Contents Foreword Introduction. American Jews and Russian Jews on the Eve of World War I Part I. A Time of War. Shaping a Modus Operandi of Cooperation Chapter 1. The Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Committee for the Relief of War Victims Chapter 2. In Siberia under the Whites Chapter 3. In the Former Pale of Settlement Part 2. From Charity to "Productivization", 1920-1923 Chapter 4. Evobshchestkom: JDC between the old and the new Jewish activists Chapter 5. Under the auspices of ARA Chapter 6. From a painful "divorce" from the ARA to Sovnarkom backing Chapter 7. Last Year of Relief Work – 1923 Chapter 8. Reconstruction work. Assessment of the situation and selection of preferential areas of work Afterword Bibliography Index

The Holocaust claimed the lives of over 85% of Greece's Jews, a percentage among the highest in the continent. As with most of their coreligionists in liberated Europe, in the wake of the Holocaust, Greek Jews found themselves in dire straits. Looking through early 1945 reports, which the Athens-based Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (CBJCG) sent to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) and the Jewish Agency appealing for immediate assistance, one is inundated with images of embitterment and desperation. Of some 4,800 Jews in Athens alone, a figure that did not include survivors of the death camps who had yet to return, it was claimed that 85% were completely short of any kind of means to live on; 10% needed partial assistance; and only 5% were financially entirely independent. Severe food shortages, sleeping rough, and the ongoing civil war in the streets of the capital in the winter of 1944-45 had led to a considerable number of deaths. Worryingly, it was also asserted that "owing to their misery" many Jews had attempted to commit suicide. 1 The Jewish presence in Greece in the wake of the Holocaust by and large constitutes terra incognita. A key aim of this article is to give voice to the historical subject, at the collective and individual level. To this end a considerable part of the evidentiary material is drawn primarily from the archives of the CBJCG and the Jewish Community of Athens (JCA). The article aims to offer an account on the ins and outs of both the CBJCG and the reconstituted JCA in the early post-Holocaust era. It examines their activities vis-à-vis reconstruction, rehabilitation, emigration and reparations (for the CBJCG at the national level and for the JCA, at the local level), and seeks to address the extent to which the varied experiences of Holocaust survivors conditioned the two collective bodies' stances on the above burning issues.

Discussing the Jewish space requires a comprehensive approach on its traditional typologies: religious space and for purification, space dedicated to study, and space for community gatherings. Simultaneously reflecting these coordinates and overlapping their physical attributes with their formal limitations, spiritual valences, and possible contextual meanings, the Jewish space might be an absolute community space. In spite of the vicissitudes of History and social and political persecution, generally, Jewish architecture used to mime and retrieve specific elements from the adoptive nations and features of the prominent styles of the period. The gradual emancipation and liberation of Jews from the " traditional " ghetto, by the mid nineteenth century, allowed the "opening" of Jewish quarters, the flourishing of Jewish life (especially cultural), and, above all, the development of an architecture as an expression of this newly achieved social condition. Jewish communities contributed, often essentially, to the rising of the urban life quality, and, generally, to the prosperity of the cities that gave them this chance. Hence, the two valences of Jewish architecture: one identitary, and the other programmatic. Meanwhile, the synagogue has always provided the " centrality " of life for all the Diaspora communities. During the last century, the community centre has pursued this role, too. Under these circumstances, which would still be the meaning of the " Diaspora " ? How might we define the " exile " , the " home " , and the " homeland " ?

[Attention: The attachments contain correct download links to the accompanying presentation in both pptx and ppsx (presentation & show)] ___________________________________ Jewish Salonika is unique: the most cataclysmic and momentous event in its two thousand year history is its near total obliteration. The year 1943 CE witnessed unfathomable events of human annihilation that took place within the time frame of just a few months. These events have been only superficially researched. Such superficiality is exemplified in the research on the interplay of circumstances and powers that allowed them to take place and the degree and speed to which they occurred. At odds with such feeble research is the existence of documentary evidence demonstrating the bureaucratic efficiency of the perpetrators. Given such documentary evidence, the events of the Holocaust of the Jews of Salonika should be correlated with the history of the Community before and after the destruction. Proceeding in this manner should be done in keeping with the framework of concurrent Hellenic history in particular and European–world history in general. The inquiry partially catalyzing such a correlation is twofold: first, could more human beings have been saved and second, irrespective of the outcome, what was the moral standing of the Society at large? The latter, for objective purposes, can only be deduced by the behavior, attitude, actions, reactions and/or omissions of the non-Jewish community as a whole and as individuals before and after the Holocaust. Deducing as such must occur with cognizance. Mainly, there is difficulty in judging the behavior of bystanders when it is impossible to ascertain how the critic would have behaved under similar circumstances. Mindful of possible ambiguity, the general Holocaust calculus nevertheless has two parts: the first operation states that it takes only a few evil persons to assassinate many. The second operation states that many righteous humans may save, at most, a finite number of fellow beings. Informed by such evidence and caveats, my objective is to present a glimpse of Jewish Thessaloniki with special emphasis to the Holocaust. This vast topic may be broadly divided into the following subtopics: 1) The history of Jewish Thessaloniki up to the Holocaust, 2) The Holocaust of the Jews of Thessaloniki and 3) The post war aftermath encompassing the current status and future of Jewish Thessaloniki in general and the preservation of the remnants of Sephardic heritage and traditions. The goal to which I aspire is to provide a sequence of historical events and by so doing, to attempt to stimulate interest in further research. A cursory non-web or web based search lays bare both the surprising little we know, as well as the fact that scholarly or non-scholarly published work, in most instances, employs the repetition of a bare minimum of facts and data. Informed by such a reality, one might be tempted to believe that a particular subject especially that of the annihilation is taboo. Gaps in the historiography of Greece do a disservice both to the remaining Jewish Greeks in particular and the whole Hellenic nation in general. It is encouraging that research has recently accelerated, albeit at a slow pace. These endeavors are nevertheless a welcome step in the right direction. The main reason that research should accelerate at full speed is the inescapable reality of the biological attrition of the ranks of eyewitnesses and Holocaust survivors.3