Parga to Petriti (South end of Corfu)

Yom Kippur was coming and we wanted to spend it in a Synagogue in one of the Jewish communities. The only one we found (on the Internet) was in Corfu.
We arrived at Mandraki Marina, in Corfu on Tuesday afternoon, a day before Yom Kippur eve.
Mandraki is a small marina, operated by a local sailing club (IOS). It’s a charming place, except the fact that each time the fast Ferry to Igoumenitsa passes by, we get an enormous swell in the marina that rolls us immensely for a couple of minutes.

The Jewish community at Corfu is really small. About 50 people left here. 2,500 people were sent to the concentration camps in 1944, and only 250 returned. About half of them immigrated to Israel and the rest remained in Corfu.
We were welcomed warmly by the community and joined the Yom Kippur service at the synagogue. The service was held by a cantor (hazan), that was brought specially from Jerusalem. So we really felt at home there. Actually, it was superior to the synagogue we have in Kfar Netter in any sense.
We visited Zino’s shop one day. Zino is the head of the community. It was important for him to show us his father’s holocaust striped shirt (see the pictures). Both his parents survived the horror of the holocaust and returned to their home town.
After spending some more time in the lovely town of Corfu, we had a nice quiet sail to Petriti. It was supposed to be an authentic Greek town (as described in the pilot book). What we found is a town that’s in the midst of a major change. Big fishing boats fill up the harbor, with a lot of Egyptian workers. A lot of land was bought by Germans who are now building new houses in the village. It will probably be a shiny pearl in a couple of years.

Princess Nayeli - Parga - Corfu - Petriti