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| Athens |
| Jewish life since the time of Alexander the Great |
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| The Jewish Museum in downtown Athens. |
The Jewish presence in Athens dates from the 3rd century BC. A Jewish synagogue discovered at the Ancient Agora, at the foothills of the Acropolis, bears witness to the existence of a Jewish community in this ancient city since at least the 3rd century BC.
In 1832 when the New Greek State was established, the city of Athens, which was then almost abandoned, had no Jewish population. After the moving of the capital to Athens, the first Jews of modern times to settle there were from Bavaria and were a part of the escort of King Otto. Among them there was the Rotsild family which played a significant role in the foundation of the Jewish community. Later on, the Jewish community came under the auspices of Sofia de Marboua, the Dutchess of Placentia.
The Romanian Synagogue was built in 1904 and the Beth Shalom Synagogue in 1935. Before the Second World War the local community had about 3 thousand members. The Athens Jewish community is Romany, speaks Greek and is fully assimilated with the city and the nation. In 1940 there were 3,500 Jews in Athens and they lived all around the city.
When the Nazis marched into Athens, in April 1941, the Greek capital came under Italian administration and the city’s Jewish community enjoyed 3 years of relative safety. Jews from Thessaloniki and other Greek cities came to Athens in those years to escape persecution by the Germans.
Barzelai, the city’s Chief Rabbi, had strong ties with the local authorities and with EAM, the main Greek armed resistance organization. Those contacts, combined with the full support of Archbishop Damaskinos of Athens, contributed to 68% of the local Jewish community escaping extermination.
The Chief of Police, Angelos Evert, issued false identity cards and Archbishop Damaskinos ordered the city’s parishes to issue fake baptism certificates for those threatened with deportation to the extermination camps of Central Europe. Athenian Christians hid whole Jewish families in their homes.
On March 24, 1944, German troops rounded up 1,690 Jews from Athens and Thessaloniki refugees and deported them to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
After the war, Athens became the main destination for Jews returning to Greece and the population increased to 4,940. Today, with a community numbering 3,000, Athens is the hub of Jewish life in Greece and both synagogues are still active. |
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