Finding Authenticity And Identity On A Silversea Cruise To Rhodes

Forbes

02-05-2025

Cruise ship Silver Spirit (Silversea Cruises) at Gibraltar Cruise Terminal.
On an all-too-brief Aegean cruise on the Silversea Silver Spirit, our ship stopped at the Isle of Rhodes. I expected to spend the day on an excursion on the island. Perhaps we would also do some sightseeing, shopping, learn some history and soak up a bit of the local flavor like olive oil on our bread.
I did not expect a pair of profound experiences in authenticity and identity, one at the Rhodian Pottery Workshop excursion, the other at the last surviving synagogue in Rhodes.
I knew little about the island save references to the legendary Colossus of Rhodes, the 105 foot copper statue. But Rhodes was once a powerful maritime power in the Eastern Mediterranean, during the Hellenistic Period from 400 to 200 BC. The 'jewel of the Aegean' has since been ruled by Romans, Ottomans, Türkiye, Italians, and others, including the Nazis from 1943 to 1945. It was returned to Greece in 1947.
For the Pottery Workshop, we debarked from the Silver Spirit and got on a waiting van with intrepid driver and guide. Our English-speaking twelve included young, middle-aged, and seniors, and a family with a boy and girl under 12.
We departed the port of Rhodes and headed to the north side of the island. We enjoyed the panoramic views of the Rhodian countryside and the sea on the drive to the ceramics studio.
East Greek (Rhodian) oinochoe, Wild Goat style, 630-600 BC. East Greek pottery oinochoe (wine-jug); ... More shoulder: griffin between two goats; belly: four goats with a water-bird beneath the handle; the neck has a cable pattern, and around the bottom is a pattern of lotus buds and flowers; Middle Wild Goat style. Dimensions: height: 33 cmdiameter: 20 cm (Photo by Ashmolean Museum/)
Our tour guide to Rhodes was voluble, but knowledgeable, with thirty years of guiding experience. He told us to call him 'Lefty' as his name seemed unpronounceable to generations of tourists.
On our way to our destination, he told us about the history of the island. The famed bronze Colossus of Rhodes, considered one of the wonders of the ancient worlds, lasted just 66 years before it was destroyed by an earthquake. Although it captured the imagination of poets .and artists, no trace of the statue has yet been found.
Lefty's lecture was interesting and entertaining if a bit heavy on marriage jokes. But he was quite serious about the steep decline in the number of local families focused on pottery.
Much of the culture of the island has been documented in its pottery and ceramics, which goes back to pre-historic times, including a cultural peak in the 20th century. However, Lefty despairingly put it, 'Everything is plastic today.' The number of families focused on pottery has declined from dozens to five today.
Nonetheless, when we arrived the pottery studio seemed an impressive operation, with hundreds of items on display or for sale. The family owners taught us about the techniques of pottery making, demonstrating on the pottery wheel, and about Rhodes' long tradition of producing ceramics.
Potter sculpting a decorative plate at a pottery workshop in the village of Akotiri on Santorini ... More Island, Greece. (Photo by Creative Touch Imaging Ltd./NurPhoto via Getty Images)
We drank shots of ouzo while waiting our turns at the wheel, downing Greek olives and bread as well. Looking at the pottery for sales with Greek themes (the gods, rams and bulls, ancient ships, etc.), I felt transported back in time.
Then it was our turn at the wheel. We had signed up to make cups, bowls and, for the most daring, a curvy vase. While the master potter did much of the work, it was exhilarating to put hands on (or thumbs down into) the spinning lump of clay, which within minutes we transformed into pottery. We paid an extra twenty euro for our cup and bowl to be fired and glazed with colors.
I felt connected to the past, making my own version of an ancient design. For the adults but especially for the children in our group, getting hands-on to make an everyday item like the Greeks had done for thousands of years was memorable indeed.
We returned to the town, full of shopkeepers and restaurateurs trying to pull us into their establishments. Lefty had told us about the town's only surviving synagogue, which we found up a narrow alley.
There were once six synagogues and prayer halls in the Jewish Quarter, known as 'La Juderia.' Now Kahal Shalom is the sole remaining synagogue on Rhodes used for services. The synagogue was built in 1577, making it the oldest surviving synagogue in Greece, although the first Jews arrived as early as the 12th century.
Kahal Shalom Synagogue in Rhodes, Greece.(Photo by Hoberman Collection/Universal Images Group via ... More Getty Images)
Rhodes was part of the great tragedy of the Jews of Greece. Kahal Shalom is today both a synagogue and museum. While at one time as many as 6,000 Jews lived on Rhodes, 1900 lived there in 1943. Less than 200 survived the Holocaust. Over 67,000 Greek Jews, 87% of the Jewish population of Greece, were murdered in the Holocaust. (Some 500,000 non-Jewish Greeks also died in World War II.)
Few survived from Rhodes, and according to the woman taking tickets, just fifteen Jews are members of the synagogue today. Getting a minyan of ten men to pray together is difficult and happens rarely.
Rhodes was for hundreds of years home to a thriving Jewish community, of first Romaniote and then Sephardic Jews after the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain and Portugal. I went through the museum, staring at photos of their faces and their beautiful clothing.
As I glumly contemplated whether Europe was entirely a graveyard today, a short 30-ish man with short hair and wrap-around sunglasses ran in.
'Any Jewish men here?' he shouted excitedly in an Israeli accent.
'You want to do a minyan?' I said. 'Let's do it.'
Bimah and interior of the Kahal Shalom Synagogue build in sephardic style from 1577 and the oldest ... More in Greece, Rhodes Town,Rhodes, Greece
I was the tenth man, joining nine others, mostly young but a couple not so much, to pray together in the empty synagogue. A young man stood on the pulpit, in the center of the synagogue and read the prayers aloud from his cellphone.
Cruise ships are often portrayed as the ultimate in material and sybaritic pleasures. Indeed, there is something glorious about exquisite meals, fine wines, convivial gambling as I found on the Silversea Silver Spirit, a visit to the spa, perhaps a cigar.
Yet cruise ships often offer a nod towards the spiritual, whether it be traditional religious services on board, meditation, yoga, or simply the contemplation of a majestic glacier or ocean sunset.
On one day in Rhodes, our group of cruisers filled buildings with renewed life and delight. Our Silversea cruise quite literally took us to places we never thought we'd go.
A hand-colored engraving of the Colossus of Rhodes, on of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.