Published: 14 June 2019
Last updated: 4 March 2024
ON A WARM JUNE morning exactly 10 years ago, the tiny Romaniote community in this northwestern city woke up to find its ancient Jewish cemetery vandalized. Again. It was the third such incident in a year, and this time one of the smashed tombs belonged to the mother of Moses Elisaf, president of the city’s small Jewish community.
Flash-forward to June 2, 2019, though, and it is a different story: Elisaf just won Ioannina’s municipal election, making him the first Jewish mayor in Greek history — and that is a lot of history.
If you are expecting to hear dramatic tales about fraught Jewish life in this verdant, picturesque part of Greece — a place where Jews, Christians and Muslims have coexisted and interacted over many centuries (including under Ottoman rule) — well, prepare to be disappointed.
“There was not a single moment in my life in Ioannina or Greece that I felt threatened, living and going around as a Jew with a very evident identity. Never,” says Elisaf, a distinguished pathologist and professor who has spent most of his life in the region (he teaches at the local university and runs the hospital’s pathology department).
FULL STORY ‘They claimed I was connected to the Mossad’: meet Greece’s first-ever Jewish mayor (Haaretz)
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Ioannina, home to unique Jewish community, elects Greece’s first Jewish mayor (Times of Israel)
Moses Elisaf elected with 51% of vote in city that was once heartland of country’s Romaniote Jewish tradition
Photo: Mayor Moses Elisaf in Ioannina (Achilles Peklaris)
