Records of a Jewish presence in Crete date back to the 2nd century BCE. By the eve of World War II, there were only about 300 Jewish inhabitants of the island, nearly all of whom died in 1944 when the ship taking them to Auschwitz was hit by a British torpedo. Over the last decades, however, a Greek Jew named Nicholas Stavroulakis has rebuilt and revived the synagogue in Chania, Crete’s second largest city and the historic center of the Jewish community. Laura Lippstone writes:
The Etz Hayyim synagogue holds weekly Shabbat services and hosts a research library with some 4,000 volumes—which began with Stavroulakis’s personal collection. Next month, Etz Hayyim will honor both its past and its future. On June 14, it will host both its annual memorial service for the hundreds of Crete’s Jews lost during World War II, as well as an exhibit marking the twentieth anniversary of the reconstruction. . . .
The synagogue’s layout is in the Romaniote, or Judeo-Greek, tradition. The ark faces the eastern wall; the bimah [lectern], the western one. The reconstructed mikveh is fed by a spring. The scattered remains from some rabbinical tombs were recovered and reburied. And in a hallway near the sanctuary is a simple shrine: plaques bearing the names of the Jews of Chania who drowned in 1944.
Services are conducted in Hebrew, Greek, and English. Stavroulakis, who is not a rabbi, leads the Sabbath services, which typically draw about fifteen people. Others with long-term ties to Etz Hayyim, some of them ordained rabbis, are brought in for the High Holy Days.
Read more on Tablet: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/200906/the-lost-and-found-jews-of-crete