Salonika

The last three days of our time in Greece was spent in Salonika. Salonika or Thessaloniki as it is sometimes called, was home to the largest Jewish population in all of Greece. Pre-holocaust it was home to more than 250,000 jews and was often called the second israel. Going to visit this beautiful city we saw all that remains of the jewish quarter, meat with the jewish teens of the city and experienced a Shabat in Greece.

What was so sad for most of us was that the jewish people of Salonika have not moved forward. Instead of embracing the past and challenging themselves to move to the present they have allowed themselves to get stuck in the first few years after the Holocaust. Even talking to the jewish teens you could feel how disconnected they felt from modern-day Judaism and how close they felt to our horrible past. Additionally, we saw many museums and ruins continuously reminding us of what Salonika used to be like and nothing of what it is really like now. Below are some pictures from the city and a lovely fish meal we ate at the community center. All and all Salonika was a very intresting place to visit from a historians perspective but a very sad place to visit at the same time.