Turkification has a number of reasons, including the fact that Turks and Pomaks were part of the same millet during the years when their homeland was part of the Ottoman Empire. Under Greek law, the Muslim minority (including the Pomaks) has a right to education in its own language. In practice however, only Turkish is used. This is due to the Turkish self-identification of the Pomaks, and the fact that this trend was promoted until recently by the Greek authorities (who from 1968 until the 1980s even officially recognized the Pomaks as Turks) in order to distance them from the Bulgarians. There have been Greek-Pomak dictionaries published and a language primer in the Bulgarian language (in Greek script) has been published for use in Pomak schools. Recently, news have begun to be broadcast in the native language of the Pomaks. Most Pomaks are fluent in their Pomak dialects (spoken amongst themselves), Turkish (their language of education, and the main language of the Muslim minority), Greek (the official language of the Greek state), and may know some Arabic (the language of the Qur'an). Other minorities Armenians There are approximately 35,000 Armenians in Greece out of which approximately 20,000 can speak the Armenian language. The community's main political representative is the Armenian National Committee of Greece; its headquarters are in Athens with branches all over Greece. The community also manages its own educational institutions. Approximately 95% of Armenians in Greece are Armenian Orthodox, with the rest being Armenian Catholics or Evangelicals. Some of these Armenians belong to the Church of Greece, they are called Hayhurum. Jews Population of Thessaloniki The interaction between Greece and the Jews dates back to ancient times. Alexander the Great reached ancient Judea and was welcomed by the Jews. Following his death, war erupted between the Hellenized Jews and Greeks and the Jewish conservative Maccabees that embittered relations between Greeks and Jews for centuries. During the Ottoman Empire, Jews like all other non-Muslims had a degree of autonomy under the Millet system which classified populations according to religion rather than ethnicity or language. Thessaloniki in particular had a large Jewish population, mostly consisting of Sephardim who settled in Ottoman lands after the 1492 expulsion of the Jews from Spain. Sephardim used to speak Ladino until well into the 20th century. The Romaniotes, on the other hand, are Jews who lived in the territory of today's Greece and neighboring