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JEWISH HERITAGE EUROPE
An Online Resource Centre
ALBANIA
Tirana
Berat
Elbasan
Permeti
Saranda
Vlora
There may have been settlements of Jews in the northern region of Albania since early Roman times. There is a legend that 2000 years ago, a ship full of Jewish slaves from Palestine blew off course en route to Rome; the survivors landed at Illyria, or Albania. During the Communist period, Albanian archeologists discovered the remains of a 5th- or 6th-century synagogue at Saranda on the coast, opposite the Greek island of Corfu, excavated in 2003 by a joint team from the Archaeology Institute of the Albanian Academy of Sciences and the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology.
Documentary or physical evidence of Jews in Albania is sparse for the medieval period, but Benjamin of Tudela, the 12th century Spanish Jewish traveller and writer, states that Jews were settled in the region in his time. Greek-speaking Jews (Romaniote Jews) are believed to have come to Albania from Salonika (Greece) at the end of the 14th century, and Jews may also have migrated there from Hungary.
Following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Jewish exiles settled in Albanian seaports, where they were joined by refugees from other areas. Trading communities developed at Berat, Durazzo, Elbassan, and Valona. As elsewhere in the Sephardi diaspora, synagogues were founded by Jews from Castile, Catalonia, Sicily, Portugal and Apulia in southern Italy. None of the sites of these synagogues are known today.
Albania was ruled by the Ottoman empire from 1478 to 1913. Shabbetai Zevi (1626-1676), the famous false messiah, was exiled to Albania by the Sultan of Turkey in 1673. He died in Dulcigno in 1676, and some believe he is buried in Berat.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Jews in Albania suffered the extortions of Ali Pasha (military ruler of the Ottoman province of Rumelia from 1788 to 1822). After 1850, Jews again came from Greece, establishing a community at Vlora. The Jewish minority suffered when accused of collaborating in the suppression of the rebels in the Albanian revolt of 1911. After World War I there were only about 200 Jews in the entire country, mostly in Koritsa (Korçë), capital city of the district of the same name.
By the beginning of World War II, an influx of refugees had expanded the Albanian Jewish community to about 600. With little history of anti-Semitism, many were kept hidden by locals. Most Albanian Jews thus survived the Holocaust, including the refugees who had fled there from Serbia and Croatia, though the Jews of Pristina in nearby Kosovo did not fare as well. During ceremonies to unveil the names of Albanian protectors of Jews on the 'Rescuer's Wall' at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, USA in 1995, the then Director of the Museum, Miles Lerman, commented that, 'Albania was the only country in Europe which had a larger Jewish population at the end of the war than before it!'
Religion was banned under the Communist regime and the Jews of Albania were effectively cut off from the world. In 1991, after the fall of Communism, most of the small Albanian Jewish community was airlifted to Israel. Only a handful of Jews remain in the country, most of them in Tirana, the capital.
There are no reports of Jewish sites in the capital.
Berat, about 125 kilometres south of Tirana, may be the burial place of Shabbetai Zevi. An annual fair is held on his assumed burial site.
www.amyisrael.co.il/europe/albania/
This city in central Albania has a section known as the Jewish Quarter (Samer).
A synagogue with a portico in Permeti, Albania, is mentioned in a report on the conservation of a Greek synagogue in Veroia. It is uncertain if this building still exists.
www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/034/6.html
Anchiasmon (Onchesmos)
At this city on the Adriatic coast, opposite the Greek island of Corfu, the remains of an ancient synagogue were excavated in 2003. The building dates from the 5th or 6th century, and is the first ancient synagogue known in Albania. Remains of synagogues of other Late Antique Jewish communities are known from elsewhere in the Balkans and south-eastern Europe (for example at Plovdiv, Bulgaria and Stobi, Macedonia) and in Southern Italy (Bova Marina and Venosa). Albanian archaeologists apparently first discovered remains in the area 20 years ago; the prohibition of religion under the then Communist regime prevented them from further exploring what was already thought to be a religious site. The subject matter of the exceptional mosaics found at the site suggested a Jewish past, leading to a joint project between archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology in Tirana and the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
According to archaeologists Gideon Foerster and Ehud Netzer of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 'five stages were identified in the history of the site. In the two early stages fine mosaic pavements (2nd to 4th century), probably part of a private home, preceded the later synagogue and church. In the third stage several rooms were added, the largest of these containing a mosaic pavement representing in its centre a menorah flanked by a shofar (ram's horn) and an etrog (citron), all symbols associated with Jewish festivals. Mosaic pavements also decorated the other rooms. A large basilical hall added in the last two stages of the history of the site (5th to 6th century) represents the heyday of the Jewish community of Anchiasmon (Onchesmos), the ancient name of Saranda'. The structure measures 20 by 24 metres and was probably last used in the 6th century as a church, as evidenced by two dedicatory inscriptions in the mosaic pavement.
On a related note, a gravestone dating from 521 from the Jewish cemetery in Venosa, Italy bears the name of Augusta, daughter of Yishai, head of the Jewish community of Anchiasmon. Ties between the Greek and Albanian coastal settlements and southern Italy have always been strong, never more so than in antiquity.
Vlor, Vloré, Valona. Hebrew: Avilona
One possible synagogue remains at this city on the Adriatic coast north of Saranda; it is unused. Details of its history may be found on the Maimon family website. There was a cemetery. Sarner found a tombstone in about 1990.
www.ttec.com/maimon/normand.htm
There are no reports of active synagogues or community centres.
Albania-Israel Friendship Society:
Address
Telephone
Rruga Barriskatave
226 Tirana
+355 422 2611
Arbell, Mordecai. 'The Jewish Community of Vlor-Valona-Avilona':
www.sefarad.org/publication/lm/050/html/page16.html
Christo, Van. 'The Jews of Albania and their salvation during the Holocaust,'
Frosina Information Network, posted on-line 20 January 2005:
www.frosina.org/articles/default.asp?id=167
Encyclopedia Judaica, Jerusalem, 1972, 2, pp 522-23.
Foerster, Gideon and Netzer, Ehud. 'A Byzantine Synagogue Identified: Recent Excavations in Southern Albania', Abstract of lecture delivered to Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society,
www.aias.org.uk, Lecture delivered at The British Museum, 20 June 2005.
www.frosina.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2256&PN=4
Jewish Daily Bulletin, 17 April 1934, vol. XI, number 2821
Jewish Virtual Library:
www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/albania.html
Pinkowski, Jennifer. 'Albanian Synagogue Surfaces', Archaeology, Archeological
Institute of America, January/February 2004, p 12
www.archaeology.org/0401/newsbriefs/albania.html
Sarner, Harvey.
Rescue in Albania: One Hundred Percent of Jews in Albania Rescued from Holocaust:
Brunswick Press, 1997
www.juedisches-archiv-chfrank.de/kehilot/albania/alban-resc.htm
Scholem, Gershom G. 'Shabbetai Zevi'
Encyclopedia Judaica, Jerusalem, 1972, 14, pp 1219-1254
Scholem, Gershom G. (R J Zwi Werblowsky, trans)
Sabbatai Sevi: The Mystical Messiah, Princeton, 1973, 1989 ed.
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