Editing Thessaloniki (section)

===Jews of Thessaloniki===
{{Main|History of the Jews in Thessaloniki{{!}}History of the Jews of Thessaloniki}}
[[File:Diaspora salonika.svg|thumb|upright=1.1|Paths of Jewish immigration to the city]]
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The Jewish population in Greece is the oldest in mainland Europe (see [[Romaniote Jews|Romaniotes]]). When [[Paul the Apostle]] came to Thessaloniki, he taught in the area of what today is called ''Upper City''. Later, during the Ottoman period, with the coming of Sephardic Jews from Spain, the community of Thessaloniki became mostly Sephardic. Thessaloniki became the largest centre in Europe of the [[Sephardic Jews]], who nicknamed the city ''la madre de Israel'' (Israel's mother)<ref name="Holocaust"/> and "Jerusalem of the Balkans".<ref>Abrams, Dennis (2009); ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=YkKVeMIMOmoC&dq=sarkozy+jewish&pg=PA26 Nicolas Sarkozy (Modern World Leaders)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230407070823/https://books.google.com/books?id=YkKVeMIMOmoC&dq=sarkozy+jewish&pg=PA26 |date=7 April 2023 }}'', Chelsea House Publishers, p. 26, Library Binding edition, {{ISBN|1-60413-081-4}}</ref> It also included the historically significant and ancient Greek-speaking [[Romaniote Jews|Romaniote]] community. During the [[Ottoman Empire|Ottoman]] era, Thessaloniki's Sephardic community was half of the population according to the Ottoman Census of 1902 and almost 40% the city's population of 157,000 about 1913; Jewish merchants were prominent in commerce until the ethnic Greek population increased after Thessaloniki was incorporated into the Kingdom of Greece in 1913. By the 1680s, about 300 families of Sephardic Jews, followers of [[Sabbatai Zevi]], had converted to [[Islam]], becoming a sect known as the ''[[Dönmeh]]'' (convert), and migrated to Salonika, whose population was majority Jewish. They established an active community that thrived for about 250 years. Many of their descendants later became prominent in trade.<ref>Kirsch, Adam [http://www.tnr.com/book/review/the-other-secret-jews ''The Other Secret Jews''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100217043805/http://www.tnr.com/book/review/the-other-secret-jews |date=17 February 2010 }} – Review of Marc David Baer's ''The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks'', ''The New Republic'', 15 February 2010. Retrieved 21 February 2010.</ref> Many Jewish inhabitants of Thessaloniki spoke [[Judaeo-Spanish|Judeo-Spanish]], the [[Romance languages|Romance language]] of the Sephardic Jews.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kushner |first=Aviya |title=Is the language of Sephardic Jews, undergoing a revival? |url=http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/2/Languages/Other_Jewish_Languages/Ladino/Today.shtml |work=My Jewish Learning |publisher=Ladino Today |access-date=9 April 2011 |archive-date=1 May 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110501014554/http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/2/Languages/Other_Jewish_Languages/Ladino/Today.shtml |url-status=dead}}</ref>

[[File:Jews of Salonika-1917.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Jewish family of Salonika in 1917]]

From the second half of the 19th century with the Ottoman reforms, the Jewish community had a new revival. Many French and especially [[Italian Jews]] (from [[Livorno]] and other cities), influential in introducing new methods of education and developing new schools and intellectual environments for the Jewish population, were established in Thessaloniki. Such modernists introduced also new techniques and ideas from the industrialised Western Europe and from the 1880s the city began to industrialize. The Italian-Jewish Allatini brothers led Jewish entrepreneurship, establishing [[Mill (grinding)|milling]] and other food industries, [[brick]]making and processing plants for [[tobacco]]. Several traders supported the introduction of a large textile-production industry, superseding the weaving of cloth in a system of artisanal production. Notable names of the era include among others the Italo-Jewish Modiano family and the [[Allatini (company)|Allatini]]. [[Benrubi SA|Benrubis]] founded also in 1880 one of the first retail companies in the Balkans.

After the [[Balkan Wars]], Thessaloniki was incorporated into the [[Kingdom of Greece]] in 1913. At first, the community feared that the annexation would lead to difficulties and during the first years its political stance was, in general, anti-[[Venizelism|Venizelist]] and pro-royalist/conservative. The [[Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917]] during [[World War I]] burned much of the centre of the city and left 50,000 Jews homeless of the total of 72,000 residents who were burned out.<ref name="History"/> Having lost homes and their businesses, many Jews emigrated to the United States, Palestine, and Paris. They could not wait for the government to create a new urban plan for rebuilding, which was eventually done.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Great Fire in Salonica |url=http://www.mlahanas.de/Greece/History/GreatFireInSalonica1917.html |work=Greece History |publisher=Hellenica Website |access-date=9 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111018013408/http://www.mlahanas.de/Greece/History/GreatFireInSalonica1917.html |archive-date=18 October 2011 }}</ref>

After the [[Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922)|Greco-Turkish War]] in 1922 and the bilateral population exchange between Greece and Turkey, many refugees came to Greece. Nearly 100,000 ethnic Greeks resettled in Thessaloniki, reducing the proportion of Jews in the total community. After this, Jews made up about 20% of the city's population. During the interwar period, Greece granted Jewish citizens the same [[civil rights]] as other Greek citizens.<ref name="History"/> In March 1926, Greece re-emphasized that all citizens of Greece enjoyed equal rights, and a considerable proportion of the city's Jews decided to stay. During the [[Metaxas regime]], the stance towards Jews improved even more.

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-R99237, Griechenland, Saloniki, antijüdisches Plakat.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|"Jews not welcomed" sign during the [[Axis occupation of Greece during World War II|Axis occupation]]]]
[[File:Monastir Synagogue.JPG|thumb|upright=0.9|[[Monastir Synagogue (Thessaloniki)|Monastir Synagogue]]]]

[[World War II]] brought disaster for the Jewish Greeks, since in 1941 the Germans occupied Greece and began actions against the Jewish population. Greeks of the [[Greek resistance|Resistance]] helped save some of the Jewish residents.<ref name="Holocaust"/> By the 1940s, the great majority of the Jewish Greek community firmly identified as both Greek and Jewish. According to [[Misha Glenny]], such Greek Jews had largely not encountered "anti-Semitism as in its North European form."<ref>Misha Glenny, ''The Balkans'', p.&nbsp;512.</ref>

In 1943, the Nazis began brutal actions against the historic Jewish population in Thessaloniki, forcing them into a [[ghetto]] near the railroad lines and beginning [[deportation]] to concentration and labor camps. They deported and exterminated approximately 94% of Thessaloniki's Jews of all ages during [[the Holocaust]].<ref name="Holocaust2">[http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/greece/nonflash/eng/salonika.htm www.ushmm.org "Jewish Community in Greece"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090506235802/http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/greece/nonflash/eng/salonika.htm |date=6 May 2009 }}, Online Exhibit, US Holocaust Museum. Retrieved 29 December 2010.</ref> The Thessaloniki [[The Holocaust|Holocaust]] memorial in Eleftherias ("Freedom") Square was built in 1997 in memory of all the Jewish people from Thessaloniki murdered in the Holocaust. The site was chosen because it was the place where Jewish residents were rounded up before embarking on trains for concentration camps.<ref>{{cite web |title=Holocaust Memorial/The Shoah Monument (Thessaloniki) |url=http://wikimapia.org/3909735/Holocaust-Memorial-The-Shoah-Monument |publisher=wikimapia |access-date=15 September 2012 |archive-date=12 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120912051512/http://wikimapia.org/3909735/Holocaust-Memorial-The-Shoah-Monument |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Thessaloniki Holocaust Memorial |url=http://www.memorialmuseums.org/eng/staettens/view/584/Thessaloniki-Holocaust-Memorial |publisher=Stiftung Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas |access-date=15 September 2012 |archive-date=9 January 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130109022317/http://www.memorialmuseums.org/eng/staettens/view/584/Thessaloniki-Holocaust-Memorial |url-status=live }}</ref> Today, a community of around 1,200 remains in the city.<ref name="Holocaust"/> Communities of descendants of Thessaloniki Jews&nbsp;– both Sephardic and Romaniote&nbsp;– live in other areas, mainly the United States and Israel.<ref name="Holocaust2"/> Israeli singer [[Yehuda Poliker]] recorded a song about the Jewish people of Thessaloniki, called "Wait for me, Thessaloniki".

{|class="wikitable sortable"
|-
! Year
! Total <br />population
! Jewish <br />population
! Jewish <br />percentage
! Source<ref name="History"/>
|-
|1842
|style="text-align:right;"|70,000
|style="text-align:right;"|36,000
|style="text-align:right;"|51%
|[[Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer]]
|-
|1870
|style="text-align:right;"|90,000
|style="text-align:right;"|50,000
|style="text-align:right;"|56%
|Greek schoolbook (G.K. Moraitopoulos, 1882)
|-
|1882/84
|style="text-align:right;"|85,000
|style="text-align:right;"|48,000
|style="text-align:right;"|56%
|Ottoman government census
|-
|1902
|style="text-align:right;"|126,000
|style="text-align:right;"|62,000
|style="text-align:right;"|49%
|Ottoman government census
|-
|1913
|style="text-align:right;"|157,889
|style="text-align:right;"|61,439
|style="text-align:right;"|39%
|Greek government census
|-
|1917
|style="text-align:right;"|271,157
|style="text-align:right;"|52,000
|style="text-align:right;"|19%
|<ref>J. Nehama, ''Histoire des Israélites de Salonique,'' t. VI-VII, Thessalonique 1978, p.&nbsp;765 (via [[:el:Μεγάλη πυρκαγιά της Θεσσαλονίκης 1917#cite note-2|Greek Wikipedia]]): the population was inflated because of refugees from the First World War</ref>
|-
|1943
|style="text-align:right;"|
|style="text-align:right;"|50,000
|style="text-align:right;"|
|
|-
|2000
|style="text-align:right;"|363,987<ref name="pop"/>
|style="text-align:right;"|1,000
|style="text-align:right;"|0.27%
|
|}