Corfu had a rabbinical authority named David ben Chaim Ha-Cohen, who had been a student of Yehuda Minz of Padua and who directed a Talmudical high school on his native island. Joseph Immanuel Levi (19th century) published the newspaper Mose. Joseph Nahamali translated the siddur and Pirkei Avot into modern Greek and published the periodicals Chronica Israelitica and Famiglia Israelitica.
In 1899, the Greek-language “Israelitica Chronographos” was founded so that the Greeks could become acquainted with the world of Judaism. From Corfu came Lazar Belelli, who prepared a Hebrew-Greek lexicon of the Book of Genesis, and also Professor Darius Levi and the publisher Alexander Levi of Naples.
Next month: Malta and Chios
Ezra James Nollet is a retired U.S. government chemist living in Poland where he is officer of the local synagogue in Legnica. Before the Deluge appears monthly.
