AS BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST, JEWISH WEDDING IN RHODES .

The marriage of Nathalie Rivca Jonas and Aaron Dessner in Kal (synagogue) Shalom in Rhodes could have been just another Jewish wedding on this Island of Roses, in this town once known as Little Jerusalem for its Jewish life and institutions of Jewish learning. But this wedding took place on July 6, 2003, the first such celebration in the fifty-nine years since the deportation to the death camps of the towns Jewish community.  Everyone had travelled long distances for the occasion: the bride and groom from New York; the brides parents, Veronique and Hylton Jonas, from Dallas, Texas, and the grooms parents, Sally and Stephen Dessner, from Cincinnati Ohio.

Guests arrived from Israel, South Africa, France, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Costa Rica, Athens, and many cities in the U.S. to attend the wedding.  One rabbi came from Dallas and another from Athens to officiate at the marriage.

The scene upon leaving the synagogue after the wedding was reminiscent of the pre-War photographs we have seen, with the bride and groom and all the guests in front of the synagogue, or gathered on one of the other streets of what once La Juderia, the Jewish Quarter. After this ceremony, too, at the end of which we enjoyed our masapan (traditional Sephardic marzipan sweets), we gathered on the narrow street in front of the synagogue, a crowd of almost 200 elegantly dressed people behind Nathalie, the beautiful young bride in white, and Aaron, the handsome young groom. Young and old, family and friends, with musicians in back, we walked on the narrow pebble-paved streets (kochlakiain Greek), past the Square of the Jewish Martyrs (of the Holocaust), which used to be La Kaye Ancha, the Wide Street in Ladino.  As we passed, people on the streets and balconies watched with curiosity and applauded. Thus we reached the restaurant where the wedding celebration took place an old house that had belonged to a Turkish Pasha now converted to a restaurant, with a beautiful large terrace on top where the celebration took place.

Although Jewish history in Rhodes is very ancient, Jewish life prospered after the conquest of the island by the Ottoman Turks in 1522, and with the arrival of Sefaradim expelled from Spain and Portugal. The island passed to the Italians in 1912 and to the Greeks in 1945. Kal Shalom was built in 1577 and is the only one, which survives of the five synagogues that existed in Rhodes before the War.  As one of the oldest synagogues of Europe, Kal Shalom is under the protection of the World Monument Fund and is being restored with a grant from American Express and private donations.

Of the 1700 Rhodes Jews sent to Auschwitz and labour camps, only 151 survived. Forty-two people had escaped deportation through the intervention of Turkish Consul Salahattin Ulkumen, a Righteous Gentile.  A large marble plaque on the courtyard wall of the synagogue lists the names of the Rhodes families killed in the Holocaust. Today, only 30 Jews live in Rhodes, most having come here in the 1960s from the cities of Volos and Athens on the Greek mainland. Only one of the Rhodesli (Rhodes native)survivors returned to live here (Lucia Sulam, who sits daily at synagogue the entrance.)

Yet, Rhodeslis the world over and their descendents continue to have a special pride in their origins and a strong attachment to this city and its Jewish history. That is why Nathalie and Aaron and their families had decided to hold the wedding here.   Nathalie's grandparents, the late Fortunee and Abner Soriano (Veronique's parents) were born in Rhodes and immigrated to the Belgian Congo (now Zaire) before the war, but the family members who remained in Rhodes were murdered in Auschwitz.  Nathalie and Aaron's wedding and the special service on the preceding Sabbath honoured their memory and that of grandparents and other family members now deceased.  On Friday before the wedding, Holocaust Survivor and Rhodes-native Stella Levi, now of New York, conducted a tour through the Juderia, pointing out the old Jewish schools and houses, recalling who lived where, and describing the way of life that went on in these streets before the War.

In past years many Rhodesli families have been meeting here around Rosh-ha-Shanah (Jewish New Year) and holding services at Kal Shalom. In June of 2002 they came to unveil a Holocaust memorial, a six-sided column that bears the inscription, in six languages, Never Forget.  In memory of the 1,604 Jews of Rhodes and Cos who were murdered in the Nazi camps, July 23, 1944.  They have made substantial donations for the upkeep and restoration of the synagogue, and some have had their young sons Bar-Mitzvah ceremonies here.  In fact, Veronique's own nephew, her brother Leon's son Marc, celebrated his Bar-Mitzvah there seventenn years ago.

This was actually the second marriage here since the Holocaust; the first one a simple and impromptu ceremony took place in 1954 between Ketty Papushado of Athens, whose mother was from Rhodes, and Rhodes native Moise Piha, who lived in the Congo.   As described in an article by Ketty herself in the first issue (1990) of the Sephardic magazine Los Muestros (meaning Our Own) from Belgium, the fiancées had arrived there to visit their family's graves at the cemetery, and Moise had the sudden desire to re-open the synagogue and get married there. That became possible only by the presence of Jewish sailors on an American aircraft carrier who served as witnesses. The Pihasson  Eliezer was the first to celebrate his Bar-mitzvah at Kal Shalom after the  Holocaust.

The Jonas-Dessner wedding, on the other hand, had been long in the planning, and was a full-scale joyous celebration.  The ceremony at the synagogue, the celebration party which followed and all the foods and music, as well as the religious services of the preceding Friday and Saturday, blended Sephardic and Ashkenazic customs, reflecting the roots of the brides and the grooms families.  Rabbi William G. Gershon of Dallas, who is Ashkenazic Conservative, and Rabbi Jacob Arar of Athens, who is Sephardic, officiated at the religious ceremony.  Saturday services, conducted by Rabbi Gershon, combined a celebration of the present joy with remembrance of the past sadness, as it honoured the bride and groom and memorialised the Jewish martyrs of Rhodes and the departed members of the family.  At the wedding there was a Chupah, and the bride walked seven times around the groom (an Ashkenazi custom), but there was also echar talet (covering the bride and groom with the talet, the prayer shawl) according to the Sephardic custom, with the benediction of Rabbi Arar.

Rabbi Gershon spoke in English, and Rabbi Arar in French, but Hebrew prayers united all, and it seemed that all Rhodeslis of the past were present, praying with us for the happiness of the newlyweds, and rejoicing with us as well.

Rachel Amado Bortnick

Rachel Amado Bortnic, a Sephardic Jew born in Turkey, is a Dallas writer and teacher