Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

May 10, 2016

Reviving Jewish Life in Crete

Records of a Jewish presence in Crete date back to the 2nd century BCE. By the eve of World War II, there were only about 300 Jewish inhabitants of the island, nearly all of whom died in 1944 when the ship taking them to Auschwitz was hit by a British torpedo. Over the last decades, however, a Greek Jew named Nicholas Stavroulakis has rebuilt and revived the synagogue in Chania, Crete’s second largest city and the historic center of the Jewish community. Laura Lippstone writes:

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