Salonika

The Salonika Republic is the world's only Jewish-majority state and one of only a handful of surviving city-states. Initially founded in the wake of the Balkan Wars, Salonika has since developed into a hub of Jewish culture and has become the de facto homeland-away-from-home for Zionists disappointed in the inability to secure the independence of Israel following the World Wars.

Salonika emerged as an independent city state following the Balkan Wars, calved off from Greece, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire following generations of Ottoman encouragement of Jewish migration to the city. The region's population flourished in the interwar years before the events of World War II. Salonika was recognized following the conflict as an independent city-state and has since become a magnet for worldwide Jewish migration.

Salonika boasts one of the highest standards of living in the world and is home to a number of major corporate head offices.

History
The Greek city of Thessaloniki - Salonika in the Ladino tongue - has a long history as a Jewish centre during its time under the Ottoman Empire. Through the late 1800s, the Ottomans aggressively promoted Jewish migration to the city as a means to blunt the growth of Greek nationalism. By 1890 the city's population was 65% Jewish, increasing to 75% by 1913. Most of these migrants were Sephardi Jews from the Ottoman-controlled Maghreb.

During the Balkan Wars, Greek efforts to claim the city were thwarted by a strong pro-Ottoman sentiment among the city's large Jewish majority. An internal conflict saw Greek partisans pushed out of the area, and the city was fortified against Greek troops as it asserted its desire to not stand as part of a Greek nation - the locals fearing crackdowns and pogroms at the hands of nationalist actors. The Second Balkan War saw Bulgaria pressing from the east, leaving Salonika sandwiched between two powers with revanchism on the mind.

The Treaty of Bucharest ultimately came to a shaky resolution on the Salonika problem. The city was recognized as a Free City, neither part of Greece nor Bulgaria. Its protection was guaranteed by both Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans - the former desiring influence over northern Macedonia and access to a friendly port on the Aegean - provided that the city would act as a neutral zone in the Balkans. The broader selection of Great Powers similarly supported the move, despite the frustrations of the Greeks. The year 1913 saw many ethnic Greeks and Slavs flee the hinterlands around Salonika, reducing the population somewhat but increasing the proportion of Jews living there. Moving in instead were Muslims and Jews fleeing the carnage and purges of the Baltic Wars.

Salonika attempted to maintain neutrality in World War I, but in the wake of the conflict and the 1920 Treaty of Sevres which followed, the city-state remained vulnerable to Greek attack. They turned down the invitation to join Ataturk's new republic - and nearly regretted it when Greek partisans, salivating already at the invasion of Anatolia, attempted to attack and retake Salonika. The Greek attempt was foiled when the British cruiser HMS Weymouth pulled into Salonika. The Royal Navy presence deterred Greek aggression, and Salonika invited the British to stick around for awhile. The Free City remained effectively under British and Turkish protection through the interwar years despite hostile looks from Greece, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia alike.

By World War II, the population of Salonika had expanded significantly, the majority of its denizens being Jews. The city remained under a League of Nations protectorate and serviced British ships and aircraft in the region.

The outbreak of World War II saw Salonika squarely in the crosshairs of Adolf Hitler. While the Free City declared itself officially neutral, in practice they continued to rely on the Royal Navy for protection, and the British used the city as a beachhead in the region. This all but guaranteed Axis aggression. The city would come under siege by the Axis powers in 1941 - Turkey notably did not declare war on the Free City, nor participate in the attack against it. The British garrison and the Salonikan home guard held out for a surprisingly long period, ultimately evacuating tens of thousands of citizens before the city fell. It was quickly occupied and allocated to the Greek puppet government set up by the Nazis, and a concentration camp was set up in the area. Ultimately about 60% of the remaining Jewish population of Salonika was liquidated, an atrocity which shocked the world when it was finally revealed. Those citizens evacuated in the so-called Flight From Salonika returned to find their city decimated and populated mainly by Greek Axis sympathizers, who had to be forcibly removed by the Allies.

At the prompting of the newly-formed United Nations, Salonika was recognized as a fully independent city-state, renewing the League of Nations mandate. The decision prompted a wave of settlement from across Europe, particularly Ashkenazi Jews from Central Europe who had survived the Holocaust but lost everything. Later, Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East would begin to arrive, along with more Sephardi Jews from elsewhere in the Mediterranean, further beginning to rebuild the population of the city. Salonika and the environs - much to the fury of Greek nationalists - were reorganized as a republic with an elected Prime Minister. The region was not repopulated without controversy: Fighting rapidly broke out between Greek partisans and Jewish returnees and remainers, the latter two groups supported by the British and the United States. The Greek Civil War gave Salonika a short reprieve but would ultimately spiral to include the city, with hotheaded nationalists violating British support periodically to try and assault the city, inevitably falling short.

Salonika was admitted to the UN in 1949, over the objections of both Greece and Bulgaria. Since then, the city's population has grown rapidly to about four and a half million people, about a third of them in smaller towns and communities in the environs.