Meet Me At the Corner of Broome and Allen: Romaniote Jews in New York by Marcia Ikonomopoulos
Virtual Meeting at 2 PM

Marcia Haddad Ikonomopoulos has served as the Museum Director of Kehila Kedosha Janina since 2004 and sits on the Board of Trustees of the Synagogue and Museum. She also serves on the Board of Directors of the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative and is President of the Association of Friends of Greek Jewry. She was born into a traditional Sephardic Jewish family from Salonika and has devoted her life to telling the story of Greek Jewry as an author, translator, editor and lecturer. She holds two BAs, one from Brooklyn College in Psychology and the second from Queens College in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, plus two MAs, the first in Psychiatric Casework from the New School and the second in Italian from Queens College.

Among the numerous distinguishing factors of Jewish communities, most based on geographical location, ancestral language and levels of observance, one group, that of Romaniote Jews has, in many ways, become the orphan child of Jewish studies. This holds true in the field of genealogy. Romaniote Jews, Greek-speaking Jews who date their ancestry back the inter-Temple period, have the distinction of the longest continuous presence in the European Diaspora. The naming practices of Romaniote Jews shed light on the history of Jewish surnames and, in addition, their distinctive customs. What can we learn from analyzing the naming practices of Romaniote Jews? What is applicable to the general study of Jewish naming practices and Jewish genealogy?

To attend this meeting remotely please register at https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0sd-GtrzojHNHHDCvFipAHpRfQMNKSQXXY