Introduction

Generally speaking, colonial situations tend to be examined as systems of binary interaction between an imperial ruling power and a distant territory and its populations.1 For this reason, considering minorities in a colonial context as an analytical framework is not very common in historical research. By itself, this fact is sufficient reason for attempting to adopt this uncustomary approach, even though the use of the ‘colonial’ label for the Venetian overseas dominions has sometimes been challenged.2 In any event, one of the basic lexicographic meanings of the term ‘colony’ – namely ‘a country or area controlled politically by a more powerful and often distant country’3 – can undoubtedly be applied to the Venetian overseas territories (the stato da mar), including those that were part of the Hellenic, or post-Byzantine world.4

This collection of essays focuses on minority groups whose relationship with the majority of colonial subjects among whom they lived was no less significant (for them) than the binary relationship between the imperial power and its overseas subjects as a whole. Beyond the basic political system of colonial rule, there were also cultural, linguistic, and religious factors peculiar to the Hellenic territories of the Venetian Republic. Moreover, the composition of the Jewish communities themselves was also of a peculiar kind. In the colonies under consideration, the original nucleus was composed of so-called Romaniots, namely Jews whose ancestors had lived for many centuries in the Greek-Byzantine milieu (usually referred to as Romania), who were Greek-speaking and often had Greek names and surnames, and who also used Greek in their religious liturgy.5 After the expulsions from Spanish territories in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries (including Sicily and the Kingdom of Naples), the composition of these Jewish communities underwent changes that were accompanied by inner conflicts and crises. This process sometimes led to the establishment of separate Jewish communities, each with its own language and religious rituals, as happened in the Ionian islands of Corfu and Zakynthos, though not in Crete, the site of the largest concentration of Jews in Venice's Hellenic dominions. However, in these territories, Sephardi communities did not become hegemonic in any way, unlike what happened in other parts of the Hellenic word.

Considering the Jews in Venice's Hellenic territories in the wider framework of the Venetian state also emphasizes the idiosyncratic characteristics of these communities. Except for a short period in the late Trecento, throughout the Middle Ages Jews were forbidden from residing permanently in the city of Venice. The formal and continuous presence of Jews in Venice began only with the establishment of the Ghetto Novo in 1516. Moreover, Jews in Venice were only allowed to exercise money-lending, medicine, and trade in used clothes, and in principle their residence in town was subject to a condotta, or contract for a pre-established period, even if in practice they continued to live in Venice up to the fall of the Republic. The arrival of the Levantini in 1541 and later of the Ponentini widened the scope of Jewish occupations to include international trade, but only for those specific groups. In the towns of the Italian mainland (the terraferma), conquered by Venice in the first half of the fifteenth century, the presence of Jews was subject to decisions by the local communal councils. Consequently, Jewish residence there was more temporary and the scope of Jewish economic activities even more restricted than in Venice.6

On the other hand, in the overseas dominions, Jewish presence generally predated the inclusion of these territories in the Venetian empire, and was not based on temporary contracts. In principle it was conceived as permanent (at least as far as native-born Jews were concerned). Besides, the occupations exercised by the Jews of the stato da mar were much more variegated, including crafts such as tanning, dyeing, weaving, tinsmith work, shoemaking, and so forth – occupations characteristic of Jewish life back in the Byzantine period – alongside other occupations closer to the Italian model, such as money-lending, medicine, and trade. In the overseas territories, such as the Ionian islands, the latter occupation became more important in the early modern period, with the arrival in growing numbers of Spanish and Portuguese Jews to Venice's overseas territories.

The interest of modern scholars in the Jews of Venice's Hellenic territories began on a modest scale in the nineteenth century. It can be characterized by a clear division between scholars of Jewish/Hebrew culture, who have been mostly concerned with religious, literary, and linguistic aspects, and other scholars, who have been more interested in the interaction between Jews and the surrounding milieu (which is also the general framework of the present collection). The following historiographic survey has no pretence of completeness, but an effort has been made to include the most relevant studies published so far, with special emphasis on the early modern period.

General collections of Venetian documents concerning the Hellenic sphere published in the later nineteenth century, such as those by Sathas and Noiret, also contain material on Jews, and therefore already served the first generations of scholars interested in the field.7 Thiriet's Régestes of Venetian documents on Romania, published between the late 1950s and the early 1970s, also served this purpose for later scholars.8 Medievalists have been able to use several collections of documents, published from the 1950s onward by the Comitato per la pubblicazione delle fonti relative alla storia di Venezia.9 Collections of notarial acts from Venice's overseas colonies that are relevant to the timeframe of the present publication and contain important materials bearing on Jews began to appear somewhat later by the initiative of the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice, as well as several other Greek institutes.10 However, the bulk of the relevant documentary material, kept in the Archivio di Stato in Venice, remains unpublished, and is partly subject to grave physical deterioration.

Hebrew sources, such as the numerous and extremely useful collections of rabbinical responsa, are of great importance for the topic treated here. Moreover, several rabbis who authored these responsa even lived and were active, at least for some time, in Venice's overseas territories.11 The statutes (taqqanot) of the Jewish community of Candia (Crete), published in 1943 by Artom and Cassuto, are a rare treasure of information on the largest Jewish settlement in Venice's stato da mar.12 They were assembled in the sixteenth century by Rabbi Eliyahu Capsali (ca. 1483–1555), rabbi and leader of the Jewish community in Candia during the first half of the sixteenth century, and were expanded for several decades after his death. No similar document has survived from any other community in the Venetian overseas dominions. The historical works of Eliyahu Capsali (also discussed in one of the essays in this collection) offer another perspective on the life of Cretan Jews and their leadership.13

The historiography on the Jews of Venice's overseas dominions seems to begin with a few pages dedicated to Jewish scholars in Venetian Crete in Abraham Geiger's Melo Chofnajim [sic] (Berlin, 1840).14 Some four years later, Eliakim Carmoly, in his history of Jewish physicians, dedicated five pages of his book to Jewish physicians in Corfu and Crete under Venetian rule.15 The Cretan Rabbi and historian Elijah Capsali was a main protagonist of a booklet dedicated to his life and those of other illustrious Jews, authored by Moses Lattes in 1869.16 In 1871 Ioannis Romanos, a Corfiot scholar, published in the Athenian literary review Pandora (Πανδώρα) an article on the history of the Jewish community in Corfu (mostly focusing on the Venetian period).17 Moritz Steinschneider, the tireless researcher of Jewish manuscripts, published between 1879 and 1883 a series of short notes on the literary production of the Jews of Candia, practically all of it going back to the long Venetian rule over the island. Interestingly, he chose to publish them in Italian in the Jewish periodical Mosè, printed in Corfu.18

In June 1891, Ioannis Romanos published an updated version of his above-mentioned article on the Jews of Corfu in the weekly periodical Estia (Eστíα),19 and an extended summary (‘un résumé très étendu’) of this essay appeared in the same year in the Revue des études juives.20 There is little doubt that the reason for this new interest in the Jews of Corfu was related to the blood libel and the subsequent anti-Jewish violence that took place in Corfu and in Zante (Zakynthos) during April and May 1891.21 It should be remembered that these pogroms (in which 22 Jews were killed in Corfu and three in Zante, and many more wounded), which were accompanied by anti-Semitic incitement in the local press, were followed with interest and anxiety in Europe, and constituted a turning point in the development of the two Jewish communities.22 Romanos' article was probably part of an effort to cool down the spirits by emphasizing the long-lasting links of Jews with Corfu.

From a historiographic perspective, it is no less interesting to note that these tragic events seem to have entailed a wider interest in the history of the Jews in former Venetian colonies, which developed in the 1890s and the first decade of the following century. The focus on those parts of the Hellenic world that had formerly been included in the Venetian empire may also be related to the availability of collections of printed sources, such as those of Sathas and Noiret, which had no parallel for other regions of Greece. Thus, one year after Romanos' study of 1891, Spyridon De Viazis published a series of articles on the history of the Jews on Zante,23 and in 1893 – the year in which Noiret published his collection of documents – Israel Levi could already use it for a short study on the Jews of Crete in the years covered by that collection.24 A first attempt to consider the Jews of Venice's overseas colonies in a general survey on the history of the Jews under Venetian rule was made by Luigi Arnaldo Schiavi in two successive articles published in 1893, although he referred only to two colonies, Corfu and Crete.25

The Jews of Corfu were again the main subject of an article accompanied by a rich body of pièces justificatives, published in the mid-1890s by David Kaufmann. This time, too, the bulk of the material covered the Venetian period (1386–1797).26 Kaufmann's conclusions, expressed in superlative terms, have greatly influenced later scholars and therefore are worthy of attention. He affirmed that Corfiot Jews enjoyed far more extensive privileges than Jews in other parts of the Venetian Republic, or even anywhere else in medieval and early modern times. Whereas in other places Jews were treated as pariahs or in the best case were tolerated, those of Corfu were true citizens from the beginning of Venetian rule of the island in 1386, enjoying the same rights as other Corfiots, and capable of assuming the honourable positions that the islanders enjoyed by birth. According to Kaufmann, Corfiot Jews were ‘emancipated before the Émancipation, and enjoyed Égalité even before the meaning of this term became known’, constituting a sort of ‘oasis in the desert of Jewish history’.27 This is not the place for a critical examination of these unreserved statements, but suffice it to say that they must have contributed to a continuous interest in this community, be it for the mere reason that it was presented as such an exceptional case.

Another essay of this pre World War I period worthy of mention is the article on the Jews of Crete in the Venetian period published in 1909 by the Cretan archaeologist and historian Stephanos Xandoudidis.28 This author relies heavily on Noiret's collection of documents, complementing it with some additional evidence from other published works, such as the interesting encyclical against the mistreatment of Jews sent in 1568 by the Patriarch of Constantinople, Mitrophanis III, to the Orthodox believers in Crete.29 At that time, the very decision of a Greek scholar to study the Jewish communities of the great island was a pioneering initiative.

Some three decades following Schiavi's article that included the Jews of the stato da mar in a historical survey of Venetian Jews, Cecil Roth again turned attention to the Jews of Venice's overseas dominions. He dealt with them as a special category in his book on the Jews of Venice published in 1930, which also includes a chapter on the terraferma Jews.30 Roth's chapter dedicated to the Jews in the Republic's overseas territories includes discussions of the Jews of Negroponte, Crete, Spalato (Split), and Corfu, with occasional reference to Jewish presence in other colonies, such as Coron (Koroni), Modon (Methoni), and Zante (Zakynthos). Such rare attempts to consider together the three main components of the Venetian state – namely the city of Venice and its immediate hinterland, the terraferma, and the stato da mar – could potentially lead to a comparative approach regarding the status and condition of the Jews in these respective regions, as well to comparisons between different overseas colonies in this respect. However, this challenge had to wait for later studies.

Needless to say, these early attempts to grapple with the complex subject of Venice's overseas dominions were not without flaws and inaccuracies. For example, apart from a very succinct bibliography, the above-mentioned book by Cecil Roth does not include any footnotes or other forms of references to the sources he used, which prevents us from checking the accuracy of his statements. Later studies would at least partly redress such flaws.

An important step forward in this regard was the publication in 1942 of Joshua Starr's article on the Jews of Crete under Venetian rule, as well as the same author's book on the Jews in the Hellenic world in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries.31 Although Starr was unable to use the statutes of Candia's community (published one year after his study), his critical approach turned these two publications into essential tools for any study on the Jews in the territories of the Hellenic world ruled by Venice.

Since the 1950s, several Israeli scholars, such as David Jacoby and Zvi Ankori, have considered the Jews of Venice's colonies as one of their main subjects of research. What characterizes their work is not only their acquaintance with both Hebrew and Western sources, but also the return to the Venetian archives to collect new documentary material, which enriches considerably the scope of their research. Jacoby has published two comprehensive surveys on the Jews in the Venetian state, including the stato da mar, as well as numerous other articles dealing with more specific issues related to the Jews in that part of the Venetian empire.32 Ankori published three long articles dealing with Cretan Jews under Venetian rule.33

Quite a few other studies, mostly but not exclusively written by scholars of Hebrew culture, deal with the Jews in Venice's overseas dominions, particularly in the early modern period. They concern issues such as liturgy, hymns, and poetry;34 redemption of captives, immigration, communal organization, and internal conflicts;35 works by Jewish writers;36 religious disputes;37 messianic ferments;38 Hebrew manuscripts and books;39 relations with the Land of Israel;40 trade;41 civil status, integration and segregation;42 wine production and consumption;43 family history;44 and anti-Semitism.45 The Jews of Crete, Cyprus, and the Ionian Islands have been the subject of a few more general surveys.46 Several volumes of transactions based on symposia dedicated to the history of Jews in Greece also contain relevant material.47

The present collection of essays includes a selection of papers that were originally presented and discussed in a workshop organized by the Salonica Chair for the History and Culture of the Jews of Greece and the Goldstein-Goren Center for Diaspora Studies of Tel Aviv University on 7–8 March 2011. One of the aims of this workshop was to overcome what sometimes seems to be an insurmountable divide between historians working on Hebrew and Jewish source materials on the one hand, and on the other, colleagues who study the same territories and the same periods, yet generally tend to avoid issues pertaining to the Jews. Language barriers are, of course, the main obstacle in this unfortunate separation. The workshop's organizers believe that an encounter of this kind is not only fruitful, but also necessary to promote research and broaden its horizons.

Four out of the 10 studies included in the present collection deal with Cretan Jewry. The bias in favour of Crete can be justified by two reasons. The island was the major Jewish centre in Venice's overseas empire. Moreover, in contrast to the other Hellenic colonies, each of which had only one Jewish community located in a single urban centre, Crete had three major communities (Candia, Chania, and Rethymno), besides a few minor localities in which Jews resided for some time. Another reason for this concentration on Crete is documentary. Besides the fortunate survival of the statutes of the Candia community, historians can exploit the rich archival collection of the Duca di Candia, the records of the Venetian administration in Crete, transported to Venice before the loss of the island to the Ottomans in 1669. This depository contains a considerable amount of documents relating to Jews, some of which have in effect served the authors of essays included in this collection.48

The article by Anastasia Papadia-Lala deals with communal and individual identities; the one by Rena Lauer examines the difficulties that arose with the early arrivals of Spanish Jews to Crete; Ilona Steimann focuses on artistic production of Cretan Haggadot; and Giacomo Corazzol examines the sources of Elijah Capsali's Chronicle of Venice. The Jewish communities of Modon and Coron in the southern Peloponnese are discussed by Andrea Nanetti, who surveys the Jewish presence in these port towns during the last 50 years of Venetian rule. Gerassimos Pagratis devotes attention to Jewish economic occupations in Corfu in the first half of the sixteenth century, and Nadia Zeldes focuses on the role of the same island in the peregrinations of Jewish refugees following their expulsions from Spanish-held territories. Marianna Kolyvà's paper is dedicated to the Jews of Zante (Zakynthos) – a relatively neglected topic – in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and to the emergence of Jewish consuls in Zante during that period. The two remaining studies go beyond the investigation of Jewish life in a single territory: Photis Baroutsos proposes a re-examination of certain concepts, such as colonialism and pragmatism, in the Venetian context as a framework for the study of Jewish life in these areas; and Benjamin Arbel attempts to follow the fate of the members of the Famagusta community after the Ottoman conquest of this town in 1571.

When planning the workshop, efforts were made to cover as much as possible all Venetian territories in the Hellenic world that had significant Jewish presence between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries. This ambitious project could not be entirely fulfilled. For example, Negroponte, the island of Euboea, held by Venice until 1470, is not treated here, and the eighteenth century is also hardly represented. However, it is hoped that this collection will contribute to a revival of interest in the role of the Jews in the social, cultural, and economic development of the Hellenic territories ruled by Venice in the richly documented period to which this collection of essays is dedicated.

Finally, it is my duty to thank the institutions and individuals whose generous grants and support enabled the realization of the workshop and the ensuing publication of selected essays presented in it: the Salonica Chair for the History and Culture of the Jews of Greece at Tel Aviv University (TAU); the Goldstein-Goren Center for Diaspora Studies, also at TAU, and particularly its director Dr Simha Goldin, Ms Sara Appel, and Ms Ora Azta; the Israel Academy of Sciences; the Italian Institute of Culture in Tel Aviv and its director Dr Carmela Callea; the Morris E. Curiel Institute for European Studies at TAU; the Rector's and President's Funds, as well as the Lester and Sally Antin Faculty of Humanities of TAU. Last but not least, Professor David Jacoby of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has been most helpful as a member of the steering committee of this enterprise.

Notes

 1. For example, Chaunu, Conquête et exploitation; Abernethy, Dynamics of Global Dominance.

 2. See, for example, Baroutsos' paper in the present collection.

 3. http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/colony

 4. On Venice's maritime empire, see Thiriet, La Romanie vénitienne au Moyen Age; Ravegnani, ‘La Romania veneziana’; Jacoby, ‘La Venezia d'oltremare’; Jacoby ‘La dimensione demografica e sociale’; Borsari, ‘I Veneziani delle colonie’; Arbel, ‘Colonie d'oltremare’.

 5. Marcus, ‘Romaniot’.

 6. For Venice, see Jacoby, ‘Les Juifs à Venise’; Jacoby ‘Venice and the Venetian Jews’; Davis and Ravid, The Jews of Early Modern Venice; Ravid, Studies on the Jews of Venice; for the Terraferma, see Mueller and Varanini, Ebrei nella terraferma veneta.

 7. Sathas, Documents inédits; Noiret, Documents inédits.

 8. Thiriet, Régestes; Thiriet, Délibérations.

 9. See http://www.fontidivenezia.org

10. Maltezou, ‘Dove va la storia’, 22–3; Lambrinos, Michiel Gradenigo.

11. Rabbi David Ha-Cohen (died in 1530, active in Corfu); Rabbi Benjamin Ze'ev (died ca. 1538, active in Corfu); Rabbi Eliyahu Capsali (died in 1555, active in Crete); Rabbi Shlomo Ha-Cohen (1545–1602, active in Zante); Rabbi Jacob Levi (died in 1636, active in Zante).

12. Artom and Cassuto, Statuta iudaeorum Candiae. Cassuto had also authored an important book on the Hebrew manuscripts of the Apostolic Library, most of which originated from Venetian Crete. See Cassuto, I manoscritti palatini ebraici. For a more recent presentation, see Richler, Hebrew Manuscripts in the Vatican Library.

13. Capsali, Seder Eliyahu Zuta.

14. Geiger, Melo Chofnajim, xxii–xxvii of Geiger's introduction (in German) to a letter by Joseph Shelomo del Medigo.

15. Carmoly, Histoire des médecins juifs, 135–9.

16. Lattes, De vita et scriptis Eliae Kapsalii.

17. Romanos, ‘H Eβραϊκή κoινότης Kϵρκύρας’ [1871].

18. Steinschneider, ‘Candia: cenni di storia letteraria’ [in five consecutive volumes of the periodical].

19. Romanos, ‘H Eβραϊκή κoινότης της Kϵρκύρας’ [1891].

20. Romanos, ‘Histoire de la communauté israélite de Corfou’, 63, n. 1.

21. The article in Estia appeared in three successive issues during the month of June. I am grateful to Gerassimos Pagratis and Chris Schabel for helping me to reconstruct the chronology of publication of the two versions of Romanos' article.

22. Preschel, The Jews of Corfu, 87–97; Pierrou, Juifs et Chrétiens, 35–39. Liata, ‘The Anti-Semitic Disturbances on Corfu and Zakynthos’.

23. De Viazis, ‘H Eβραϊκή Koινότης ϵν Zακύνθου.

24. Levi, ‘Les Juifs de Candie’.

25. Schiavi, ‘Gli ebrei in Venezia e nelle sue colonie’.

26. Kaufmann, ‘Contributions’, [in four consecutive publications].

27. Kaufmann, ‘Contributions’ [1896], 234. Kaufmann does not provide precise references to the Venetian documents published as pièces justificatives of his articles. These seem to be based on a compilation prepared by the Jewish community of Corfu.

28. Xandoudidis, ‘Οι εβραίοι εν Κρήτη επί βενετοκρατίας’.

29. Xandoudidis, ‘Οι εβραίοι εν Κρήτη επί βενετοκρατίας’, 123–4.

30. Roth, Venice, 294–331 (‘The communities of the Stato da Mar’).

31. Starr, ‘Jewish Life in Crete’; Starr, Romania.

32. Jacoby, ‘Venice and Venetian Jews’; Jacoby, ‘Les Juifs à Venise’; Jacoby, ‘Un agent juif’; Jacoby, ‘The Jews of Byzantium and the Eastern Mediterranean’; Jacoby, ‘The Jewish Communities of the Byzantine World’; Jacoby, ‘The Jews in the Byzantine Economy’; Jacoby, ‘The Status of Jews’; Jacoby, ‘Inquisition and Converts’; Jacoby, ‘Jewish Physicians and Surgeons’.

33. Ankori, Jews and the Jewish Community; Ankori, ‘The Living and the Dead’; Ankori, ‘Giacomo Foscarini’.

34. Bernstein, ‘Liturgical Hymns and New Poets’; Goldschmitt, ‘The Romania Prayer Book’; Weinberger, Jewish Poets in Crete.

35. Baron, ‘On the History of the Corfiot Communities’; Baron, ‘On the History of Ḥaluka and Redemption of Captives’; Baron, ‘Jewish Immigration and Communal Conflicts’; Marcus, ‘The Composition of the Jewish Population’; Marcus, ‘The History of the Jews of Chania’; Litmann, ‘The Relations Between Egypt and Candia’; Arbel, ‘The Jews in Cyprus’; Arbel, ‘A List of Able-Bodied Jews’.

36. Kupfer, ‘Rabbi Joseph Hamits’; Habermann, ‘The Memoirs of Rabbi Abraham Baltsa’; Barzilay, Yoseph Shlomo Delmedigo; Benayahu, Rabbi Eliyahu Capsali; Ben Sasson, ‘Outlines of the World View of a Jewish Chronicler’; Malachi, ‘Fifteenth-Century Writings by Members of the Balbo Family’; Corazzol, ‘Le guerre di Venezia’; Paudice, Between Several Worlds.

37. Gottlieb, ‘The Transmigration Dispute’; Ravitzky, ‘The God of the Philosophers’.

38. Mizrahi, ‘A Christian Testimony’.

39. Benayahu, ‘Book trade between Candia and Egypt’; Riegler, ‘The Jews as Book Suppliers’.

40. Baron, ‘On the History of Ḥaluka and Redemption of Captives’; Freimann, ‘Envoys and Immigrants’; Benvenisti, ‘On the Envoys of the Land of Israel in Corfu’.

41. Ashtor, ‘The Jews in the Mediterranean Trade [1978]’; Ashtor, ‘The Jews in the Mediterranean Trade [1984]’; Ciriacono, Olio ed Ebrei; David, ‘From Candia to Egypt’.

42. Asaf, ‘Jewish Executioners’; Jacoby, ‘The Status of Jews’; Jacoby, ‘Jews and Christians in Venetian Crete’; Arbel, ‘Jews and Christians in Sixteenth-Century Crete’; Mueller, ‘The Status of Jews in Venetian Territories’; Baroutsos, ‘Privileges, Legality and Prejudice’.

43. Arbel, ‘The Jewish Wine’.

44. Manoussakas, ‘Le recueil de privilèges’; Vivante, La memoria dei padri.

45. Seymour, ‘A Blood Libel in Zante, 1712’.

46. Roth, ‘On the History of the Jews in Cyprus’; Ankori, ‘Jews and the Jewish Community’; Seymour, ‘The Jewries of Zakynthos’; Tsiknakis, ‘H ϵβραϊκή κoινότητα’; Tsiknakis, ‘Oι ϵβραίoι τoυ Xάνδακα’; Moschonas, ‘H ϵβραϊκή διασπoρά’; Dafnis, Οι ισραηλίτες της Κέρκυρας.

47. Avdela and Varon-Vasar, Oι Eβραίoι στoν Eλληνικó Xóρo; Margaritis, Πρακτικά; Lambropoulou and Tsiknakis, H ϵβραϊκή Πρακτικά.

48. This rich corpus of unpublished documents is now the subject of a research project of the Salonica Chair for the History and Culture of the Jews of Greece and the Goldstein-Goren Center for Diaspora Studies at Tel Aviv University.