By Alex Grobman, PhD
Delegates to the San Remo conference in Italy, 25 April 1920
*Editor’s Note: This is the ninth installment in the most recent series of articles from Jewish Press Online contributor, Alex Grobman, PhD
At the San Remo Conference in San Remo, Italy in April 1920, the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers, Britain, France, Italy, and Japan met to define the precise boundaries of the lands they had conquered at the end of WWI. As part of a peace agreement, Turkey yielded jurisdiction over the land which it had ruled from 1517 to 1917, including the Holy Land. Israel and two dozen other countries were created from the states of the former Ottoman Caliphate. The Ottoman Empire had been the home many peoples: Albanians, Greeks, Slavs, Copts, Armenians, Maronites, Alawis, Druze, Kurds, Arabs and Jews. For centuries, Jews lived throughout the Ottoman Empire including Constantinople, Salonika, Cairo, Alexandria, Damascus, Aleppo, Mosul, Baghdad, Basra, Tiberias, Hevron, Tsfat, Jaffa, Gaza and Jerusalem. [1]