My Rabbit Hole Down the Yad Vashem Collection

I think I’ve made it pretty obvious by now, but I’m very interested in Greece and Greek culture. It’s no surprise since it is the culture I grew up with, the one I’ve always known. So that’s why, when an opportunity to learn more about Greece pops up, I jump on that chance. I saw that chance when Professor Hertel showed us the Yad Vashem document seahjnrch. Knowing that one of the letters from the “Last Letters” collection had been from Greece, I was intrigued. Did they have any more documents from or about Greece? I put “Greece” in the search bar, and lo and behold, there were over one thousand results. That’s quite overwhelming, so I looked to the subject field to narrow down my search. One of the options there was “Greek Jews,” which I found quite interesting. 

Let me explain my context. Going to Greece, the culture seems… homogenous. In America, you’ll find cultural diversity wherever you go. You’ll find it in each and every family restaurant; you’ll find it in the art and architecture; you’ll find it in the many places of worship you find on your travels; you’ll find it in the names of towns, rivers, and streets. I don’t experience that much cultural diversity in Greece (or at least not on the island of Lesvos, since I don’t remember anything about the mainland). It’s minimal, at most. 

Greece’s official religion is Orthodox Christianity, and its presence is dominating. Nearly every modern religious building you find dedicates themselves to such. Because of how dominant Orthodox Christianity seemed, I had never heard anything about Greek Judaism until now. Thus, I barely considered the possibility. The Yad Vashem documents opened my eyes to this possibility and piqued my curiosity. 

Since I had such a great resource at my disposal, I thought, “Are the majority of Greece’s Jewish population ethnically Greek, whether it be because a Greek person converted to Judaism or they have Greek ancestors?” I asked this question because of the Last Letter from Thessaloniki. Elie Sides and his family were said to live in Greece and to be Jewish. But nowhere does it state that they were ethnically Greek. So, I rooted around to find any evidence that pointed to any other ethnicity.

Neither the introduction nor the letter explicitly state that the family immigrated to Greece, but some details possibly implied it. The Last Letters collection reports that Elie Sides was a merchant and an importer. There’s a chance that Elie may have moved for mercantile purposes, but that isn’t enough evidence to be confident. The letter also speaks of Danny Saporta, the fiance of Rita Sides. The letter relates how it was important for Danny to arrive in Thessaloniki to save Rita from being deported to Auschwitz, which implies that Danny is not from Greece. The kicker here is that the Last Letters collection explicitly states that Danny Saporta is Rita Sides’s cousin since he is the son of Elie Sides’s sister. Danny Saporta is a precedent to the Sides family’s immigrating. Yet, Elie Sides’s sister could have emigrated from Greece, proving nothing. We have to dig deeper. 

I noticed that there were a few French-related details throughout the letter. If you look closely at the image of the letter on the site, you’ll find that Elie wrote it in French. Also, the transcription of the letter mentions Elie’s grandson, “Pierrot,” which is a name of French origin. So does that mean the Sides family is French? Let’s not jump to conclusions yet. 

Then, I decided to do some quick research on the etymology of the family’s last name. Nearly every site I found stated that “Sides” was a surname derived from the Middle English word for “slope hillside” and originates in the USA, UK, and Ireland. Could this apply to Elie and his family? These sites seem to assume that “Sides” is pronounced the American way instead of “SEE-deh-s,” which is how you’d pronounce it in Greek. Could there be another origin for Sides, a Greek false cognate? I also looked up the origin of Elie Sides’s son-in-law’s, Robert Sarfati’s, last name. I found a Wikipedia article about the surname. It explains that Safarti is a surname that “literally means ‘French’” and “was frequently applied in rabbinical literature to Jews of French birth or descent.” If Robert is French, he likely named his son Pierrot because of his heritage. His origin could explain why Elie wrote the letter in French. Since Robert is only related to the Sides family through marriage, this does not prove that the other family members have the same lineage. Yet, how come Elie knew how to write (and likely read) French in the first place? Did he learn from somewhere else, or is he of French descent after all? 

After this deep dive, I ended up with more questions than answers. The Sides family is only one part of the story, one piece of the puzzle to my original question. Many more documents are in the Yad Vashem Library, which contains the accounts of many more Jewish people from Greece. Each has its own story, is in a different language, and features new names of many origins. There is such a rich variety of history and culture within each document. I think it’s better to leave my question unanswered. What does it matter whether these Jewish people have Greek genetics or not? The human experience is so diverse, and considering the horrors that they went through, the nitty gritty about their heritage matters little. The lesson here is that when you open your mind beyond your own culture and beliefs, a new world emerges.