## *The Jews of Edirne, Turkey*## *Jacob Daniels*## *Sephardic World, Sunday, 31 August 2025*Edirne once held one of the world’s largest Sephardic communities. Drawing on Ladino, French, Turkish, and English sources, Jacob Daniels traces how upheavals from the Young Turk Revolution to the Thracian violence of 1934 reshaped their identity: wary of Zionism under Alliance schools, briefly supportive during the Greek occupation, then forced into silence under the Turkish Republic. Prosperous yet resented, Edirne’s Jews became the last minority in a sensitive borderland, and the 1934 attacks—though not fatal—drove most to Istanbul, ending centuries of communal life.***Jacob Daniels*** earned his History PhD at Stanford. He now serves as Assistant Professor of Instruction and Assistant Director of the Schusterman Center for Jewish Studies at The University of Texas at Austin.Patrons can join us live on Sunday 31 August 2025, at 11 noon in LA, 2pm in NYC, 7pm in London, 8pm in Paris/Amsterdam, 9pm in Jerusalem, and 4am the next morning in Sydney. Patrons will receive a link in a separate email. Everyone else is invited to watch the YouTube premiere the next week.[https://www.youtube.com/c/SephardicGenealogyAndHistory](https://www.youtube.com/c/SephardicGenealogyAndHistory)***The Spanish diplomat who saved some Greek Sephardim in 1943***An article on The Diplomat in Spain website reports on Sebastián de Romero Radigales, the Spanish consul general in Athens from April 1943 who risked his career and safety to protect Sephardic Jews during the Nazi occupation. On arrival, he offered Spanish nationality to Jews without conditions, safeguarded their belongings in the embassy, and resisted German ambassador Günter Altenburg’s pressure to allow deportations. Despite the mass transport of 48,000 Jews from Salonica to extermination camps, Romero managed to evacuate 150 people on an Italian military train and delayed the deportation of a further 367 until they were finally transferred to Spain in 1944. For his actions, Yad Vashem recognised him as Righteous Among the Nations in 2014, joining other Spanish diplomats such as Ángel Sanz-Briz and Eduardo Propper de Callejón, who defied Nazi policy despite Franco’s alliance with Hitler.[https://thediplomatinspain.com/en/2025/08/17/sebastian-de-romero-the-spanish-diplomat-who-saved-hundreds-of-sephardic-jews/](https://thediplomatinspain.com/en/2025/08/17/sebastian-de-romero-the-spanish-diplomat-who-saved-hundreds-of-sephardic-jews/)***Share your Sephardic Family Story!***Every Sephardic family has a unique story to tell. Do you want to share yours? If you would like to speak but haven’t given a presentation before, we are happy to provide support and to practice with you. If you don’t want to talk for a full 45 minutes, we can have a series of shorter presentations. If you are very nervous about public speaking, we can pre-record. Our only requirement is that you have archival evidence to support what you say. Send us an email at [society@sephardicgenealogy.com](mailto:society@sephardicgenealogy.com)***Support the Sephardic Genealogical Society***The Sephardic Genealogical Society is now the largest producer of educational material in the Sephardic world — and we rely on your support to keep going.If you value our free lectures and wider work, please consider becoming a patron for as little as $5/month via our Patreon page. Your support directly funds new content, events, and research.We are also seeking major donors to help us expand key projects. If you are in a position to help, we would be pleased to hear from you.[https://www.patreon.com/c/sephardi](https://www.patreon.com/c/sephardi)***From the Sephardic Archives***Jewish cemeteries in Jamaica. The Jamaican Jewish Cemeteries Preservation Fund (JJCPF) launched their database of Jewish burial grounds on Sephardic World in December 2021. Extensive cataloguing of the Jewish burial sites across the island took place from 2008 to 2017. 33 Jewish burial locations were recorded, which includes synagogue purchased cemeteries, family burial grounds, those that were sold and no longer exist, and plot markers which were part of an internment ground that is now on residential property. Rachel Frankel and Joseph de Leon discuss this important project, which helps fill a gap in our knowledge, as well as the need to preserve these historic Jewish sites.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoiWK4o2GhQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoiWK4o2GhQ) *Best wishes**Ton and David **Sephardic World *