The Netherlands Institute at Athens (NIA) and the Workshop on the Study of the Jews in Greece (WSJG) are planning to hold a four-day intensive course in November 2026 (dates to be announced) on the theme of Jews in Greece of the modern era. The course is designed for graduate and postgraduate students and early-career researchers with an interest in the history of Diaspora Jews from the nineteenth century to the early post-Shoah era.
Attendees will be offered a gamut of area- and subject-based two-hour seminars, delivered by Greek scholars with a fruitful track record in the field. Inter alia, seminars will be geared towards highlighting certain unique features in the history of the Jews in Greece, both before and during the Shoah, when compared with the history of other Diaspora communities: For example:
The Jewish element in Greece was made up of Sephardim, Romaniotes and, to a lesser extent, Ashkenazim.
The country was occupied by three Axis powers.
Hundreds of Jews actively participated in the Resistance movement.
The fourth day of the course, attendees will be offered a guided tour to sites of Jewish interest in the Greater Athens area: The old Jewish cemetery, the Jewish Museum of Greece, the Beth Shalom Synagogue, the Wall of Names, the Righteous Among the Nations Memorial, the Holocaust Memorial and Block 15 at the Chaidari concentration/transit camp.
Attendees wishing to write a 3,000-word paper on a designated topic will be provided with a list of sources and, a month after submitting in electronic form their papers, with written feedback. All attendees will be issued with a NIA certificate of attendance, provided that they have followed at least 10 of the course’s seminars.
Tuition-fees are set at 500€ (including accommodation) and 250€ (for those who do not require accommodation).
All enquiries and expressions of interest should be addressed to Willem Ledeboer, Deputy Director NIA; wledeboer@nia.gr
PROVISIONAL PROGRAMME
Jews in Greece of the modern era
DAY 1:
Jews in Greek Lands before 1832
Salonica
Western, Central and Eastern Macedonia & Western Thrace
Ionian Islands & Crete
DAY 2
Ioannina
Thessaly & Chalkida
Arta, Preveza, Agrinio and Patras
Athens
DAY 3
Strategies of Survival in Axis-occupied Greece
Jews in the Resistance
Jews in post-Shoah Greece
Remembering the Shoah in Greece
DAY 4
Guided tour
