Destinations - Greece

It is mentioned in Isaiah that Greece is one of the countries to which the Jews would be exiled. Jews lived in Greece during the time of the first Temple and it is possible they came there as slaves.

By the First Century CE synagogues and organised communities were to be found there. The city of Salonika once had the largest of all Jewish communities in the Orient. It was known as the Jewish pearl of the Mediterranean and remained virtually a Jewish city for 400 years until the beginning of the last century.

It became the centre for Torah studies for many generations. Many eminent Torah scholars, poets, doctors and scientists went there from Spain.

The decline of the community took hundreds of years under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. There was a brief renaissance when the Turkish Empire started to fail in the 19th century.

During the Second World War, under the German occupation, the Nazis deported 65,000 Jews from Salonika and the community was exterminated.

Today, in Thessaloniki, there are two synagogues, a growing community and an old Jewish quarter with fine merchant houses.