Avraam Benaroya - Early Years

Early Years

Benaroya was born to a Sephardi Jew in Bulgaria. He was raised in Vidin by a family of small merchants. A polyglot, Benaroya learned to speak six languages fluently. He studied at the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, but did not graduate, becoming rather a teacher in Plovdiv. Here Benaroya became a member of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Workers Party (Broad Socialists) and published in Bulgarian his work The Jewish Question and Social Democracy. After the Young Turk revolution of 1908 he mooved as a socialist organizer to Salonika. He founded here a group called Sephardic Circle of Socialist Studies and was in connection to the Bulgarian left-wing faction active in the city called People's Federative Party (Bulgarian Section), as well as to some Bulgarian socialists, who worked there. Benaroya's influence grew, as he argued that any socialist movement in the city must take the form of a federation in which all national groups could participate. Due to the Bulgarian origins of its Jewish founder, the organization was viewed with suspicion by the Young Turks and later by the Greek government, as being close to Bulgarian socialist movement.