Following the expulsion of Jews by Ferdinand and Isabella, large numbers of Spanish Jews settled in what are now Greece, Cyprus, the southern Balkans, and the western coast of Turkey. There they found communities of Greek-speaking Jews, known as Romaniote, who had lived in these territories since ancient times. Similar to what happened in North Africa, some of these communities assimilated into the Sephardi, Ladino-speaking traditions of the newcomers, while others maintained a separate identity. Like other Jews who left Europe in the early 20th century, some Romaniote settled in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, where they established the Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue (KKJ), which still holds weekly services and is the only Romaniote congregation in the Western Hemisphere.

Daniel Cody writes:

The Romaniote congregation, originally from Ioannina, Greece (hence, “Janina,” an alternative version of the Greek place-name), formed in 1906, though the synagogue itself was not fully constructed until 1927. . . . The Romaniote migrated to America following World War I for economic opportunity. Broome, Allen, and Orchard Streets, which occupy a northern portion of Lower East Side, were home to many immigrant families who left the Ottoman empire, including Romaniote. . . . Hundreds of families who currently attend, or previously attended, KKJ came from Ioannina, but many arrived from Rhodes, Thessaloniki, Istanbul, Izmir, and the former Yugoslavia.

KKJ is what is known as a “tenement” synagogue. . . . The building was at one point a tenement building, then converted into a Greek coffee shop, and finally a synagogue in 1927. The Romaniote community pooled together money to construct the synagogue, which is much narrower and space-conscious than other synagogues.

KKJ is the only non-Ashkenazi synagogue in the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

In October, a young Mauritanian national murdered an Orthodox Jewish man on his way to synagogue in Chicago. This alone should be sufficient sign of the rising dangers of anti-Semitism. Nathan Diament explains how the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (AAA) can, if passed, make American Jews safer:

We were off to a promising start when the AAA sailed through the House of Representatives in the spring by a generous vote of 320 to 91, and 30 senators from both sides of the aisle jumped to sponsor the Senate version. Then the bill ground to a halt.

Fearful of antagonizing their left-wing activist base and putting vulnerable senators on the record, especially right before the November election, Democrats delayed bringing the AAA to the Senate floor for a vote. Now, the election is over, but the political games continue.

You can’t combat anti-Semitism if you can’t—or won’t—define it. Modern anti-Semites hide their hate behind virulent anti-Zionism. . . . The Anti-Semitism Awareness Act targets this loophole by codifying that the Department of Education must use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of anti-Semitism in its application of Title VI.