‘Romaniote’: the oldest Jewish rite

ROSH HASHANAH EDITION 5777 SECTION A the preponderance of American Jews — or global Jews, for that matter — about Romaniote Jewry and you’ll probably hear a Hortonesque “Who?” This 2,300-year-old community is the oldest Jewish community in the European Diaspora dating to the ancient world. “Romaniote Jews are descended from what used to be Byzantine Jewry,” says Carlos Zarur, 45, an expert in anthropological Judaism who lectures on tantalizingly obscure subjects at the HEA. “At one time, these Greek-speaking Jews comprised the majority of Jews on earth,” he says. Hellenistic Jews (synonymous with Romaniote Jews by the ninth century) and their distinctive rituals, liturgy, customs and nusach predated Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jewish pathways by several centuries. It’s important to remember that the empires of […]