Romaniote Heritage

I might as well show off half of my heritage (which is somewhat Spanish influenced). The folks at Kehila Kedosha Janina just devoted their last newsletter to my late Uncle Hy. Included are archival family photos and numerous testimonials plus the touching eulogies given by my cousin Lois and her daughter (and gifted first grade teacher) Melissa. I added a recently refound picture of my father (glasses and mustache) and converted the pdf file to make a slide show. My dad is to the right of Uncle Hy (the picture's left) who is kneeling in the middle of the first row in front of the groom. the famous Talie is to my father's right. My father and uncle are probably the only two Romaniote Jews there, the rest are Spanish Jews of Turkish ancestry and maybe a few Yids. Here's the beginning of an article on Romaniote history: "While the terms “Ashkenazim” and “Sephardim” are geographical terms designating Jews whose ancestry originated in “German Lands” or Spain, the term “Romaniote” is an historical term, denoting Jews who date their ancestry back to the Roman Empire. When, in the early 4th century, Constantine the Great moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to a city on the Bosphorus, named Byzantion, renaming it after himself [Constantinopolis, the City of Constantine], Jews were citizens of the Roman Empire and, in their dialect, denoted themselves as such: Romaniotes-citizens of Roman. The term has come to mean “Hellenized” Jews, Greek-speaking Jews, who like Jews throughout history, living in most circumstances as small minorities surrounded by non-Jewish majorities, have absorbed many of the attributes, customs, traditions and, certainly, language of the surrounding non-Jewish majority, in this case, the Greek world of their time, whether it be pagan or Christian." For those interested, you can download the rest here.