History of the Jews in Cyprus
[3] According to a late source, written by Eutychius of Alexandria, Cypriot Jews attacked Christian monasteries on the island during the reign of Heraclius (610–641).
[5] Twice in 649 and 653, when the population was overwhelmingly Christian, Cyprus was subjected to two raids by Arab forces which resulted in the capture and enslavement of many Cypriots.
[6] One story relates that an enslaved Jew in Syria managed to escape and seek sanctuary in Cyprus, where he converted and settled in Amathus in the late 7th century.
[5] Benjamin of Tudela reported that there were three distinct Jewish communities in Cyprus in 1163: Karaites, Rabbanites, and the heretical Epikursin,[8] who observed Shabbat on Saturday evenings.
[citation needed] When a rumour reached Venice that Joseph Nassi was plotting to betray the Famagusta fortress to the Ottomans, investigations failed to ascertain the veracity of the report; however, as a counter-measure, the Venetian authorities decided to expel all non-native Jews from the island while leaving the Famagusta community intact.
[10][11] Under the leadership of Walter Cohen, 15 Russian families founded a colony in Margo in 1897, with the help of the Ahawat Zion of London and the Jewish Colonisation Association.
In 1899, Davis Trietsch, a delegate to the Third Zionist Congress at Basel, attempted to get an endorsement for Jewish colonisation in Cyprus, especially for Romanian Jews.
Tensions arrose between Sephardim and Ashkenazim settlers, and had to be attenuated by Jules Rosenheck, being himself married to a Greek Sephardic woman.
They did produce food for themselves, and also cultivated olives, which they couldn't do in their Palestinian zionist settlements because oliviculture was a predominantly Arab sector.
[15] In 2014, a "Garden of Peace" was opened in Xylotymbou to commemorate the plight of the thousands of Jewish refugees imprisoned in the British camps.
[16] Today, the diplomatic relations between Cyprus and Israel are at an all-time high, reflecting common geopolitical strategies regarding Turkey in particular and economic interests in developing off-shore gas reserves.
On 12 September 2005, he was formally nominated as the official Rabbi of Cyprus in a ceremony attended by guests such as Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, the Vice Chairman of the Lubavitch educational division at Lubavitch World Headquarters, the Cypriot Education and Culture minister, and Larnaca's deputy mayor Alexis Michaelides.
[20] In 2011, Archbishop Chrysostomos II of Cyprus met with the Chief Rabbi of Israel and signed a declaration affirming the illegitimacy of the doctrine of collective Jewish guilt for the killing of Jesus, repudiating the idea as a prejudice that is "incompatible with the teaching of the Holy scriptures".
[22] By April 2024 the Jewish population in Cyprus has expanded further, with Israelis alone numbering 12,000 according to a report on Israel's KAN public news channel.
[23] This report mentions three waves of Israeli migration to the island: the first during the COVID pandemic, the second as a consequence of Israel's political unrest due to the judicial reform attempt in 2023, and the third one in late 2023 - early 2024 following Hamas' 7 October massacre and the war that ensued.
