city imported items from Europe and exported spices, leather, cotton fabrics, velvets, brocades and mohair from the Ottoman cities of Istanbul and Bursa. Jews typically avoided settling in the city of Shkodra as unlike elsewhere in Albania, they perceived it to be the site of "fanatical" religious tensions, and the local rulers would not give them the same rights that Jews were receiving elsewhere in the Empire. It is thought that the beginning of the Jewish community in Elbasan was in 1501 but when Evliya Çelebi visited the city he reported that there were no Jews, nor any "Franks, Armenians, Serbs or Bulgars"; Edmond Malaj argues that Celebi was simply unaware of the local Jewish neighborhood which existed in the city, which had its own Jewish market. 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. 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. 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. Followers of Sabbatai Zevi existed in Berat among Jews during the mid sixteenth century. The Jewish community of Yanina renewed the Jewish communities of Kavajë, Himarë, Delvinë, Vlorë, Elbasan and Berat in the nineteenth century. 1900–1939 During the Albanian nationalist revolts of 1911, Ottoman officials accused the Jewish community of colluding with and protecting Albanian nationalist rebels. Vlorë was the site of Albania's only synagogue until it was destroyed in the First World War. According to the Albanian census of 1930, there were only 204 Jews registered at that time in Albania. The official recognition of the Jewish community was granted on April 2, 1937, while at that time this community consisted in about 300 members. With the rise of Nazi Germany a number of German and Austrian Jews took refuge in Albania. Still in 1938 the Albanian Embassy in Berlin continued to issue visas to Jews, at a time when no other European country was willing to take them. One of the major Albanologists Norbert Jokl asked for Albanian citizenship, which was granted to him immediately; but this could not save him from concentration