Jewish Radicalism between Ottoman Socialism and Greek Communism, 1908-1936

This chapter offers a comprehensive history of Jewish radicalism in the Ottoman Empire and post-Ottoman Greece during the entire first half of the twentieth century. Centered on Salonica (present-day Thessaloniki), the Sephardi Jewish metropolis of the Eastern Mediterranean, the chapter explores how a particularly open form of “Jewish socialism” emerged amidst the collapse of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire and the expansion and consolidation of the nationalizing Greek state, deeply impacting the course of radical politics in both contexts. In the aftermath of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, constitutional governance, the advent of mass politics, internal tensions within the Jewish community, and the spread of socialist ideas in the Balkans pushed Jewish socialists, led by Abraham Benaroya, to establish the first mass socialist organization in the Ottoman Empire, the Socialist Workers’ Federation. This predominantly Jewish organization was unique in its efforts to transcend ethnic boundaries and unite the empire’s ethnically diverse labor force, including Jews, Orthodox Greeks, Bulgarians, and Muslims. Its federative structure, while respectful of ethnic differences, also reflected a self-confident, integrative sense of Jewishness.

Following the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 and the integration of southern Ottoman Macedonia into Greece, Jewish socialists quickly adapted to the new realities of a predominantly Christian nation-state, playing a significant role in reshaping Greek socialism during the 1910s. They provided the nascent movement with its first solid electoral base, introduced it into parliamentary politics, cemented its autonomy from the liberal bourgeois camp, and were instrumental in the establishment of the Greek Socialist Workers’ Party (SEKE) in 1918, and later the Communist Party of Greece in 1924. However, these developments, along with increasing state repression in the 1910s, and the rise of virulent, antisemitic anti-communism in the interwar years (in parallel with party Bolshevization), also signaled the gradual erasure of (socialist) Jewishness. In the 1910s, Jewish socialists like Benaroya adopted a policy of strategic self-minoritization, while in the 1920s and 1930s, the Communist Party’s pro-minority policies and its popularity among Salonica’s Jewish lower strata did not challenge the party’s prioritization of singular, class-based identities.

By situating Jewish socialism within and across the boundaries of community, nation and empire, the chapter challenges conventional narratives of Greek and Jewish radicalism. It restores the oft-neglected role of Sephardi Jewish socialists in the history of Greek socialism as well as in broader accounts of Jewish socialism, which have long focused on Central and Eastern Europe. The chapter thus highlights the broader importance of sub-ethnicities (like Sephardi Jews) and minorities in the development of socialist movements in imperial and national settings.