The tendency to produce, package, and instrumentalize myths for specific purposes—whether individual, collective, historical, or political—is considered “normal” in the Balkan Peninsula. It suffices that such actions yield the desired effect or outcome for those who construct, package, or instrumentalize these myths. However, when abnormality becomes normalized, and myths replace scientific facts, something is amiss within a society that becomes saturated with such myths. In such cases, the need for critical self-examination and self-reflective analysis becomes urgent for the society in question—in this case, Albanian society. The discipline most adversely affected by this tendency is, unfortunately, history. Although the classical Greek historian Thucydides (460–400 B.C.E.), exactly 2,400 years ago, taught historians through his monumental work, “The History of the Peloponnesian War,” how to distinguish myth from historical investigation, this lesson has not yet been adequately internalized by our historians.

Jewish Presence in Albania: Myths vs. Facts

Let us consider, for example, the phenomenon of the Jewish presence in Albania and observe how this tendency is reflected in historical texts. Without mentioning specific colleagues, and with the intention of addressing only the phenomenon itself, we present the following passage:

      “The Jewish presence in Albania dates back to the year 70 C.E., when a Roman ship carrying a group of Jews taken captive in Jerusalem was shipwrecked on the Albanian coast. Those who survived settled in Albanian territories, and their descendants founded the Jewish Community of Onchesmos (Saranda).”

In our scholarly opinion, this is simply a fabricated myth and does not hold up to scrutiny. There are two main reasons for this: 1) Firstly, there is no recorded historical evidence in Greek, Latin, or Hebrew sources regarding this episode. 2) Secondly, to our knowledge, no trace of a synagogue or Jewish archaeological artifact from the 1st–2nd centuries C.E. has yet been discovered in this region to scientifically document such a presence. Moreover, the “instrumentalization of myth” to artificially create an organic link spanning nearly three centuries between the first Jews (70 C.E.) and the Jewish Community of Onchesmos (as a factual reality of the 4th–6th centuries C.E.) is, at best, a “scientific naivety,” and at worst, a “turbo-folk oral narrative with a pedantic lecture-hall........

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