Sofia (Ott. Tur. Ṣofya), today the capital and largest city of Bulgaria, lies in the west-central part of the country in the southern part of the Sofia plain at the foot of Mount Vitosha. Jews already lived in Sofia (called Serdica by the Romans, Triadica by the Byzantines, and Sredec by the Slavs) at the end of the first century. In 1376, the city acquired the name Sofia (Gk. Wisdom). In the time of King Simeon in the early tenth century, Byzantine Jews fleeing persecution settled in Bulgaria. Toward the end of the century, they founded a Romaniot synagogue in Sofia  which was historically…