On 2.4.2025, the presentation of the book "The Good" by architect Elias Messinas took place in Xanthi, at the "P" Tobacco Warehouse Hall. On the occasion of the presentation of the book, Elias Messinas gave the following interview to the Xanthi daily newspaper "Empros" which was published on 5.4.2025 on the corresponding website.
Dr. Elias Messinas speaks to "E" about his book "The Good" against the backdrop of the history of synagogues and Jewish communities in Greece. The book "The Good" by Dr. Elias Messinas captures a special dialogue between research, documentation and personal search. Through notes, correspondence and archival material, the author unfolds a journey through space and time, with the late Volos architect Semtov Samuel as his spiritual "companion". Samuel, like Messinas, embarked on a similar journey of search in the early 1960s.
Dr. Elias Messinas, through his book "The Good", renews and continues the journey of Shemtov Samuel, recording a total of 60 years of vivid narration about the synagogues, the people, the communities and the architects associated with them.
"With this material from Samuel, but also with my own impressions of the last 30 years, his journey from thirty years ago is renewed and essentially now we have a narrative that covers 60 years of history," the author tells "E".
The author explains how he "revives" the material of the architect, Shemtov Samuel, while he himself, in a journey that began 30 years ago, captured, documented and studied the synagogues of all of Greece, including Komotini and Xanthi, before they were demolished in 1994 and 1995, respectively.
Tell us about your book "The Good" and specifically about your journey through space and time.
“The Good” is the third book in a trilogy published in 2022, 2023 and 2024. The first was “The Synagogue”, the second was “The Synagogue” and the third was “The Good”. All the books are essentially a journey through space and time, in which the architect, the main character who is sometimes referred to as a soldier in Didymoteicho on the Evros, goes to various cities and searches for the synagogue and traces of Jewish history in these cities. The three books have the same name. The first book, “Synagogue”, is clear, the second book, “The Synagogue”, refers to the way the Romaniote Jews called the synagogue. Finally, “Kal” or “Kaal” is what the Sephardic Jews call the synagogue.
What stands out in the third book, "The Good", is that a new hero appears in the narrative, Samuel, an architect from Volos, who, in the 60s-61s, also made a journey, smaller than that of the architect, with the aim of presenting a lecture at the Aristotle University, in its first year of operation, on February 10, 1961.
To prepare this lecture, Samuel visited various cities, where he photographed and measured synagogues, making some notes. He also kept diaries, recording his activities. From there we learn about earthquakes, floods and much more. With this material from Samuel, but also with my own impressions of the last 30 years, Samuel's journey that began thirty years ago is renewed, and essentially now we have a narrative that covers 60 years of history. Now, not only my own observation is mentioned, but Samuel's narrative is also included. It is as if Samuel comes to life again. In fact, in the penultimate chapter we have a dialogue between the architect and Samuel. The meeting never happened, but through the dialogue, the many commonalities regarding architecture, urban planning, and the depiction of synagogues are revealed.
Samuel's archive was found ten years after his death. His nephew contacted me after finding a part of the archive. I then contacted his family and two more pieces were found. That was the impetus that led me to write the book.
How did you decide to study synagogues in depth? What path did you follow?
The study of synagogues began in 1993, when I had completed my studies at Yale University, in the USA, and was looking for what to do with my career. I started to “dig” into Judaism and, in fact, at a conference in Chicago I read an article on the preservation of synagogues in Europe, written by Samuel Gruper, a very good archaeologist. I contacted him when I returned to New York, and he was interested. He even encouraged me to do a project for Greece, so that synagogues could become landmarks. Of course, when I was in New York, I had contacted Columbia University and that is how the idea of presenting the Jewish community was born, thinking about how it would interest the public. I also got in touch with the Jewish Museum in Athens and asked them for material for an exhibition. However, I was told that there were no architectural plans, as no one had ever made a map of the synagogues before. So, the detailed mapping began.
What tools did you use in your research to gather the material?
At the time I was making the prints, I worked with simple tools. I used a tape measure to take diagonals and I took care to draw the buildings in great detail. I had two cameras at my disposal: one had transparencies and the other photographs. I initially drew them by hand, on rice paper with a pencil, but then they were digitized. Of course, some of the drawings were also made into three-dimensional representations. It is noteworthy that we recently prepared drawings for the synagogue in Kastoria, focusing on the exhibition held at the Jewish Museum of Thessaloniki for the Jewish community.
What applies to the case of Xanthi? What observations do you reach regarding the presence of synagogues in the area?
In Xanthi, there was a synagogue on Hadzistavrou and Anatolikis Thrakis Streets. Two buildings had been purchased by the Hadzistavrou family. That community, therefore, built two buildings: the Jewish club for events and gatherings, in order to serve the needs of other associations, and next to it stood the Synagogue, a building inspired by the era of tobacco warehouses. The architect may have worked in tobacco warehouses. However, the building was imposing, with a courtyard in front and on the side, influenced by the Balkans, as a result of which a similar architectural morphology is evident. Internally, the building was more modern, it was “reform”, postmodernist. The most modern synagogues at the end of the 19th century were the imprint of this model. In 1986 it was sold to a private individual and in 1995 it was demolished, and then rebuilt.
SOURCE: EMPROS website, 5.4.2025