Paradise Lost: The Jews of Rhodes

Jewish History Soundbites

The Rhodes Jewish community was an ancient one, and it flourished with the arrival of Spanish exiles following the expulsion of 1492 and the Ottoman takeover in 1522. Prominent in Mediterranian commerce, the Jewish community grew, and had many rabbis from the Land of Israel serve at the community's helm. A tragic story in Rhodes's past was the Rhodes blood libel of 1840 which threatened the local Jew's safety.

Following the Italian takeover in 1912, a steady stream of emigration increased with many settling in Seattle and Rhodesia (today's Zimbabwe). Rhodes Jews were to become pillars of the Rhodesia Jewish community for the bulk of the 20th century. Meanwhile the remaining Jews in Rhodes sustained the Nazi occupation of the island in 1943, and in the summer of 1944 were deported in its entirety to Auschwitz. The glorious Jewish community of Rhodes came to a tragic end.
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