The arson of Etz Hayyim synagogue
Back in August 1997, in the early morning of a warm summer day I was on a ferry, arriving to the beautiful city of Rethymno in the island of Crete. This was the second time in my life I was visiting Crete but, unlike the crowds of backpackers revellling in the ealy morning sunshine on the ship decks, my ultimate destination was not a tourist spot but a grim military camp where I had to report to undergo the compulsory military training that (almost) all conscripts in the Greek army have to go through. Despite my initial sense of impending gloom, these few months I spent in Western Crete gave me the opportunity of getting to know, and fall in love with this part of the island. This relationship I established with the place was necessary and perhaps unavoidable in a way, as it provided an antidote to the isolation and desperation that life in a military camp often entails.
But, from the moment I set eyes on the town of Rethymno on that morning, I knew that there was something intriguing about the place which I then considered to be a place of temporary, yet dreaded exile. In the old towns of Rethymno and Chania, wonderful testaments to the complex history of the island, every corner, every thoroughfare, every building were full of whispers and, even more, silences to be discovered, to be listened to about times that have passed, lives that had been lived, and often forgotten. The melange of Byzantine, Venetian and Ottoman architecture still gives Western Crete a sense of a cosmopolitanism that has left its indelible marks in the urban landscapes of the area. Bustling Christian churches often within a walking distance of the few remaining mosques that betray Crete's Muslim past that is rapidly sinking into the whirlwind of oblivion and, in the city of Chania, a unique marker of Crete's other forgotten inhabitants, the Etz Hayyim Romaniote synagogue.
Just like the Ottoman mosques of the island which, many locals have argued have no place in the Cretan landscape and have repeatedly mobilized to destroy, Etz Hayyim has managed to withstand the impact of neglect and deliberate destruction. I left Crete a couple of years before the synagogue was restored and renovated and had not had the chance of seeing it become the bustling centre of community life it had become over the past few years. I was thus doubly shocked to read that it had been the target of two consecutive arson attempts in the month of January.The following diary exerpts are from the synagogue blog and refer to the arsons and life beyond the destruction. Despite the devastation the fire caused to the synagogue library, I do hope that those who value the continued existence of Etz Hayyim as a community resource and as a link with a past whose memory remains precarious will support the effort to repair the damage and to keep it functioning.
Spyros Sofos
January 17, 2010
Second Arson Attack on Etz Hayyim Synagogue
On the night of Friday, January 15, after more than a week of work on the sanctuary – newly scraped, primed and re-painted; the wood-work oiled with lavender and the marble floor polished – we met for Erev Shabbat prayers and Kiddush. Later we locked the synagogue and returned to our homes feeling that we had set our steps forward. Saturday morning at 3:30 AM however the Synagogue’s director was wakened by the alarm that had been set off in the Synagogue and rushed there accompanied by two helpers to find the entire main office ablaze. They began putting out the fire with the garden hose as the firemen had not yet succeeded in getting their hoses connected. When the mains were finally connected the firemen set to work – by 4:45 the fire was only smoldering and all that remained of the upper and lower office was completely gutted. Also about a third of the wooden ceiling of the Synagogue itself was burnt, the benches covered in soot and broken wood, the floor a mess – but the EHAL was not touched! Everything in the main office – e.g. two computers, complete Talmud, Midraschim, 2 sets of Rashi lexicons (Aramaic, Greek and Hebrew) plus many reference books and the entire archive of the Synagogue have all been destroyed.By noon the Siphrei Torah along with all of the silver ornaments (rimonim, tassim, yads etc.) and a precious early 17th century illuminated Qur’an were removed to a secure location. It was a sad moment to see them being taken away from the Kal as it was a joyous moment when they had been installed in 1999. But we are determined that they will come back!
Please keep posted through this blog as matters evolve as we will use for keeping a log of events.
N. Stavroulakis
January 19, 2010
UPDATE
The latest fire managed to destroy all of what we had felt grateful to have been left with! Whatever we had salvaged from the first fire had been taken to the main office – books, CDs, a Mevelevi dervish habit and conical felt hat, some of my notebooks and the like. The second attack saw the ground floor and first floor of the office and library above gutted. Fortunately, all of the books there – perhaps 1000 or so on Judaism, Islam and Christian theology had already been moved to safe keeping and so have been saved….but two computers, scanner, cameras etc. – all gone!
The police have been very good with us and have been very thorough and sensitive to what has happened. In the following days we will try to be more prompt in giving information. Actually in many ways Etz Hayyim has succeeded in its role as a reconciler and I have been blessed with finding many old friends and we have re-established our links. Equally important is the effect that this has had on our ‘fraternity’ which has been strengthened and given a firm direction and truly has become a community. We are a strange lot – some Jews – religious, non-religious and some perhaps even anti-religious, some are Christians – both Catholic as well as Orthodox and we also have Muslims. All of us are cemented into a community through the magic of this precious synagogue. Through this fire – somewhat like that which our Father Abraham experienced on that night when the sacrifices were consumed and he stood in awe before what appeared to be a smoking oven, we have digested our differences and set about finding what unites us in silence and emerges as a whisper.
We are still in the difficult period of balancing work that must be done with incoming funds as they were disproportionate at the moment.
To date we have started work on the new security system which is a gift from the Jewish Community of Salonika through its president David Saltiel. Work has begun on the grill to be installed over the back garden gate as well as the bars that are to be installed over all of the windows that were once those of the yeshiva (this property became an asset of the Bank of Greece after WW II and then was sold to a Christian – and subsequently became known as the Synagogue Cafe.) It was through one of these opened windows that the second incendiary entered our property. The electrician has already connected some of our lines and tomorrow we will get the telephone installed – in the synagogue proper (for the moment). Alex and Anja (and the Synagogue) have a temporary office and computers not too far away and the work on the stairs to the old office may well be finished by the end of the week when work can be started on cleaning up, working on bookcases and seeing how deep the fire reached into the floor and ceiling. This will also have to be done in the Kal itself as several of the wooden panels of the ceiling had started to burn.
I wish to thank all of the friends who have shown such care for this synagogue which seems to have embraced and been embraced by the entire world.
Nikos Stavroulakis
for more updates, please visit www.etz-hayyim-hania.org/
The police have been very good with us and have been very thorough and sensitive to what has happened. In the following days we will try to be more prompt in giving information. Actually in many ways Etz Hayyim has succeeded in its role as a reconciler and I have been blessed with finding many old friends and we have re-established our links. Equally important is the effect that this has had on our ‘fraternity’ which has been strengthened and given a firm direction and truly has become a community. We are a strange lot – some Jews – religious, non-religious and some perhaps even anti-religious, some are Christians – both Catholic as well as Orthodox and we also have Muslims. All of us are cemented into a community through the magic of this precious synagogue. Through this fire – somewhat like that which our Father Abraham experienced on that night when the sacrifices were consumed and he stood in awe before what appeared to be a smoking oven, we have digested our differences and set about finding what unites us in silence and emerges as a whisper.
We are still in the difficult period of balancing work that must be done with incoming funds as they were disproportionate at the moment.
To date we have started work on the new security system which is a gift from the Jewish Community of Salonika through its president David Saltiel. Work has begun on the grill to be installed over the back garden gate as well as the bars that are to be installed over all of the windows that were once those of the yeshiva (this property became an asset of the Bank of Greece after WW II and then was sold to a Christian – and subsequently became known as the Synagogue Cafe.) It was through one of these opened windows that the second incendiary entered our property. The electrician has already connected some of our lines and tomorrow we will get the telephone installed – in the synagogue proper (for the moment). Alex and Anja (and the Synagogue) have a temporary office and computers not too far away and the work on the stairs to the old office may well be finished by the end of the week when work can be started on cleaning up, working on bookcases and seeing how deep the fire reached into the floor and ceiling. This will also have to be done in the Kal itself as several of the wooden panels of the ceiling had started to burn.
I wish to thank all of the friends who have shown such care for this synagogue which seems to have embraced and been embraced by the entire world.
Nikos Stavroulakis
for more updates, please visit www.etz-hayyim-hania.org/
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