Transcription
Annita Pinto: Let me greet Mr. Venouzios and thank you from the heart. Today's visit brings me great joy, not only for its formality but also for its purpose, which interests us for the future. Both for the present and the future, and so that these things remain within the digital archive of the community and are known by everyone who is interested.
I want to say, before you tell us anything you wish and need about the synagogue, that the synagogue of Trikala, when I first saw it several years ago, was in ruins. Even the scrolls had been damaged by moisture.
In 2017, then, a renovation began under the presidency of Mr. Saltiel, who truly cares very much about these matters, and with donors mainly from the German government, the Municipality of Trikala, the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, which besides money provided many workers and appointed Mr. Michalis Kapetas as supervising engineer.
Our accounting office was very involved with payments, receiving and giving, and of course with private individuals like Mr. Venouzios and Mr. Kapetas from Athens. And of course there were many other donations from private individuals.
It started in '17, finished in '19 due to Covid, we couldn't inaugurate it, but in '22 we all came with great joy, the choir sang, many ministers came and the inauguration took place with splendor, with joy and with optimism that this would bring the community of Trikala closer to the rest of the world of the city and the entire world. So the floor is yours.
Iakobos Venouzios: I also thank you very much for today's visit, as I said previously. The community of Trikala is historic. It has its origins from the Byzantine period. That's why there were three trends of Judaism in Trikala.
The Romaniotes, as we speak of the Byzantine period, the Sephardim who came after 1492, as well as those expelled from pogroms in Eastern Northern Europe, the so-called Ashkenazim. In fact, the Ashkenazi family still exists, from Trikala, now in Athens.
Until a month ago lived the grandson of a donor of a magnificent parochet that we have in the exhibition. And when my brother who is in America, Isin, collaborated to interpret the phrase that exists on this parochet, he told me it's from the family of David Samuel. David Samuel, the grandson, lived until a month ago at 105 years old. The passage of time for the thirds, but it has been documented.
The main source of Jewish arrival, Trikala is Ioannina, the Metropolitan Community of Ioannina. Trikala subsequently also became a Metropolitan Community, after 1920, when there was the Western Thessaly Railroad, which connected Volos with Kalambaka.
Caravans came from Ioannina and proceeded to Volos for commercial cooperation. That's why Trikala never had the fortune to develop large families with great wealth. They were always poor families.
I have characteristically an excerpt from a notarial document, an act, when there wasn't yet an organized community, to give authority to claim the other synagogue that was on Kondyli Street, today's Kondyli, after the urban planning that was done by Trikoupis' liberation from the Turks.
84 co-signers sign, none of them appears to be particularly wealthy, and I will endeavor to have this exist for eternity, in the Holocaust Museum. Thank you very much.
Annita Pinto: Mr. Nikos Krinitsas is waiting for us to collaborate to digitize it.
Iakobos Venouzios: So families from Trikala began to settle in Karditsa and in Farsala, villages at that time, cities today, which the Thessalian Railroad connected. This step, from Kalambaka to Volos.
Thus populous communities were created and at some point the community of Karditsa was also formed, this after 1950. All these people, 520 individuals until 1940, were citizens of the community of Trikala, they attended services in Trikala, got married in Trikala, like my cousin Victor Velouzios, who had his wedding in Trikala, in the Metropolitan community of Trikala.
Annita Pinto: Yes, and there Nora takes me.
Iakobos Venouzios: Yes, his relatives and siblings, his father's and mother's are from Trikala. In any case, there is such a mixture, as well as the Levy family in Farsala. So, then, all of these have a close bond with Trikala.
What else could I say about this period, except that the cohesion and spiritual entity of this community was so great that you would find them to be pioneers in every intellectual association. Whether it's a commercial association, whether it's an athletic association, whether it's a theatrical association, or whether it's for the progress of intellectuality.
I have photographs and descriptions that mention Jewish names as founders and companions of these institutions. And of course, the culmination and pride of Trikala are three simply.
A little while ago we were talking about Raphael Moissis, son of Aser Moissis, who passed through Thessaloniki, did everything for Thessaloniki. He was a personality.
Annita Pinto: Yes, but he's from Trikala.
Iakobos Venouzios: He's a personality. Also, the last elected president of the community of Thessaloniki, who has described his sufferings and the way the community of Thessaloniki should exist, is the son Tobias Cohen. The first name you see on the board of the deported is his father.
As well as the Cohen family. Elias Cohen. Which Cohen, grandson of Elias Cohen, was in collaboration with Aser Moissis and they created the PAEI. Mr. Alfaidos Chaim Cohen, according to the testimony of his granddaughter, Evi, with whom I communicate and who is in Paris, told me that her grandfather was a lawyer and together with Aser Moissis they created the KIS organization and mainly the PAEI by Alfaidos Cohen.
Therefore, Trikala has produced significant personalities. To tell you about Aser Moissis that he was president, ambassador of Israel to Greece and a unique case of a person who doesn't have the nationality of the state of which he is ambassador.
I should also be proud because we find ourselves today in a declining phase that Trikala has produced significant personalities. Not so much of money, and this existed, especially with the family, but as much of spirit.
I should also emphasize another fact that is perhaps unique in all of Greek territory. There was the Megir family who had a bank in Trikala and who also came to Thessaloniki as did the Cohen bank to Thessaloniki.
What did they do, since Judaism is governed by philanthropy, Megir Solomon left an endowment to the Municipality, some buildings so that their income would be given to support five poor girls. Note, not Jewish - three Christian and two Jewish girls.
And one of them, to emphasize, was taken by my father's brother who received the endowment and had six sons and they are in Israel and are about a hundred now. This endowment still exists...
Unfortunately, the Megir bank went bankrupt in the '30s with the crash and these buildings were lost. There is a record from the former mayor Konstantinos Pasterios, father of today's minister, who says that these buildings never came to the Municipality due to this situation.
But in any case, until that time, however, people managed to make use and there was a president, there was the Metropolitan, the mayor, and a family member.
Subsequently, education in Trikala was a very important factor. There was a Jewish school in Trikala that operated as a state institution. The first state school that operated as Jewish in Greece is considered, I don't have enough evidence, to be this one in Trikala.
Annita Pinto: This was pre-war, Mr. Venevti.
Iakobos Venouzios: Of course. But there was also later, I have correspondence from 1940 where the Thessalonian Leon Pesach is appointed, who functioned both as a Rabbi and had the qualifications and was officially recognized as a teacher of the Jewish school of Trikala.
I remember him very well because he left in 1949 for America with his family. He lived exactly across from our ancestral home and I remember the family very well.
Leon Pesach, then, when it was requested by the Ministry to prove that the synagogue operates before 1950 and this to get approval for the operating license, I found these documents in the community files. Certainly they won't exist but these will exist.
This is my own faith and that's why I act this way. That's why I told you, I was particularly pleased with the fact.
The synagogue where we are today is one of the three that existed in the past. These were very small and when the... how should we characterize it, the mixing of the trends that came - Sephardim, Romaniotes, Ashkenazim - who came to this space here, they didn't have... because the Ashkenazim were few, their synagogue ceased to function. Why? Because this synagogue took the entire population mainly and the other that was exclusively of the Sephardim. This on Kondyli for which I told you the 1910 document exists.
So they decided in 1925 to renovate and create a broader synagogue whose basic characteristics are what we see today.
As always, people turned to people who couldn't help financially. The Municipality of Trikala, due to the good cooperation it had with the community, contributed money. The Municipality of Karditsa contributed money. And others.
But this funding for the first construction, the one we have the photograph in front of the Administrative Council in front of this entrance from 1931 and where the inauguration took place, we have only Karditsa.
Acts of the Administrative Council of the Municipality of Karditsa which addresses the Jews of Trikala-Karditsa as very poor, sensitive, noble and courageous individuals, and with this justification they agree to fund the synagogue of Trikala because they attend services and perform all the ceremonies as well as travel expenses for the Chief Rabbi for KOEL to go teach the children of Karditsa religious subjects and the language. We have received from the Museum of Karditsa of the Municipality, these I have had for several years, I've had them for 4-5 years to repair them, this was the image which this image.
The adventure of this synagogue during the occupation period, the Germans destroyed it as well as the other synagogue simultaneously because the Jewish school functioned as an annex of the Third Elementary School, the Italians occupied it and made it a hospital and the Third Elementary School had nowhere to hold classes for their children, a school was made in the attic where the women's section was here, here the entrance that we see today and which we have as an emergency exit was the entrance that went up to the women's section, the women's section was wooden, we went up the stairs, I remember my mother up here, they held classes in this women's section and in the Jewish school.
Which is at the intersection of Socrates and Plutonos, exactly where my paternal house was and I could see the rabbi, the community secretary, was granted in cooperation with KIS to house after the 1954 earthquakes poor and homeless Jewish families when the civil war of 1947-1948 ended. In the community archives I find that the then administrative council was Jesus Solomon who was president for several years, they made some repairs and additions, they had a Trikala municipal engineer, Zaki Levy, and they added this balcony which is the women's section today, it's a 1949 construction that was added. There was also the bath for women, for brides, which later became the mortuary.
We have 1954, Trikala and Western Thessaly suffered major earthquakes around Idrinio and there were many destructions, the synagogue cracked, there are photographs from the repairs that were made then, the space changed from the Echal because here was a building that was like a kiosk with columns and such, and then when I found this photograph that I couldn't understand what this photograph shows because it wasn't clear, dusty, blackened due to the fact that here they had fallen like this and they took it, the railings show more and I couldn't distinguish where they gave the Echal here after the demolition of the wall and I asked my brother somewhere, I tell him you must know what was in front of the Echal, there were columns, yes he tells me I remember we had columns, Elias Methainas the architect, I tell him look at the original, that is, let's say we keep the original, it is that there were instead of this semicircle, there were two columns or even covered, they exist and I say one there, the railings were made by the Echal, Moissis, a Thessalonian, and it took the form we have today, the form was made in '49 and '54, the columns are the same as exactly happened, fortunately they don't support the roof because we were terrified when the columns had cracked from moisture, the Echal with moisture to damage even the parchments, it has some relative moisture despite what we've done, we've done a lot.
The uniqueness of this synagogue that you won't find in any other Greek city is that there are two tevas. I remember Kippur and Rosh Hashanah when the rabbi's assistant with the shofar or readings of the prayer for forgiveness of sins and the supplication on Kippur, Kippur from up there, but not many, very old, later it wasn't used there again, only in large gatherings. We have old photographs from '58, '59 with Israel Day, with Israel's inauguration, events for the liberation and founding of the state of Israel, tremendously large gatherings where you can see the population of Trikala, Jewish and Christian.
Rabbi Raphaelpoulos, an undisputed figure, particularly dynamic, social, the principles he gave me as... because he taught us later, some lessons so we could read and conduct the service in the Synagogue, he had great respect for the way of nutrition and cleanliness, these two elements were his principles and he transmitted to us, at least to me he transmitted the role that is duty. I don't see such great interest but my children tell me "but only you," what can I do, children, that's how I learned, I can't, that's why I deal with these things, otherwise I wouldn't have any need to get involved, I've forgotten too.
Another topic I want to mention is the genesis of the synagogue, the two friends I told you about, Forissac Solomon who is Zeta's husband tells me where is the Magen David that was here in front, which Magen David, I don't remember, here was the Magen David which existed in the old synagogue and which they used and made a hiding place for the Sephardim, 32 Sephardim. At some point this opened, I had heard some legends but I didn't dare say it was true, but from the moment this specific person was found, he tells me they took me from Athens and brought me to Trikala, we came up to Meteora and there they put me, we entered here, he describes how it happened, 4 Sephardim went to the community, another 2-3 took to Chalkida and I don't know if they went to Thessaloniki too. We here today have 7 Sephardim. From the 3 synagogues there were 32 Sephardim and we today have 7 Sephardim.
Warm thanks to the community of Thessaloniki for the wonderful energy of the Holocaust Museum being created, as well as I owe particular thanks to president Saltiel who helped us not only to build this synagogue but to come out and have extroversion. We became known to the ends of the world thanks to this energy.
Iakovos Venouziou presents the rich history of the Jewish community of Trikala, from the Byzantine period to the present day. He refers to the three Jewish traditions that coexisted (Romaniotes, Sephardim, Ashkenazim), the importance of education, the personalities that emerged from the community, as well as the renovation of the synagogue that was completed in 2022. The conversation reveals the history of a small but dynamic community that preserved its culture despite the difficulties of the centuries.
Jacob Venouziou
Transcription
Annita Pinto: Let me greet Mr. Venouzios and thank you from the heart. Today's visit brings me great joy, not only for its formality but also for its purpose, which interests us for the future. Both for the present and the future, and so that these things remain within the digital archive of the community and are known by everyone who is interested.
I want to say, before you tell us anything you wish and need about the synagogue, that the synagogue of Trikala, when I first saw it several years ago, was in ruins. Even the scrolls had been damaged by moisture.
In 2017, then, a renovation began under the presidency of Mr. Saltiel, who truly cares very much about these matters, and with donors mainly from the German government, the Municipality of Trikala, the Jewish Community of Thessaloniki, which besides money provided many workers and appointed Mr. Michalis Kapetas as supervising engineer.
Our accounting office was very involved with payments, receiving and giving, and of course with private individuals like Mr. Venouzios and Mr. Kapetas from Athens. And of course there were many other donations from private individuals.
It started in '17, finished in '19 due to Covid, we couldn't inaugurate it, but in '22 we all came with great joy, the choir sang, many ministers came and the inauguration took place with splendor, with joy and with optimism that this would bring the community of Trikala closer to the rest of the world of the city and the entire world. So the floor is yours.
Iakobos Venouzios: I also thank you very much for today's visit, as I said previously. The community of Trikala is historic. It has its origins from the Byzantine period. That's why there were three trends of Judaism in Trikala.
The Romaniotes, as we speak of the Byzantine period, the Sephardim who came after 1492, as well as those expelled from pogroms in Eastern Northern Europe, the so-called Ashkenazim. In fact, the Ashkenazi family still exists, from Trikala, now in Athens.
Until a month ago lived the grandson of a donor of a magnificent parochet that we have in the exhibition. And when my brother who is in America, Isin, collaborated to interpret the phrase that exists on this parochet, he told me it's from the family of David Samuel. David Samuel, the grandson, lived until a month ago at 105 years old. The passage of time for the thirds, but it has been documented.
The main source of Jewish arrival, Trikala is Ioannina, the Metropolitan Community of Ioannina. Trikala subsequently also became a Metropolitan Community, after 1920, when there was the Western Thessaly Railroad, which connected Volos with Kalambaka.
Caravans came from Ioannina and proceeded to Volos for commercial cooperation. That's why Trikala never had the fortune to develop large families with great wealth. They were always poor families.
I have characteristically an excerpt from a notarial document, an act, when there wasn't yet an organized community, to give authority to claim the other synagogue that was on Kondyli Street, today's Kondyli, after the urban planning that was done by Trikoupis' liberation from the Turks.
84 co-signers sign, none of them appears to be particularly wealthy, and I will endeavor to have this exist for eternity, in the Holocaust Museum. Thank you very much.
Annita Pinto: Mr. Nikos Krinitsas is waiting for us to collaborate to digitize it.
Iakobos Venouzios: So families from Trikala began to settle in Karditsa and in Farsala, villages at that time, cities today, which the Thessalian Railroad connected. This step, from Kalambaka to Volos.
Thus populous communities were created and at some point the community of Karditsa was also formed, this after 1950. All these people, 520 individuals until 1940, were citizens of the community of Trikala, they attended services in Trikala, got married in Trikala, like my cousin Victor Velouzios, who had his wedding in Trikala, in the Metropolitan community of Trikala.
Annita Pinto: Yes, and there Nora takes me.
Iakobos Venouzios: Yes, his relatives and siblings, his father's and mother's are from Trikala. In any case, there is such a mixture, as well as the Levy family in Farsala. So, then, all of these have a close bond with Trikala.
What else could I say about this period, except that the cohesion and spiritual entity of this community was so great that you would find them to be pioneers in every intellectual association. Whether it's a commercial association, whether it's an athletic association, whether it's a theatrical association, or whether it's for the progress of intellectuality.
I have photographs and descriptions that mention Jewish names as founders and companions of these institutions. And of course, the culmination and pride of Trikala are three simply.
A little while ago we were talking about Raphael Moissis, son of Aser Moissis, who passed through Thessaloniki, did everything for Thessaloniki. He was a personality.
Annita Pinto: Yes, but he's from Trikala.
Iakobos Venouzios: He's a personality. Also, the last elected president of the community of Thessaloniki, who has described his sufferings and the way the community of Thessaloniki should exist, is the son Tobias Cohen. The first name you see on the board of the deported is his father.
As well as the Cohen family. Elias Cohen. Which Cohen, grandson of Elias Cohen, was in collaboration with Aser Moissis and they created the PAEI. Mr. Alfaidos Chaim Cohen, according to the testimony of his granddaughter, Evi, with whom I communicate and who is in Paris, told me that her grandfather was a lawyer and together with Aser Moissis they created the KIS organization and mainly the PAEI by Alfaidos Cohen.
Therefore, Trikala has produced significant personalities. To tell you about Aser Moissis that he was president, ambassador of Israel to Greece and a unique case of a person who doesn't have the nationality of the state of which he is ambassador.
I should also be proud because we find ourselves today in a declining phase that Trikala has produced significant personalities. Not so much of money, and this existed, especially with the family, but as much of spirit.
I should also emphasize another fact that is perhaps unique in all of Greek territory. There was the Megir family who had a bank in Trikala and who also came to Thessaloniki as did the Cohen bank to Thessaloniki.
What did they do, since Judaism is governed by philanthropy, Megir Solomon left an endowment to the Municipality, some buildings so that their income would be given to support five poor girls. Note, not Jewish - three Christian and two Jewish girls.
And one of them, to emphasize, was taken by my father's brother who received the endowment and had six sons and they are in Israel and are about a hundred now. This endowment still exists...
Unfortunately, the Megir bank went bankrupt in the '30s with the crash and these buildings were lost. There is a record from the former mayor Konstantinos Pasterios, father of today's minister, who says that these buildings never came to the Municipality due to this situation.
But in any case, until that time, however, people managed to make use and there was a president, there was the Metropolitan, the mayor, and a family member.
Subsequently, education in Trikala was a very important factor. There was a Jewish school in Trikala that operated as a state institution. The first state school that operated as Jewish in Greece is considered, I don't have enough evidence, to be this one in Trikala.
Annita Pinto: This was pre-war, Mr. Venevti.
Iakobos Venouzios: Of course. But there was also later, I have correspondence from 1940 where the Thessalonian Leon Pesach is appointed, who functioned both as a Rabbi and had the qualifications and was officially recognized as a teacher of the Jewish school of Trikala.
I remember him very well because he left in 1949 for America with his family. He lived exactly across from our ancestral home and I remember the family very well.
Leon Pesach, then, when it was requested by the Ministry to prove that the synagogue operates before 1950 and this to get approval for the operating license, I found these documents in the community files. Certainly they won't exist but these will exist.
This is my own faith and that's why I act this way. That's why I told you, I was particularly pleased with the fact.
The synagogue where we are today is one of the three that existed in the past. These were very small and when the... how should we characterize it, the mixing of the trends that came - Sephardim, Romaniotes, Ashkenazim - who came to this space here, they didn't have... because the Ashkenazim were few, their synagogue ceased to function. Why? Because this synagogue took the entire population mainly and the other that was exclusively of the Sephardim. This on Kondyli for which I told you the 1910 document exists.
So they decided in 1925 to renovate and create a broader synagogue whose basic characteristics are what we see today.
As always, people turned to people who couldn't help financially. The Municipality of Trikala, due to the good cooperation it had with the community, contributed money. The Municipality of Karditsa contributed money. And others.
But this funding for the first construction, the one we have the photograph in front of the Administrative Council in front of this entrance from 1931 and where the inauguration took place, we have only Karditsa.
Acts of the Administrative Council of the Municipality of Karditsa which addresses the Jews of Trikala-Karditsa as very poor, sensitive, noble and courageous individuals, and with this justification they agree to fund the synagogue of Trikala because they attend services and perform all the ceremonies as well as travel expenses for the Chief Rabbi for KOEL to go teach the children of Karditsa religious subjects and the language. We have received from the Museum of Karditsa of the Municipality, these I have had for several years, I've had them for 4-5 years to repair them, this was the image which this image.
The adventure of this synagogue during the occupation period, the Germans destroyed it as well as the other synagogue simultaneously because the Jewish school functioned as an annex of the Third Elementary School, the Italians occupied it and made it a hospital and the Third Elementary School had nowhere to hold classes for their children, a school was made in the attic where the women's section was here, here the entrance that we see today and which we have as an emergency exit was the entrance that went up to the women's section, the women's section was wooden, we went up the stairs, I remember my mother up here, they held classes in this women's section and in the Jewish school.
Which is at the intersection of Socrates and Plutonos, exactly where my paternal house was and I could see the rabbi, the community secretary, was granted in cooperation with KIS to house after the 1954 earthquakes poor and homeless Jewish families when the civil war of 1947-1948 ended. In the community archives I find that the then administrative council was Jesus Solomon who was president for several years, they made some repairs and additions, they had a Trikala municipal engineer, Zaki Levy, and they added this balcony which is the women's section today, it's a 1949 construction that was added. There was also the bath for women, for brides, which later became the mortuary.
We have 1954, Trikala and Western Thessaly suffered major earthquakes around Idrinio and there were many destructions, the synagogue cracked, there are photographs from the repairs that were made then, the space changed from the Echal because here was a building that was like a kiosk with columns and such, and then when I found this photograph that I couldn't understand what this photograph shows because it wasn't clear, dusty, blackened due to the fact that here they had fallen like this and they took it, the railings show more and I couldn't distinguish where they gave the Echal here after the demolition of the wall and I asked my brother somewhere, I tell him you must know what was in front of the Echal, there were columns, yes he tells me I remember we had columns, Elias Methainas the architect, I tell him look at the original, that is, let's say we keep the original, it is that there were instead of this semicircle, there were two columns or even covered, they exist and I say one there, the railings were made by the Echal, Moissis, a Thessalonian, and it took the form we have today, the form was made in '49 and '54, the columns are the same as exactly happened, fortunately they don't support the roof because we were terrified when the columns had cracked from moisture, the Echal with moisture to damage even the parchments, it has some relative moisture despite what we've done, we've done a lot.
The uniqueness of this synagogue that you won't find in any other Greek city is that there are two tevas. I remember Kippur and Rosh Hashanah when the rabbi's assistant with the shofar or readings of the prayer for forgiveness of sins and the supplication on Kippur, Kippur from up there, but not many, very old, later it wasn't used there again, only in large gatherings. We have old photographs from '58, '59 with Israel Day, with Israel's inauguration, events for the liberation and founding of the state of Israel, tremendously large gatherings where you can see the population of Trikala, Jewish and Christian.
Rabbi Raphaelpoulos, an undisputed figure, particularly dynamic, social, the principles he gave me as... because he taught us later, some lessons so we could read and conduct the service in the Synagogue, he had great respect for the way of nutrition and cleanliness, these two elements were his principles and he transmitted to us, at least to me he transmitted the role that is duty. I don't see such great interest but my children tell me "but only you," what can I do, children, that's how I learned, I can't, that's why I deal with these things, otherwise I wouldn't have any need to get involved, I've forgotten too.
Another topic I want to mention is the genesis of the synagogue, the two friends I told you about, Forissac Solomon who is Zeta's husband tells me where is the Magen David that was here in front, which Magen David, I don't remember, here was the Magen David which existed in the old synagogue and which they used and made a hiding place for the Sephardim, 32 Sephardim. At some point this opened, I had heard some legends but I didn't dare say it was true, but from the moment this specific person was found, he tells me they took me from Athens and brought me to Trikala, we came up to Meteora and there they put me, we entered here, he describes how it happened, 4 Sephardim went to the community, another 2-3 took to Chalkida and I don't know if they went to Thessaloniki too. We here today have 7 Sephardim. From the 3 synagogues there were 32 Sephardim and we today have 7 Sephardim.
Warm thanks to the community of Thessaloniki for the wonderful energy of the Holocaust Museum being created, as well as I owe particular thanks to president Saltiel who helped us not only to build this synagogue but to come out and have extroversion. We became known to the ends of the world thanks to this energy.