeared from Chios between 1791 and 1826  and between 1830 and
1843 the Franciscans; only the Capuchins survived to the present day.
After 1791 no record is found of the Catholic fraternities and schools;
as late as 1826, however, the community retained its hospital. Weakened
by economic crises and plague, the Latins endured until 1822,  when the
catastrophe of that year saw the greater part of the island's populati-
on slaughtered,  enslaved or driven into exile, the Catholics suffering
almost as heavily as the Orthodox. After the massacres had ceased, only
a few hundred Latins remained in Chios...