Ari and Ari explore the ancient esrog kingdom of Corfu

Photos: Ari Z. Zivotofsky and Ari Greenspan

The ancient Greek island mythologically connected to Poseidon, god of the sea, wasn’t only a home for Greek deities. This Mediterranean haven that once boasted a vibrant community and prominent rabbis and grew sought-after esrogim now has a small, dwindling kehillah that is struggling to survive. Today, Corfu — a small island lying just off the coast at the border of Albania and Greece in the Ionian Sea, a projection of the north Mediterranean — is part of the club of those once great Jewish communities.

The island was a center of trade and commerce throughout history and had a glorious past of great rabbis and a diverse Jewish population. It was also the epicenter of the great esrog wars of the   19th and early 20th centuries that dominated the esrog market with accusations of grafted esrogim (and of course, that interested us and was ripe for halachic exploration). As we were in Albania to do a bris milah, we took the opportunity to visit the few remaining Jews of nearby Corfu. It is just a short half-hour boat ride from southern Albania, and although we had to cut through some choppy waves, the captain even permitted us to pilot the 200-seat vessel for part of the journey.

The island of Corfu is approximately four times the size of modern Jerusalem, with a total population of about 100,000 people. When the famed Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela visited in the 12th century, he found only one Jew living there, working in the lowly trade of a dyer. Ambling through its old city, we noted that many buildings appear to be hundreds of years old, scores of which are now sealed up and crumbling, many of them abandoned. Our goal, as usual, was to speak to any remaining Jews, to find the shuls and the Jewish ghetto, and see if we could uncover the real history of this once-Jewish bastion. The chief rabbi of Greece put us in touch with some of the last members of the community and we arranged to meet them in the sole remaining shul.

Sometimes visits like these are depressing, but they can often be inspiring as well. There is a certain tenacity and grit we’ve found while exploring barely-surviving communities, and we wondered if we’d find it here among the mementos of a kehillah that’s barely hanging on for survival.