PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY
WARNING!
Caribbean L 12 ife, JAN. 29-FEB. 4, 2021
Brooklyn photographer Vincent Giordano’s efforts to chronicle the Kehila
Kedosha Janina community in NYC would prove critical to preserving Romaniote
culture, with the synagogue being its only representation in North
America. Courtesy of Queens College
Virtual exhibition
at Queens College
By Carlotta Mohamed
The new Queens College virtual exhibition,
“Romaniote Memories, a Jewish
Journey from Ioannina, Greece, to
Manhattan: Photographs by Vincent
Giordano,” is exploring one of the oldest
Jewish communities in existence and its
presence in New York City.
The exhibition coincides with International
Holocaust Remembrance Day on
Jan. 27 — the anniversary of the liberation
of Auschwitz-Birkenau — in commemoration
of these communities. It
features over 100 photographs presented
in 10 thematic sections, including the
synagogue’s art and architecture, religious
rites and celebrations, as well
as photographs taken during the High
Holidays in Ioannina, Greece, in 2006.
A virtual opening reception, featuring
a conversation with the curator, organizers,
distinguished guests and friends,
is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 11, at
5 pm.
In 1999, Brooklyn-born photographer
Vincent Giordano made an unplanned
visit to the Kehila Kedosha Janina
Synagogue on New York City’s Lower
East Side. Built in 1927, the synagogue
housed a congregation (kehila) founded
in 1906 by Jewish immigrants from the
town of Ioannina (Janina) in northern
Greece, who followed the Romaniote
rite.
Unfamiliar with Judaism, let alone
Romaniote Jews, Giordano would come
to play a significant role in documenting
the experiences of this millennia-old
population that has maintained traditions
dating to ancient Greece and
Rome.
As part of a statement about his
work for a 2007 exhibition on the Kehila
Kedosha Janina Synagogue project,
Giordano said what he heard and saw
at the synagogue made an indelible
impression on him.
“I listened with great interest and
sadness to the story of the Romaniote’s
forgotten place in Jewish history.
I wondered how a community and its
culture wither away and vanish … which
forces are at work, and which are not?”
Giordano said.
That’s when Giordano began to photograph
and document the synagogue
and the community.
“This effort was transformed into an
incredible personal journey of discovery,
filled with wonderful people, interesting
experiences and fascinating places,”
Giordano said.
As he explored and probed deeper,
Giordano discovered that the story is
much larger than the synagogue on
Broome Street, reaching far into the past
— the rich history of the Jews in ancient
Greece and the Byzantine Empire, and
the devastation of the Holocaust.
Launched as the multimedia project
“Before the Flame Goes Out,” Giordano’s
efforts to chronicle the Kehila Kedosha
Janina community would prove critical
to preserving Romaniote culture, with
the synagogue being its only representation
in North America.
Over 80 percent of Greece’s Jewish
population perished in the Holocaust,
decimating the country’s historic
Romaniote communities.
Of the 1,960 Jews who were deported
to Auschwitz from Ioannina, Greece,
110 survived. The Romaniote language,
a Greek dialect that combines words
and phrases from Hebrew and Turkish,
is endangered, without preservation
efforts to maintain or revive it. As of
2019, only a small number of Romaniote
Jews remaining in Ioannina, Greece,
spoke the language.
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Nerve images
Figure 2:
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