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chapter 8The Jewish Communities in the Social Fabric of
Latin Greece: Between Segregation and Interaction
David JacobyThe population of the Byzantine territories occupied by the Latins after the
Fourth Crusade was overwhelmingly Greek. Jews resided in their midst. They
were the only ethnic and religious minority continuously present in Byzantium
since Antiquity.1 Despite their small numbers, they were the object of more
attention than any other minority in the empire. To a large extent the Church,
the state, and the surrounding society shaped both their individual and collec-
tive condition, characterised by social segregation. Yet there were also other
factors at play in that respect.
Indeed, the Jews also formed a distinct ethnic and religious community
segregated by choice. They differed markedly from the bulk of the Byzantine
population by their religious creed, social cohesion, lifestyle, customs, and
cultural traits. They had a calendar of their own and abided by dietary laws
defined by rabbinical prescriptions. Their consumption of kosher food and
wine, handled within an internal economic network exclusively geared toward
Jewish customers, was a projection of the distinctive corporate Jewish identity
and an indispensable factor in the latter’s preservation. In addition, from the
9th or 10th century onward the Jews of Byzantium used Hebrew as a literary
language, which served as an expression of their collective self-identity and
as a medium of communication with Jews residing in other cultural regions.2
However, in everyday life these Jews spoke vernacular Greek. They bore Greek
names and bynames, instead of Hebrew names or in addition to them. Their
liturgy included the reading of Greek translations of the Bible in the synagogue,
1 Overview in David Jacoby, “Les Juifs de Byzance: Une communauté marginalisée,” in Οι
Περιθωριακοί στο Βυζάντιο [Marginality in Byzantium], ed. Chryssa A. Maltezou (Athens, 1993),
pp. 103–54. Various aspects of Byzantine Jewry are presented in Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics
of Minority and Majority Cultures, ed. Reuven Bonfil, Oded Ir-Shai, Guy Stroumsa and Rina
Talgam (Leiden, 2012).
2 Nicholas de Lange, “Hebrews, Greeks or Romans? Jewish Culture and Identity in Byzantium,”
in Strangers to Themselves: The Byzantine Outsider, ed. Dion C. Smythe (Aldershot, 2000),
pp. 106–18.