Romaniote Jews in the context of "Jewish ethnic divisions"

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⭐ Core Definition: Romaniote Jews

The Romaniote Jews or the Romaniotes (Greek: Ῥωμανιῶτες, Rhōmaniôtes; Hebrew: רומניוטים, romanizedRomanyotim) are a Greek-speaking ethnic Jewish community. They are one of the oldest Jewish communities in existence and the oldest Jewish community in Europe. The Romaniotes have been, and even remain historically distinct from the Sephardim that have settled in Ottoman Greece after the expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal after 1492.

Their distinct language was Yevanic, a Greek dialect that contained Hebrew along with some Aramaic and Turkish words, but today's Romaniotes speak Modern Greek or the languages of their new home countries. Their name is derived from the endonym Rhōmanía (Ῥωμανία), which refers to the Eastern Roman Empire ("Empire of the Romans", Βασιλεία Ρωμαίων). Large Romaniote communities were located in Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Arta, Preveza, Volos, Chalcis, Thebes, Corinth, Patras, and on the islands of Corfu, Crete, Zakynthos, Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes, and Cyprus, among others. Additionally, the historically large community of Jews in Bulgaria was Romaniote until the arrival of Sephardim and Ashkenazim fleeing persecution in other parts of Europe.

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Romaniote Jews in the context of Jewish Koine Greek

Jewish Koine Greek, or Jewish Hellenistic Greek, is the variety of Koine Greek or "common Attic" found in numerous Alexandrian dialect texts of Hellenistic Judaism, most notably in the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible and associated literature, as well as in Greek Jewish texts from the Levant. The term is largely equivalent with Greek of the Septuagint as a cultural and literary concept rather than a linguistic category. The minor syntax and vocabulary variations in the Koine Greek of Jewish authors are not as linguistically distinctive as the later language Yevanic, or Judeo-Greek, spoken by the Romaniote Jews in Greece.

The term "Jewish Koine" is to be distinguished from the concept of a "Jewish koine" as a literary-religious—not a linguistic—concept.

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Romaniote Jews in the context of History of the Jews in Turkey

The history of the Jews in Turkey (Turkish: Türk Yahudileri or Türk Musevileri; Hebrew: יהודים טורקים, romanizedYehudim Turkim; (Ladino: Djudios Turkos) covers the 2400 years that Jews have lived in what is now Turkey.

There have been Jewish communities in Anatolia since at least the beginning of the common era. Anatolia's Jewish population before Ottoman times primarily consisted of Greek-speaking Romaniote Jews, with a handful of dispersed Karaite communities. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, many Sephardic Jews from Spain, Portugal and South Italy expelled by the Alhambra Decree found refuge across the Ottoman Empire, including in regions now part of Turkey. This influx played a pivotal role in shaping the predominant identity of Ottoman Jews.

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Romaniote Jews in the context of Constantinopolitan Karaites

The Constantinopolitan Karaites or Greco-Karaites are a Karaite community with a specific historical development and a distinct cultural, linguistic, and literary heritage stemming from their residency in the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. There are numerous commonalities between the community and the Rabbinical Romaniote Jews.

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Romaniote Jews in the context of Sabbatai Zevi

Sabbatai Zevi (Hebrew: שַׁבְּתַי צְבִי, romanizedŠabbəṯay Ṣəḇī, August 1, 1626 – c. September 17, 1676) was an Ottoman former Jewish mystic and rabbi from Smyrna who converted to Islam. His family were Romaniote Jews from Patras.

Active throughout the Ottoman Empire, Zevi claimed to be the long-awaited Jewish Messiah and founded the Sabbatean movement. Central to his teachings was the belief that during the Messianic Age, acts traditionally considered sinful would transform into righteous ones. This antinomian doctrine led Zevi and his followers to deliberately violate Jewish commandments, a controversial practice that later inspired movements like the Frankists.

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