"[2][3] In the early 16th century, there were Jewish settlements in most of major cities of Albania such as Berat, Elbasan, Vlorë, Durrës and also they are reported as well in Kosovo region.

Present-day Albanian Jews, predominantly of Romaniote[4][verification needed] and Sephardi origin, have in modern times only constituted a very small percentage of the population.

During the communist dictatorship of Enver Hoxha which was named the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, all religions were banned in the country from February 1967 to 1990, including Judaism, in adherence to the doctrine of state atheism, and all foreign influences were also restricted.

[6] The descendants of these refugees, according to Albanian historian Apostol Kotani, would found Albania's first synagogue in the fourth[7] or fifth century, in the city of Onchesmos, modern day Saranda.

Albanian archaeologists apparently first discovered remains in the 1980s; the ban on religion by the then Communist regime prevented them from further exploring what was already thought to be a religious site The subject matter of the exceptional mosaics found at the site suggested a Jewish past, leading to a joint project between archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology in Tirana and the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology in Jerusalem.

In the third stage several rooms were added, the largest of these containing a mosaic pavement representing in its centre a menorah flanked by a shofar (ram’s horn) and an etrog (citron), all symbols associated with Jewish festivals.

[12] The Vlorë community underwent population growth in subsequent decades with Jews migrating from Corfu, Venetian ruled lands, Naples, France and the Iberian Peninsula.

[13] Following the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, the Ottoman state resettled additional Jewish exiles in Vlorë toward the end of the fifteenth century.

[18] After the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and the deterioration of security along the Ottoman controlled Adriatic and Ionian coasts, the numbers of Jews within Vlorë decreased.

[12] The Berat and Vlorë Jewish communities took an active role in the welfare of other Jews such as managing to attain the release of war related captives present in Durrës in 1596.

[12] In 1673 the charismatic Jewish prophet Sabbatai Zevi was exiled by the sultan to the Albanian port of Ulqin, also called Ulcinj, now in Montenegro, dying there three years later.

In order to forge a sustainable form of national unity as well as the new system of socialism, Hoxha banned confessional loyalties across the religious spectrum.

[15] In early July 2020, a Holocaust Memorial was unveiled in Tirana and it honors Albanians who safeguarded Jews from Nazi persecution during the Second World War.

[37] The participants included Prime minister Edi Rama, U.S. Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo and other high ranking officials from the local region, wider Europe and the US.