History of the Jews in Thessaloniki

The history of the Jews of Thessaloniki reaches back two thousand years. The city of Thessaloniki (also known as Salonika) housed a major Jewish community, mostly Eastern Sephardim, until the middle of the Second World War. Sephardic Jews immigrated to the city following the expulsion of Jews from Spain by Catholic rulers under the Alhambra Decree of 1492. It is the only known example of a city of this size in the Jewish diaspora that retained a Jewish majority for centuries.^{[citation needed]} This community influenced the Sephardic world both culturally and economically, and the city was nicknamed la madre de Israel (mother of Israel).

The community experienced a "golden age" in the 16th century, when they developed a strong culture in the city. Like other groups in Ottoman Greece, they continued to practice traditional culture during the time when Western Europe was undergoing industrialization. In the middle of the 19th century, Jewish educators and entrepreneurs came to Thessaloniki from Western Europe to develop schools and industries; they brought contemporary ideas from Europe that changed the culture of the city. With the development of industry, both Jewish and other ethnic populations became industrial workers and developed a large working class, with labor movements contributing to the intellectual mix of the city. In the 1920s, a century after Greece achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire (the city was captured from the Ottoman Empire by Greece in late 1912), it allowed Jews to be full citizens of the country.

During World War II, Greece was occupied by Nazi Germany and its allies. In 1941, the Axis Powers started systematically persecuting the Salonican Jews. In 1943, the Salonican Jews were forced into a ghetto near the rail lines, and deportations began to the concentration camps and labor camps. The majority of the 72,000 in the community were murdered in the camps. This resulted in the near-extermination of the community. Only 1,200 Jews live in the city today.