Search results
Your search found 39 items
Sort: Relevance | Topics | Title | Author | Publication Year
Home  / Search Results
Echoes of the Shoah: British Jewry and the Bosnian War
Author(s): Summers, Luke
Date: 2024
Topics: Memory, War, Holocaust, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: This article explores how British Jews responded to the Bosnian War of 1992-1995. It questions how Jewish memories of the Holocaust influenced the way the community responded to the genocide in Bosnia. Using the British Jewish press as its source base, it identifies how British Jews extensively referenced the Shoah when responding to events in Bosnia. Highlighting a lack of international action to stop the Holocaust, British Jews attached a moral imperative to military intervention in Bosnia. It probes the idea that genocide in the Balkans had an important role in the expansion, and universalization, of Holocaust consciousness in the 1990s.
Antisemitic Discourse and Historical Amnesia in Bosnia: The Case of Mustafa Busuladžić
Author(s): Magnusson, Kjell
Date: 2024
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Antisemitism, Antisemitism: Discourse, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust, Memory
Abstract: In 2017 a conflict erupted among the Bosniaks in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was related to identity and self-image, in particular the role of Bosnian Muslims during World War II. Highly sensitive but seldom discussed issues were brought to the fore. Had not Muslim forces massacred Serb villages? Did not Croat and Muslim Ustasha kill most of the Jews in Bosnia? Why, then, regard antisemitic collaborators as national role models?

Reactions varied from condemnation to arguments that Muslims acted in self-defence. Even antisemitic rhetoric appeared. There was a divide between a liberal, secular opinion and religious-national views within the ruling party or the Islamic Community. Apparently, a certain continuity existed between Muslim elites during World War II and those in power since 1990. In the 1930s, Bosnian Muslims were familiar with currents in the Middle East, the ideas of the Muslim Brotherhood and the anti-Jewish message of the Mufti of Jerusalem. The organization Young Muslims, inspired by Islamist ideas from Egypt, was violently supressed by the Communists 1945–48, but reappeared in 1990, forming the nucleus of the Party of Democratic Action, led by Alija Izetbegović. After the war, high-level contacts with the Muslim Brothers were cordial and regular.

The crisis revealed tensions between the religious foundation of Bosniak identity and the building of a modern nation. Parts of society had been nurturing a discourse of martyrdom where history had to be ignored or revised.
“Ethnographic Rarity“: The Jews of Montenegro in Socialist Yugoslavia
Author(s): Šístek, František
Date: 2024
Topics: Jewish Identity, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Post-War Jewish History, Ethnography
Abstract: The article provides the first overview of the largely hidden and invisible Jewish presence in Montenegro during the socialist period (1945-1991). The author analyzes the relevant demograp­hic data and the wider political, social and cultural context of Jewish life in Yugoslavia and Montenegro. Several representati­ve individual destinies and life trajectories of people of Jewish origin who settled in Montenegro after the Second World War are discussed. Mixed (intercultural) Jewish-Montenegrin fami­lies became a rule rather than an exception in the second half of the 20th century. The article also sums up the Operation Velvetta from 1948, a secret military mission which allowed the transfer of Spitfire fighter planes from Czechoslovakia through Monte­negro (airfield Kapino Polje near Nikšić) to Israel during its war for independence. The last section discusses the life trajectory of Danilo Kiš (1935-1989), Yugoslav writer of Jewish-Monte­negrin origin, and his elaborations of Jewish identity
El judeoespañol de Belgrado (Serbia): Un caso paradigmático de desplazamiento lingüístico en los Balcanes
Translated Title: The Judeo-Spanish of Belgrade (Serbia): A paradigmatic case of linguistic displacement in the Balkans
Author(s): Filipović, Jelena; Vučina Simović, Ivana
Date: 2012
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Ladino and Haketia, Sephardi Jews, Language, Assimilation
Abstract: En este trabajo, se presentan las condiciones generales tanto del mantenimiento del judeoespañol como de su desplazamiento por el serbio. El mantenimiento fue un fenómeno lingüístico y cultural durante el cual esta lengua se conservó por siglos casi intacta entre los sefardíes de Belgrado, mientras que el desplazamiento fue un proceso de una duración mucho menor, que se inicia en la comunidad sefardí de Belgrado en la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y se prolonga hasta la Segunda Guerra Mundial. El modelo aplicado al fenómeno estudiado se basa principalmente en la teoría de dominios de lenguaje. La situación sociolingüística y sociocultural del judeoespañol de Belgrado ofrece un paradigma del ciclo de vida de esta variedad lingüística en los Balcanes.
Conspiracy theory in Serbian culture at the time of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
Author(s): Byford, Jovan
Date: 2002
Topics: Antisemitism: Christian, Antisemitism: Far right, War, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: The thesis examines Serbian conspiracy culture at the time of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. During the war, conspiratorial themes became a regular occurrence in Serbian mainstream media, as well as in pronouncements by the Serbian political establishment. For the most part, conspiratorial explanations focused on the machinations of transnational elite organisations such as the Bilderberg group or, more generally, on the conspiracy of 'the West'. However, conspiratorial accounts of the war occasionally invoked themes which were previously deemed to be beyond the boundaries of acceptable opinion, such as the allusion to a Jewish conspiracy or to the esoteric and occult aspects of the alleged plot. The thesis outlines the history of conspiracy theories in Serbia and critically reviews psychological approaches to understanding the nature of conspiracy theories. It suggests that the study of conspiratorial discourse requires the exploration of the rhetorical and argumentative structure of specific conspiratorial explanations, while paying special attention to the historical and ideological context within which these explanations are situated. The thesis is largely based upon the examination of the coverage of the war in the Serbian press. Recorded conversations with two well-known Serbian conspiracy theorists are also analysed. The study suggest that conspiratorial interpretations of the war drew upon a longstanding conspiracy tradition of explanation which has a strong anti-semitic legacy and is rooted in right-wing Christian ideology. Analytic chapters explore the discursive and ideological dynamics by which the anti-semitic and mystical aspects of the conspiracy tradition emerged briefly in Serbian mainstream media and political discourse. The thesis concludes by examining the status of conspiracy theories in Serbia in the aftermath of the political changes in October 2000.
Language and identity among the Sephardim in the Territory of the former Yugoslavia
Author(s): Filipović, Jelena; Vučina Simović, Ivana
Editor(s): Sikimić, Biljana; Ašić, Tijana
Date: 2008
Topics: Sephardi Jews, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Ethnicity, Language, Ladino and Haketia, Literature, Newspapers, Magazines and Periodicals
Abstract: In this paper, the question of importance of Judeo--Spanish as the means for maintaining ethnic identity among the Sephardim in the territories of former Yugoslavia is investigated through an analysis of articles dedicated to the topic published in El amigo del puevlo (a Judeo-Spanish periodical which first was published in Serbia, and then in Bulgaria), fragments from the books by Angel Pulido, Los israelitas espanoles y el idioma castellano (Madrid 1904) and Espanoles sin patria y la raza sefardi (Madrid 1905),as well as unpublished documents from the Archive of Serbia and the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade.The present analysis suggests that a specific language ideology(negative attitudes towards the minority language in question) has played a crucial role in language shift in favor of the majority languages in the region (which has not jeopardized the concept of ethnic identity and membership), thus supporting findings by other authors(e.g., Myhill 2004, Weis 2000) that the maintenance of ethnic identity among Jews over the centuries has often been strengthened bycultural (religious, traditional, literary, etc.) rather than linguistic criteria. From the theoretical standpoint, this research clearly supports the view that the construction of ethnicity and ethnic identity should be viewed as a complex process in which different factors (language being only one of them) have different values and saliency at different points in time (e.g., see Fishman 1989; 1999)
The emergence of antisemitic conspiracy theories in Yugoslavia during the war with NATO
Author(s): Byford, Jovan; Billig, Michael
Date: 2001
Topics: Antisemitism: Christian, Antisemitism: Far right, Conflict, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Newspapers, Magazines and Periodicals, Nationalism
Abstract: Byford and Billig examine the emergence of antisemitic conspiracy theories in the Yugoslav media during the war with NATO. The analysis focuses mainly on Politika, a mainstream daily newspaper without a history of antisemitism. During the war, there was a proliferation of conspiratorial explanations of western policies both in the mainstream Serbian media and in statements by the Yugoslav political establishment. For the most part such conspiracy theories were not overtly antisemitic, but rather focused on the alleged aims of organizations such as the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. However, these conspiracy theories were not created de novo; writers in the Yugoslav media were drawing on an established tradition of conspiratorial explanations. The tradition has a strong antisemitic component that seems to have affected some of the Yugoslav writings. Byford and Billig analyse antisemitic themes in the book The Trilateral by Smilja Avramov and in a series of articles published in Politika. They suggest that the proliferation of conspiracy theories during the war led to a shifting of the boundary between acceptable and non-acceptable political explanations, with the result that formerly unacceptable antisemitic themes became respectable. This can be seen in the writings of Nikolaj Velimirovic, the Serbian bishop whose mystical antisemitic ideas had previously been beyond the bounds of political respectability. During the war, his ideas found a wider audience, indicating a weakening of political constraints against such notions.
Playing with Jews in the Fields of Nations: Symbolic Contests in the Former Yugoslavia
Author(s): Gordiejew, P. B.
Date: 2006
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Other, Post-1989, National Identity, Nationalism, Philosemitism
Abstract: The collapse of socialist Yugoslavia and the rise of independent states in its place brought out interesting and disturbing phenomena involving Jews and Jewish symbols. This paper examines the following processes: 1) the loss of Jewish submergence in the political and symbolic orders of that socialist state; 2) a short-lived philosemitism; 3) an appropriation or ‘functionalization’ of Jews and Jewish symbols in contests over the moral superiority of one's nation; and 4) the return of classic anti-Semitism aimed at local Jewish places and individuals and at spreading ideas of Jewish political and cultural domination. Also described is how Jews engaged in welcoming or contesting encroachment on their own symbolic space.
Antisemitism and nationalist conflicts in the former Yugoslavia
Author(s): Sekelj, Laslo
Date: 1993
Topics: Antisemitism, Conflict, Main Topic: Antisemitism, Nationalism
The Wish to be a Jew: The Power of the Jewish Trope in the Yugoslav Conflict*
Author(s): Zivkovic, Marko
Date: 2000
Topics: Antisemitism, Conflict, Attitudes to Jews, Main Topic: Other, Violence
Thrice Plundered: The Politics of Restitution with Regard to the Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Author(s): Friedman, Francine
Editor(s): Ognjenovic, Gorana; Jozelic, Jasna
Date: 2021
Topics: Holocaust, Main Topic: Other, Memory, Restitution and Reparations, Communism
Abstract: The chapter deals specifically with a political attempt at history’s erasure. As detailed throughout the anthology, the manipulation and often willful misinterpretation of history in order to benefit one group while belittling the suffering of another group by changing the record of, or even denying, their experience has led to distrust among the groups involved, no less today than previously. The appropriation of private and communal property of a powerless or minority group by a country’s dominant group through manipulation of the historical record, treated here through a case study of the theft over many decades of the Bosnian Jewish community’s property, is, thus, a clear example of the politicization of history.
Islamophobia and Antisemitism in the Balkans
Author(s): Hoare, Marko Attila
Editor(s): Renton, James; Gidley, Ben
Date: 2017
Topics: Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Jewish - Muslim Relations, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: Antisemitism and Islamophobia are two phenomena that have seemingly been growing in parallel across the globe in the period since the 9/11 attacks in 2001. As discussed in other chapters of this book, the question of whether they are essentially similar to one another or fundamentally different is highly controversial. This chapter will examine the question from the perspective of the Balkans. There, violence and chauvinism against Jews and against Muslims have frequently gone hand in hand, but have also diverged at times from one another. The relationship of state policy and nationalist ideology towards Muslims and Jews has been shaped by a common framework, but varied according to political circumstances
Formen und Erscheinungen des Antisemitismus in der Bundesrepublik Jugoslawien
Translated Title: Forms and manifestations of anti-Semitism in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Author(s): Sekelj, Laslo
Date: 1997
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Antisemitism
The Holocaust Template - Memorial Museums in Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina
Translated Title: Predložak holokausta – memorijalni muzeji u Mađarskoj,Hrvatskoj i Bosni i Hercegovini
Author(s): Radonić, Ljiljana
Date: 2018
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Memorials, Holocaust Commemoration, Memory, Memorial, Museums
Abstract: In this article, I discuss how memorial museums in Hungary, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina reference trends set by the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem. Museums, which have tried to prove their Europe-fitness in the course of EU accession talks by highlighting the Holocaust, and those, which have sidelined the Holocaust to prevent its memorialization from competing with that of communist crimes, both incorporate elements from "western" Holocaust memorial museums, indicating how universalized Holocaust remembrance has become. I argue that these museological trends have also "travelled" to museums dedicated to the post-Yugoslav wars. In the last part I analyze how the Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide in Sarajevo and the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial Center reference trends stemming from Holocaust memorial museums.
Intergenerational Memory, Language and Jewish Identification of the Sarajevo Sephardim
Author(s): Rock, Jonna
Date: 2019
Topics: Jewish Revival, Language, Main Topic: Identity and Community, Sephardi Jews, Religious Observance and Practice, Jewish Community
Abstract: This study analyzes issues of language and Jewish identification pertaining to the Sephardim in Sarajevo. Complexity of the Sarajevo Sephardi history means that I explore Bosnia-Herzegovina/Yugoslavia, Israel and Spain as possible identity-creating factors for the Sephardim in Sarajevo today. My findings show that the elderly Sephardic generation insist on calling their language Serbo-Croatian, whereas the younger generations do not really know what language they speak – and laugh about the linguistic situation in Sarajevo, or rely on made-up categories such as ‘Sarajevan.’ None of the interviewees emphasize the maintenance of Judeo-Spanish as a crucial condition for the continuation of Sephardic culture in Sarajevo. Similarly, the celebration of Jewish holidays is more important for the maintenance of identity across the generations than speaking a Jewish language. At the same time, the individuals also assert alternative forms of being Bosnian, ones that encompass multiple ethnicities and religious ascriptions. All the youngest interviewees however fear that the Sarajevo Sephardic identity will disappear in a near future. Unique characteristics of Sarajevo Sephardim include the status of the Sephardim and minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina given (1) the discriminatory Bosnian Constitution; (2) the absence of a law in Bosnia on the return of property; (3) the special situation wherein three major ethnic groups, and not just a single, ethnically homogeneous ‘majority,’ dominate the country; (4) the lack of a well-developed Jewish cultural infrastructure. Despite all of this, a rapprochement between the Sarajevo Jewish Community members and their religion and tradition is taking place. This phenomenon is partly attributable to the Community’s young religious activist and chazan, Igor Kožemjakin, who has attracted younger members to the religious services.
Anti-semitism and the treatment of the Holocaust in postcommunist Eastern Europe
Editor(s): Braham, Randolph L.
Date: 1994
Topics: Antisemitism, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Commemoration, Holocaust, Holocaust Memorials, Memory, Nationalism, Post-1989
Abstract: A collection of papers based on lectures offered under the auspices of the Rosenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies during the 1992 academic year. Contributors evaluate the reassertion of xenophobic nationalism and the rise of antisemitism in postcommunist East Central European countries such as Romania, Slovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Hungary. Topics include treatment of the Holocaust in textbooks, the communist legacy, and Jews and Christians under communism
Looking Back at Holocaust Remembrance in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Author(s): Levinger-Goy, Jasna
Date: 2023
Topics: Holocaust, Holocaust Commemoration, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Post-1989
Abstract: The Holocaust was, or rather was not, remembered in former Yugoslavia until recently, although the Second World War victims were commemorated in various ways.It appears that the Holocaust as a concept and consequently its remembrance hardly exist-ed in the life of Bosnia and Herzegovina (and Yugoslavia) from the time after the Second World War until early 1990s. Yet it seems it was not recognized for quite a while through-out the world either. According to Subotić, “What we today refer to as ‘the Holocaust’ did not exist as a concept or a marker in global collective memory prior to the early 1960s.”1The Holocaust is definitely a part of history, yet it should not be confined to history only. The pertinent question is how to remember it, how to commemorate the tragedy of one people without dwelling too much on the graphic horrors of it. Maybe the emphasis should be on the sorts of phenomena irrational hatred can give rise to and on the explicit warnings to guard against them
Sephardic and Oriental Oral Testimonies: Their Importance for Holocaust Commemoration and Memory
Author(s): Kerem, Yitzchak
Editor(s): Roth, John K.; Maxwell, Elizabeth; Levy, Margot; Whitworth, Wendy
Date: 2001
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust Survivors, Oral History and Biography, Sephardi Jews
Abstract: In the absence of documentation, oral testimonies of Sephardic and Oriental Holocaust survivors serve as important sources for remembering and learning about the Holocaust in the Balkans, North Africa, and Iraq during World War II. Furthermore, the published testimonies are an additional way of including Sephardic and Oriental Jewry in the Holocaust historiography, which has largely ignored the non-Ashkenazic Jews who suffered in the Holocaust in the death camps, in hiding, or during their escape from their home countries. Since Holocaust museum exhibitions have often failed to represent Sephardic Jewry as Holocaust victims, Sephardi oral testimonies are educational tools and vehicles for raising public awareness about the theme.
Restitution as the Legal Vacuum in the System of Law
Translated Title: Pravna praznina u procesu restitucije
Author(s): Krstić, Jovan
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Restitution and Reparations, Law
Abstract: One of the clear examples of the existence of legal gaps in the legislation of the Republic of Serbia is the problem of restitution of property of Holocaust victims, which is shown as a separate problem that remains unregulated. The academic community of experts deserves serious scientific criticism for tolerating legal gaps in the legal system. Criminological phenomena of hate crime and hate speech which in the past resulted in the adoption of racial laws, civil rights and confi scation of property and physical liquidation – Holocaust –are such unique instances of evil that they exceede the limits of one life span and affect generations to come, unprepared to deal with them due to the unwillingness of our generation to act preventively regulating social relations based on modern principles and standards in order to prevent recurrence of the past. This is considered to be the essential (symbolic) inadequacy of the security systems from the perspective of knowledge management and diplomacy. Wrong attitude of the academic community towards the problem of increasing the capacity within the security system to protect the public interest and towards the reform of the security system can be critically assessed through present profiling of the security community outside of executive power – in the judiciary, in the status of law enforcement agencies, although the nature of their work and the principle of secrecy is incompatible with the principle of transparency in the work of law enforcement agencies. Unfortunately, it is likely that all these problems will be crashing down on the future generations.
An Overview of the Law on Rehabilitation from the Point of View of the Holocaust Victims and other Victims of Nazi Terror
Translated Title: Pregled Zakona o rehabilitaciji iz perspektive žrtava Holokausta i drugih žrtava nacističkog terora
Author(s): Lazić, Radovan
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Restitution and Reparations, Law
Abstract: Law on Property Restitution and Compensation stipulates that its provisions apply to confiscated property provided that the owner of that property is rehabilitated. In this case, the request for the return of property must be accompanied by a court decision on the rehabilitation or proof that the application for rehabilitation was submitted. The first Serbian Rehabilitation Act was passed in 2006. According to the Law on Rehabilitation, from December 2011, persons who have been deprived of a right (to life, to freedom of movement, to property...) because of political activism, ideological or religious beliefs and national origin before the entry into force of this Act can be rehabilitated. However, the question is how the provisions of this law are applied to the victims of the Holocaust and other victims of Nazi terror. Does this law take into account the victims, does it provide any satisfaction to the victims of the Holocaust and other victims of the occupiers and various quisling formations? What consequences the
implementation of the Rehabilitation Act may have on the property rights of persons who, in the course of World War II, acquired property that was previously forcibly taken away (factual and legal violence) from their
rightful owners? What consequences the implementation of this law may have on the rights of the victims of the Holocaust and their heirs and what consequences the implementation of this law may have on the rights of the
victims of the Holocaust who have no heirs?
Several Ideas on Holocaust and Restitution in Historical Overview: Serbian Ethical and Property Dilemma and the Legacy of Anti-Semitism
Translated Title: Nekoliko ideja o Holokaustu i restituciji kroz istorijsku perspektivu: etička i imovinska dilema Srbije i nasleđe antisemitizma
Author(s): Samardžić, Nikola
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Restitution and Reparations, Law, Antisemitism
Abstract: Following on the overview presented at the first annual Holocaust and Restitution Conference concerning what is known about the expropriation of cultural property in Serbia during World War II and where that cultural property is presently located, ways in which restitution of art, Judaica, and other cultural property might best be implemented are discussed.

Serbia is encouraged to do historical research on the history of cultural plunder during World War II and on what was restituted to Serbia and within Serbia after the War, and to create a listing or database on the internet of what was taken in Serbia, noting what was subsequently returned and what is still missing. An entity should be responsible for provenance research in the country, either one that actually does the research as in Austria or one that oversees the research carried out by museums, libraries, and archives as in the Netherlands. Information should be made public over the internet of the results of such provenance research. A separate entity, as neutral and independent as possible, should be responsible for restitution decisions based on the provenance research. Serbia should pass legislation covering the return of private movable cultural property that is applicable to both Serbian and foreign citizens. Preferably there should be no deadline for claims for cultural property, whether individual or communal, since such cultural property is often not immediately identifiable. A non-bureaucratic process for filing claims should be established. Cultural property for which original owners and heirs are not identified (heirless property) should be listed on an internet site so that potential claimants can come forward. Such
items should not necessarily move from their current location, but their provenance history should be publicly noted.
Further Observations on the Restitution of Art, Judaica, and Other Cultural Property Plundered in Serbia
Translated Title: Dalja zapažanja o restituciji umetničkih dela, judaike i drugih kulturnih dobara opljačkanih u Srbiji
Author(s): Fisher, Wesley A.
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Restitution and Reparations, Law
Abstract: Following on the overview presented at the first annual Holocaust and Restitution Conference concerning what is known about the expropriation of cultural property in Serbia during World War II and where that cultural property is presently located, ways in which restitution of art, Judaica, and other cultural property might best be implemented are discussed.
Serbia is encouraged to do historical research on the history of cultural plunder during World War II and on what was restituted to Serbia and within Serbia after the War, and to create a listing or database on the internet of what was taken in Serbia, noting what was subsequently returned and what is still missing. An entity should be responsible for provenance research in the country, either one that actually does the research as in Austria or one that oversees the research carried out by museums, libraries, and archives as in the Netherlands. Information should be made public over the internet of the results of such provenance research. A separate entity, as neutral and independent as possible, should be responsible for restitution decisions based on the provenance research. Serbia should pass legislation covering the return of private movable cultural property that is applicable to both Serbian and foreign citizens. Preferably there should be no deadline for claims for cultural property, whether individual or communal, since such cultural property is often not immediately identifi able. A non-bureaucratic process for filing claims should be established. Cultural property for which original owners and heirs are not identifi ed (heirless property) should be listed on an internet site so that potential claimants can come forward. Such
items should not necessarily move from their current location, but their provenance history should be publicly noted.
Restitution of Jewish Property in Croatia
Translated Title: Povrat židovske imovine u Hrvatskoj
Author(s): Dobrovšak, Ljiljana
Date: 2015
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Restitution and Reparations, Law
Abstract: This paper discusses the restitution of Jewish property in Croatia from 1990 on, having in mind that the question has not yet been resolved and that progress towards this has been very slow due to sketchy laws which are being implemented only partially. Th is issue usually receives more attention only when a Croatian government fi gure meets someone from Israel or the US Administration. Current legislature enables restitution only of Jewish property seized after 1945, while property seized during the NDH (Independent state of Croatia) remained intact, " protected " by laws passed at the time of Yugoslavia. Current restitution of seized property is performed according to the Law on Restitution/Compensation of Property Taken during the Time of the Yugoslav Communist Government, which came into eff ect in 1997, so the right to restitution or compensation applies only to Croatian citizens of the fi rst order of succession. Th at property seized between 1941 and 1945 is not restituted is still an accepted practice, despite the fact that it is in this period when the majority of Jewish property was seized. Th e right to restitution is still limited to the fi rst order of succession, while the deadline for applications remains too short. Towards the end of mandate of the Jadranka Kosor government there were some attempts to change that and enact a new law, but the proposal for that law got stuck somewhere in parliamentary procedure so it is not yet clear when it will be passed. Until now, judging by unoffi cial data, less than 30 percent of Jewish families of those who perished in the NDH have achieved the return of immobile property, so the government of Prime Minister Zoran Milanović donated a building in the centre of Zagreb to the Jewish municipality, as a kind of compensation for property seized during Ustasha regime.
Jews of Former Yugoslavia and Their Decline After Wars In Yugoslavia: Legal and Material Positions in Serbia, Croatia And Bosnia & Herzegovina 1991-2016
Translated Title: Jevreji Bivše Jugoslavije i Njihovo Opadanje Nakonratova u Jugoslaviji: Pravni i Imovinski Položaj u Srbiji, Hrvatskoj i Bosni i Hercegovini 1991-2016
Author(s): Dajč, Haris
Date: 2017
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Community, Restitution and Reparations, Law, Finance, Economy
Abstract: Once one of the most numerous and prosperous minorities in Yugoslavia, the number of Jews declined from over 80,000 to 15,000 in the years aer WW2. is number further decreased due to migration to Israel in the first post-war years, and further impoverishment took place because of confiscation and restitution of the majority of private and communal Jewish property, and enforced renouncing of Yugoslav citizenship. e first multi-party elections in Yugoslavia brought to power nationalist elements in all republics, which was followed by civil war, and the breaking of socialist Yugoslavia. Jews of Yugoslavia found themselves on different warring sides. Fragmentation on all confronted sides made the Jewish community even more vulnerable. A huge majority of former Warsaw Pact members aer the Berlin wall fell passed laws for restitution of property taken by the state in post WW2 period. Jews of Yugoslavia, in several new states, had promises from state offi cials that their property would be restituted and errors made half a century ago would be rectified. e only case where such a promise came true was Serbia. In 2011 Serbia passed General Restitution Law concerning individuals, therefore also Jews. In 2006 Serbia passed Law on property of the religious communities that also included Jewish community and that helped restitution of the Jewish communal property. e state of Serbia is the only state in the region that passed the Jewish Lex Specialis that concerns on Jewish property with no successor but also unclaimed Jewish property in February 2016. Croatia passed a General Restitution Law in 1996, and amended it in 2002, but it only affects property nationalized aer May 1945. at Law is limited to direct successors who are Croatian citizens or citizens of countries which have bilateral agreements with Croatia. Due to very high taxes, in some cases reaching 25% of property value, a lot of Jewish requests remained unsolved. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the rare European countries that did not pass such a law. Moreover, the BIH constitution declares three constituent nations: Serbs, Croats and Bosnians, while others as minorities cannot be nominated for state positions, according to chapters IV and V of the BIH constitution (Sejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovina). is paper aims to give insight into the economic power of Jews just before the breakdown of Yugoslavia, and the current economic situation of Jewish communities in Serbia, Croatia and BIH, with a special emphasis on their economic, legal and social position in the last two decades. is restitution issue is very important for it shows how much goodwill states have for helping their local Jewish communities. e research material is obtained from local Jewish communities, periodicals, reports, interviews, conferences, scientific journals and statistical data of all three states and various Jewish organization. Facing the past, admitting and rectifying remain open issues in those countries, and they are excellent indicators of the progress achieved in the last 25 years.
Yugoslav Jewry. Aspects of Post-World War II and Post-Yugoslav Developments
Author(s): Kerkkänen, Ari
Date: 2001
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Post-1989, Post-War Jewish History, Nationalism, National Identity, Communism
Voices of Yugoslav Jewry
Author(s): Gordiejew, Paul Benjamin
Date: 1998
Topics: Main Topic: Identity and Community, Jewish Identity, Secularity, Nationalism, Oral History and Biography, Post-1989, Post-War Jewish History
Abstract: Voices of Yugoslav Jewry emphasizes the role of history in shaping Yugoslav Jewish identity. World War II imposed irreversible effects on this population of Jews, leaving them with an acute sense of disjuncture and fragmentation. This once-unified Jewish community lost its secure place in the politico-symbolic order of a single multiethnic state, and the surviving local Jewish communities, which are now a part of new states, face the task of refashioning their identities once again. The process of creating the new Yugoslavia has allowed for the emergence of a new Jewish collective voice, one that blended harmoniously with the emerging voice of Tito. This collective voice manifested itself by using language, material culture, and dramaturgical performances in ways that exhibited high public integration with the symbolic order of the new state. In searching for the voices of individuals and listening to them closely, a wide range of diverse individual experiences and ways of constructing meaningful Jewish selves can be heard. It is these voices that constitute the core of the book.
Demografska istraživanja židovske populacije u Hrvatskoj
Translated Title: Demographic research on the Jewish population in Croatia
Author(s): Švob, Melita
Date: 2005
Topics: Main Topic: Demography and Migration, Demography, Censuses
Abstract: Koliko ima Židova u svijetu, gdje se nalaze, kamo idu i odakle dolaze, koliko ima starih, a koliko mladih itd. pitanja su koja stalno postavljaju ne samo stručnjaci demografi već i političari, sociolozi, ekonomisti, genetičari pa i rasisti. Poznati židovski demografi zabrinuto konstatiraju da smo sve stariji, a da mladi više ne mare za židovstvo, a svaka židovska zajednica koja drži do sebe prebrojava i istražuje svoje članstvo. Istraživanja židovske populacije su veoma težak zadatak, jer se radi o dinamičnoj kategoriji stanovništva, koja se stalno mijenja. Neki kriteriji se primjenjuju na istraživanja svih populacija (npr. omjer između nataliteta i mortaliteta), a neki su specifični samo za židovsku populaciju, kao što je to pitanje osobne ili grupne identifikacije sa židovstvom. U Izraelu pitanje « tko je Židov » ne ovisi o osobnoj identifikaciji, koja je česta u dijaspori, već o zakonskim i rabinskim rješenjima (halaha). U našoj, relativno maloj Židovskoj zajednici, godinama se prate demografske promjene, a u ovom članku prikazati ćemo, uz ranije, i prve rezultate naših novijih istraživanja. Židovska populacija u Hrvatskoj Za istraživanje židovske populacije preporučuje se kombinacija različitih izvora podataka: popisa stanovništva, podataka iz židovskih općina i rezultata posebnih istraživanja. U popisima stanovništva Hrvatske, poslije II. svjetskog rata, broj Židova ne može se smatrati potpunim, dijelom zbog metodologije popisivanja, a i zbog iskustva Židova u II. svjetskom ratu. Ni broj Židova koji su članovi židovskih općina, (koji se razlikuje od podataka popisa stanovništva), nije potpun, jer ima Židova koji nisu članovi općina, a u općine su učlanjeni i ne-Židovi, supružnici iz mješovitih brakova. Tako su u prvom poslijeratnom popisu stanovništva bivše Jugoslavije, 1948. godine, bila popisana 6.853 Židova, a u isto vrijeme bilo je 11.934 članova židovskih općina.
A Serbian Jewish Perspective on Media and Musical Transmission
Author(s): Wiens, Kathleen
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Music, Liturgy, Synagogues, Sephardi Jews, Ethnomusicology, Ethnography, Education, Jewish Revival
Abstract: This study of the intersections of media and musical transmission spotlights the activities of Sephardic Jewish synagogue prayer leaders in Belgrade, Serbia. The essay traces the reconstruction of Jewish synagogue singing in the past 50 years and outlines motivations for utilising media as an addition to, or replacement for, person-to-person transmission. Music, as a crucial element of weekly synagogue services, played a significant role in the reconstruction of observance. By tracing the narrative of reconstruction, I demonstrate that the meeting of music and media is a dynamic nexus situated within social experience. It was not until the 1970s that a small group of people in Belgrade began a process of reconstructing religious Jewish observance after the near-extermination of local Jewish life between 1941 and 1942. From that time until the present, prayer leaders altered methods of musical transmission as a response to shifting political circumstances. By choice or necessity, print, audio and Internet-based media now play essential roles in teaching and learning Jewish synagogue singing in Belgrade and media-based methods of transmission have transcended person-to-person learning. Over the course of this narrative, I describe both how musicians perceive certain methods of learning as aids or hindrances, and those musical changes that resulted from transition in method.
Remembering Jasenovac: survivor testimonies and the cultural dimension of bearing witness
Author(s): Byford, Jovan
Date: 2014
Topics: Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial, Holocaust, Holocaust Survivors, Memory, Oral History and Biography, Interviews
Abstract: This article examines testimonies of Jasenovac survivors recorded in Serbia between 1989 and 1997 for the oral history collections of the Fortunoff Archive and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The author highlights the differences between the assumptions about survivors and testimony underpinning the US-based interview projects, on the one hand, and the understanding of bearing witness that is apparent in testimonies recorded for projects in Serbia on the other. Contrasting the emotion-centered American approach to survivor testimony with the atrocity-centered Serbian approach, the author argues for a more explicit acknowledgment among scholars, as well as among those involved in recording testimonies, of witnessing as a socially, historically, and institutionally embedded practice.
Jewish Schools in a Changing Europe: Old and New Challenges
Author(s): Dimentstein, Marcelo
Date: 2012
Topics: Jewish Schools, Jewish Education, Policy, Jewish Leadership, Main Topic: Education
Abstract: This paper is based on the outcomes of a think tank on formal Jewish education in Europe, organized by the JDC International Centre for Community Development, in October 2010, Oxford, England and attended by key professionals in the field across Europe. If Jewish education is thriving in the major centers of Jewish life across the continent, there are still a number of issues and dilemmas that remain undiscussed by the professionals and educators working in Europe. Also, this paper stresses the need for Jewish schools to start profiting from, at all levels, an intra- European dialogue.
Jewish Women in the Former Yugoslavia
Author(s): Lebl, Ana
Editor(s): Epstein, Helen
Date: 1999
Topics: Jewish Women, Jewish Organisations, Small Jewish Communities, Post-War Reconstruction, Communism, Conflict, Main Topic: Other
Abstract:

The author provides an overview of Jewish history in the former Yugoslavia, with an emphasis on the lives and activities of women. Until the Holocaust, the diverse Jewish community prospered and Jewish women's organizations multiplied and grew. Jewish women were active in organizing and providing aid, in supplies and medical work, in every Balkan war. After the decimation of the Holocaust, only a fraction of the community remained. Yugoslavia enjoyed relative freedom of movement and freedom of religion under communism, however, and eventually some women's organizations were rebuilt and were able to continue their benevolent work throughout the modern conflicts, even at the high point of violence in Sarajevo. Each of the new countries continues to have its own women's organizations, even in smaller communities like Split, where the Jewish population is only 120.
Why Don't They Participate? A Short Voyage into the Hearts, Minds and Concerns of the Jews of Subotica, Yugoslavia
Translated Title: ה"נעדרים": מסע קצר של התוודעות אל יהודי סובוטיקה, יוגוסלביה
Author(s): Stojkovic, Sara
Date: 2007
Topics: Interviews, Jewish Community, Memory, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: This field report provides us with a poignant account of the current condition of Jewish life in the author's home-town, Subotica, set against the story of the community over the course of the 20th century. The integration of interviews with community members together with Ms. Stojkovi?'s own personal insights and recollections create a fascinating window into the community’s situation, dilemmas, hopes and prospects. While this report deals with one small, specific locale, it has broader implications; as she writes: "Set in a unique historical and geographical environment, I believe that the Jewish community of Subotica tells a story common to many other post-socialist settings, especially the ones placed in the realm of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire".
Whose Jews? Whose Bosnia? Whose Europe?
Author(s): Markowitz, Fran
Date: 2012
Topics: Nationalism, Ethnicity, Conflict, Main Topic: Identity and Community
Abstract: Bosnia-Herzegovina’s governance depends on a constitution that was drafted in Dayton, Ohio. It designates the Bosniacs, Croats and Serbs (along with Others) the country’s constituent peoples. Although Jews have been residents of Bosnia-Herzegovina for 500 years, with the country’s new constitution they have disappeared from official records into the residual category of Others. This article considers how, nonetheless, the Jews of Sarajevo persist as an active community and a named group even as its identity is being defined by others. The interrelated questions, “Whose Jews? Whose Bosnia? Whose Europe?” have no neat, finite answers while Jews-as-Others and Bosnia as an ethnically divided and overdetermined, EU-supervised country remain precariously perched on unsettled and unsettling configurations of rights and power.
The Jewish Dimension of the Yugoslav Crisis
Author(s): Golub, Jennifer L.
Date: 1992
Topics: Main Topic: Other, Conflict
Special Issue on Antisemitism in Europe: 2
Author(s): Erb, Rainer; Graml, Hermann; Kovács, András; Mihok, Brigitte; Pelinka, Anton; Reiterer, Albert F.; Schmidt-Hartmann, Eva; Sekelj, Laslo; Stern, Frank; Varga, Lazlo; Bergmann, Werner
Date: 1993
Topics: Antisemitism, Anti-Zionism, Holocaust, Islamic Fundamentalism, Nationalism, Minorities, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: Selected papers from an international conference organized by the Zentrum für Antisemitismusforshung, Berlin, in association with the Institute of Jewish Affairs, London, and the Vidal Sassoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism, Jerusalem
Central and East European Jewry: The Impact of Liberalization and Revolution
Author(s): Institute of Jewish Affairs
Date: 1990
Topics: Jewish Community, Jewish Culture, Antisemitism, Main Topic: Other
Abstract: Reports on the development of Jewish life in Eastern and Central Europe following liberalization. Covers seven countries using specialists and reports on similar patterns: revival of Jewish cultural life, people who had denied their origins now identifying as Jews, young people discovering Jewish identity, ousting of communist era Jewish leaders, increased desire to participate in European and international Jewish activities. Also discusses antitsemitism and relations with Israel.
Jewish Restitution and Compensation Claims in Eastern Europe and the Former USSR 
Author(s): Sieradzka, Krystyna
Date: 1993
Topics: Holocaust, Restitution and Reparations, Antisemitism, Law, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: Reports on the development of legal frameworks for restitution in the former USSR and Eastern Europe. Includes sections on most states and successor states in the region.
Antisemitism in Central and Eastern Europe: A Current Survey
Author(s): Institute of Jewish Affairs
Date: 1991
Topics: Antisemitism, Jewish Community, Law, Main Topic: Antisemitism
Abstract: Draws on the work of country specialists to report on the current state of antisemitism in eastern europe and Yugoslavia
Jewish Restitution and Compensation Claims in Eastern Europe and the former USSR: Survey and Analysis
Author(s): Institute of Jewish Affairs
Date: 1992
Topics: Holocaust, Restitution and Reparations, Antisemitism, Law, Main Topic: Holocaust and Memorial
Abstract: Prepared for the World Jewish Congress, reports on the development of legal frameworks for restitution in the former USSR and Eastern Europe. Includes sections on most states and successor states in the region.