Special-Interest Sightseeing in Ioannina

Ioannina's Jewish Community

The oldest records of Jews in Ioannina date from the early 1300s, but it is generally accepted that they had been there since at least Roman times -- and likely since the time of Alexander the Great. Having come directly from the Near East, they, like other such Jews in Greece, are known as Romaniotes; they spoke a dialect of Greek with some Hebrew and other elements and differed in various ways from the Sephardic Jews elsewhere in the Mediterranean. Over the centuries, Ioannina's community grew with infusions of Jews from around the Mediterranean, but many then emigrated abroad, so that by the mid-20th century there were only about 2,000 Jews in Ioannina. After the Germans occupied Greece in 1941, they rounded up Ioannina's Jews and sent them off to labor and extermination camps, where most perished. After the war about 175 returned; today barely 60 Jews live in Ioannina, but they manage to maintain their fine old synagogue. A small Holocaust Memorial is located just outside the citadel, on the corner of Karamanlis and Soutsou.