By Susan Detwiler
Attending synagogue in most of the United States, you would be forgiven to think the sound of Torah being chanted is the same everywhere, with only minor variations. Ashkenazi trop (Torah cantillation) is ubiquitous on Shabbat; on High Holidays, Festivals, and Haftorah readings, it is usually Ashkenazi versions that we hear. But that’s not all there is.
My father’s parents came from Ioannina, Greece, a city with a large Jewish community in the early 20th century. My Nona was eight years old when she came in 1912; my Grandpa was 16 when he came in 1916, and they met and raised their family in New York City. As I learned about my Greek heritage, I realized that the Romaniote (Greek-Jewish) traditions were often different from those of my Polish and Russian grandparents. Since Romaniote Jews settled in Greece before the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem, I wondered—are the Torah traditions also different? The answer is, “YES.”
For almost 20 years, I’ve wanted to chant Torah using the Romaniote cantillation. When I visited Ioannina in 2011, the desire became even stronger.
On February 21, 2025, that wish will be fulfilled.
It has been a long road to get here. For years, I asked rabbinic, cantorial, and temple musician friends for direction—where could I find the Romaniote cantillation? I searched Google and YouTube videos, but I came up empty.
Until May 2017. That’s when I discovered that ethnomusicologists in Germany were recording the liturgical music of the Romaniote Jews in Ioannina, Greece. I reached out to them and began working with Dr. Miranda Crowdus, then with Hannover University of Music, Drama, and Media.
Miranda was recording the liturgical music chanted by Cantor Haim Ischakis, who still uses the Romaniote tradition. I asked her if Cantor Ischakis would record Torah verses for me, and with her as intermediary, he agreed.
Imagine my excitement! At last, I would hear the Torah as chanted by my ancestors, and perhaps learn it myself!
Obviously, we couldn’t ask Cantor Ischakis to chant the whole Torah for us. So, I immediately contacted all the cantors and temple musicians again, and asked a very specific question:
What verses in Torah, when taken together, would give me all the different trop marks and trop combinations?
Their responses were immediate. I sent their answers to Miranda, and by August 2017, we had Cantor Ischakis’ recordings.
Then came the hard work. Torah cantillation is an aural tradition; until recently, most who learned to chant did so aurally. The musical notes are not written, and the Romaniote Torah melodies are no different. How could we convert the recordings into a form that would allow me—or anyone else—to pick up any Torah parshah, and chant it in the Romaniote trop?
Over the past seven years, we have considered different options. I tried using software to create clips of the different verses, broken by trop notation. But the original recordings are not clean, so Miranda sought out recording technicians to help clean them. I spent time breaking out the recorded parshiot in the pages of a tikkun—the Hebrew text that helps people learn to read the Torah for services—so Miranda could match them to the recording. Finally, I created a PowerPoint trop table of the various trop phrases, annotated with where the phrases could be found in the verses Cantor Ischakis had sampled for us. In return, Miranda used the Romaniote cantillation to record the names of the trop marks.
Mercha, tipcha, munach, and etnachta sound very different!
It took seven years to get to this point. Miranda and I had work, life events, and, of course, the interruptions of COVID. We’ve met only once in person. Miranda is now on this side of the Atlantic as Assistant Professor, Research Chair in Canadian Jewish Studies, and Director of the Institute for Canadian Jewish Studies at Concordia University in Quebec.
Going forward, our goal is to create a Romaniote Trop Table, which we will publish online and make available to students, researchers, and the public.
But more immediately, Congregation Beth Emeth is hosting a trio of programs around Romaniote traditions and this seven-year project. Dr. Miranda Crowdus will present a webinar on February 19, 2025—Reviving a Dying Tradition—about her work with Cantor Ischakis. On Friday, February 21, I will chant nine verses of Mishpatim using the Romaniote cantillation. We will round out the weekend on Sunday, February 23, with a brunch and learn about the Romaniote tradition, along with other Romaniote Jews.
Watch for notifications—I hope you can join us!
