Toby and Allan in Greece and Prague: Farmers Market and Jewish History in Athens

Friday March 17, was a beautiful sunny day with a high of 18C. In the morning, we went to the weekly farmers' market on the street around the corner from our apartment. Carolina, our foodie guide from earlier this week had told us about the market. Apparently, most neighbourhoods have a weekly market, just like in Toronto. Here, a street is closed. The quality of the vegetables was excellent and the prices amazing. We acquired a lot of vegetables for under 5 euros.

A few flower vendors at one end of the market near the corner coffee shop and bar, Hotel Chelsea.
Our apartment is just up the street where the cars are parked.

Gorgeous carrots, cauliflower and eggplant

Large bunches of herbs for only .50 euro each

Fresh artichokes, which we bought for dinner

View of street shut for market

Lemons, Lemons, Lemons

There were a few fishmongers, but the fish was a bit pricey. We ended up going to the permanent fish store on the street that is next to a small fish restaurant.

Fish Point- our fish is there somewhere

We dropped off our purchases at the apartment and headed out to the Jewish Museum of Greece, about a 20 minute walk away.

The Jewish museum was founded in 1977 to collect, preserve, research and exhibit the evidence of 2300 years of Jewish life in Greece. The collection has approximately 10,000 artifacts. The museum operated out of rented space until it moved to its present location in a neoclassical house in 1997. The interior was rebuilt to be able to showcase the artifacts. The collection is organized thematically.

Outside of Jewish Museum

The history of the Greek Jews is extremely interesting and we learned a lot. The Jewish community dates back 2300 years and the original Greek Jews are known as the Romaniotes. Their historic language was Yevanic, a dialect of the Greek language. They lived side by side with their Greek neighbours. Today, there are no surviving speakers of this language and the Romaniote community was almost wiped out during the Holocaust. There is also a population of Sephardic Jews who came to Greece after the Inquisition. Historically, there were different religious practices of the Romaniotes and the Sephardic Jews.

Prior to World War II, Greece had a thriving Jewish community. Salonika (Thessaloniki) was known as the Jerusalem of the Balkans and had a Jewish majority in Ottoman times. In 1842, 51% of the population of Salonika was Jewish; in 1913 39% and in 2000 0.3%. The Germans defeated the Greek army in the spring of 1941 and occupied Greece until October 1944. The country was divided into three zones of occupation between Bulgaria, Italy and Germany. Deportations started in March 1943.

Out of all the countries occupied by the Nazis, Greece lost the largest percentage of its Jewish population. Approximately 81% of the Greek Jewish community numbering between 60,000-70,000 were murdered, most at Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only about 8000-10,000 Greek Jews managed to survive. The proclamation of Athens' Archbishop Damaskinos instructing members of the Greek Orthodox Church to issue fake baptism certificates to Jews that requested them was critical in saving lives. Today there are only around 5000 Jews living in Greece, the majority in Athens.

After our visit to the museum, we went for lunch at Avocado, a recommended vegetarian restaurant nearby. We shared a delicious salad with avocado, date, apple, almonds and a piece of spinach pie.

Lunch at Avocado

We then walked down a pedestrian street checking out a few interesting stores, including a design store called Forget Me Not. It was time for a coffee so we stopped at Just Made, another coffee shop with an award-winning barista on Alain's list. Pretty good coffee, but Underdog is our favourite so far.

Just Made coffee shop

We continued our walk to the location of Athen's two synagogues and the Athens Holocaust memorial. The memorial was finished in 2010 and is in the shape of a broken Star of David. On each of the stones, the names of the cities and towns from where the Greek Jews were deported is written.

Holocaust memorial

Names of cities and towns Greek Jews were deported from

Athen's two synagogues are located on the same street just around the corner from the Holocaust memorial. This was the location the Athens Jews were deported from. The older smaller synagogue (Etz Hayyim) was built in 1904 and is a Romaniote synagogue. It is presently only used on High Holidays. The larger synagogue (Beth Shalom) is Sephardic and Orthodox and was built in 1935 of white Pentelic marble in a Greek Revival style. The building was renovated in 1975.

Etz Hayyim- built in 1904

Beth Shalom originally built in 1935 and renovated in 1975

We then turned the corner and found ourselves at the location of the largest district of ancient Athens called Kerameikos. The area was the potters' quarter of the city. The English word "ceramic" is derived from Kerameikos. It is also the site of the most important cemetery in ancient Athens with tombs dating back to the Bronze Age. Archaeological excavations at Kerameikos began in 1870 and continue to this day.