And the Disappearance of the Ethrog from Corfu
For several centuries Corfu was one of the chief suppliers of Ethrogim to Jews all over the world. The use of Corfu Ethrogim is already mentioned by Giovanni Battista Ferrari, an Italian scholar and botanist, in his Hesperides, sive de Malorum Aureorum Cultura et Usu published in Rome in 1646. Ferrari writes that rich Jews in Corfu spend considerable amounts of money to buy Ethrogim that are very smooth and have no flaws. They pack them in small boxes or other containers and send them as gifts to their friends abroad.
Probably the earliest reference to Corfu Ethrogim in rabbinic literature dates from the second half of the eighteenth century; it appears in a book by David Pardo, [Michtam LeDavid, Orech Chaim (1772) #18] a rabbi in Sarajevo Bosnia, who settled in Jerusalem towards the end of his life. Another reference is in the writings of Daniel Terni,(Ikkerei Dinim Orach Chaim) 1803) rabbi of Florence, a younger contemporary of David Pardo.
As the Corfu fruit was very beautiful, the Ethrogim were very popular in Jewish communities. Ironically it was the beauty of Corfu Ethrogim which caused East European rabbis early in the nineteenth century to doubt their Kashruth. They suspected that the growers in Corfu were crossing the Ethrogim with other citrus fruits to enhance their beauty, hence rendering them ritually unfit.
Rabbi Ephraim Zalman Margulies (1760-1829) one of the leading rabbis of Galicia
defended the Kashruth of the Corfu Ethrogim. In a lengthy responsum discussing grafting in the growing of Ethrogim, he stated that a trustworthy person who had visited the island and seen the Ethrog groves had told his that these Ethrogim were not products of grafting.
Yalkut Pri Etz Hadar (1898) by Judah Noah is a collection of rabbinic statements prohibiting Corfu Ethrogim; a list of rabbis who appealed to use only Ethrogim from the land of Israel, rabbinic statements prohibiting Corfu Ethrogim and reprints of Hebrew newspaper articles about the boycott are included in Ephraim Deinard’s Milhama LaShem BaAmalek (1892).
***
A combination of factors was responsible for the disappearance of the Corfu Ethrogim, which for a long period had been widely used in the Jewish world. Initially religious reasons caused rabbis to forbid the purchasing of Corfu Ethrogim. They suspected that these Ethrogim were grafted. Protestations by the rabbis of Corfu to the contrary allayed this suspicion for a time. Later economics played a role. The Greek growers hiked up the prices,taking advantage of the Jewish need for the fruit. When the Greek growers finally loweredtheir prices, Jews were already purchasing Ethrogim from the Holy Land. The “Hibbat
Zion” (Lovers of Zion) movement, which by this time had gained momentum, was encouraging the planting of Ethrogim trees in Palestine. Nevertheless, Corfu Ethrogim continuedto be on the market.
The “straw that broke the camel’s back” was the Corfu Blood libel 1891.
1.
Rubina Sarda’s Death
On Monday, April 13, 1891, just days before her eighth birthday, Rubina Sarda, the daughter of a Jewish tailor disappeared. Her panic stricken parents searched for her; during the night, they founda child’s body sewn into a sack in front of a Jewish home on Paleologue Street. There were numerous wounds on the little girl’s hands and head in addition to a very deep injury on her neck, which seemed to be the cause of her death. Her body was barely recognizable as it was completely disfigured with quicklime. However, all the people present identified the body as being that of Rubina Sarda.
Rumors quickly spread among the Christian population that the dead child was not a Jewess but a Christian from Janina who had been designated by the Jews for “ritual slaughter for Passover.”(1)
They claimed that the girl’s name was not Rubina Sarda but Maria Desylla. She had been adopted by the Jewish tailor, Vita (Chaim) Sarda and attended a Catholic institute. Stories circulated among the people that both Raxon, the custodian of the synagogue and Ephraim, the grave digger and alms
collector of the Jewish community were responsible for the little girl’s death. Charlampis, one of the police officers, was said to have made the rounds that evening and seen some men near the cemetery among whom was Raxon, the Jew. It was rumored that the following morning another police officer
by the name of Sarkapoulos had seen the Jewish tailor bent over the sack in which the child had been found.(2)
2.
Investigations and Testimonies
Investigations and inquiries were made. The rumor that Rubina was actually a Christian named Desylla was proven false. The Superior of a convent released the following declaration:(3)
I, the undersigned of the religious institution of the Order of the “Sisters of Notre Dame of the Compassion” in Marseille, certify that the small Jewess Rubina Sarda, following the preliminary authorization by the honorable Mr. Boni, the Latin Archbishop of Corfu, was admitted into the free class that I direct in July 1889… she left our school in October of the same year to attend, one tells me, the
classes of a school founded at that time in Corfu by the Italian government. I declare that:
1) This child, the daughter of a Jewish father and Jewish mother, is of the same religion as her parents;
2) That she was always known in school under the name of Rubina Sarda and that I had never heard her being called Maria Desylla;
3) That as long as this child was under my care I had never heard her ask to change her religion. I am signing this at the request of the French Consul in Corfu,
Corfu, June 22, 1891
Josephine Martin Known as Sister Marie Loetitia
A. Danloux, Consul of France
The inspector of police declared that neither at that time nor at any time before, were there any persons named Charlampis or Sarkapoulos, registered as having worked for the police. The Chief Rabbi, Alexander de Fano, testified that there was never a custodian or any other attendant of the synagogue by the name of Ephraim, a name unknown among the Jews of Corfu. He also testified that the
dead child was called Rubina Sarda and was the daughter of Lucia Eliezer and Vita Sarda. (4)
The investigations regarding the murder of Rubina Sarda were conducted at the Tribunal of Patras in order to avoid the angry mob of Corfu. It took several months until the investigations proved conclusively that the victim was indeed, Jewish and born in Corfu of Jewish parents. According to the report of the distinguished M. Brouardel and other members of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, it was proven that the girl’s death was caused by injuries to the head and that all other wounds were made after her death in order to conceal the real motive of the crime and to attribute it to ritual murder.(5)
Several Christians were arrested; (6) however they were eventually released. No one was ever found guilty. (7)
3.
Riots and Murders
Until the rumors circulated against the Jews were proven false, the Jews of Corfu were subjected to horrendous persecutions, unparalleled in the history of the Jews of the island. Mobs formed who wanted to avenge the ‘ritual murder.’ The Jewish quarter was literally besieged. The government had a military cordon drawn around the ghetto area, but a murderous crowd rushed through the line of solders. They made a bonfire on the square of the Jewish quarter and declared that the Jews should be burnt. Jews who arrived at Corfu from neighboring islands to celebrate Passover were immediately surrounded and terribly beaten.(8)
The local newspapers embellished the event, affirming that the murdered child was a Greek and not Jewish; they cited other so-called ritual murders, which they claimed had occurred in previous time in other countries. (9) Anti-Semitic literature was disseminated among the populace, inciting the mob even further. (10)
On May 12, a Jewish father of five children died from a knife stab and of fatal gunshot wounds from a revolver. On May 15 a Jewish store was forcibly entered; fortunately the police stopped the man who had planned to kill the owner. (11) By May 22, fifteen Jews had been murdered and twentyfive wounded.
The local authorities of Corfu, seeking to prevent further killings of Jews, forbade the latter, for their own safety, to open their business. Commerce being suspended, the majority of the Jews, who were poor and lived from day to day, were left without income and were menaced by hunger. Jews, for their own protection, were asked not to enter the Christian quarters. As a result of the scarcity of food, the close confinement of a large number of people in already overcrowded houses and the hot weather, several cases of typhoid fever occurred. The Jews who escaped the knife and the revolver of the Greeks, saw themselves threatened with death from disease and hunger. (12)
Interments did not take place within the time prescribed by Jewish law. For four days, sometimes even longer, the dead remained unburied. The burials had to take place after midnight. Each funeral procession had to be accompanied by a strong guard. The Jewish cemetery which was situated outside the Jewish quarter, was pillaged. The gravestones were overturned and monuments were broken (13)
Many Jews, afraid of living under the constant threat of death, sold their property and left theisland, seeing refuge in Janina (Greece), Italy, Turkey or Egypt. In just a few days, over 1500 Jews, aquarter of the Jewish population, had emigrated. Most of the wealthy Jews were among the emigrants, leaving the poor behind. They sold their property, in many cases at only one-third of its value.(14)
4.
International Intervention
The Greek government tried to protects its Jewish citizens during the horrible persecutions. However, its measures did not prove sufficient to quell the anti-Semitic riots.
The passions originally aroused against the Jews soon turned against other minorities in the island. An attempt was made to set fire to the Roman Catholic Cathedral. (15)
Several countries, on learning of the disturbances on the island, sent ships to help restore order to and to protect their nationals. (16) British war vessels with detachments of artillery and sappers, (17) as well as French, Austrian and Italian ships sailed into the Ionian waters to alleviate the situation.(18)
Jews all over the world raised monies to send to the Jews of Corfu who were dying of starvation. Among those who contributed were Baron Hirsch, the Rothschilds, the Alliance Israelite Universelle and the communities of Alexandria, Trieste, Rome, Naples, Venice, Florence(9), London and Manchester.
The extent of the disturbances led observers to believe that they had been instigated by the local authorities or the opposition in Greece. This was strongly contested by Mr. Gennadius, the Greek Minister in London, in a letter to the British press. The letter concluded with the following paragraph:
(21)
We mourn sincerely and deeply with our Jewish brethren and with those of our own people who have lost lives in these deplorable events. No general calamity, no scourge or epidemic would have evoked a more public or more intense expression of regret. We bewail the cruel outburst as bitterly as the Jews themselves; and only hope that the blood which has flowed unmeritedly, the misery and the wretchedness that has been wrought may ultimately serve but to draw nearer two ancient peoples,
thought distant in origin and distinct in faith, yet for two great pillars on which the religion , the enlightenment and the profess of the civilized world rests; who have so much in common both in a glorious past, in cruel suffering in dreary bondage and unswerving endurance, and who having at last entered into the state of regeneration, both firmly believe in the advent of a still more hopeful future.
5.
The causes of the Blood Libel and the Disturbances
Eakovos Polelas, an anti-Semitic Greek politician who at the time of the blood libel was not running for office but was sitting on the sideline stated that the horrible evens which had occurred were to be expected. The Jews had brought he misfortune upon themselves : (22) The [the Jews] do not speak our language; their children do not attend our schools. The money they earn from us they send abroad and put n foreign banks. Despite all the rights they are given they
continue to be foreigners. No, I do not perceive anti-Semitism as ridiculous. Anti-Semitism is a natural reaction of modern society to the invasions and domination of the Jews. The Jews take but they do not give. They are like leeches; no, not even leeches, for leeches have the advantage that after they suck
they spit it out… The people in their practical wisdom know all the above better than [the politicians]…
The events could not have been avoided.
Victor de Semo, a prominent Jewish physician responded in an interview with the Greek press, to Eakovos Polelas’ assertions and stated his own view regarding the causes of the vicious outbreaks of anti-Semitism. The Jews didn’t control the banks; there were only two Jewish bankers — Nachmia and
Viterbo on the island. The Jews have never owned any land. The wheat and the wine commerce, which were the least risky and the most profitable, were not in Jewish hands. The only businesses dominated by Jews were those of olive oil and export-import. Both bolstered Corfu’s economy. Except for a few tailors, there were on the whole no Jewish artisans. The Jewish women worked as cleaning women. Some of the water carriers were Jewish, but not the head carrier.
“Anti-Semitism in Corfu for economic reasons is ridiculous,” statstated Dr. Victor de Semo.
Replying to Polelas’ accusations that the Jews did not assimilate with the Greeks, continue to speak their own language and supported Jews abroad, Victor de Semo said that there were Jewish communities everywhere, even in France, where the Jews had greatly assimilated. The Jewish community was religious in character. Judaism was not the official religion of any country. Jews must
guard and defend it , as there were no others to do this. This was the reason for the existence of a Jewish community in Corfu. The community was not a political body; a the most it was philanthropical.
The Jews of Corfu wanted to assimilate, but was not easy. The great majority of them were uneducated and worked hard to make a living. Moreover, it was not easy for them to forget the harassments of the past and to overcome their distrust of the Christians. Jews were granted equal rights only after Enosis (unification of Corfu with Greece). Until then they could not become lawyers and public notaries. Only about twenty-five years have passed since Enosis. It was not easy to erase the sad memories of the past. Furthermore, who ought to extend a friendly hand? The Jews who suffered, or the Christians who offered them liberty? The Jews have been accused of not teaching Greek to their
children. This was not true. Nine tenths of the Jewish population were poor and had not the means to give an education to their children. The most they gave they gave them was some religious instruction. When a public elementary school was established, so many Jewish parents registered their child that the principal could not accept all of them. Most of the wealthy Jews send their children to private schools.
Dr. Semo denied that Jews influenced Greek politics there had never been a Jewish minister or parliamentarian – but he intimated that Jews were active in this sphere. “I repeat, we did very bad to get involved in politics.”
He said that the Jews didn’t form a voting block, Various delegates had friends
in the Jewish community, and each Jew voted as he pleased. At the end of the interview de Semo attributed the anti-Semitic outbreaks primarily to religious fanaticism.
Kostas Dafnis, a Corfiote historian believes that the blood libel may have been instigated by Eakovos Polelas and a small group of his wealthy supporters who were merchants dealing in export and import. The export-import business was chiefly dominated by Jews and posed a financial threat to Polelas’s supporters. Dafnis believes that the motives behind the anti-Semitic disturbances were a
combination of religious, economic and political factors. (24)
6.
Why did it happen then?
Never before in its long history was the Jewish community of Corfu in such danger as it was during the riots following the blood libel. How could these horrendous persecutions have occurred in a period when Corfu’s Jews were enjoying complete equality for the first time?
Even if one accepts the view of Kostas Dafnis that Eakovos Polelas and a small group of his wealthy supporters instigated the blood libel, the question remains: Why did they succeed in inciting the masses at a time when prejudice and discrimination were giving way to tolerance and liberalism?
An examination of the history of Corfu Jewry reveals that they were saved from severe persecution by the contrasting interests of the different classes on the island. The fanatic, ignorant masses hated and despised the Jews for religious reasons. The Jews were protected by the rulers, the aristocracy and the upper classes primarily because of their economic and other services. This was so until
Enosis. Paradoxically, after the Jews were granted equal rights, circles which until then had felt no special animosity towards the Jews, began to turn against them. Working in professions which until then had been barred to them, the Jews began to be regarded as intruders and competitors by those who formerly had monopolized these occupations. By entering the arena of politics they aroused the jealousy and enmity of political rivals and their followers. Victor de Semo expressed it succinctly: We did very bad to get involved in politics.”
It was this situation, which enabled the small group, which instigated the blood libel, not only to incite the fanatical and ignorant masses , but also to gain the support of other circles. Some of these were actively involved in the disturbances; others preferred to remain passive bystanders while the
Jews were attacked.
(1) Bulletin d’Alliance Israelite Universelle 1891 pp. 48-49, Giorgio A. Zaviziano, Un Raggio di Luce, 1891 pp. 1-2, Kostas Dafnis, Corfu, I Israelitis Tis Kerkiras, pp. 17-18; London Jewish Chronicle, May 1, 1891 p. 28
(2) Vincenzo, Manzini, L’Omicidio Rituale e Sacrifice Umani , Turin, (1925) pp. 153-154
(3) Ibid. p. 155; Dafnis pp. 20-21; M. Horovitz, Frankfurt, Korfu (1891), p. 15
(4) Ibid.
(5)Bulletin Alliance Israelite Universelle pp. 50-51;LJC Oct. 30, 1891 Particulars regarding theslow pace of the trials of those of accused of murdering Jews during the disturbances can be found in
Vessillo Israelitico (Casale Monferrato) February 1892
(6) London Jewish Chronicle Oct. 30, 1891
(7)Caimi, M. “Corfu,” Jewish Encyclopedia volume 4, 1907 pp. 269-273
(8)London Jewish Chronicle, May 1, 1891, pa. 8
(9) BAI, p. 49
(10) LJC May 22, 1891. Anti-Semitic pamphlet was printed in Athens and distributed in Corfu.
(11) BAI, 1891, p. 50
(12) LJC May 22, 1891
(12) BAI, 1891 p. 49
14 LJC May 22, 1891
15 LJC July 24, 1891
(16)Nondas Eliopoulos,Chronika, Athens, Dec. 1980 “Antismitik Ekrisis stin Kerkira’ to 1891,p. 18
17) LJC July 24 1891
(18) Eliopoulos p. 18
(19)VI, June 1891
(20) LJC published lists of donors see for example LJC May 22 and June 5, 1891
(21) May 29, 1891
(22) Dafnis, pp. 23-24
(23) Ibid pp. 25-26
(24) Ibid p. 28
Kolmus Mishpacha