Sephardic Jewish Genealogy in Bulgaria: Sofia, Plovdiv and the Danube Communities

Sephardim arrived in Ottoman Bulgaria from about 1494, reaching it overland through Ragusa and Salonika rather than by sea.

They settled in towns that already held Romaniote, Hungarian and Bavarian Jewish communities — Vidin, Nikopol, Silistra, Pleven, Sofia, Yambol, Plovdiv and Stara Zagora — and within two centuries had absorbed all of them. By 1640 a single rabbi served all three communities in Sofia. Judeo-Spanish became the common language and remained so into the twentieth century.

Bulgaria became independent in 1878 and granted Jews equal rights. The community reached 48,565 in 1934. The Jews of Bulgaria proper were not deported; 11,343 Jews from the Bulgarian-occupied territories of Macedonia, Thrace and Pirot were. Almost all survivors emigrated to Israel after 1948.

Were there Jews in Bulgaria before 1492?

For well over a thousand years.

Second-century synagogues have been excavated at Philippopolis (Plovdiv), Nicopolis, Ulpia Oescus (Gigen) and Stobi. A late second-century Latin inscription at Ulpia Oescus carries a menorah and names an archisynagogos.

These were Romaniote Jews, Greek-speaking and Byzantine in rite, and they remained the majority until the fourteenth century.

Two Ashkenazi waves preceded the Sephardim: Hungarian Jews expelled in 1376, who settled at Nikopol, Pleven, Sofia and Vidin and founded their own congregations; and Bavarian Jews expelled by Ludwig X in 1470, who joined them along the Danube and in Sofia. Travellers reported Yiddish spoken in Sofia, and an Ashkenazi prayer book was printed at Salonika by the rabbi of Sofia in the mid-sixteenth century.

A smaller French contingent came down the Danube after the expulsion of 1394 and merged into the Romaniote community.

This matters because a Bulgarian Jewish family that looks Sephardi in 1900 may not be Sephardi by descent at all.

Where did Bulgaria’s Sephardim come from?

Sephardim reached Bulgaria after 1494, arriving overland via Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and Salonika through Macedonia. They settled in the existing Jewish towns, which were also the trading centres of Ottoman Bulgaria.

A second Italian wave followed. Sicilian Jews expelled in 1493 — Sicily then being part of Aragon and covered by the same order — reached the Ottoman Empire, and under Pope Pius V (1566–74) a further wave came from Calabria, again by way of Ragusa and Bosnia.

Why did the Sephardim absorb everyone else?

They arrived with secular and rabbinic learning that gave them influence out of proportion to their numbers, and within 150 to 200 years the Romaniote, Hungarian, Bavarian, French and Italian communities had all merged into them. Judeo-Spanish became the common language.

This is unusual. In Salonika each origin group kept its own synagogue for centuries. In Bulgaria they did not — which is why the earlier layers are so hard to see in the records, and why “Sephardi” in a Bulgarian context describes a culture rather than reliably describing descent.

Jews continued to arrive at new trading centres such as Pazardzhik. Their position improved after the Chiprovtsi Uprising of 1688, when many Ragusan merchants were banished from the country and Jewish traders took up the space.

Ashkenazim arrived again at the turn of the twentieth century from Romania, Russia and Ukraine, and came to form about a tenth of Bulgarian Jewry.

How did they make a living?

Trade, in the towns on the Danube and the roads south. The communities sat on the trading routes rather than at ports, and Bulgaria has almost no coastline.

Sabbatai Zevi’s movement took hold in Bulgaria in the seventeenth century; Nathan of Gaza and Samuel Primo were active in Sofia.

Under the Alliance Israélite Universelle from 1870, fourteen Jewish schools operated in Bulgaria.

Where did they go?

Overwhelmingly to Israel, and late.

Bulgarian Jews left in 1948–49 in a single concentrated migration: 43,961 people emigrated to Israel from Bulgaria between 1948 and 2006, the fourth largest European group after the Soviet Union, Romania and Poland. The community fell from 44,209 in 1946 to 6,027 in 1956.

Earlier movement was to Palestine, particularly Jerusalem, and it is well documented. Bulgarian Jews turn up in the Ottoman Palestine records repeatedly: Gabriel Almosnino, born Nikopol 1830, chief rabbi of Sofia and of Bulgaria 1876–89, who moved to Jerusalem and died there; Ezra Astruk of Sofia, who went to Jerusalem in 1882; Meshulam Shaltiel, born Sofia 1870, died Jerusalem 1926; Rahamim Asseo, born Dupnitsa 1886, teacher at Kyustendil and Rustchuk before Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

There was also nineteenth- and twentieth-century movement to Vienna, which had a Sephardi Turkish community. Bulgarian families appear in the Vienna registers from at least 1818.

If you lose a Bulgarian family, look next at Salonika, Istanbul, Vienna, Jerusalem and, for the earlier period, Ragusa (Dubrovnik).

What do Bulgarian Jewish surnames tell you?

Bulgarian Jewish surnames are unusually well studied. Mathilde Tagger’s Dictionary of Jewish Surnames in Bulgaria covers 803 names with variants, language of origin, meaning and, where known, a Spanish medieval reference. It builds on Isaac Moskona’s 1967 article, which listed 509.

The name groups map directly onto the migration history.

Hebrew. Biblical given names used as surnames; names describing qualities, plants, animals, professions; translations of foreign place names — Yarhi from Lunel and Harari from Montpellier, both playing on “moon” and “mountain”; names formed with mi/me, as Mitrani (from Trani) and Mefano (from Fano); names formed with the suffix -i, as Ashkenazi, Mizrahi, Agranati (Granada), Saragosti (Zaragoza). Compounds with ben or bar: Barisak, Barnatan, Benyakar. Three acronyms: Bekhar (ben kvod rabbi), Bekhmoaram and Bekhmoaras.

Greek, from the Romaniote layer — about 20 names, including Kalo, Moskona, Pilosof, Pizanti.

Hungarian and German, from the 1376 and 1470 expulsions. These arrivals had no surnames and acquired nicknames, usually Turkish: Madjar (Hungarian), Budun (from Buda, which may have become Botton), Ashkenazi / Eskenazi / Shkenazi, Tedeski (German in Italian). Garti is thought to derive from Gartach in Württemberg.

French, from 1394: Galiko (French in Greek), Sarfati (French in Hebrew), Crespin (Crespian near Nîmes), Kuzi (Cuzy), Salinas.

Arabic, about 40 names, from the centuries of coexistence in Spain: Aboav, Alfandari, Amar, Danon, Sidi. Most denote a position or profession — Almuli, Alsheikh, Alsaid, Sidi (chief, master); Alfandari (tax collector), Amar (builder), Hakim (physician), Nadjar (carpenter). Only four are places, all outside Spain: Alfassi (Fez), Alhalel (Hebron), Aladjem (Persia), Tarabulus (Tripoli).

Spanish, about 120 names, half of them Spanish localities — Cordoba, Granada, Leon, Toledo, and many small villages. Others describe appearance (Amarillo, Calvo, Fresco, Ninio), character (Amado, Angel, Bueno, Kerido), trade (Serrero, the wax-chandler; Trapero, ragman; Purgador, the man who koshers meat) or are nicknames (Calderon, Prezenti).

Portuguese, very few — Oliver, Perrera. Portuguese Jews mostly went north to Amsterdam, Hamburg and London, or to Livorno.

Italian, more than 40 names, nearly half from Italian localities: Benito, Capua, Fano, Florentino, Maestro, Modiano, Romano.

Turkish, more than 70 names — nine per cent of the total. Bakhshi (gift), Bakal (grocer), Kantardji (weigher), Pamuk (cotton dealer), Tchelebi (sir), Aslan (lion). Few are places: Madjar (Hungarian), Gurdji (Georgia), Kadas (Jerusalem), Shamli (Damascus), Valadji (Wallachia). None refers to Turkey itself.

Why did Bulgarian Jewish names change after 1878?

Before independence the Bulgarian language had almost no effect on Jewish surnames. Afterwards, the Bulgarian patronymic suffixes -ov, -ev and -ski were applied formally in schools, the army and government offices — a process that accelerated once Jews were conscripted.

Turkish names went first: Shekerdji and Kuyumdji became Shekerdjiiski and Kuyumdjiiski; Kantardji became Kantardjiev. Patronymics followed: Nissim to Nissimov, Samuil to Samuilov, Haim to Haimov. Women’s forms took the feminine ending: Davidova, Abramova, Zachariyeva. Locality names hardened into surnames: Samakovski, Kiustendilski, Plevenski.

A second caution, for 1941–44. The Law for the Protection of the Nation regulated Jewish names. Foreign given names were forbidden and had to be replaced — men reverted to the name given at circumcision, and women were very largely renamed Sara. A man recorded as Boris before 1941 may appear as Shabetay in wartime records, and the same woman may be Doris in one document and Sara in the next.

Tagger’s dictionary is searchable at sephardicgen.com.

Which towns had communities?

Sofia. Three separate communities — Romaniote, Ashkenazi and Sephardi — until 1640, when a single rabbi was appointed over all three. More than half of Bulgaria’s Jews lived in Sofia by 1934. The Central Synagogue, designed by the Austrian architect Friedrich Grünanger, was consecrated in 1909 in the presence of Tsar Ferdinand I.

Plovdiv (Philippopolis). One of the oldest sites, with an excavated second-century synagogue mosaic now in the Regional Archaeological Museum.

Vidin. A Hungarian and then Bavarian settlement on the Danube; synagogue renovated 2023.

Nikopol. Joseph Karo, author of the Shulchan Aruch, was raised there.

Ruse (Rustchuk). Home of the Rosanes family, including the historian Solomon Abraham Rosanes.

Burgas. Synagogue now an art gallery.

Other communities existed at Silistra, Pleven, Yambol, Stara Zagora, Samokov, Pazardzhik, Kyustendil, Shumen, Dupnitsa, Sliven and Varna. The central rabbinical court had authority over the batei din of Sofia, Plovdiv and Ruse.

Are there transcribed cemeteries?

JewishGen’s Online Worldwide Burial Registry holds transcriptions and photographs from Sofia, Plovdiv and Ruse.

The registers of the Sofia Jewish community cemetery for 1914–67 hold more than 9,000 names, and were one of Moskona’s three sources for his 1967 surname list.

JewishGen’s Cemetery Discovery Project lists towns with a former Jewish population that may have burial sites: Burgas, Dupnitsa, Kyustendil, Nikopol, Pazardzhik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Ruse, Sliven, Stara Zagora and Vidin.

What records survive?

Record type	Years	Where
Ottoman kadi court protocols	Pre-1878	Oriental Collections, St Cyril and Methodius National Library, Sofia
Civil registration of births and deaths	From 1891, mandatory 1898	Bulgarian State Archives
Censuses	1880, 1887, 1892, 1900, 1905, 1910, 1920, 1926, 1934, 1946	Bulgarian State Archives
Sofia taxpayers’ list	1937	6,300 names
Sofia Jewish cemetery registers	1914–67	9,000+ names
Alliance Israélite Universelle bulletins	1895–1910	Donors and members supporting the fourteen Bulgarian Jewish schools
Collective passports, emigration to Israel	Oct 1948 – Jun 1949	Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem (microfilm)

The Oriental Collections Department of the St Cyril and Methodius National Library in Sofia is the third largest archive of Ottoman documents in the world. The kadi court protocols are the principal source for the pre-1878 community; the Sofia protocol book has been published in German translation by Galab Galabov and Herbert Duda as Die Protokollbücher des Kadiamtes Sofia, 462 pages and indexed.

The collective passports of 1948–49 are the single most productive source for Bulgarian Jewish surnames. Tagger found 294 names in them that Moskona’s earlier list had missed. If your family left in that migration, start here.

Birth, marriage and death certificates are today issued by municipal civil registration offices (Матричен отдел).

Where else should you look?

Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem. Holds Bulgarian communal documents, personal files, and the microfilmed emigration passports.

Alliance Israélite Universelle, Paris. Finding aid for Bulgaria. The Alliance ran fourteen schools in Bulgaria from 1870 and published donor and member lists.

Vienna. Bulgarian Sephardi families appear in the registers of the Vienna Turkish-Israelite community from 1818 onward — births, burials and residence records naming Vidin, Rustchuk, Sofia and Pleven as places of origin.

Yad Vashem and the USHMM databases, for the Holocaust in the occupied territories.

EHRI Portal, which indexes Holocaust-era fonds in Bulgarian repositories.

Who is named in the Bulgarian sources?

Bulgarian Sephardi families recorded in the Vienna registers, 1818 onward. Aftalion · Aladjem · Alfandary · Alkalay · Arav · Arditti · Arie · Ariel · Asaria · Ascher · Asriel · Assa · Asseo · Baruch · Behar · Behmuaras · Bejarano · Ben Aron · Calmi · Camhi · Canetti · Cohen · Djerassi · Eschua · Eskenasy · Faraggi · Finzi · Gadol · Galimir · Gattegno · Heskia · Illel · Koen · Levy · Melamed · Modiano · Mordechay · Nachmias · Nissim · Pappo · Penhas · Presenti · Profetta · Rufana · Russo · Salom · Sarfati · Sasson · Schemtov · Seliktar · Semo · Sotto · Ventura

Rabbis and scholars. Meir Levy Eskenazi, born Nuremberg, early sixteenth century, at Nikopol and Sofia before Salonika · Meir Angel, from Salonika, at Constantinople, Sofia and Belgrade before Safed; author of Keshet Nehusha (Constantinople, 1593) · Joseph Ben Ezra, a Salonican at the head of the Romaniote community in Sofia, early seventeenth century · Meir Ben Sanche, from Salonika, rabbi in Sofia · Abraham Alcalay, born Salonika, rabbi at Dupnitsa, died Safed 1811 · Yitshak Abulafia, chief rabbi of Sofia, died Jerusalem 1819 · Eliezer Papo, born Sarajevo 1785, rabbi at Silistra, died 1828 · Gabriel Almosnino, called Merkado, born Nikopol 1830, chief rabbi of Sofia and of Bulgaria 1876–89, died Jerusalem · Abraham Rosanes, known as ABIR, Rustchuk 1838–77, who kept a yeshiva in his house · David Abraham Pipano, chief rabbi of Sofia, died 1924 · Juda Adout of Vidin

Notables. Abraham Astruk, among the notables of Sofia, who had a synagogue in his house and headed the hevra kadisha, died 1878 · Yosef Tadjer, born Sofia 1876, lawyer and among the first Zionists in Bulgaria · Yosef Abraham Papo, Rustchuk c.1875–1933

What happened in the twentieth century?

The Jewish population rose from 18,519 in 1880 to a peak of 48,565 in 1934, always about 0.8 to 0.9 per cent of the country. Ladino remained dominant in most communities, though the young increasingly preferred Bulgarian.

The Law for the Protection of the Nation, modelled on the Nuremberg Laws, came into force in January 1941. It barred Jews from voting, office, government work, the army, and land ownership, forbade mixed marriage and the use of Bulgarian names, imposed a 20 per cent capital levy, and set university quotas. Jewish men were conscripted into forced labour battalions rather than the army. From August 1942 Jews wore yellow stars.

In March 1943 the Bulgarian authorities deported all 11,343 Jews from the occupied territories of Macedonia, Thrace and Pirot through Bulgaria to Vienna and onward. Twelve survived.

When preparations began to deport the Jews of Bulgaria proper, Dimitar Peshev and 42 other members of parliament, together with Metropolitan Stefan and others, forced a halt. Deportation was suspended indefinitely in May 1943. Instead, 20,000 Jews were expelled from Sofia to the provinces, allowed 30 kg of property each and forced to sell or abandon the rest.

Most of the community left for Israel in 1948–49. About 1,153 Jews were recorded in the 2021 census.

Sephardic World lectures on Bulgaria

Jewish Bulgaria: A Virtual Sephardic Journey — Joseph Benatov (2023, not recorded)
Ladino Culture and Jewish Identity in Bulgaria — Leah Davcheva (2024)
The Story of Sephardic Surnames: Fruit Trees, Catholic Themes and ‘Expert Lists’ — Michael Waas (2022)
Researching Jewish Ancestors in the Ottoman Empire — David Mendoza (2023)

Help us find records

We are looking for:

Any index or transcription of the Ottoman kadi protocols naming Jews, beyond the published Sofia volume
The 1937 Sofia taxpayers’ list
Registers of the Sofia Jewish cemetery, 1914–67
Records of the fourteen Alliance schools in Bulgaria
Material on the smaller communities: Samokov, Pazardzhik, Kyustendil, Dupnitsa, Yambol, Sliven
Family papers from any Bulgarian Sephardi family

Please email [email protected]. Material contributed is credited, and we work under whatever conditions you set.

Research services

Bulgarian research means Ottoman court records in Turkish, civil registration in Bulgarian, and a surname that may have changed twice — once at Bulgarian independence and again under the wartime name laws. If you would like help, you can hire a Sephardic genealogist.

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