Sunday 20 November 2011

Salonica / Thessalonica, 1867

The magazine account below is derived from the report (in a competing magazine?) of two English ladies who travelled to Athens for the warm weather.

"But the real curiosity of Salonica is its population, that strange medley of antipathetic races. The Therma of ancient history, and the Thessalonica of St. Paul’s Epistles, yields at present the curious instance of a city historically Greek, politically Turkish, geographically Bulgarian, and ethnographically Jewish. Out of about 60,000 inhabitants some 40,000 are Hebrews. These came from Spain, whence they were expelled by the Inquisition. The Hebrews settled in Salonica are handsome, many of them auburn-haired, and their women often delicate and even fair."

Source: Harper's new monthly magazine: The Turks, the Greeks and the Slavons. Volume 35, 1867. Page 297

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