Jews have had synagogues in Greek-speaking lands and within the modern boundaries of the Hellenic Republic for two thousand years. The art and architecture of these buildings tells the story of identity, tenacity, adaption, and influence as Greek Jews developed and sustained language, liturgy, and distinctive culture through Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman rule. Ancient Romaniote traditions were supplemented by the culture of Sephardi Jews who found refuge in Ottoman lands after 1492. In the 20th century this mixed Romaniote-Sephardi Jewish heritage was transported in a new Greek-Jewish diaspora in the United States, and after the Holocaust, in Israel. Only a small Jewish population survived the Holocaust in Greece. Many synagogues of the destroyed communities have been demolished. Those that remain - and the small but vibrant Kehila Keodsha Janina Congregation in New York - bear witness. This talk, building on the work of several researchers and utilizing the photography of Vincent Giordano, focuses on the architecture of the synagogues in Ioannina, Greece and in New York, placing these surviving buildings in the context of a longer history.

Architectural historian Dr. Samuel D. Gruber is President of the International Survey of Jewish Monuments and teaches part time in the Jewish Studies Program at Syracuse University. For Queens College, he curated the on-line exhibition “Romaniote Memories, A Jewish Journey from Ioannina, Greece, to Manhattan: Photographs by Vincent Giordano”