Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World

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Yanina (Yanya, Ioannina)
(692 words)

Numerous Romaniot Jews were already living in the city of Yanina (Ioannina; Tur. Yanya), in the Epirus region of Greece, when it was conquered by the Ottomans in 1430. After the expulsion from Spain in 1492, Sephardi Jews also settled in Yanina. Relations between Romaniots and Sephardim were uneasy at first but improved toward the end of the sixteenth century as the two groups learned to tolerate each other. In the seventeenth century, the Sephardi and Romaniot communities lived in the Siarava and Leivadioti quarters outside the city walls. There were two synagogues, known as the old …

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Omer Turan, “Yanina (Yanya, Ioannina)”, in: Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, Executive Editor Norman A. Stillman. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1878-9781_ejiw_SIM_0022250>
First published online: 2010



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