Judaism in Albania

The history of the Jews in Albania dates back about 2,000 years.

According to historian Apostol Kotani (Albania and the Jews): "Jews may have first arrived in Albania as early as 70 C.E. as captives on Roman ships that washed up on the country's southern shores...descendants of these captives that would build the first synagogue in the southern port city of Sarandë in the fifth century...[but] Little is known about the Jewish community in the area until the 15th century."

Present-day Albanian Jews, predominantly of Romaniote and Sephardi origin, have in modern times only constituted a very small percentage of the population; during World War II, Albania was the only Nazi-occupied country in Europe to see an increase in its Jewish population. During the communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, the Socialist People's Republic of Albania banned all religions, including Judaism, in adherence to the doctrine of state atheism. In the post-communist era, these policies have been abandoned and the freedom of religion is permitted, although the number of practicing Jews in Albania is today very small, with many Jews having made aliyah to Israel.

In World War II, no Albanian Jews were turned over to the Germans. After the Italian and German occupation of Albania, the Jewish population actually increased thanks to an Albanian pagan set of laws known as Besa from the Kanun.

First reports of Jews living in Albania date from the 70 CE. By the early 16th century, there were Jewish settlements in most of major cities of Albania such as Berat, Elbasan, Vlorë, Durrës and also they are reported as well in Kosovo region. These Jewish families were mainly of Sephardic origin and descendants of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews expelled from Iberia in the end of 15th century CE. In 1520 in Vlorë were reported 609 Jewish households and also Vlorë was also the site of Albania's only synagogue which was destroyed in the First World War. In 1673 the charismatic Jewish prophet Sabbatai Zevi was exiled by the sultan to the Albanian port of Ulqin, also called Ulcinj, now in Montenegro, dying there three years later.

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Wikipedia