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Jewish Families from Rhodes

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Top Surnames

Alhadeff, Almeleh, Amato, Avzaradel and 16 others
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Profiles

This project seeks to collect all of the Jewish families from the Island of Rhodes.

Introductory information by Leon Taranto. See his complete article on Avotaynu 2009:

"From the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Rhodes in 1522 until the Holocaust, a vibrant Judeo-Spanish community flourished on this Mediterranean isle. In antiquity, a Romaniote Jewish community lived there.

By the 1700s, Rhodes became an important rabbinical center, and home to a dynasty of Grand Rabbis. In the early 1900s, Rhodeslis émigrés founded colonies in Africa and the Americas."

From Wikipedia, accessed January 15, 2020: "The Jewish community of Rhodes[46] goes back to the first century AD. Kahal Shalom Synagogue, established in 1557, during the Ottoman era, is the oldest synagogue in Greece and still stands in the Jewish quarter of the old town of Rhodes. At its peak in the 1920s, the Jewish community was one-third of the town's total population.[47]

In the 1940s, there were about 2000 Jews of various ethnic backgrounds. The Nazis deported and killed most of the community during the Holocaust. Kahal Shalom has been renovated with the help of foreign donors but few Jews live year-round in Rhodes today, so services are not held on a regular basis.[48]

The Jewish Museum of Rhodes was established in 1997 to preserve the Jewish history and culture of the Jews of Rhodes. It is adjacent to the Kahal Shalom Synagogue." One of the most informative documents prepared by the Museum is the comprehensive LIST of deported individuals. Access the list on this site: https://www.rhodesjewishmuseum.org/history/holocaust/

Because of the somewhat isolated community and consanguineous marriages of island residents, there is a coherent nature to the Jewish population. This leads to numerous studies of DNA and family connections between the individuals who were born there and left to go other places. This presents a problem for genealogists in that all names are copied and reused and there are many families with the exact names as other families. Name choice was severely restricted. A more positive view is that this small island with a few thousand Jewish people offers an opportunity to add ALL the Jewish residents to the Jews of Rhodes project here on Geni. That the era of Jewish life on Rhodes came to a sudden end in 1944 offers the end date of this compilation.

Geni itself has many hundreds of DNA related Projects. Go up top here to search box and pull down to Search Projects. Put in " DNA" . Another approach to DNA is to search on a family name and the letters DNA. This site offers a retrospective view of early (2010 era) DNA studies: https://www.rhodesjewishmuseum.org/genealogy/rhodes-dna-project/

Research and Studies

Facebook

Facebook offers several sites for Jewish Rhodes family connections. These are not public but interested people can join upon request. One site is for photographs: Jews of Rhodes, Family Pictures. Also for Rhodes is: Children of Rhodes. Also good is: Tracing the Tribe- Jewish Genealogy. The site Friends of Rhodes is interesting with some commentary in Greek and the site Sephardic/Romaniote/Mizrahi Group is very active.

Media

Once Upon a Time at 55th and Hoover is a short documentary film that tells the story of the Sephardic Jews from the island of Rhodes who arrived in Los Angeles in the first half of the 20th century and established a community in the area around 55th Street and Hoover, what is today South Central Los Angeles. The film documents the community and culture. It is adapted from Arthur Benveniste's essay, which is available in the Internet Archive's WayBack Machine:

Island of Roses: the jews of Rhodes in Los Angeles. A 1995 documentary film directed by Gregory Viens ( grandson of a Rhodes immigrant) contains interviews of Rhodeslis living in Los Angeles. Rhodes is also known as The Island of Roses because the name of the Island is Greek for rose because of its flora.

Rabbis of Rhodes

History of the Rabbis of Rhodes Rhodes Jewish Museum / Photos, and Family Tree Charts

Notable Families

The Alhadeff family of bankers: The brothers Salomon and Isaac Alhadeff
The Rabbinical dynasty beginning with Rabbi Moshe Eliahu Israel and ending with Rabbi Reuben Eliyahu Israe ( the last Rabbi appointed in Rhodes)
The Menasce family of bankers
The family of Rabbi Moshe Menasce d. 1880 and his descendants
The Soriano family in which Moshe Maurice Soriano son of Elia was the president of the Jewish community of Rhodes until his death in 2002. His uncle was Henri Soriano who was the president of the community in Istanbul.

RHODES :

By: Gotthard Deutsch, Abraham Galante
Table of Contents Under the Knights Hospitalers. In the Nineteenth Century. Turkish island in the Ægean Sea, and the largest in the Sporades group. This island has successively borne different names, finally preserving that of 'Πόδον. The Bible knew it under the name . In Gen. x. 4 the word occurs, in I Chron. i. 7 (see "Encyc. Bibl." and Hastings, "Dict. Bible," s.v. "Dodanim"). To-day Rhodes, its capital city, is the chief place in the vilayet of the islands of the Ottoman Archipelago. The island has a total population of 30,000, and of these there are about 4,000 Jews in the town and some in the neighboring villages.

Gedaliah ibn Yaḥya states that Rhodes was built by a king of Argolis in the time of the patriarch Jacob ("Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah," p. 77a). In 656 a Jew of Emesa, a Syrian city (modern Ḳoms), bought the débris of the famous Colossus of Rhodes, which had been destroyed by an earthquake in 282 B.C. He conveyed this débris to Loryma, now Marmaritza, twenty-seven miles from Rhodes.

The Jews were established in Rhodes in remotest times. They are mentioned in I Macc. x. 15, 23 as dwelling there in 140 B.C. Benjamin of Tudela relates that he found 500 of them there, and Rottiers says that the Jews who fled from Spain on account of persecution left Tarragona in 1280 and established themselves in Rhodes, which then was held by the Saracens ("Inscriptions et Monuments de Rhodes," Brussels, 1830).

At Malona, a village seven miles from the capital, there exists to-day a street named "Evriaki," which is so called from a Jewish settlement there. This settlement was established before the Knights of St. John arrived at Rhodes (1309), when the Jews occupied the same district in which they live to-day.

Under the Knights Hospitalers. When the walls of the city were repaired by the Knights of St. John, they gave the name "Jews' Wall" to that part which encircled the Jewish quarter. Under the knights' rule the Jews were not always fortunate. According to Lacroix, D'Aubusson, the grand master of the island, ordered the Jews' houses to be razed that the material of which they had been built might be used for the reconstruction of the Jews' Wall, which later was bombarded by Messih Pasha, the Ottoman commander. Elijah Capsali, in his chronicle (ed. Lattes, Padua, 1869), says that after defeating the Turks D'Aubusson ordered the Jews to embrace Christianity. Some accepted baptism, others preferred death, while still others consented to be sold into slavery and were released only after the conquest of the island by Sulaiman. On Jan. 9, 1502, D'Aubusson decreed the expulsion of the Jews from Rhodes, under the pretext that they were corrupting the morals of the young, but owing to the death of the grand master the decree was not completely enforced; nevertheless the Jews of Cos were exiled to Nice. Under the grand master Frederic Caretto, Salim I. sent to Rhodes a Jewish physician, Libertus Cominto, to obtain a map of the island. The physician is said to have succeeded in his task, but he was caught and executed. Some historians claim that he was a convert to Christianity. Under the last grand master, Williers, of the island of Adam, the Jews were allowed to live in peace. On several occasions he visited the Jewish houses and synagogues.

According to Rottiers, some Jews who were exiled under D'Aubusson accompanied as sutlers the Turkish army which besieged the city and captured the island. According to a tradition related as fact by certain historians, especially Baudin, the Jews took part in the war against the Turks. Under the leadership of Simeon Granada, a battalion of 250 Jews was formed, and became known as the "Jewish phalanx." Bilioti, referring to the part taken by the Jews in the struggle against the Turks, says that the Jews were those that had been converted in the time of D'Aubusson and had displayed great valor in the Italian bastion. Florentin Bernard Carli, who witnessed the siege, says that under Turkish order from two to three thousand Jews filled up with sandbags the ditch before the Italian position. When the Turks occupied Rhodes the converted Jews abjured the Christian religion and returned to their ancient belief. Probably Florentin here refers to the Jewish sutlers who accompanied the Turkish army, for the Jews who were within the castle could not have held any communication with the enemy.

While some historians claim that the fall of Rhodes was due to the treachery of Libertus Cominto, others affirm that the real traitor was Knight d'Amaral, whose treason had been discovered by the Jewess Rachel, wife of Simeon Granada.

Some historians claim also that the Jews, afraid of Turkish rule, left the island and went to Italy. Others assert that they preferred to remain on the island and enjoy the bounty of the sultan. This statement may be true in so far as it concerns the Jews who had fought on the side of the Christians,whereas the former statement may refer to the Jews who accompanied the Turkish army. Benjamin Pontremoli relates that Sulaiman knew the utility of the Jews and brought a dozen families from Salonica. He granted them a firman guaranteeing freedom from taxation for twenty years, and decreeing that each family be provided with a house free of expense. Under this firman they were also permitted to mine sulfur, to traverse Mohammedan territory with their dead, to wail as they traveled along the road, and to purchase at ordinary prices food killed according to the ritual law.

From this date until 1675 there are no data of the political history of the Jews of Rhodes, but from 1675 they are repeatedly mentioned in government ordinances.

In the Nineteenth Century. In 1837 a fearful pestilence spread over the island, and, acting on the advice of the grand rabbi, part of the inhabitants fled to the village Candilli, which thenceforward became a Jewish settlement. Among the victims of the scourge there were only ten Jews. In 1840 an accusation of ritual murder was made against the Jews of Rhodes. On the eve of Purim the governor, Yusuf Pasha, at the instigation of the Greek clergy and the European consuls, blockaded the Jewish quarter, arrested the chief rabbi, Jacob Israel, and the chief men, and imprisoned them. But on Nov. 6, owing to the efforts of Count Camondo, Crémieux, and Montefiore, a firman was obtained from the sultan which declared all accusations of ritual murder null and void. It should be mentioned that three Jews and three Christians were taken from Rhodes to Constantinople for trial, and that there the innocence of the Jews was established.

In 1851 much suffering was caused by an earthquake. The community sent Rabbi Raḥamim Franco to Egypt and to Europe to receive funds for relief, and he collected more than 40,000 francs (about $8,000). In 1855 a part of the Jewish quarter suffered damage through the explosion of gunpowder, and in 1863 a fire which destroyed the market paralyzed the trade of the Jews. In 1880, while some Jewish merchants who traded in the island of Cassos were returning to Rhodes to celebrate Passover, the vessel by which they were being conveyed was captured by pirates, and the Jews were despoiled and held as guides; but subsequently, at the instance of the governor of Rhodes, they were rescued and the pirates were seized.

The Jews of Rhodes support two large synagogues, the Great Synagogue, which was destroyed by artillery in 1440, rebuilt by permission of Pope Sixtus IV. in recognition of Jewish services during the siege of the city, destroyed again during a later siege, and rebuilt by Rabbi Samuel Amato; and Shalom Synagogue, built in 1593 by Raphael Margola. There are also two smaller synagogues—the Synagogue Camondo, so called in honor of Count Abraham de Camondo, who built it; and the Tiḳḳun Ḥaẓot—and two batte midrashot. The commerce of the island is controlled by the Jews, among whom there are also many boatmen and porters. The Jews are on good terms with their neighbors.

There are two schools, one for boys and one for girls; also several Talmud Torahs. There is a steady migration to Asia.

Among the rabbis of Rhodes may be mentioned: Ḥayyim ben Menahem Algazi, in the seventeenth century; Moses Israel, author of "Mas'at Mosheh" (Constantinople, 1734); Ezra Malki; Moses ben Elijah Israel, author of "Mosheh Yedabber" (Constantinople, 1827); and Jedidiah ben Samuel Turski, in the eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century three rabbis of the Israel family distinguished themselves as authors: Judah b. Moses b. Elijah, and Jacob and Raḥamim Judah (1824-91). The present rabbi (1905) is Moses Judah Franco. Prominent in public life is especially the Menasché family, one of whose members, Boaz Menasché Effendi, is a judge of the court of appeals.

Bibliography: Shalshelet ha-Ḳabbalah, pp. 77, 78; Harkavy, Neuaufgefundene Hebräische Bibelhandschriften, St. Petersburg, pp. 24, 25-27; Rottiers, Inscriptions et Monuments de Rhodes, Brussels, 1830; Lacroix, Les Iles de la Grèce, pp. 172, 207; Bonhours, L'Histoire de Pierre d'Aubusson, pp. 200 et seq.; Itinéraire d'un Chevalier de St. Jean de Jérusalem à Rhodes, pp. 106-107."

"Rhodes Surnames

The following list of surnames from Rhodes is based the Jewish Museum website (cemetery section). Some of these and other surnames came to Rhodes from Turkey, Italy (like Capelluto, Galante etc) or other places from 16th - 19th centuries.

Alhadeff, Alkana, Almeleh, Amato, Angel, Arughetti, Avzaradel, Benatar, Benun, Benveniste, Berro, Biton/ Beton, Cadranel, Capelluto, Capouya,(MeCapouya), Capuano, Charhon, Codron, Cohen, Cone, Cordova/ Cordoval, De Mayo, DeLeon (Leon), Escapa (Scapa), Eskenazi, Ferrera, Fintz, Fis, Franco, Gabriel, Galante, Gatenio, Habib, Haim, Halfon, Hanan, Hasson, Hazan, Huniu, Israel, Jerusalmi, Levy, Mayo, Mallel, Marcos, Menashe, Mizrahi, Modiano, Mussafir, Nahmias, Notrica, Piha/ Pihas, Pilossof, Pisante/ Pizante, Rosales, Rozanes, Rozillo/Rozio, Russo, Sadis, Saul,, Shahon, Sharhon, Shemaria, Sidis, Soriano, Sulam, Surmani, Taranto, Tarica, Treves, Turiel

==ADDITIONAL SOURCES AVAILABLE ONLINE ACCESS==

The 1939 Jewish Census of Rhodes, Italy

In 2021 Ancestry.com made avilable (to subscribers) a searchable transcripted database of a census conducted by the Italian Fascist government of Rhodes during the summer of 1939. Names are spelled in Italianized forms and women are all listed under their maiden name.

Centro di Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea

Here is an additional source for the Jews of Rhodes Project: In the Italian language we find the CDEC Digital Library subtitled Informazioni biografafiche . It appears to be the source of Liliana Piccoita's list of survivors of the Holocaust on Rhodes. This source traces the Jewish population of Rhodes from birth to deportation in 1944 to death in 1944/1945. It's an adjunct to the 1939 Census of Rhodes and fills in the data gap from 1939 to the 1944 deportation.
english www.cdec.it

CDEC.data
The CDEC onlus Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center Foundation is the main research institute for the history of the Jews in Italy in the contemporary age and has the largest collection of documentation concerning the Shoah in Italy. At the end of 2012, thanks to the support received following the Law n. 155/09 of 15 October 2009, the CDEC Foundation has launched an important project for the reorganization and rationalization of its information system, and for the digitization of some of its documentary collections. The ultimate goal of the project is the creation of a Digital Library thanks to which it will be possible to access, even online, both the inventory and cataloging descriptions of the institute's documentary heritage, and collections, complete or partial, of documents in digital format.

For the creation of the Digital Library, the CDEC Foundation uses an integrated architecture with the xDams Open Source platforms, for the historical archives, and Opendams, for the management of the institute's activities. The use of data in Linked Open Data (LOD) format constitutes the backbone of the entire information structure and, together with the ontology on the Shoah domain, one of the most innovative elements of the project.

CDEC is a website completely in Italian: http://digital-library.cdec.it/cdec-web/
It documents jews of Italy and Rhodes ( a posession of Italy) during WW II and the Shoah. This website also contains Il Libro della Memori gli Ebrei deportati del Italia by Liliana Picciota.

USHMM.

www.ushmm.org. Washington, District of Columbia, United States of America. "The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., The USHMM comtains millions of records at both at its headquarters and has a searchable database online. You can also request original documents.

Arolsen Archives

The Arolsen Archives – International Center on Nazi Persecution formerly the International Tracing Service (ITS), in German Internationaler Suchdienst, in French Service International de Recherches in Bad Arolsen, Germany, is an internationally governed centre for documentation, information and research on Nazi persecution, forced labour and The Holocaust in Nazi Germany and its occupied regions. The archive contains about 30 million documents from concentration camps, details of forced labour, and files on displaced persons.[1][2][3] ITS preserves the original documents and clarifies the fate of those persecuted by the Nazis. The archives have been accessible to researchers since 2007. In May 2019 the Center uploaded around 13 million documents and made it available online to the public.[1]

Beit Hattutsot, the website of the Jewish People at https://www.bh.org.il/ , now called ANU - Museum of the Jewish People . It is based in Israel and contains some family trees from Rhodes.

According to a report from the Center for Shepardic Studies at the University of Washington, USA, the Torah scroll of Rhodes survived the Spanish Inquisition and the Holocaust and is now in Argentina. A video is available, try shepardicstudiesUW/videos .

A current 2019 study of the cemetery on Rhodes is available here: https://www.esjf-surveys.org/surveys/object/rhodes-old-jewish-cemet...

At https://www.yadvashem.org/ also based in Israel contains testimonies of Holocaust victims including the Island of Rhodes. There are many duplicate testimonies. Submitters of the testimonies are usually relatives. One submitter Moshe Vital, a former teacher from Rhodes who immigrated to palestine in 1939, submitted 1400 testimonies alone.

The Jewish Virtual Library offers a comprehensive history of Jews, including from Rhodes, here:[https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/rhodes-greece-jewish-history-tour]

A source for the fight for the strategic control of Rhodes between the Germans and the allied British is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Rhodes_(1943).

Dr. Elliot Turiel, a Professor in American Universities, has written an account of his childhood on Rhodes during WWII that includes information about the British aerial attacks and bombardments. Link here: https://www.jewishideas.org/article/my-life-rhodes-during-world-war-ii

A History of Jewish Rhodes, a 300 page book by Esther Fintz Menasce, born in Rhodes.

In 2010 a book was been published that may be of interest: Author Cou Bilé Vansteenkiste, grandaughter of Mazaltov Billi's older son. Title "La Révélation Extraordinaire de Mes Racines Juives Séfarades d"Izmir".

Steven B. Bowman
Stanford University Press, 7 באוק׳ 2009 - 344 עמודים
The Agony of Greek Jews tells the story of modern Greek Jewry as it came under the control of the Kingdom of Greece during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In particular, it deals with the vicissitudes of those Jews who held Greek citizenship during the interwar and wartime periods. Individual chapters address the participation of Greek and Palestinian Jews in the 1941 fighting with Italy and Germany, the roles of Jews in the Greek Resistance, aid, and rescue attempts, and the problems faced by Jews who returned from the camps and the mountains in the aftermath of the German...

Avotaynu seeks participants in DNA studies. See this 2020 link: https://avotaynuonline.com/2020/03/avotaynu-dna-seeks-sephardi-stud...
Avotaynu, has documented a list of names for former residents of Rhodes: The list is current as of August 15, 2020. The names are from the entire recorded census of Rhodes, in English, and some from yad vashem, and other sources.

This site offers a comprehensive description of the work of Rabbi Isodor Kahan who was teaching on the island of Rhodes in the 1930's
https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/digital-sephardic-treasures/se...:

A website dedicated to Holocaust survivors that moved to South Africa is: here. https://ctholocaust.co.za/survivor-testimony/clara-soriano/

The Ackman & Jiff Genealogy Institute at the Center for Jewish History at https://genealogy.cjh.org based in New York City offers a look at the Jews of Rhodes and many other places who migrated to New York and formed Synagogues and Centers of Jewish life in the US.

In July 2022 Simon and Schuster published a book by Michael Frank in collaberation with Stella Levy entitled One Hundred Days, about the life of Stella Levi in Rhodes and afterward. She was a Holocaust survivor from Rhodes. Stella and others have also hosted talks and tours of Rhodes, some of which can be seen on youtube., Her cousin Rebecca Levy (Amato) haa also written a book about Rhodes called "I Remember Rhodes", published in 1987.

Some additional Bibliographic sources on Rhodes:

Abraham Galanté, Histoire des Juifs de Rhodes, Chio, Cos etc.; Simon Marcus, Toledot ha-Rabbanim le-Mishpaḥat Yisrael me-Rodos (1935); M.D. Angel, The Jews of Rhodes, The History of a Sephardic Community (1978); B. Rivlin, "Rhodes," in Pinkas ha-Kehillot Yavan (1999), 392–407; Y. Kerem, "The Migration of Rhodian Jews to Africa and the Americas from 1900–1914: The Beginning of New Sephardic Diasporic Communities," in: Patterns of Migration, 1850–1914 (1996), 321–34; idem, "The Settlement of Rhodian and Other Sephardic Jews in Montgomery and Atlanta in the Twentieth Century," in: American Jewish History 85, 4 (Dec. 1997), 373–91.
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