Sephardic Jews of Salonica / Thessaloniki
Salonica was until 1922 a Jewish majority city, largely inhabited by eastern Sephardi Jews descended from those expelled from Spain in 1492, and later Portuguese arrivals. The city’s Jewish population also included Romaniote and Ashkenazi Jews.
Here are some names of some Salonican synagogues: Ashkenaz, Provence, Italy, Sicily, Spain, Castile, Catalonia, Aragon, Majorca, Lisbon, Portugal, Evora, Calabria, and Puglia. See also: In Search of Salonika’s Lost Synagogues. An Open Question Concerning Intangible Heritage by Cristina Pallini and Annalisa Riccarda Scaccabarozzi
Salonica was a centre of kabbalism (Jewish mysticism). In the 1650s Sabbatai Zevi, the false messiah, spent time in the city and won many adherents, known as Dönmeh. I believe it was from Salonika that sabbateanism spread into the Jewish communities in western Europe.
Western Sephardi merchants arrived there later and often would establish business relationships with their eastern cousins. In the 17th Century, western Sephardim sometimes appear to be representing the commercial interests of west European countries such as France and England, and had the protection of those governments.
Economic decline led to emigration to the Americas, Western Europe and Egypt. From the mid-19th Century, the city’s Jews were caught between the competing nationalisms of Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia. The introduction of conscription in the Ottoman Empire in 1909 led to some migration.
The city was conquered by Greece in 1912. This was followed by immediate Hellenisation of the city, which was not popular with the Jews. The Greek annexation of Salonica cut the port city off from its hinterland which caused economic problems and was a further cause of migration.
The Greeks wanted population details. The archdiocese provided information on Christians and, reportedly the a list of 26,542 Jewish men. The Austro-Hungarian consulate told them about an Ottoman census in 1902. A Greek census conducted by the General Administration of Macedonia in 1913 reported 61,439 Jews in Salonica, representing 39% of the population. This was felt to be under-reporting, and the Jewish population was estimated to be 45%. What survives of the census is in the Historical Archive of Macedonia, Archive of the General Administration of Macedonia, file 45.
A massive fire on 18 August 1917 destroyed a large part of the city, including most of the Jewish quarter. 32 synagogues, 10 rabbinic libraries, 8 Jewish schools, the Jewish community archives, and a significant number of Jewish institutions, businesses, and clubs were reduced to ashes. 10,000 Jewish families were left homeless. The restoration of the city was used to impose further Hellenization, including expropriation of Jewish properties and dispersing the Jewish community throughout the city. Some sources blamed the fire on the Greek government.
The resettlement of 100,000 Greeks from Turkey in the city in 1922 turned the Jews into a minority. At the same time the Turkish Muslim and Dönmeh communities were transferred to Turkey. Perhaps more than the Fire, the whole nature of the city changed in 1922.
The Alliance schools taught in French, and France became the major destination for Jewish emigrants. Migrants also went to the Americas and, I think, Egypt.
A 1924 law forced Sunday closing on Jewish-owned businesses, which damaged their income. Anti-Semitic riots broke out on 29 June 1931. The Camp Campbell area, the poorest Jewish neighbourhood, was destroyed and 500 Jewish families made homeless. The pogrom was carried out by Greek refugees from Asia Minor. The Greek government stated the attack was not anti-Semitic!
Most of the city’s Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. Much of the huge cemetery was destroyed first by the Nazis and then by the university. The Holocaust is covered in detail elsewhere, so I won’t discuss it here. Obviously, names can be found on the Yad Vashem website.
Sephardic Jewish Genealogy in Salonica / Thessaloniki
Researching Salonican Jews is possible, but involves checking numerous resources, often for meager results.
See Joseph Nehama’s seven volume Histoire des Israélites de Salonique. Mathilde Tagger created a master index.
The Cercle de Genealogie Juive in France has transcribed a number of registers from Salonica, and partially transcribed the census of the Jewish population taken in 1917-1918 after the Great Fire.
Les Archives de l’Alliance Israelite Universelle et la Communaute Juive de Salonique: Naissances, Mariages, Deces (1864-1919) by Joseph Nehama. This book, written in French, contains transcriptions of birth, marriage, and death records from the Jewish community of Thessaloniki (Salonique) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as an index of names. Publisher: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), 1978. ISBN: 978-2701801226.
The Ottoman State Archives contain information on Jewish families in Salonica, but these records can be difficult to access, let alone read. Also, often people were recorded by their first names only.
In 1945 on the outskirts of Berlin, the Red Army captured a train whose cargo included 297 files from the Jewish community of Thessaloniki and another 117 from the Athens community. The Russian Government agreed to return these documents to Greece but has yet to do so. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has digitised this collection. See also https://www.jct.gr/AlikiArouh-Symposium2017%20en.pdf See also: https://www.kathimerini.gr/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Records_of_the_Jewish_Community_of_Thessaloniki___.pdf
Salonica records in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People. This is a significant collection of the post-fire period.
A useful article in Greek: https://parallaximag.gr/thessaloniki/istoria-evraikon-oikogeneion-tis-thessalonikis
Greek Ancestry are doing similar research as ourselves. They have a YouTube channel.
Jewish Newspapers in Salonica
The Journal de Salonique was a French-language Jewish newspaper published in Salonica between 1895 and 1910. Some copies survive.
Le Progrès de Salonique was another French-language newspaper.
El Avenir (also called El Futuro or El Porvenir) was a Zionist newspaper published between 1900 and 1918.
La Epoca, El Shamar (איל שאמאר) and El Rizon were Judeo-Spanish newspapers published in Salonica. I don’t know what copies survive.
Aksiyon was published from 1928 under Greek rule.
The Central Municipal Library of the Municipality of Thessaloniki has a project to digitise newspapers from the city.
Salonica Jews in Diplomatic Archives
It is possible that the diplomatic archives of foreign countries will help fill the gaps in our knowledge of the Jews of Salonica. Some work has been done on Jews in French diplomatic archives, but virtually nothing on the British, Italian, Spanish and others. The Sephardic Genealogical Society is seeking funding to research these records.
Archives of the Italian consulate in Salonica.
Le consulat de France à Salonique 1781-1913. A doctoral thesis on the French consulate in Salonica.
Records of the British consulate in Salonica.
Jews and European Subjects in Eighteenth-Century Salonica: The Ottoman Perspective, by Eyal Ginio
Article on Spain and the Sephardic community of Salonica during the fire of 1917.
For those researching early modern Western Sephardic merchants in Salonica, I assume British records are held at the National Archives in London. I think French records are in the Archives de la Chambre de Commerce et de l’Industrie, in Marseille. I assume they are in AA1801 (Archives antérieures à 1801).
Post-war transformation of Thessaloniki and the fate of the Jewish assets
(Greek) Macedonian Historic Archives
A Sketch of the State of Primary Education Among the Jews of the East, and Especially Among the Jews of Salonika, by Moise Allatini, 1875. Translated from the Italian
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