Editorial by Elias V. Messinas
Opening the second
issue of Kol haKEHILA, we would like to welcome all the new subscribers!
All of you new members of our KEHILA, that joined our effort in the preservation
of Greek Jewish monuments, have shown with your subscription and letters
that this effort is a worthy cause, at a time when everything is lost
to progress, assimilation, and high-technology. Your warm welcoming of
this effort, which came in the form of letters, e-mails, postal cards
and telephone calls, was the best proof that despite all, there is indeed
a special group of people, our KEHILA, that is still interested and worried
about the disappearing Jewish heritage of Greece. We thank you all, and
we hope that this effort will continue, until we have secured the future
of the existing Jewish monuments of Greece.
As we promised in the previous issue, we are dedicating a large part of
this issue to present in detail the project of the conservation of the
synagogue of Veroia. This endangered synagogue, the oldest synagogue of
northern Greece, is in the center of our attention, in an effort to complete
the conservation effort that begun in 1994. In this issue we are also
remembering the late Prof. Nandor Glid, the sculptor who created the Holocaust
monument of Salonika, we are briefly previewing the Jewish Museum of Rhodes
and the Raphael Program 1998-1999, we are presenting KEHILA members’ letters,
and our new subscribers - i.e. the new members of our KEHILA.
Since the conception of Kol haKEHILA, we have been making every
possible effort to make this newsletter available through the web. Our
wish is to be able to provide not only an online newsletter, discussion
groups, and other features to strengthen our KEHILA, but also to be able
to hold online temporary, or permanent, exhibitions on Greek Jewish monuments
and links to other related sites. Before we are able to realize this wish
and have our own site, though, we have made the newsletter available online,
at the site of the European Sephardic Institute, courtesy of Moise Rahmani,
editor of Los Muestros. Kol haKEHILA extends its gratitude to the
European Sephardic Institute for its hospitality! Please visit Kol haKEHILA
online at www.sefarad.org.
Before we close, we would like to thank Sam Gruber, director of the Jewish
Heritage Research Center, and Prof. Carol Krinsky for their contribution
to this issue.
In the next issue we will feature among others a detailed presentation
of the Raphael Program 1998-1999 that Greece, Italy and Germany prepared,
in cooperation with the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem, towards the
documentation and preservation guidelines for their synagogues; a presentation
of the synagogue Kahal Kadosh Yashan, in Ioannina, the building that was
chosen in Greek as a case-study for the Raphael program, and an update
on the restoration of the synagogue of Chania, Crete, by Nicholas Stavroulakis,
director of the project.
Kol haKEHILA wishes to all the Jewish members of our KEHILA - Happy
New Year 5758 to you and your families - Aniada buena y alegre para
vostros todos i voestras famillas! |