Corfu קורפו
An island of two communities, Greek and Apulian, which Venice exempted from the expulsion of 1571; on 14 June 1944 the 1,800 Jews of Corfu were taken to Auschwitz.
Benjamin of Tudela in the middle of the twelfth century found one Jew on Corfu, the dyer Joseph. The community grew from three streams: Greek Jews from Thebes in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Spanish ones after 1492, and Apulians expelled from southern Italy in 1540. The Greeks kept their own synagogue and customs; the Apulians were more numerous, and their language prevailed.
From 1385 to 1797 the island belonged to Venice. Venice confirmed the rights of the Jews and Venice introduced the yellow badge in 1406; but when in 1571 the Republic expelled the Jews from its dominions, it exempted Corfu. In 1716 the Jews of the island defended it against the Turks with everyone else. In the seventeenth century the community counted about five hundred families; in 1901, five thousand Jews out of twenty five thousand inhabitants.
In 1891 a blood libel shook the island: the murder of a child was laid on the Jews, a massacre was barely averted, and most left. Before the war the community numbered two thousand; on 14 June 1944, 1,800 people were taken to Auschwitz. In 1948 there were 170 Jews left on Corfu, in 1968 92; of the four synagogues one stands.
On the timeline
Sources
Documents of the period
- The deportation lists of Corfu, June 1944 — the day and the number deported
Scholarship
- The Jewish Encyclopedia, article on the town — the course of the community's history and its scholars
Basis: documents and evidence.