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Skip the beginning and start Reading at the heading, "A Jewish City"

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Thessaloniki strives to revive its Jewish past, but encounters a new form of anti-Semitism

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More than 95 percent of Thessaloniki's Jews were murdered during the Holocaust. Today, the Greek city's mayor is taking pains to restore a Jewish history that had also been eradicated.

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Who Was Shabbetai Zevi? | My Jewish Learning

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The kabbalistic false messiah gained a mass following in the 17th century - until he converted to Islam. While faith in the coming of the messiah is a linchpin of Judaism, Jews have traditionally taken a patient, quietistic approach to their messianic beliefs.

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Encyclopedia of Jewish and Israeli history, politics and culture, with biographies, statistics, articles and documents on topics from anti-Semitism to Zionism.

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(Stop reading at the 1890s)

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EVERYONE READ THIS
Jewish Life in Salonika, Greece
Source: Sephardicstudies.org
Link: http://www.sephardicstudies.org/thes.html
For more than twenty centuries, a city called Thessaloniki, Greece was the shelter for the persecuted Jews of Europe.  Uprooted throughout their long history from other historical centers of the Diaspora, they were transplanted in this city. The biggest move of Jews to Salonika was in 1492 when Jews fled persecution in Spain. They created a large and vibrant Jewish Community, indisputably one of the most important ones in the world.

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The Beginnings of Jewish Life in Salonika, Greece

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The Beginnings of Jewish Life in Salonika, Greece

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Source: Sephardicstudies.org
Link: http://www.sephardicstudies.org/thes.html
For more than 20 centuries, Thessaloniki, Greece was a shelter for Jews fleeing persecution in Europe. But how did this start?

Precise knowledge about how and when the first Jews came to Thessaloniki are lacking.  They may have arrived from Alexandria, Egypt, around 140 BCE.  However, we do not have any hard evidence that would have allowed us to nail down this event, that remains to this day, an unsolved historical problem.

The ancient Jewish Community of Thessaloniki was a typical example of a Judaic community in a Mediterranean urban center of the Hellenistic and Roman era.  Its members were called Romaniotes.  They spoke the Greek language, while keeping several elements of Hebrew and Aramaic, as well as the Hebrew script.  Paul (an early Christian) visited this community during the early formative years of Christianity.  And in his writing we have the first written proof of Jewish presence in the city.

According to tradition, the oldest synagogue in Thessaloniki was called “Ets Ahaim” (The Tree of Life).  During the Ottoman era and intersection of the present-day Kalapothaki and Dimosthenes streets, near the city port.

During the Roman era, the Jews of Thessaloniki got to govern themselves.  Later, after the division of the Roman empire, certain Byzantine emperors cast their eyes on the Jews, imposing special taxation and/or restrictive measures on religious freedom.  A few attempts at forced conversion did not produce results because most Christian leaders said that Jews had the right to live in freedom and according to the laws and traditions of their religion.

Mid-Byzantine Thessaloniki flourishes in spite of wars in the region, as well as the successive raids of the Slavs and Bulgarians.  Its population exceeds 100,000 inhabitants in the middle of the 12th century.

In 1159 Rabbi Benjamin of Tudela of Spain travelled to Thessaloniki and noted: " Five hundred Jews live here, headed by Rabbi Samuel and his sons, well known for their scholarship.  There are many exiled Jews who are specialized artisans."

During the next 200 years, Thessaloniki was plagued by many misfortunes: its siege and destruction by the Normans (1185), its conquest by the Franks of the Fourth Crusade, and its occupation, first by the Epirus Principality (1244), and then by the Empire of Nikaia (1246).

Raids by Serbs, Bulgarians and Catalans followed as well as its first conquest by the Turks (1387).

It is during that time (1376), that the first settlement of Ashkenazi Jews takes place in Thessaloniki.  They arrive, persecuted, from Hungary and Germany, throughout the 15th century.

A small group of Jews from France settled in Thessaloniki in 1394, while during the period of the Italian rule (1423-1430), large numbers of Jews from mainland Italy and Sicily will also settle here, establishing new synagogues and creating their own distinct communities.

All of the above can be considered as pre-history of the Jewish presence in Thessaloniki.  The pivotal point is the settlement of 15,000-20,000 Spanish (Sephardic) Jews after 1492, who will make a lasting and seminal contribution to the destiny of the Jewish Community, but also to that of the city as a whole.

Thus dawns 1492, the fateful year for the Spanish Jews.  A royal edict on March 13 of that year, forces all Jews to either convert to Christianity, or leave the country by the coming August at the latest.  It is estimated that around 50,000 Jews were nominally baptized and remained in Spain.  The rest, more than 250,000 strong, opted for the road to exile.  Some went north, to France, England, the Netherlands.  Others chose Italy or Northern Africa.  However, the majority settles in areas under Ottoman jurisdiction, like Thessaloniki.

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Source: Jewish Virtual Library
Author: Shira Shoenberg
Link: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/greece-virtual-jewish-history-tour

Contact between Greeks and Jews outside of Greece began after the Babylonian exile of 586-539 B.C.E. When the Persian king Cyrus allowed Jews to return to their homeland after the Babylonian exile, they met Greeks for the first time.

There may have been isolated Jews living in Greek cities as far back as the Babylonian exile, but the first organized Jewish communities in Greece were established in approximately 400 B.C.E. The communities flourished during the reign of Alexander the Great and the subsequent Hellenistic period in around 300 B.C.E. Jewish immigrants flooded Hellenist cities. The Greeks were polytheistic and maintained a glamorous lifestyle. While most Jews retained their monotheism, many wealthy Jews were attracted to Greek culture and created a class of assimilated, pro-Greek Jews.

Throne of Moses in the Synagogue of Delos from 1st Century

Greek was the language of commerce, administration and secular law in the Hellenistic kingdoms and, slowly, Jewish communities began to forget Hebrew.  In approximately 250 B.C.E., the Macedonian-Egyptian king Ptolemy ordered the translation of the entire bible into Greek by 70 scholars. This translation became known as the Septuagint.

The most famous confrontation between Greeks and Jews was the Maccabean Revolt of 167 B.C.E. (Also known as: Chanukah!) The Seleucid king Antiochus  imposed Greek religious customs on the Jews and tried to convert the Jewish temple in Jerusalem into a Greek temple. The Jewish revolt, led by the Hasmonean Judas Maccabee, defeated the Seleucid armies and recaptured the temple. After the revolt, many Hellenized Jews left Judea and moved to Hellenistic commercial centers.

In  the years following the revolt the Jews built up communities all over Greece. When the Christian Saint Paul visited Greece during the first century C.E., he found well-established Jewish communities.