The Medieval Jewish Communities of Zichna and Kastoria: documentary evidence

Abstract

The idea to write this paper was born as Ι came through with documentary evidence concerning the Jewish population of two towns in Macedonia, Zichna and Kastoria, in the late Middle Ages. These data not only shed light to the Jewish presence in those two towns, they also contribute to the study of basic aspects of Jewish lit'e in Byzantium. As those documents concern fiscal registrations, they provide a listing by name of the members of the particular communities. Thus they are very usefull to matters related to the demographic strength of the Jewish presence in byzantine provincial towns, as well as to the study of the onomastics of the Romanite Jews, i.e. the Greek-speaking Jews of Byzantium.