Socialist Workers' Federation

The Socialist Workers' Federation (French: Fédération socialiste ouvrière, Ladino: Federacion), led by Avraam Benaroya, was an attempt at union of different nationalities' workers in Ottoman Thessaloniki within a single labor movement.

Idealistic and pragmatist at the same time, Avraam Benaroya, a Jew from Bulgaria, played a leading role in the creation in Thessaloniki, in May–June 1909, of the mainly Jewish Fédération Socialiste Ouvrière. His main associates were militant Sephardic Jews, A.-J. Arditti, D. Recanati and J. Hazan, as well Bulgarians, e.g. Aleksandar Tomov and Dimitar Vlahov.

The organization took this name because, built on the federative model of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, it was conceived as a federation of separate sections, each representing the four main ethnic groups of the city: Jews, Bulgarians, Greeks and Turks. It initially published its literature in the languages of these four groups (i.e. Ladino, Bulgarian, Greek and Turkish, respectively) but in practice the two latter sections were under-represented if not nonexistent. The publication's title was Journal del Labourador (Ladino) - Amele Gazetesi (Ottoman Turkish).

The democratic Fédération soon became, under Benaroya's leadership, the strongest socialist party in the Ottoman Empire, while the "Ottoman Socialist Party" was essentially an intellectual club, and the other socialist parties were at the same time national parties, like the Istanbul Greek Socialist Center, the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party or the Armenian Revolutionary Federation. It created combative trade unions, attracted important intellectuals and gained a solid base of support among Macedonian workers while cultivating strong links with the Second International. From 1910 to 1911 Benaroya edited its influential newspaper, the Solidaridad Ovradera, printed in Ladino.

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