Aug 3, 2008 6:43 am Mood: disappointed, 1914 Views
The Central Jewish Board of Greece (CJBG) has protested the decision of Salonika not to include the northern port city in the "Network of Martyred Cities and Villages 1940-1945." The network, with more than 50 cities and villages, was created several years ago to honour the victims of the Nazi era regardless of religion. The ruling group, headed by Salonika's mayor George Papageorgopoulos, rejected the bill by saying that the killing of 91% of the Jewish population of Salonika was not committed in the city but out of it, in the Nazi concentration camps. He also argued that the Jews lived in the city since only 500 years, after being expelled from Spain in 1492. The decision was heavily criticized by the media as an "abomination,", an "insult to the memory of the Jews and lacking fundamental knowledge of history."
The first Jews arrived to Salonika when the city was founded by Alexander the Great in 315 BC. But Jews lived there in the 1st century because according to official Christian religious writings, Saint Paul preached for 3 consecutive Sabbaths at the Salonika synagogue. Jews of Salonika are mentioned also in the writings of Flavius Josephus and in a letter from Herod to Caligula dating back to the 10th century AD. Home to a thriving Sephardic Jewish community of around 50,000 people before World War II, Salonika was once known as the "Jerusalem of the Balkans." Virtually all of the city's Jews perished in Nazi extermination camps.
