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JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE

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CYPRUS


Jews in Cyprus
Jewish Cultural Heritage Sites in Cyprus
Nicosia Larnaca Margo Famagusta
Contacts
Sources

Jews in Cyprus
There are few Jews in Cyprus today, but the island has played an important role in Jewish history. Cyprus was home to a substantial Jewish population in antiquity, and Jews from the island fought in the Jewish revolt against Rome and were banned from returning after their defeat. An inscribed column, probably dating from the 4th century, records (in Greek) the third-century renovation of a synagogue, so Jews must have been allowed to resettle. The stone is in the collection of the Cyprus Museum, Nicosia. In all, ancient synagogues are known from epigraphic evidence to have existed in at least three locations: Golgoi, Lapethos, and Constantia-Salamine.

By the late Middle Ages new Jewish communities had developed in Nicosia, Paphos and Famagusta. Few records exist of the Jews during the ensuing Ottoman period. After the establishment of British rule in the 19th century there were attempts to found Jewish agricultural settlements but they met with little success. After the Second World War Britain established internment camps, often expansive 'tent cities', for Jews caught trying to enter Palestine 'illegally'. Between 1945 and 1949 approximately 11,000 Jews were interned on the island. By 1963 approximately 130 Jews were living on an island that had become independent of British rule just three years earlier; the number has dwindled to its present figure of around 25 because of emigration, mostly to Britain or Israel. Meanwhile, the island has been divided (in 1974) into Turkish and Greek sections known respectively as The Turkish Federated State of North Cyprus and the Republic of Cyprus, and separated by a United Nations-policed 'Green Line'. Travel between the two states remains difficult, and can only be done under supervision. The central body for Cypriot Jews, the Committee of the Jewish Community of Cyprus, is affiliated to the World Jewish Congress, and based in Nicosia in Greek Cyprus.

Jewish Cultural Heritage Sites in Cyprus

Nicosia
Cyprus Museum
The Cyprus museum was founded in 1934. In its collections are several inscriptions related to the Jewish presence on the island in antiquity. An inscribed column, probably dating from the 4th century, records (in Greek) the renovation of a synagogue; it is illustrated in the Encyclopaedia Judaica, 5, 1183.

Address




Telephone
Fax
1 Museum Street
P.O. Box 2024
Nicosia
Cyprus

+357 (2) 403 112
+357 (2) 303 148

Larnaca
Chabad Lubavitch Synagogue and Community Centre
The Chabad Jewish Community Centre, inaugurated on September 12, 2005, houses the only synagogue in Cyprus. The centre is open from Sunday to Friday, 9.00am to 9:00pm. In addition to a synagogue, the centre includes a Jewish Library, a Mikveh, the Cyprus International Jewish School and a tourist information centre. Shabbat services are held.

Address



Telephone
Fax
Email
Website
Diogenes 7B
6020 Larnaca
Cyprus

+357 (24) 828 770
+357 (24) 828 771
office@jewishcyprus.com
www.jewishcyprus.com

Larnaca Jewish Cemetery
There is a small Jewish cemetery in Larnaca near the airport. It contains about seven graves and is no longer in use.
See www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/mem/cyprus.html

Margo
Margo is located in North Cyprus. At the turn of the twentieth century, a group of Jewish families from Russia formed a society called Ahavat Zion (the Love of Zion) and established an agricultural community at Margo because of its proximity to Turkish-ruled Israel. The group had very little agricultural experience, but they were able to convince the Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) to fund their undertaking. 11,110 hectares of farmland was purchased in the Margo-Tchiflik area of Cyprus, and the first fifteen families arrived at the farm in 1897. The ICA built houses and farm buildings for the settlers, purchased seed and livestock and operated a school, synagogue, bakery and mill. Unfortunately, the conditions on the hot, dry Mesaoria plain were much harsher than those the settlers had been accustomed to in Eastern Europe. The heat, malaria-carrying mosquitoes and lack of cultural life drove most of the settlers to abandon the project within the first couple of years. Ahavat Zion was forgotten and the land became the responsibility of the ICA.

New settlers were recruited from among graduates of the Mikveh Yisrael Agricultural School on the outskirts of Jaffa, where conditions were similar to those in Cyprus. The new group joined the five remaining families and established more successful farming practices. As conditions at the settlement began to stabilise, more Jews from Europe began to arrive, though many were turned away by malaria. By the early 1920s, the remaining 189 settlers were spread across Margo, Chumlchuk (now Comlekci), and Kouklia (now Koprulu). In 1923 the ICA finally decided that the Jewish agricultural communities in Cyprus had little long-term future and - after a brief respite during the First World War - cut off their funding. Of the 169 Jews that remained, most went to Israel. The last of the Cyprus settlers left by the end of the 1950s and the last Jewish burial at the Margo cemetery was in 1960.

Jewish Cemetery
The Jewish cemetery in Margo is all that remains of the area's late 19th-century Jewish community. Residents of the Greek part of the island have not been allowed access to it since 1992. The graves in the cemetery are in two groups. The older ones from the original Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) settlements are located near the entrance, and those of the twentieth-century settlers are on the other side of the cemetery. Many of the tombstones are broken, but their Hebrew inscriptions are still legible. The last burial at the Margo cemetery was in July 1960.

Famagusta
Cyprus Detention Camps (Kraolos/Caraolos & Dekalia/Dekhelia)
Famagusta is located in North Cyprus. Gary Gumpert and Susan Drucker tell how over 53,000 refugees were forcibly imprisoned there between 1946 and 1949. Many had survived the German concentration camps and were hoping for a new beginning in Palestine. The British turned back their ships before they reached Haifa and escorted them to Famagusta where they were unloaded into tented sites surrounded by barbed wire. These were probably located in what is now a Turkish military base at Caraolos in an area north of Famagusta. In 1947 it was clear that this temporary base would no longer suffice and the British authorities began the construction of Nissen huts. 1,200 German POWs (100 officers and 1100 enlisted men) were then transported by the British from camps in Egypt for the purpose of constructing the detention centre; a process carried out with the bewildered Holocaust survivors in their midst. There were clashes between Jewish internees, German POWs and British soldiers.

The Society for the Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites (SPIHS) has begun a project to restore the corrugated barracks used by the British used for processing, servicing and housing the 'Illegal' immigrants in Atlit, Israel. Many refugees were sent from Atlit to the internment camps on Cyprus. The Atlit 'Illegal' Immigrant Detention Camp is the flagship site of the SPIHS. In 1987 it was designated a National Heritage Site by the Government of Israel; it sees about 500,000 visitors each year.

For more information, see: www.shimur.org/english/article.php?id=27

Contacts
The Jewish Community of Cyprus maintains its office in the capital city of Nicosia:

Address



Telephone
Fax
P.O. Box 3807
Nicosia
Cyprus

+357 2 441 085
+357 2 445 995

Committee of the Jewish Community:

Contact
Address


Mr. F.E. Yeshurah
P.O. Box 4784
Nicosia
Cyprus

Sources


contact us: editor@jewish-heritage-europe.eu

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