History of the Jews in Greece

Greek Jews
Έλληνες Εβραίοι
יהודים יוונים

Total population
4,500[1]
Languages
Greek, Hebrew, Judaeo-Spanish, Yevanic (historically), Turkish
Religion
Judaism

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."^[2] 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.^[3][4] In the aftermath of the Holocaust, a large percentage of the surviving community emigrated to Israel or the United States.

As of 2019^[update] the Jewish community in Greece amounts to about 6,000 people out of a population of 10.8 million,^[5] concentrated mainly in Athens, Thessaloniki (or Salonika in Judeo-Spanish), Larissa, Volos, Chalkis, Ioannina, Trikala, Corfu and a functioning synagogue on Crete, while very few remain in Kavala and Rhodes.^[6] 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,^[7] 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.^[8] 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.^[9]

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.^[5]