More than 7,000 Jews are fighting on the Albanian front in the Salonika divisions, which have seen some of the heaviest fighting of the war–a fact of which the Greek Jews are very proud.
They are also proud of the fact that the first superior officer killed in action was a Jew–Col Mordehai Frizis. Earlier this month the Archbishop of Athens called the Chief Rabbi of Salonika, Dr. Zvi Hirsch Koretz, to the capital to assist him in a memorial service for Col. Frizis and other Jewish dead.
(Col. Frizis, according to an official announcement on March 2, fell near the village of Bessantchi, "heroically leading his troops to victory." The village was later captured and renamed "Frizis" by the Greek Government.)
On the occasion of the memorial service, Rabbi Koretz was made an honorary member of Parnassos, leading Greek literary society–the first time in Greek history that a Jew was so honored.
After observing the ever-increasing anti-Semitic repressions all over the Balkans, this correspondent found it refreshing to arrive in Salonika, where there is no anti-Semitism and where 50,000 Jews live on equal terms with 200,000 Greeks and Turks. They are descendants of refugees from anti-Jewish persecutions over four centuries ago.
The Jews of Salonika are acutely conscious of what is in store for than if the Germans conquer Greece. For this reason they have thrown themselves into the war effort even more wholeheartedly than the Greeks themselves, if such a thing is possible.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
