The Etz Hayyim synagogue, built as a church and transformed into a synagogue in the 17th century during the Venetian period. It fell into ruin after the deportation and drowning of the Jewish community of Chania in July 1944.
Beginning in the mid-1990s art historian and artist Nicholas Stavroulakis began the restoration of the synagogue as a project of the World Monuments Fund’s Jewish Heritage Program. After the structure was restored, Stavroulakis began to recreate the interior, based on knowledge of Greek Jewish history, religion, and architecture. Today the site is a functioning synagogue and a historic site.
During this period Stavroulakis created a small memorial shrine to the Chania Jews killed when the Tánaïs sank.
http://www.edwardvictor.com/Chania.htm
http://www.etz-hayyim-hania.org/
Etz Hayyim Synagogue Commemorative Album (Athens, 1999).
Dorfman, Rivka and Ben-Zion. Synagogues without Jews and the Communities that Built and Used Them (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 2000)
Etz Hayyim Synagogue website, https://www.etz-hayyim-hania.org/ (accessed October 2, 2022)
Gruber, Samuel, “European Preservation Projects of the World Monuments Fund’s Jewish Heritage Program: The Tempel Synagogue in Cracow (Poland) and the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Hania (Crete),” in Max Polonovski, ed., Le Patrimonie Juif Européen: Actes du colloque international ten à Paris, au Mu
Gruber Samuel, “Restoration of Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Hania,” Bulletin of Judaeo-Greek Studies 21, winter 1997/1998.
Messinas, Elias. The Synagogues of Greece: A Study of Synagogues in Macedonia and Thrace (Jacksonville: Bloch Publishing Company in association with Bowman & Cody Academic Publishing, 2012)., https://issuu.com/eliasblue/docs/messinas_synagogues_of_greece_do_no (accessed November 30, 2021)
Stavroulakis , Nicholas P. and Timothy J. DeVinney. Jewish Sites and Synagogues of Greece (Athens, 1992)