Bible Encyclopedias
Tyria

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

Search for…

Enter query below:

or

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Prev Entry
Tyre

Next Entry
Tyrnau

Resource Toolbox

Print Article

City of Asia Minor, sixty miles from Smyrna. Its Jewish community is of ancient date, the earliest members having arrived at Tyria before the Spanish expulsion; but catastrophes have reduced the Jewish population to insignificant proportions. Since 1825 the laws of the community have been modeled on those of Smyrna; and from the same year until 1882 the community obtained its revenue by means of assessments, although its income is now derived from the salt-tax, poll-tax, gifts, and rents. Most of the Jews of Tyria, who came originally from Constantinople, Brusa, Salonica, and Smyrna, and who speak Turkish, Greek, and Judæo-Spanish, live in a narrow ghetto, while some of them have their residences among adherents of other creeds. The community possesses three synagogues, the latest of which was erected in 1887; and there are a number of benevolent societies, including one for the burial of the poor. The cemetery contains a number of ancient gravestones, one of the oldest being that of Jehiel Caro, who died in 1488. The Talmud Torah at Tyria was converted in 1895 into a school controlled by the Alliance Israélite Universelle.

The list of the chief rabbis of the city includes Ḥayyim Benveniste (author of the "Keneset ha-Gedolah" and later rabbi at Smyrna), Benjamin Lapapa (whose wife died in 1694), Ḥayyim Danon, David Garguir, Ḥayyim Isaac Jaffe, Isaac Aria, Moses Capeluto, Abraham Sasson, Moses bar Siman Ṭob, Ḥayyim Beja, and the present (1905) rabbi, Nissim Joseph Lahana. It is noteworthy, however, that in the series of "haskhabot" recited on the eve of Yom Kippur for the repose of the souls of rabbis the name of Rabbi Lapapa is preceded by the names of Mattathias ben Rey, Joseph Galante, Issachar Abulafia, Solomon Mutevili, and Israel Obadiah, the last-named being followed by Abraham Sasson, although no fixed order and no definite dates are assigned them. The rabbi and physician Moses Abbas and Rabbi Elisha Gallico, both of them predecessors of the rabbis mentioned above, are also noteworthy.

The Jews of Tyria number about 1,600 in a total population of 20,000. In commerce and in industry they have displayed much activity, exporting raisins, cereals, silk, and cotton, and importing merchandise from Europe, while nearly every trade numbers Jews among its craftsmen. The government service likewise is open to Jews. Ḥayyim Jeremiah Danon, who built a Talmud Torah in 1837 and an asylum for the poor in the following year, held a governmental appointment as cashier from 1828 to 1845; while Behor Danon was municipal physician from 1895 to 1904. Formerly the government tithes were collected by Jews.