camps. World War II Albania had about 200 Jews at the beginning of the war. It subsequently became a safe haven for several hundred Jewish refugees from other countries. At the Wannsee Conference in 1942, Adolf Eichmann, planner of the mass murder of Jews across Europe, estimated the number of Jews in Albania that were to be killed at 200. Nevertheless, Jews in Albania remained protected by the local Christian and Muslim population and this protection continued even after the occupation of Albania by Nazi forces after the capitulation of Italy on September 8, 1943. At the end of the war, Albania had a population of 2,000 Jews. During the Second World War, Jews were concealed in the homes and basements of 60 families from the Muslim and Christian communities in Berat. Albania was the only European nation directly affected by the war to have come out of the Second World War with a higher Jewish population at the end of the war than at the start of the war. Communist era Throughout Albania's era of communist rule under the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha, the Jewish community was isolated from the Jewish world, but its isolation was not caused by specifically anti-Jewish measures. 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. In this manner, the fate of the Jewish community was inextricably linked to the fate of Albanian society as a whole. All religions were strictly banned in the country. After the fall of Communism in 1991, nearly all of the Jews of Albania emigrated. Because they were not victims of anti-Semitism, their primary reasons for leaving Albania were economic. Some 298 Albanian Jews emigrated to Israel (mostly settling in Ashdod and Karmiel) and about 30 others moved to the United States. About a dozen Jews, most of whom were married to non-Jews, chose to remain in Albania. Jews in present-day Albania Today, around 40 to 50 Jews are living in Albania, most of them are living in the capital, Tirana. An old synagogue was discovered in the city of Saranda and a new synagogue which is known as "Hechal Shlomo" started providing services to the Jewish community in Tirana in December 2010. A synagogue still exists in Vlorë, but it is no longer in use. Also in December 2010, Rabbi Joel