| On Sunday May 13, 2001 the
new Jewish Museum of Salonika (Thessaloniki) was inaugurated by the Greek
Minister of Culture Evangelos Venizelos. The new museum is located in
a renovated historic building on 13, Agiou Mina street in the historic
city center of Salonika, one of the very few which were not destroyed
at the great fire of 1917. The visitor is greeted by fragments and photographs
of the ancient Jewish cemetery of Salonika, prior to its destruction in
1942, and objects from the numerous synagogues that existed in Salonika
prior to the Second World War. The new Jewish museum of Salonika (IKTh)
The first floor includes a panel exhibition similar to the one exhibited
at the Lohamei HaGetaot museum in Israel. This exhibition was funded by
the Simon Marks Institute of London, England. At its opening, the museum
held a temporary exhibition of Judaica from Salonika, which belongs to
the Bar Ilan University in Israel. Once this temporary exhibition closes,
the space will exhibit the life of the Jews in Salonika prior to the Second
World War, the period prior to the Holocaust, and the annihilation of
the Jewish community. The new Jewish museum of Salonika (IKTh) The library,
enriched with books in Ladino, has a special room equipped with audiovisual
equipment for viewing of films on the Jewish community of Salonika and
Sephaerdic culture in Greece. |
