History of the Jews in Serbia

Serbian Jews

Moša Pijade • Danilo Kiš Jelena Đurović • Yehuda Elkana • Theodor Herzl
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Hebrew, Serbian, and Yiddish
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Jews, Ashkenazi Jews, Sephardi Jews, Croatian Jews

The history of the Jews in Serbia goes back two thousand years. Jews first arrived in what is now Serbia in Roman times. The Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late 15th century, when Jews fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions found refuge in Ottoman-ruled areas, including Serbia. Jewish communities flourished in the Balkans until the turmoil of World War I. The surviving communities, including that of Serbia, were almost completely destroyed in the Holocaust during World War II.

Ancient communities

Jews, first arrived in the region now known as Serbia in Roman times, although there is little documentation prior to the 10th century.

Spanish refugees

See also: History of the Jews in Turkey

The Jewish communities of the Balkans were boosted in the 15th and 16th centuries by the arrival of Jewish refugees fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions. Sultan Bayezid II of the Ottoman Empire welcomed the Jewish refugees into his Empire. Jews became involved in trade between the various provinces in the Ottoman Empire, becoming especially important in the salt trade.

Jews in Central Serbia

See also: History of Serbia

With generally good relations between the Jews and Serbs, the Jewish communities prospered, and by the 19th century Jewish merchants were largely responsible for the trade routes between the Ottoman Empire's northern and southern territories.

Beginning in 1804, the Serbs began to fight the Ottoman Turks for independence. Many Jews were involved in the struggle by supplying arms to the local Serbs, and the Jewish communities faced brutal reprisal attacks from the Ottoman Turks. The independence struggle lasted until 1830, when Serbia gained its independence.

The new Serbian government was friendly toward the Jewish community. Under rule of Miloš Obrenović, the Belgrade Jewish community had its own money issue. The situation of the Jews briefly improved under the rule of Prince Mihailo Obrenović (ruled 1839-1842). The Jews were a very respected minority in Serbia after the Obrenovic dynasty ended. The very first act of Serbian King Petar I was royal support for building a new synagogue in Belgrade.

With the reclamation of the Serbian throne by the Royal House of Obrenović under Miloš Obrenović in 1858, restrictions on Jewish merchants were again relaxed, but three years later, in 1861 Mihailo III inherited the throne and reinstated anti-Jewish restrictions. In 1877 a Jewish candidate was elected to the National Assembly for the first time after receiving the backing of all parties.

In 1879, the Baruh Brothers Choir was founded in Belgrade as a part of the Serbian-Jewish friendship, the oldest Jewish choir in the world, that still exists to today.

The waxing and waning of the fortunes of the Jewish community according to the ruler continued to the end of the 19th Century, when the Serbian parliament lifted all anti-Jewish restrictions in 1889.

By 1912, the Jewish community of Serbia stood at 5,000. Serbian-Jewish relations reached a high degree of cooperation during World War I, when Jews and Serbs fought side by side against the Central Powers.

In the aftermath of World War I, Montenegro, Banat, Bačka, Syrmia, and Baranja joined Serbia through popular vote in those regions, and this Greater Serbia then united with State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (from which Syrmia had seceded to join Serbia) to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was soon renamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Serbia's relatively small Jewish community of 13,000 (including 500 in Kosovo), combined with the large Jewish communities of the other Yugoslav territories, numbering some 51,700. In the inter-war years (1919–1939), the Jewish communities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia flourished.

Prior to World War II, 10,000 Jews lived in Belgrade, 80% being Ladino-speaking Sephardi Jews, and 20% being Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews.

Jews in Vojvodina

Main articles: Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941-1944 and Demographic history of Vojvodina

Monument in Novi Sad dedicated to killed Jewish and Serb civilians in 1942 raid.

While the rest of Serbia was still ruled by the Ottoman Empire, Vojvodina, now an autonomous province within Serbia, was ruled by the Habsburg Monarchy from the end of the 17th century. Vojvodina too had previously been ruled by the Ottoman Empire, and it was under Ottoman rule that the first Jews settled in the region.

In 1782, Emperor Joseph II issued the Edict of Tolerance, giving Jews some measure of religious freedom. The Edict attracted Jews to many parts of the Habsburg Monarchy, including Vojvodina. The Jewish communities of Vojvodina flourished, and by the end of the 19th Century the region had nearly 40 Jewish communities.

The 1931 census counted 21,000 Jews in the province. The Jewish communities of Vojvodina, as in the rest of Serbia, were largely destroyed in the Holocaust, particularly in Banat, which was under direct German occupation, and in Bačka, which was under Hungarian occupation.

Subotica Synagogue (still standing)

In 1942 raid, the Hungarian troops killed many Jewish and Serb civilians in Bačka. In 2006, Dr. Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center charged Dr. Sándor Képíró with participating in the massacre on the evidence of his conviction in the trials of 1944 and 1946. Képíró, however, stated that as a police officer, his participation was limited merely to arresting civilians, and he did not take part in the executions or any other illegal activity. War crimes charges were subsequently brought against Képíró in a federal court in Budapest, for murders of civilians committed under his command during the January 1942 raids. His trial on those charges commenced in May 2011. Képíró has twice previously been found guilty: once by the pre-Nazi Hungarian courts, and again after the war, in 1946. By then he allegedly had fled to Argentina, but returned to Budapest in 1996.

The synagogue in Zrenjanin was demolished during war, while the synagogues in Pančevo and Kikinda were demolished after war because there were only a few Jews remaining there.

Presently, 329 Jews – almost half of Serbian Jewry – live in Vojvodina, most in Novi Sad, Subotica, Pančevo, Zrenjanin and Sombor.

World War II

Imprisoned Jews in Belgrade camp, 1941

The Kingdom of Yugoslavia attempted to maintain neutrality during the period preceding WWII. Milan Stojadinović, the prime minister, tried to actively woo Adolf Hitler while maintaining the alliance with former Entente Powers, UK and France. Nonwithstanding overtures to Germany, Yugoslav policy was not anti-Semitic: for instance, Yugoslavia opened its borders to Austrian Jews following the Anschluss. Under increasing pressure to yield to German demands for safe passage of its troops to Greece, Yugoslavia signed the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, like Bulgaria and Hungary. Unlike the other two, however, the signatory government of Maček and Cvetković was overthrown three days later in a British-supported coup of patriotic, anti-German generals. The new government immediately rescinded the Yugoslav signature on the Pact and called for strict neutrality. German response was swift and brutal: Belgrade was bombed without the declaration of war on 6 April 1941 and German, Italian, Hungarian and Bulgarian troops invaded Yugoslavia.

The Holocaust

Main article: The Holocaust in Serbia

Concentration camps in Yugoslavia in World War II.

Germany carved up Yugoslavia with most of it going to the fascist Independent State of Croatia, who established the notorious Jasenovac concentration camp to exterminate the Serbs, Roma and Jews of Yugoslavia. In Serbia government of Milan Nedić established concentration camps and extermination policies of its own.

The Nazi genocide against Yugoslav Jews began in April 1941. The state of Serbia was completely occupied by the Nazis. The main race laws in the State of Serbia were adopted on 30 April 1941: the Legal Decree on Racial Origins (Zakonska odredba o rasnoj pripadnosti).Jews from Syrmia were sent to Croatian camps, as were many Jews from other parts of Serbia. In rump Serbia, Germans proceeded to round up Jews of Banat and Belgrade, setting up a concentration camp across the river Sava, in the Syrmian part of Belgrade, then given to Independent State of Croatia. The camp, Sajmište, was established to process and eliminate the captured Jews and Serbs. As a result, Emanuel Schäfer, commander of the Security Police and Gestapo in Serbia, famously cabled Berlin after last Jews were killed in May 1942:

"Serbien ist judenfrei."

Similarly Harald Turner of the SS, stated in 1942 that:

"Serbia is the only country in which the Jewish question and the Gypsy question has been solved."

By the time Serbia and Yugoslavia were liberated in 1944, most of the Serbian Jewry had been murdered. Of the 82,500 Jews of Yugoslavia alive in 1941, only 14,000 (17%) survived the Holocaust. Of the Serbian Jewish population of 16,000, Serbian Nazi puppet government of Milan Nedić, Ministry of Interior, police and secret services murdered approximately 14,500.

Historian Christopher Browning who attended the conference on the subject of Holocaust and Serbian involvement stated:

Serbia was the only country outside Poland and the Soviet Union where all Jewish victims were killed on the spot without deportation, and was the first country after Estonia to be declared ‘Judenfrei,’” a term used by the Nazis during the Holocaust to denote an area free of all Jews.

— Christopher Browning, his conference statement

Post World War II

Synagogue in Kikinda destroyed in 1953

The Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia was formed in the aftermath of World War II to coordinate the Jewish communities of post-war Yugoslavia and to lobby for the right of Jews to immigrate to Israel. The Federation was headquartered in Belgrade, the capital of the post-war Yugoslavia.

More than half of Yugoslav survivors chose to immigrate to Israel after World War II.

The Jewish community of Serbia, and indeed of all constituent republics in Yugoslavia, was maintained by the unifying power of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia. However, this power ended with the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Yugoslav wars

The Jews of Serbia lived relatively peacefully in Yugoslavia between World War II and the 1990s. However, the end of the Cold War saw the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the ensuing civil wars.

During the Balkan Wars, and international sanctions many Jews chose to immigrate to Israel and the United States. During the Kosovo Conflict, the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia relocated many of Belgrade's Jewish elderly, women and children to Budapest, Hungary for their safety; many of them emigrated permanently.

Present population

Belgrade Synagogue

Novi Sad Synagogue

Prior to the conflicts of the 1990s, approximately 2,500 Jews lived in Serbia, most in Belgrade.

In 2011 census 787 people declared themselves as Jewish.

According to the 2002 Serbian census, there were 1,185 Jews in Serbia. 40% of them live in Vojvodina, and 90% of the remaining live in Belgrade. The results of the 2002 census are displayed below:

Area	Jewish population	Total population
Belgrade	415	1,576,124
Novi Sad	400	299,294
Subotica	89	148,401
Pančevo	42	127,162
Rest of Serbia	239	5,646,314
Total	1,185	7,498,001

The only remaining functioning synagogue in Serbia is the Belgrade Synagogue. There are also small numbers of Jews in Zrenjanin and Sombor, with isolated families scattered throughout the rest of Serbia.

Manifestations of Anti-Semitism in Serbia are relatively rare and isolated. According to the US State Department Report on Human Rights practices in Serbia for 2006,

"Jewish leaders in Serbia reported continued incidents of anti-Semitism, including anti-Semitic graffiti, vandalism, small circulation anti-Semitic books, and Internet postings",

and that anti-Semitic incidents have been on the rise in Serbia. As nationalism replaced communism as the main ideology in Serbia, there was a resurgence of anti-semitic statements, as well as a simultaneous attempt on the part of the Serbian regime to instrumentalize the supposed influence of the Jewish community abroad.

The Serbian government recognizes Judaism as one of the seven "traditional" religious communities of Serbia.

Notable people

• Moša Pijade, politician, painter, art critic and publicist
• Oskar Davičo, poet
• Danilo Kiš, writer
• Aleksandar Tišma, writer
• David Albahari, writer
• Ivan Ivanji, writer
• Sonja Licht, political activist
• Erich Šlomović, art collector
• Filip David, playwright and columnist
• Predrag Ejdus, actor
• Vanja Ejdus, actress
• Jelena Đurović, writer, politician and journalist
• Tommy Lapid, former Israeli politician of Hungarian descent, born in Novi Sad
• Oskar Danon, composer

See also

• Israeli-Serbian relations
• The Holocaust in Serbia

Literature

• ANTI-SEMITISM IN SERBIA DURING THE WORLD WAR II - An International Symposium "SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE 1918-1995"
• FROM FAIRY TALE TO HOLOCAUST
• Hashalom, Sephardic journal, published between 1903 and 1906.
• Antisemitism and Jewish Identity in Serbia After the 1991 Collapse of the Yugoslav State, by Laslo Sekelj

References

• Jewish Virtual Library, Serbia and Montenegro
• Synagogues Without Jews - Serbia and Croatia
• Jews of the Former Yugoslavia After the Holocaust
• American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Serbia-Montenegro
• Belgrade Synagogue
• "Jews of Yugoslavia 1941 - 1945 Victims of Genocide and Freedom Fighters", by Jasa Romano, from the English summary in the book Jevreji Jugoslavije 1941-1945. Žrtve Genocida i učesnici Narodnooslobodilačkog Rata, Belgrade: Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia, 1980; pp. 573–590.

External links

• Template:Sr icon Official city of Belgrade site about Belgrade Jews
• Template:Sr icon Template:En icon Jewish community of Belgrade
• Template:Sr icon Template:En icon Jewish community of Zemun (a district in Belgrade)
• Template:Sr icon Template:En icon Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade
• Template:Sr icon Template:En icon www.semlin.info Website about the Semlin/Sajmiste concentration camp and the Holocaust in Serbia
• Template:En icon Voices on Antisemitism Interview with David Albahari from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum