Greece: Arrests Made in Hania Synagogue Arson

Greece: Arrests Made in Hania Synagogue Arson

The BBC reports that a Greek and two Britons have been arrested in connection with the two arson attacks on the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Hania, Crete. The arrested men are waiters in local restaurants. Two Americans are also sought.

Read full story HERE

Greece: International Outrage Expressed About Hania Synagogue Arson

Greece: International Outrage Expressed About Hania Synagogue Arson

(ISJM) As word has spread following the second attack on the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Hania, Crete (Greece) a number of organizations and governments are expressing concern and outrage over the attack and solidarity with the small Hania Community and the family of supporters of the Etz Hayyim Synagogue and its cultural center.

Here are few such statements. In the USA, ISJM continues to collect contributions for the repairs and resotration of the syangogue, its office and library. One hundred percent of all fund recevied will be transferred to Hania. Checks can be sent to:

ISJM

118 Julian Place, Box 210

Syracuse, NY 13210

(write Hania in the memo line)

Statement from the United States Department of State

Mark C. Toner
Acting Deputy Department Spokesman
Washington, DC

January 20, 2010

We strongly condemn the January 5 and January 16 arson attacks on the Etz-Hayyim Synagogue in the city of Chania on the island of Crete. The Synagogue dates back to the Middle Ages and is one of the last Jewish monuments on the island. An attack on the Etz-Hayyim Synagogue is an attack on Greece's history and heritage. The second attack caused severe damage to the Synagogue, destroying nearly 2,000 books and severely damaging the building's wooden roof.

This attack was clearly intended to intimidate and terrorize Greece's Jewish community and is only the latest of several incidents of anti-Semitic vandalism throughout Greece over the past few years. We applaud the Greek government for condemning these attacks and taking a strong stand against anti-Semitism and racism.

Our Embassy in Athens is in contact with the Synagogue. Embassy officials will be meeting with their Greek counterparts to underscore U.S. concern over this incident.

Statement of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA)

WASHINGTON – Nicholas A. Karacostas, supreme president of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association (AHEPA), a leading association for the nation’s three million American citizens of Greek heritage, and countless Philhellenes, issued the following statement regarding the continued anti-Semitic attacks upon the historic Etz-Hayyim Synagogue located in Hania, Crete:

“We strongly condemn the anti-Semitic attacks that have been carried out on the Etz-Hayyim Synagogue in Hania. This is the second arson attack in two weeks that has left the synagogue’s infrastructure devastated and approximately 2,500 rare books and other archival items destroyed by fire.

“These anti-Semitic attacks upon the Jewish community in Greece are simply unacceptable. We appeal to the people of Hania, and all Greek citizens, to come together to defy these acts of hatred, intolerance, and bigotry; and to help the healing process begin.

“We call for the swift apprehension of the perpetrators of these heinous attacks so that they may be brought to justice.”

AHEPA is the largest Greek-American association in the world with chapters in the United States, Canada, Greece, Cyprus, and sister chapters in Australia and New Zealand. It was established in 1922 by visionary Greek Americans to protect Hellenes from prejudice originating from the KKK, and in its history, AHEPA joined with the NAACP and B’nai B’rith International to fight discrimination.

The mission of the AHEPA family is to promote the ancient Greek ideals of education, philanthropy, civic responsibility and family and individual excellence through community service and volunteerism.

Statement from the American Jewish Committee

January 17, 2009 -- New York -- AJC is outraged by this morning’s arson attack that severely damaged Etz Hayim, the only synagogue on the Greek island of Crete. It was the second arson attack on the historic building in ten days.

“Our hearts go out to the Greek Jewish community,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. “To target such a house of worship not once, but twice, within days of each other requires a swift public response from all in Greece who believe in the principles of religious freedom and mutual respect.”

Today’s blaze severely damaged or destroyed Jewish ritual objects and religious books, as well as the synagogue’s roof. The earlier arson attack, on January 5, destroyed the synagogue’s library.

Nearly 90 percent of Greek Jewry was murdered by the Nazis in World War II. Greece’s Jewish population today is only 5,000. After the Nazis destroyed the Crete Jewish community in 1944, Etz Hayyim stood empty and neglected for decades. A restoration project commenced in 1996, and the synagogue was rededicated in 1999.

“We count on Greek Prime Minister Papandreou and his government to do everything possible to apprehend the arsonists and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law,” said Harris. “The protection of all Jewish institutions in Greece must become a still higher priority in light of recent events. That attackers could strike the same target twice in ten days reveals the shortcomings of the security in place.”

AJC and the Greek Jewish community have had an association agreement for many years.

Greece: Arson Again in Hania Causes Further Destruction at Historic Synagogue!

Greece: Arson Again in Hania Causes Further Destruction at Historic Synagogue!
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) They have struck again! On Friday night, just a few hours after the conclusion of Shabbat services, and ten days after arsonists burned part of the historic Etz Hayyim synagogue in Hania, Crete, they again succeeded in setting fire to the (mostly stone) building, and causing more - and serious - damage to the sanctuary, to the archives and the Director's office. Dr. Nikos Stavroulakis has written about the new fire on the synagogue blog, and photos of the damage have been posted here.

The new destruction comes as a blow to the Hania congregation and its many friends in Greece and throughout the world. In Hania, there had been progress in cleaning up the mess of the January 5th fire, and assessing damages and costs for repairs and replacement. In the last few day ISJM had received over $5,000 in contributions from thirty contributors. now the work is even greater - but so is the resolve to succeed.

A few cowardly neo-Nazi bullies and thugs cannot have their way. They cannot destroy a beautiful project, building and community that it has taken twenty years to rebuild.

I encourage all my readers to keep contributing. Donations for repairs can be sent to:

International Survey of Jewish Monuments (ISJM)
118 Julian Place, Box 210
Syracuse, NY 13210

(write Hania in the memo line)

ISJM is 501 (c) 3 charitable organization and contributions are tax-deductible according to law.

I also urge you to write to your country's embassies in Greece urging them to pressure authorities to fully investigate and prosecute this crime, and to write to the Greek embassies in your own countries about the same. I will shortly post contacts and addresses to make this easier.

Here is Nikos' report of Friday night's fire:

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!

Greece: New Work at Etz Hayyim Synagogue, Hania (Crete)

Greece: New Work at Etz Hayyim Synagogue, Hania (Crete)
by Samuel D. Gruber

(ISJM) Dr. Nikos Stavroulakis writes that the Ezrath Nashim (women’s section) of the Etz Hayyim Synagogue of Hania,Crete, has been recreated, completing a two-decade process in which the ruined synagogue has been reclaimed, restored and revived.

The latest (and final?) work is "restoration" in the broadest sense. It is known where the women’s section was, but there are no visual or written descriptions of its former appearance, and there was only fragmentary physical evidence remaining in the synagogue.

According to Nikos, “We had little to work from other than a rough idea of its dimensions and elevation and the likelihood that it had been built in the late 17th or early 18th cent., and [that is] was built out of what had remained of the original bell tower [of the former church, from which the synagogue created]. The ground floor is open and gives visual access to the graves of the rabbis in the courtyard and there is a door from the street as well as another to the mikveh and also one to the synagogue proper. The upper floor is of wood in [the] contemporary (Ottoman) style, based on surviving similar structures in Hania where old Venetian buildings were re-vamped to suit expansion and also to regularize floor plans beneath.”

The rebuilt Ezrath Nashim “gives visual access to the interior of the synagogue through one of the Venetian arches (that to the south-east) and is spacious enough for our immediate needs for further expansion of the library.”

Rabbi Nicholas de Lange of Cambridge (UK), an authority on the Jewish history of Greece, and of Hania in particular, affixed up mezzuzot on Erev Rosh Hashanah.

Learning from Hania

After almost 20 years in the “business” of conserving and restoring old synagogues and cemeteries, I’ve learned that most projects take a long time, and often the very best projects need that time to develop and mature. Its never been easy getting money for projects, and these days its going be harder than ever to find grant and loans to carry out big restoration projects – unless governments start pouring money into public works, and the unlikely prospect that historic preservation is given higher priority than bridge repair.

No project demonstrates the virtues of taking time than the long-term and closely nurtured restoration and revival of the Etz Hayyim Synagogue. The saving of the abandoned and ruined Etz Hayyim, the last vestige of the Jewish community of Hania of Crete began two decades ago. Actual restoration on the structural parts of the synagogue began in March 1998 by the World Monuments Fund, but Stavroulakis, who has nurtured this project from the start, had presented the need for saving the building as early the 1990 Future of Jewish Monuments Conference in New York. It took getting the building listed as a WMF Jewish Heritage Preservation Priority in 1996, and the inclusion of the site on the first WMF Watch List of Endangered Monuments (also 1996), to really get the project rolling. WMF and Stavroulakis raised about $300,000 in planning and construction grants to take care of all the structural needs of the synagogue, including a new roof (this was a process I was involved in as a consultant to WMF). WMF than stepped back from an active role, and Stavroulakis raised additional funds and created the program for furnishing the building, rehabilitating adjacent spaces, and creating an active religious and cultural center.

Since then it has progressed in stages, and each stage as been part of a process of rediscovery, rededication and reuse of the complex. The result (I am told by those who have recently visited) is not just a dusty ruin, or an empty and cold restored building. It is a living center uniting past and present – a contemporary place rooted in the past. History is well served, but so are (the modest) needs of Jewish life in Crete.

Read Stavroulakis' account from the 2004 Conference: The Future of Jewish Heritage in Europe, (click "Stavroulakis" at bottom of page).


The biggest problem confronting former synagogues in need of restoration is often not money – but what to do with the building if and when it is restored. The truth is that without a use, money and effort are often not well spent if a building sits empty – and even neglected – when the conservators go home. Planning and budgeting use for an old building – something that often only develops over time – must be part of the process of every restoration project from the start. I most cases this may mean a slower project, but in the end it will mean better chance for the continued life of an historic building.

Few projects are shepherded by creative and charismatic individuals like Nikos Stavroulakis. But ordinary people, locally-based, with stick-to-it-ness can get things done. The world community, through organizations like the World Monuments Fund, and local government agencies, need to help with money and expertise, but it is usually good - even essential - to have committed people at the helm.