Jewish Museum of Greece, Athens
The Jewish Museum in Athens, with the Ark on the right.
Photo © Nyloo.com.
Location map and aerial view of the Jewish Museum. For a larger view,
see our Athens Map or get our free Google Earth download.
The small Jewish Museum of Greece moved to its new and improved location in 1996. The museum traces the history of Greece's Jewish communities beginning in the 3rd century BC.
The exhibits present a portrait of the Sephardic Jews, who fled Spain and Portugal in the 15th century to settle throughout Greece in the religiously tolerant years of the Ottoman Empire.
Traditional costumes and religious ceremonial instruments are on display in the museum, a notable example of which is a reconstruction of the ehal, the ark from the 1920s Pátra synagogue.
The museum also contains moving displays of documentation recording the German occupation of Greece during World War II when 87% of the Jewish population was wiped out. Over 45,000 Jewish Greeks from Thessaloniki alone were sent to Auschwitz and other concentration camps during a period of five months in 1943.
Quick Facts
| Location: | Níkis 39, Sýntagma |
| Phone: | 210 332 5582 |
| Metro: | Sýntagma |
| Trams: | 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18 |
| Hours: | 9am-2:30pm Mon-Fri, 10am-2pm Sun. |
