Drama's last Jew keeps the faith

Every year at Passover, Jacob Cohen leaves his home in Drama and heads to Thessaloniki to celebrate the holiday and attend services at a synagogue. Jacob is 75 years old and is not only the last living Jew in Drama, but in all of eastern Macedonia and Thrace.

Before the Second World War, there were flourishing Jewish communities numbering thousands of people in the region from Serres and Kavala and east to Evros. Most, however, perished in the Nazis' Treblinka concentration camp in Poland, after being turned in by the Bulgarians who occupied East Macedonia and Thrace. Few survived. Their homes were looted and destroyed. The few who did return eventually passed away, and along with them a significant part of the region's cultural and economic identity was lost.

In the town of Drama, Cohen is the last Jewish drop in an ocean of Orthodox Christians - without anyone to...