Athens
Athens, one of the world's most celebrated cities, has always been a bustling cosmopolitan
capital. In the heart of the Agora, a mere stone's throw away from the Acropolis, stood an
unusual building believed by some scholars to have been the first synagogue in Greece
dating back to the 5th century B.C.E.
During the time of Alexander the Great and in the centuries that followed, Jewish life was
concentrated in the northern part of Greece. Not until the 19th century, when Greece
gained its independence from the Turks, did a Jewish community begin to grow and prosper
in Athens.
Notably, the first influx of Ashkenazi Jews from Northern Europe came to Athens after the
liberation, with the entourage of Greece's first king, Otto 1. Among the Ashkenazim was
the German banking family of Baron de Rothschild. The Rothschilds were to play an
important role in shaping Athens Jewish community.
Legal recognition came in 1889 when the Jewish community was large enough to be formally
recognized as a religious minority.
By 1900 Jews from all parts of Greece, including a large contingent from northwestern city
of Ioannina, lived in Athens.
The synagogue at 5 Melidoni Street was built in 1905 to accommodate the growing community
that numbered 3,000
by the 1940s.
Although the Holocaust took its greatest toll on the Jews of Thessaloniki, Athens was also
a center of Nazi percecution. The Germans began rounding up Jews in 1943 and in one year
800 Athenian Jews were sent to the camps.
Many Jews were saved however through the heroic efforts of the Greek Police and Greek
resistance. Aided by the Greek Orthodox Church, some Athenian Jews went into hiding and
escaped by boat to Asia Minor and eventually, to Palestine.
Today, Athens is home to the Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece - the governing
body of the 6,000- member Greek Jewish Community.
The council is composed of representatives of the Jewish communities in Athens and other
parts of Greece. More than two - thirds of Greek Jews now reside in Athens.
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