ABSTRACT
The new 'colonial' setting established by Venice in Crete differed markedly from the political system existing in the island in the Byzantine period. In the wake of the Venetian conquest Venetian and other Latin settlers became the third component of Crete's population, alongside the indigenous Greeks and Jews. In Crete, as elsewhere, the most common and sustained interaction between Jews and Christians at the individual level occurred in the economic field, both in urban centers and in the countryside. In contrast to Christians, individual Jews involved in economic operations in Crete also elicited collective hostility directed against their community. The location of Jewish quarters in two other Cretan localities also appears to have been the result of voluntary residential segregation. Finally, political circumstances had an occasional impact on imperial policies toward the Jews and upon Greek-Jewish interaction in the Empire.
