5 - Cantor-Poets on Greece's Periphery: Macedonia, Bulgaria, Corfu, Kaffa (Crimea) and Crete

Summary

GENERAL BACKGROUND: MACEDONIA AND BULGARIA

JEWISH SETTLEMENTS in Macedonia date from 140 BC and were prominent in Kastoria and Salonika. Kastoria on the Via Egnatia, a strategie hub in the Balkans linking Dyrrachium with Constantinople, attracted Jewish mer- chants and artisans. Although Jewish life was already flourishing in the region in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, under the leadership of Rabbi Tobias b. Eliezer of Kastoria and Salonika, a dramatic increase in the Jewish population began in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This was the period of the Second Bulgarian Empire under the rule of the ambitious Assenide dynasts who encouraged Jewish immigration into their country in order to gain a commercial and industrial advantage over their Dalmatian and Aegean rivals. A further increase in Bulgaria's Jewish population occurred in the latter half of the fourteenth century with the arrival of refugees from Hungary and Bavaria, following their expulsion from those countries in 1360 and 1376.

Soon afterwards, friction arose between the native Jewish settlers, who followed the Romaniote synagogue ritual, and the immigrants from the north. Presumably the conflicts resulted from disputes regarding the decree of Rabbenu Geršom of Mainz banning polygamy. The special session called in Vidin in 1376, reaffirming R. Geršom's decree and ruling on matters re- lating to dowry and inheritance, was designed to set standards for the diverse Jewish population in the region. It is likely that during this transitional period the native Kastorean Jews decided to compile their own prayer-book reflecting their synagogue practices and thereby preserving the special charac- ter of their congregational life. The Kastorean ritual was never published, and survives in one manuscript copy at the Bodleian Library, Oxford (No. 1168).

Macedonian Messianism

A distinctive feature in the Macedonian liturgy of the eleventh and twelfth centuries is the rise of messianic hopes. Mordecai b. Šabbetai seeks to ascertain the ‘end-time’, and Menahem b. Elia is persuaded that Israel's redeemer-king riding on a donkey is fast approaching. Following is Israel's part of R. Menahem's dialogue ḥaṭa'nu, ‘Amarti la-’adonay. The speaker is God:

The calculation of the end-time is clear,

Only a few years remain;

Now Edom will be consumed in flames

And the last remnant with return …