The Arrival of the Sefardim

The Jews were such an integral part of Salonica that it seemed impossible to imagine they had not always been there. There were Jews in the city before there were any Christians. So in 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella forced thousands out of their homeland, and shortly after Sicily, Sardinia, Navarre, Provence and Naples did the same. By the mid 16th century Jews had been evicted from most of western Europe. Many of the Jews from this area converted or went underground as Marranos, still practicing Judaism. The entire Jewish world shifted eastwards to the safe havens of Poland and the Ottoman domains.
The expulsion of the Jews formed part of a bitter struggle for power between Islam and Catholocism. In the midst of this bitter conflict the Ottoman exploited their enemy's anti-jewish measures. The Balkans remained overwhelmingly Christian, Asian and Arab lands. and all the towns in the empire, it was Salonica which benefited most. Since 1453, while Istanbul's population had been growing at an incredible rate thanks to compulsory resettlement and immigration by Muslims, Greeks and Armenians, tuning it into perhaps the largest city in Europe, Salonica lagged far behind.
Through religious devotion and study, they turned Salonica into a "new Jerusalem", wrapping their new place of exile in the mantle of biblical geography was a way of coming to feel at home. "The Jews of Europe and other countries, persecuted and banished, have come to find a refuge".