“Shaddayot” – An Assemblage of Silver Dedicatory Plaques – Ornament from the Kahal Kadosh Hadash Synagogue of the ...

“Shaddayot” – An Assemblage of Silver Dedicatory Plaques – Ornament from the Kahal Kadosh Hadash Synagogue of the Ioannina Romaniote Jewish Community – Greece, Mid-19th Century

Ornament bearing dedicatory plaques (known in Hebrew as "Shaddayot" or "takhshitim") for the "parokhet" of the Romaniote Kahal Kadosh Hadash Synagogue of Ioannina, Greece, 1849-1866.
Cut silver, repoussé and engraved; cotton and linen fabric; cloth band, machine-embroidered.
Arch-shaped cloth band bearing seven suspended dedicatory silver plaques –made to look like large, decorative silver pendants, with each pendant uniquely fashioned to differ slightly from all the others – donated to the Romaniote Kahal Kadosh Hadash Synagogue of Ioannina in the years 1849-1866 by members of the Ya’akov, Yasulah, Kopino, Shemuel, and HaLevy families.
The pendants are inscribed with memorial inscriptions for departed family members and well-wishes for living family members, in addition to get-well wishes and wishes of longevity (for details regarding the dedicatory inscriptions, see enclosed material).
In colloquial Hebrew, dedicatory plaques of this sort are termed "Shaddayot" (singular: "Shaddayah") or "takhshitim", owing to the standard wording of the dedicatory texts that appear on them, which customarily begin with "El Shaddai…" (one of the names of G-d) or "HaTakhshit HaZeh…" ("This piece of jewelry…"). "Shaddayot" are one of the peculiar trappings of the Romaniote Greek-Jewish communities; they were typically donated to synagogues in time for holidays or to mark significant lifecycle events.
"Shaddayot" would at times be sewn onto the "parokhet" (Torah ark curtain) as individual pendants, while at other times, they would be strung from a horizontal cloth band that would then be attached to the "parokhet", as in the case of the present item. Still other times, they would be sewn onto bands that would then be vertically hung on the synagogue walls; this was the case with regard to the "Shaddayah" in the collection of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, item no. B84.0913.
The Ioannina community was one of the oldest of Greek-Jewish communities, traditionally believed to have been established shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple in 70 CE. This community – whose dominant language was Greek – persisted in clinging to the ancient Romaniote Jewish customs and style of prayer even after absorbing an influx of Ladino-speaking Sephardi-Spanish-Jewish exiles in the 15th century. The Kahal Kadosh Hadash Synagogue was built in 1841 outside Ioannina’s Old City walls. It served a community which at the time numbered some 2,400 Jews, and functioned alongside the Kahal Kadosh Yashan Synagogue, built in 1824 over the old synagogue, inside the Byzantine citadel. The Ioannina Jewish community was almost entirely wiped out in the Holocaust; of the roughly 2,000 Jews who made their home there on the eve of the Nazi occupation, only 164 individuals returned following the war. The Kahal Kadosh Hadash Synagogue did not survive the war.

Cloth band: approx. 97X8 cm. Minor blemishes, mostly on verso. Pendants: average 13X9 cm. Suspended from small rings sewn onto cloth band. One pendant missing.

Reference and exhibitions:
1. Jodendom: een boek vol verhalen. Amsterdam, De Nieuwe Kerk, 2011-2012.
2. Sacrificial Donations among the Romaniot Jews, by Ariella Amar, in: Jewish Art in Context: The Role and Meaning of Artifacts and Visual Images, Studia Rosenthaliana, Volume 45, 2014, pp. 91-114.
3. Seeking Protection: Shaddayot and Alephiot in the Romaniote World, by Zanet Battinou and Christina Meri, in: Windows on Jewish Worlds, Essays in Honor of William Gross Collector of Judaica. Zutphen, Walburg Pers. 2019, pp. 322-333 (illustrated).
Provenance: The Gross Family Collection, Tel Aviv, 049.001.009.
This ornament is documented on the Center for Jewish Art (CJA) website, item no. 36863.