Abraham Benaroya and the Rise of Socialism in Salonica: Empire, Nationalism, and the Jewish Question

Abstract: Abraham Benaroya (1887–1979), one of the founders of the Socialist Workers' Federation (Ladino, La Federación Socialista Laboradera ) in Salonica, lived a long life that straddled empire and nation, socialism and the Jewish Question. Later described by the historian Paul Dumont as "the most important socialist organization in the Ottoman Empire," the Federation sought to unite the city's multiethnic population of Jews, Greeks, Bulgarians, Turks, and others under the common banner of socialism. Nevertheless, most of its members were, like Benaroya, himself, Ladino-speaking Sephardi Jews. This inspired Yitzhak Ben Zvi, the second president of Israel, to describe the Federation as the "only socialist organization among the Sephardim," one with significant parallels to, but also differences from, the Bund, the better-known socialist organization founded by Yiddish-speaking Jews in Eastern Europe. Following the incorporation of Salonica into Greece, Benaroya played an important role in the development of socialist politics in the country before being purged by the Communist Party of Greece. He later survived incarceration in Nazi camps and eventually emigrated to the newly established state of Israel, where he came to terms with Zionism. Benaroya's complex life and politics serve as a powerful synecdoche for the broader experiences of many Sephardic Jews from the Balkans during a long century of imperial collapse, state formation, and socialist and nationalist politics.