History of the Jews in Greece
The history of the Jews in Greece can be traced back to at least the fourth century BCE. The oldest and the most characteristic Jewish group that has inhabited Greece are the Romaniotes, also known as "Greek Jews." The term "Greek Jew" is predominantly used for any Jew that lives in or originates from the modern region of Greece.
Aside from the Romaniotes, a distinct Jewish population that historically lived in communities throughout Greece and neighboring areas with large Greek populations, Greece had a large population of Sephardi Jews, and is a historical center of Sephardic life; the city of Salonica or Thessaloniki, in Greek Macedonia, was called the "Mother of Israel." Greek Jews played an important role in the early development of Christianity, and became a source of education and commerce for the Byzantine Empire and throughout the period of Ottoman Greece, until suffering devastation in the Holocaust after Greece was conquered and occupied by the Axis powers. Despite efforts by Greeks to protect them, some 4,000 Jews were deported from the Bulgarian occupation zone to the Treblinka extermination camp. In the aftermath of the Holocaust, a large percentage of the surviving community emigrated to Israel or the United States.
the Jewish community in Greece amounts to about 6,000 people out of a population of 10.8 million, concentrated mainly in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larissa, Volos, Chalkis, Ioannina, Trikala, Corfu and a functioning synagogue on Crete, while very few remain in Kavala and Rhodes. Greek Jews today largely "live side by side in harmony" with Christian Greeks, according to Giorgo Romaio, president of the Greek Committee for the Jewish Museum of Greece, while nevertheless continuing to work with other Greeks, and Jews worldwide, to combat any rise of anti-Semitism in Greece. Currently the Jewish community of Greece makes great efforts to establish a Holocaust museum in the country. A permanent pavilion about the Holocaust of Greek Jews in KZ Auschwitz shall be installed. A delegation and the president of the Jewish communities of Greece met in November 2016 with Greek politicians and asked them for support in their demand to get back the community archives of the Jewish community of Thessaloniki from Moscow.
Independent candidate Moses Elisaf, a 65-year-old doctor is believed to be the first Jew elected mayor in Greece. He was elected in June 2019.
Jewish cultures in Greece
Most Jews in Greece are Sephardic, but Greece is also the home of the unique Romaniote culture. Besides the Sephardim and the Romaniotes, some Northern-Italian, Sicilian, Apulian, Provençal, Mizrahi and small Ashkenazi communities have existed as well, in Thessaloniki and elsewhere. All these communities had not only their own custom, they also had their own siddurim printed for the congregations in Greece. The large variety of Jewish customs in Greece was unique.Romaniotes
Romaniote Jews have lived in the territory of today's Greece for more than 2000 years. Their historic language was Yevanic, a dialect of the Greek language, but Yevanic has no surviving speakers recorded; today's Greek Romaniotes speak Greek. Large communities were located in Ioannina, Thebes, Chalcis, Corfu, Arta, Corinth and on the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Rhodes, and Cyprus, among others. The Romaniotes are historically distinct from the Sephardim, some of whom settled in Greece after the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain. All but a small number of the Romaniotes of Ioannina, the largest remaining Romaniote community not assimilated into Sephardic culture, were killed in the Holocaust. Ioannina today has 35 living Romaniotes.Sephardim in Greece
The majority of the Jews in Greece are Sephardim whose ancestors had left Spain, Portugal and Italy. They largely settled in cities such as Thessaloniki, the city which was to be named "Mother of Israel" in the years to come. The traditional language of Greek Sephardim was Judeo-Spanish, and, until the Holocaust, the community "was a unique blend of Ottoman, Balkan and Hispanic influences", well known for its level of education. The Foundation for the Advancement of Sephardic Studies and Culture calls Thessaloniki's Sephardic community "indisputably one of the most important ones in the world."History of Judaism in Greece
The first recorded mention of Judaism in Greece dates from 300 to 250 BCE on the island of Rhodes. In the 2nd century BCE, Hyrcanus, a leader in the Jewish community of Athens, was honoured by the raising of a statue in the agora.According to Edmund Veckenstedt, Ganymede was a Semite, as his brothers Ilus and Assarakos were no doubt. According to Josephus, an even earlier mention of a Hellenized Jew by a Greek writer was to be found in the work "De Somno" by the Greek historian Clearchus of Soli. Here Clearchus describes the meeting between Aristotle and a Jew in Asia Minor, who was fluent in Greek language and thought:
"'Well', said Aristotle, 'the man was a Jew of Coele Syria. These Jews were derived from the Indian philosophers, and were called by the Indians Kalani. Now this man, who entertained a large circle of friends and was on his way from the interior to the coast, not only spoke Greek but had the soul of a Greek. During my stay in Asia, he visited the same places as I did, and came to converse with me and some other scholars, to test our learning. But as one who had been intimate with many cultivated persons, it was rather he who imparted to us something of his own.'"
Archaeologists have discovered ancient synagogues in Greece, including the Synagogue in the Agora of Athens and the Delos Synagogue, dating to the 2nd century BCE.
Greek Jews played an important role in Greek history, from the early History of Christianity, through the Byzantine Empire and Ottoman Greece, until the tragic near-destruction of the community after Greece fell to Nazi Germany in World War II.
Hellenistic period
The Macedonian empire under Alexander the Great conquered the former Kingdom of Judah in 332 BC, defeating the Persian empire which had held the territory since Cyrus' conquest of the Babylonians. After Alexander's death, the Wars of the Diadochi led to the territory changing rulership rapidly as Alexander's successors fought over control over the Persian territories. The region eventually came to be controlled by the Ptolemaic dynasty, and the area became increasingly Hellenistic. The Jews of Alexandria created a "unique fusion of Greek and Jewish culture", while the Jews of Jerusalem were divided between conservative and pro-Hellene factions. Along with the influence of this Hellenistic fusion on the Jews who had found themselves part of a Greek empire, Karen Armstrong argues that the turbulence of the period between the death of Alexander and the 2nd century BCE led to a resurgence of Jewish messianism, which would inspire revolutionary sentiment when Jerusalem became part of the Roman Empire.Roman Greece
and the rest of Hellenistic Greece fell to the Roman Empire in 146 BC. The Jews living in Roman Greece had a different experience than those of Judaea Province. The New Testament describes Greek Jews as a separate community from the Jews of Judaea, and the Jews of Greece did not participate in the First Jewish-Roman War or later conflicts. The Jews of Thessaloniki, speaking a dialect of Greek, and living a Hellenized existence, were joined by a new Jewish colony in the 1st century AD. The Jews of Thessaloniki "enjoyed wide autonomy" in Roman times.Originally a persecutor of the early Jewish Christians until his conversion on the Road to Damascus, Paul of Tarsus, himself a Hellenized Jew from Tarsus, part of the post-Alexander the Great Greek Seleucid Empire, was instrumental in the founding of many Christian churches throughout Rome, including Asia Minor and Greece. Paul's second missionary journey included proselytizing at Thessaloniki's synagogue until driven out of the city by its Jewish community.
Byzantine Empire
After the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, elements of Roman civilisation continued on in the Byzantine Empire. The Jews of Greece began to come under increasing attention from Byzantium's leadership in Constantinople. Some Byzantine emperors were anxious to exploit the wealth of the Jews of Greece, and imposed special taxes on them, while others attempted forced conversions to Christianity. The latter pressure met with little success, as it was resisted by both the Jewish community and by the Greek Christian synods.The Sefer Yosippon was written down in the 10th century in the Byzantine south Italy by the Greek-speaking Jewish community there. Judah Leon ben Moses Mosconi, a Romaniote Jew from Achrida edited and expanded the Sefer Josippon later.
Tobiah ben Eliezer, a Talmudist and poet of the 11th century, worked and lived in the city of Kastoria. He is the author of the Lekach Tov, a midrashic commentary on the Pentateuch and the Five Megillot and also of some poems.
Spanish Jewish explorer Benjamin of Tudela visited Greece during his travels around 1161/1162 CE. After leaving southern Italy and sailing through the Adriatic Sea, he visited Corfu, Thebes, Almyros, and Thessaloniki, before moving on to Constantinople. In Thebes, he reported a Jewish population of 2,000, the largest Jewish community in any Byzantine city of the 12th century, after Constantinople, the empire's capital.
The first settlement of Ashkenazi Jews in Greece occurred in 1376, heralding an Ashkenazi immigration from Hungary and Germany to avoid the persecution of Jews throughout the 15th century. Jewish immigrants from France and Venice also arrived in Greece, and created new Jewish communities in Thessaloniki.