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RARE PHOTOS, DOCUMENTS, DRAWINGS
The
Sephardic Jews of Monastir, 1839-1943. A web companion
to a new history.
What
did Sephardic life look like? How did people dress? How
did the synagogues look? The Alliance school? One of the
very special features of Last Century is that it answers
these questions, and more.
With
more than 80 photographs, drawings, and documents gathered
from personal and institutional collections in Europe,
the United States, and Israel, Last Century presents an
illustrated history of the Monastir Sephardim side-by-side
the written one.
Earliest
Monastir photographs
Many
of the images in Last Century have never been published
before. Among these are photographs of Monastir´s
Jewish cemetery, Jewish students at Monastir´s Catholic
school and Ottoman school, a late 19th century Jewish
marriage contract (ketubah), an Ottoman passport issued
to a Monastir Jew, and a page from the original registration
list of the Monastir Jews, compiled before their deportation
in the Holocaust.
The
book also includes a photograph of a group of Ottoman
military men stationed at Monastir´s army headquarters.
The photograph, taken in 1863, is the earliest photograph
ever taken in Monastir.
That
photograph, together with drawings of Monastir from 1848,
1860, and 1862, and other photographs from the early 20th
century, offer a rare portrait of an Ottoman town.
Workers
and rabbis, students and the poor
But
above all, the collection of photographs presents a portrait
of a Sephardic community in all its variety.
No
aspect is omitted. Here are the poor, dressed traditionally
-- the men with beards, fez, and Ottoman entari (a long
belted robe), and women with covered heads wearing the
dukados (the string of coins jewelry worn around the forehead).
The affluent are dressed European-style in business suits
and neckties, with the women in short-sleeved dresses
and parted hair.
There
is the poor hamal (porter), barefoot and bent under an
enormous burden carried on his back, and the young soccer
players in their shorts and jerseys. There are idealistic
and determined Zionists, and a group of small girls with
flowers in their hair, dressed for a school play.
The
last rabbinical leadership of Monastir is represented,
as is the community´s last secular leadership board.
There is a wedding party, and a group of Jewish musicians.
There are the Partisans who in small bands fought the
Nazis, and those captured and slated for death.
Monastirlis
around the world
Not
forgotten are the Monastir communities in Israel, Greece,
South America, and the United States.
In
America, there are photographs of the Monastirlis in New
York, Indianapolis, and Rochester. In South America, the
Monastir Jews of Temuco, Chile. In Greece, the Monastir
Jews in their synagogue at Salonika. In Israel, the Monastirlis
in Jerusalem and on a kibbutz.
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