А History of Yugoslav Jews (1)

FROM ANCIENT TIMES TO THE END

OF THE I9TH CENTURY

by Yakir Eventov
edited by Cvi Rotem

English summary translated by Hannah Shmorak

and edited by Richard Laufer

Reprinted jrom:

‫ א‬,‫תולדות יהודי יוגוסלבית‬

‫ספריית התאחדות עול« יוגוסלביה‬
1971 - ‫תל־אביב תסל׳יב‬
The publication of this History of Yugoslav Jews was sponsoređ by
the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture and by the Bureau
for Jewish Communities and Organizations of the Jewish Agency

Copyright by Hitahdut olej Yugoslavia in Israel, Tel-Aviv 1971

Printed in Israel by “Davar”, Tel‫־‬Aviv

INTRODUCTION (pp. 17—24)

In the atmosphere of Eretz Israel Jewish historiograpl1y has met with

an unhampered natural development even where it is not concerned with
the history of this country itself. Here the Jews are actors in their own
story rather than. mere stage props in the historic drama of the peoples
they were dispersed among.
The time has come for the history of the Jews of the Western Balkans
to be reviewed ш this light. So far the history of this section of the Jewish
people has remained largely unexplored and unrecorded. This book 13 the
first attempt at filling the gap. It is ‫־‬vvritten. in the hope that the subject
тау prove of interest to the historian, the scholar and the layman, and
particularly to the younger generation of Jews whose parents have come
from that part of the world but who have so far had little chance of
familiarising themselves with their own background.
The first volume deals with the history of this community from ancient
times until the end of the 19th century. The second volume will bring
the story up to the middle of the 20th century and tell of the social ferment
of that period, the emergence of political Zionism and the spiritual revival
that accompanied it, tbe immigration of young Jews to Palestine, the Nazi
holocaust and the fate of its survivors after the Second World War.
Time and space naturally are the two major co-ordinates of the events
related. The begmmngs of our story are set against the scene of the Roman
Empire of which Dalmatia and Macedonia formed part. The Jews of
Dubrovnik were spared neither the horrors of the Middle Ages nor the
excesses of the Church Militant ш its counter-reformational zeal. Under
Ottoman rule ш the 17th and 18th centuries, when the glory of the Sublime
Porte was already on the wane, the Jews of Serbia and Bosnia had a brief
spell of prosperity. Ву 1941, over a span of 150 years, the Jewish com-
munity ш Croatia had developed from a hotbed of assimilation into a centre
of Jewish revival.
Тће book describes both the external factors that affected the Jewish
communities in the southern Slavonic countries and the general Jewish
events that shaped the course of their history. In 1918 these countries
united to form the state of Yugoslavia, whereby a new name was bom —
“Yugoslav Jewry” —, a term hardly ever used before World War I. Our
Tombslone of Auielius Dyonisius, a Jcw from Tiberias — Benkovac, Dalmatia, 2nd Century
Polyha1‫־‬mos’ Pillar — Stobi, 211d Century Grcek Lcgend on Polyharmos’ Pillar
purpose is to trace the history of this Yugoslav Jewry, that is all those
Jewish groups which lived at various times during two tbousand years
within the territories o£ present‫־‬day Yugoslavia. In the northern Balkans
and the neighbouring provinces lived the Ashkenazi communities; in tbe
south — the Romaniotes, the descendants of the ancient Greek Jewry.
Family names such as Papo and Romano are now the sole reminders of
the Sephardi (Spanish) Jews’ connection with the Romaniotes. Among
these Jews we also find the name Ashkenazi, which indicates that тапу
a refugee from Central Europe — ashkenazi in Hebrew — was admitted
into the Sephardic communities of the Balkans, as were the fugitives from
Portugal. The Jews who in the course of the centuries came to settle within
the territories of Yugoslavia via Dubrovnik can hardly be regarded as
a homogeneous group, though the majority seem to have come from Italy.
Before the birth of Yugoslavia in 1918 the Jewish communities of
Serbia, Bosnia, Vojvodina, Dalmatia and Croatia had been residents of
various territories of pre‫־‬war Austro-Hungarian Мопагсћу and of Serbia.
Thus they had been not only ethnically heterogeneous but also divided
by political frontiers. From 1918 onward the Sephardi and Ashkenazi
communities gradually merged into a single whole.

UNDER THE ROMAN EAGLE (pp. 25—36)

In 1878 the Italian archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi found

a 4th century inscription on a tombstone in the ancient cemetery of Solin,
reading, “Here lies a man buried according to the sacred laws of Chris-
tianity.” Rossi discerned a Hebrew stylistic influence in tbis legend as
nothing resembling it had been found on the pagan or Christian. tombstones
of the late Roman period, and suspected the presence of a Jewish cemetery
in the neighbourhood. In 1956 Branimir Gabritchevich found two fragments
of a tombstone ш the Solin digs on which he deciphered tbe inscription:
“Мау no unwanted trespassers desecrate this tomb, be they Jews, Christians
or ... ani ..A Iively archaeological controversy ensued about the mutil-
ated word, but for оиг purpose suffice it to note the specific reference
to Jews.
A tombstone in Benkovac on the slopes of Mount Velebit in Dalmatia,
commemorated one Aurelius Dyonisius, a Tiberian Jew of the 2nd century
A.D. In 1960 a Jewish grave was found in Duclea near Titograd in Monte-
negro, which is believed to date from the end of the 3rd century A.D.
А 4th-Century Tombstone at Solin, on which Jews arc mentioned

16-th-Century Tombstones in the Магуап Graveyard at Split

In Stobi in Yugoslav Macedonia two so‫־‬called Polyharmos pillars were
discovered in the thirties among the ruins of a church apparently erected
on the foundations of a synagogue. One o£ them bears in Greek the name
of their Jewish donor and a stipulation which gave rise to a dispute about
the status of the Patriarchs during the Roman period.

UNDER BYZANTINE RULE (pp. 36—38)

With the decline of the Westem Roman Empire and the rise o£
Christianity the position of the Jews in Dalmatia and the southem Balkans
soon deteriorated. Christianity was adopted by the State and in the name
of the newly acknowledged Church restrictions against Jews were issued
by successive Councils and Synods. They were deprived of religious freedom
and o£ sources of livelihood, and subjected to a variety of social sanctions.
Conditions became particularly hard for the Jews under the rule of the
Eastern ByzantineEmpire, which covered parts o£ present-day Yugoslavia
as weU as some Greek cities from wbere Jews tried to emigrate to the
territories of the southern Slavs. The severely persecuted Greek-speaking
Byzantine Jews, known as Romaniotes, thus dispersed over тапу countries
including those occupied by the southern Slavs. They later merged with
the mass of Jews from the Iberian peninsula who came to settle in these
parts.

THE GHEVALLIM (pp. 39—44)

1дке numerous Medieval documents also those referring to the Ghe-
vallim are rather vague. Who were these people?
Bulan, the King of the Khazars whose domain extended from the
Crimea to Astrakhan, decided somewhere in the 8th century to get con-
verted to Judaism. The Byzantines at Kherson tried to convince him
of the superiority of the Christian religion, and tbe Arabs of the neigh-
bouring countries made similar efforts on behalf o£ the Islamic faith. This
time, however, Judaism won out and the king and тапу of his subjects
became Jewish. From the middle of the 8th century till the beginning
of the Mongol invasion of the European continent, the extensive Kbazar
territories were in fact a Jewish state.
During this period Hasdai Ibn Shaprut served as Vizier (mmister)
at the court of Khalif Abdurrahman III (912-961) in Cordova. A delegation
from the Byzantine Empire confirmed to him the existence of the Khazarian
realm under the reign o£ a Jewish monarch, Joseph. The delegation was
vvilling to take a letter to this king, but to Ibn ShapruPs disappomtment
this letter was returned from Constantinople.
A further opportunity to come in touch with Khazar arose with the
arrival of a delegation of the Ghevallim, two of whose members were
Jews — Mar Shaul and Mar Joseph. They expressed their willingness to
deliver Ibn Shaprut’s letter to their king who would see to it that it was
forvvarded to the Khazar monarch via Hungary, Russia and Bulgaria.
The controversy about the Ghevallim mainly concemed the location
of their kingdom. Some fifty years ago historians tended to identify it
with the Croatian kingdom o£ the lOth century. It appears that the Arab
historiographers used that name to refer to the inbabitants of the moun-
tainous coast of Dalmatia with which Spain entertained a lively commerce
by sea (gebl in Arabic means mountain). In tbe lOth century this coast
was under the rule of the sovereign state of Croatia. Ibn Shaprut in his
letter to King Joseph mentioned “the King of the Ghevallim who are
Siklab”; while the Arab Ibn Khaldoun refers to the eastern Adriatic coast
as the Shore of the Sakalib. One of the quarters of Palermo, the capital
of Sicily, was called Harat Askaliba — the Slav Quarter. Ibrahim Ibn
Yakoob, who traveUed through the southern Slavonic countries in 965,
also refers to the Croats as Sakalib — Slavs — adding that “theirs is a land
of high mountains”.

UNDER THE CHURCH MILITANT (pp. 45—70)

The Jews of Croatia and Slovenia, two provinces that are considered
as a unit from the Yugoslav point of view, shared a соттоп fate during
the Middle Ages. At the time of the Crusades they found refuge for over
four hundred years in Slovenia, where there had been only few previous
Jewish settlements. There was an older Jewish commumty at Ptuj, while
at Judenburg in Styria Jews were recorded as early as 1080 — sixteen
years before the First Crusade. The well-known exegete and expert in
halakhic law Israel ben Petahya Isserlein (1390 to 1460) lived in Maribor
(Marburg) and wrote authoritative decisions in form of Questions and
Responses which are the most important source for tbe history of tbe
Slovenian Jews.
The latter apparently disappointed the hopes tbeir Slovenian hosts
had placed in them: the топеу supply became neither cheaper пог more
plentiful. They were thus gradually ousted from most fields of economic
enterprise; by the time of their final expulsion the only occupations open
to them were the wine trade and топеу lending.
Jews were also living in the southern part of Slovenia, in the Кгауп
district. There is evidence of a medieval Jewish community m Ljubljana,
whose members enjoyed greater privileges than were accorded to Jews
in апу of the neighbouring countries. Nevertheless anti-Jewish sentiments
developed in Slovenia quite some time before the Black Death of 1348-1349.
In spite of all, Maribor became a small Jewish centre. This Jewish settle-
ment is first mentioned in a document dated 1277. The name of the
Jewish cjuarter hugging the city wall has remained unchanged to this
day, although for hundreds of years — since the expulsion — no Jews
have set foot there.
During the persecutions and expulsions of the Jevvs from Germany
and Austria ш 14271430‫־‬, Itzhak Zarfati repeatedly urged the scattered
exiles, including the Jews of Slovenia, to take refuge in the Ottoman Empire,
but the majority refused to heed his call.
The H01y Roman (German-Austrian) Emperor was finally persuaded
by the Assembly in Maribor to give up the regular income derived from
the Jewish tribute and to accept instead a lump sum paid by the town
dwellers to the Imperial Treasury. On the 18th of March 1496 the Emperor
signed an Edict expelling the Jews from Styria and Corinthia. The expulsion
came into force on Јапиагу 6th, 1497. Also the citizens of Ljubljana
managed to buy a similar Edict £rom Emperor Maximilian, which was
issued in Innsbruck on the lst of Јапиагу 1515. The Jews of Slovenia
escaped to the neighbouring territories — some southwards to settle in
Trieste, Gorizia and Gradisca in the Italian provinces under the rule of
the Hapsburgs, while others escaped eastwards to Burgenland in Western
Hungary.
The historical evidence about the Jew8 in Croatia during the Middle
Ages is much scantier than the sources relating to the Jewish community
m Slovenia. There is no doubt, however, that at least in Zagreb, the
Croatian capital, Jews lived at that time. I.K. Tkaltchich has discovered
a judgment of the Zagreb Court in a case o£ theft dated 17th April 1444,
in which the Jews of that city are mentioned twice; it is alleged that thev
bad bougbt the stolen goods, and that the accused had entered the Domus
Judeorum (the Jewish House) at night, though the document does not
specify the character of “the house”.
In Serbia, too, there is evidence of a Jewish settlement during the
Middle Ages. Here their history is closely related to that of the Byzantine
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Edict of expulsion fioin Ljubljana, Јапиагу 1. 1^15

Transcription see on thc back cover
Jews. The denomination “Jew” appears twice in imperial gi£t charters. In
a decree dated 1337 Emperor Stevan Dushan made over to the Monastery
of Treskavac an estate near Prilep, extending “from the valley o£ the
Jews down to the Jewish watershed.” In a latter document dated 1361,
his son Stevan Urosh ceded the tax collected from the Jews to the Lavra
Monastery of Kbalkidhiki.
As for Dalmatia, a document of 1397 refers to the construction of
a Jewish synagogue at Split, and gravestones dating back to 1573 have
been preserved to this day in the ancient Jewish cemetery on nearby
Mount Marian.
A prominent role was played in tbe history of this town by Daniel
Rodriguez, a Jew who, ш the face of vigorous opposition and difficulties,
managed, in 1592, to build a deep-sea harbour which attracted remarkable
shipping business. In 1667, just as the Venetians were tightenmg their
anti‫־‬Jewish legislation, the Jews of Split distinguished themselves in the
defence of the city against the Turks. David Pardo, who was later to
become Grand Rabbi o£ Sarajevo and eamed fame as a Jewish scholar and
writer, spent 18 years of his prime in this city.
At Shibenik, the municipal authorities failed to attract Jewish capital
until the arrival o£ the brothers Rapbael and Gershon Suess in 1569.
Not even after that date was there ап organized Jevvish community at
Shibenik; at times not a single Jew lived there.
In some Istrian towns Jewish merchants and bankers existed through*
out the Middle Ages. They came from nearby Venice and settled in Istria
under so-called capitoli. In 1380 the first Jewish bank was opened at Koper.
After 1513 the street o£ the Jewish bankers was called “the ghetto”, which
name persisted long after the last Jew had left. At Rovinj the entrance
to the ghetto was known as the Gate o£ the Bearded.
In the municipal archives of Zadar an important document has been
preserved — the agreement betvveen the local Commissioner o£ the Hun-
garian-Croatian King Sigismund, and the Jews. In this agreement, signed
in 1398, that is shortly before the concpiest of the town by Venice, the
King undertakes to respect the Jewish rights and property; by force of
the same agreement the Jews were exempted from the jurisdiction of the
Church.

THE PEARL OF THE ADRIATIC (pp. 71—114)

Dubrovnik was founded by the fugitive emigrants of Epidaurus after
The Ghetto Squa1e at Piran, Istria
the destruction of their town by the Avars in 639. It is known as the Pearl
of the Adriatic not only because of its entrancing landscape but above all
because of its ancient treasures and invaluable archives. Here Jewisb
historiograpby was in Iuck — the archives of Dubrovnik contain ample
testimony of its tmy Jewish community.
The first Jew wbo lived there in 1326 was a physician of unknown
name. He is mentioned in records referring to the years between 1204
and 1358, when the Republic of Dubrovnik stood under tbe protectorate
of Venice. From the end of the 14th century Jewish names in the archives
appear with greater frequency to become rather prominent in the following
three himdred years. A licence given out in 1421 by the Chancellor
approves a commercial partnership between Perera Bonaventura, a Catalo-
nian Jew and “temporary resident of Dubrovnik”, and Isaac Durante,
another Jew from Catalonia. After 1492 there was an increased influx
of Jewish merchants whose presence at Dubrovnik led to the economic
prosperity of the entire city, especially of its shipping business. The years
of the big emigration of Jews from Spain and Portugal led to the foundation
of a Jewish commumty at Dubrovnik at whose head a Consul was placed.
His main function was apparently the collection. of Jewish taxes on be-
half of the Republic’s Treasury.
Then, m 1502, a calamity in form of a blood libel befell the Jew1sh
community of Dubrovnik. In. the suburb of Plotche an old woman was killed
and ten Jews were arrested on suspicion of murder for ritual purposes.
Two of them died under torture, four were burned at the stake, while
a physician named Moses was strangled in prison. The remammg three
were banished from the town. After this blood libel the situation went
from bad to worse until, in Мау 1515, all the Jews including the Marannos
were finally exiled. The majority found shelter in Тигкеу. A number
settled in Italy, mainly in the province of Apulia, where they đid their
best to mterfere with the supply of wheat to Dubrovnik — the only
retaliation they were capable of in return for the anti-Jewish attitude
of the Dubrovnik Government.
In 1532, however, Jews were again in the town. This time they
had not come from the West but from the South — from Salonica, the
various towns of Western Greece, and from Albania. In 1538 foundations
were laid to a revived Jewish community, rather small but all the more
splendid. Ln the relative freedom of a changed Dubrovnik they found the
possibility of a decent livelihood. True, the growing nmnigration of Jews
 brought with it certain curtailments, mainly by demand on the part of
the Church. Nevertheless, the cautious rulers of the town deemed it
expedient to bow to the will of their powerful ally, the Sultan of Тигкеу.
Again and again during the 16th and 17th centuries the Turks demanded
of Dubrovnik to take in and spare the Jewish refugees, the victims of
the West. Апу maltreatment of the Jews was likely to bring about the
Porte’s ill-will toward the tiny Republic. But Тигкеу, too involved in
international tangles, did not always stand by its threats. Already ш 1540
a series of anti‫־‬Jewish regulations were issued at Dubrovnik, confining
the Jewish residence to a number of buildings, obliging them to wear
the yellow badge and hat similar to that imposed оп their brethren in
some Western countries, and so forth. Those who could afford left for
Тигкеу. In 1546 the remaining Jews were confined to a veritable ghetto —
a narrow street not far from the Town Square, with high walls at both
ends and gates that were locked at night.
In 1590 Dubrovnik was seized with a panic at the report from her
Constantinople agent that a neighboring pasha planned to dispossess the
Republic of the Konavle territory. Tbe disaster was averted through the
efforts of a Jevvish physician by the name of Abeatar (Evyatar) who had
only recently set up his practice at Dubrovnik. He first smuggled to his
co-religionists in Constantinople 200 thalers, then another 900. Ву means
of this bribe a firman was secured to put an end to the pasha’s arbitrariness.
Such and similar other patriotic acts induced the Republic of Dubrovnik
to plead for its Jewish doctor whose practices the Church tried to
proscribe.
However, the Republic’s protection did not reach another doctor,
the great Amatus Lusitanus, who had settled in the town about 1556
or 1558. A physician of renown and prominent scholar, he hoped to
be appointed municipal surgeon. He had vvritten a seven-volume work
entitled Centurionum septem, each volume containing one hundred medical
case histories. The sixth volume concluded with the famous Amatus Oath
declaring that the great doctor had always had the well‫־‬being of his patients
at heart rather than his personal advantage, never discriminating Jew
from Christian ог Moslem. Nevertheless, under pressure from the local
physicians and the Church, the city fathers turned down Amatus’ ap-
plication for licence of medical practice in tbe town.
Small as the Jewish community of Dubrovnik was it gave bome
to a brilliant lyrical poet, Dr. Isaiah Cohen, known by his various pseudo-
nyms as Didacus Pyrrhus, Jacobus Flavius, Jacob Eborensis ог Lusitanus.
His influence on his contemporaries was considerable, and although he
wrote in Latin the inhabitants still proudly remember his name. He
mamtained good relations with the aristocracy and citizenry as well as
with the local poets, artists and scientists. His poetry bears all the typical
marks of the period. His contemporary Shlomo Ohev and the latters
grandson Aaron HaCohen wrote two works in Hebrew, Shemen Tov
and Z’kan Aharon.
Aaron HaCohen left a deeper imprint on the history of Dubrovnik
than апу other Jew before or after him. Born there at the end of the 16th
century, he was made Rabbi of the community while still a fairly young
man, and served in this office until his death in 1656. He was a gifted
rhetorician, a brilliant exegete and writer. During his time the community
met with various calamities such as the blood libel of 1622, tbe Yeshurun
trial and, finally, expulsion. In 1652 HaCoben restored and enlarged the
ancient synagogue m the ghetto and the old cemetery, the Zhudioski
Grebi, which was in use even as late as 1910. The synagogue, the oldest
fully preserved one in Yugoslavia, has remained unaltered to this day.
НаСоћеп meticulously recorded the events that overtook his community,
and the collection of his sermons contains a description of the blood libel
and trial of 1622.
The second blood libel differed from the first one only in its details.
This time its victim was a Jewish merchant by the name o£ Isaac Yeshurun.
In September 1622 a girl from the suburb of Pile, daughter of a certain
Julius Longo, disappeared. After prolonged search her body was found
m the home of Maria Matkova, apparently an insane woman. She admitted
killmg the girl but in her defence insisted that she had done so on the
instigation of the Jews who needed Christian blood for the forthcomiDg
Feast of the Tabernacles. The only Jew. she could name was Isaac
Yeshurun. Even after six weeks of torture under arrest Yeshurun did not
break down. Then Matkova was convicted and executed. Nevertheless
the Senate of the Republic decided to expel the few Jews still left at
Dubrovnik who had tried in vain to obtain Yeshurun’s release, among
them Aaron HaCohen. Yeshurun was granted a reprieve only in March
1625. He was immediately exiled and left for Jerusalem. The Yeshurun
Miracle was, for hundreds of years, commemorated in the Напикка ргауегз
of the Jews of Dubrovnik.
In 1667 the city was devastated by an earthquake and thousands
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‫‪'Shemen hatov u'zkan Aharon” by Shlomo Ohev and Aaron HaCohcn — Venice, 1657‬‬
killed. Most of its wealth and art treasures were destroyed. The small
Jewish community lost thirty-nine souls, a considerable part of its total
number. It recovered some of its prosperity at the end of the 18th century,
but the anti-Jewish laws were still scrupulously enforced by the authorities.
In 1804, shortly before the fall of the Republic, a decree finally put
an end to coerced conversion of Jews by the Church.

UNDER THE TURKISH CRESCENT (pp. 115—128)

The Turks’ first encounter with Jews in Anatolia was during the
conquest of Brusa ш 1326. The new rulers granted extensive privileges
to the Jews — free access to crafts and trades as well as the rigbt to
buy property in апу place. In Тигкеу anti-Jewish excesses were rare
atlhough tbe 24 articles of Omar’s Covenant, regulating the policy
of Moslem rulers towards their non-Moslem subjects, remained in force.
Its provisions were gradually mitigated until, in the 19th century, the
only discrimination against non-believers was a per capita land levy. In
тапу localities, moreover, Chifut khans, or Jewish courtyards, were set
up — a Turkish veršion of ghettos.
During the time o£ Turkey’s glory the Jews were treated well and
help was extended to the Jewish refugees from Spain. As the story of Don
Joseph Nassi shows, tbe Ottomans used the services of the Jews against
the enemies of the Empire.
After the expulsion from Spain, the Ottoman Empire became the most
important haven for Jews. At their height the communities of Constan-
tinople, Salonica and Safed were regarded as centres of culture, learning
and wisdom for the world Jewry. The romance between the Jews and
the Turks lasted for some two hundred and fifty years, until the accession
of Murad III in 1574. Towarđs the end of the 16th century, as the
situation worsened, substantial numbers of emigrants from Constantinople
and Salonica settled in present‫־‬day Bulgaria. A smaller contingent went
from Salonica to Macedonia and firom there to northern Serbia, branching
out still further to Bosnia.
Salonica is here of particular significance. Throughout the Ottoman
period it had rather a strong influence over the descenđants of the
Sephardic Jews in Serbia and Bosnia who maintained close cultural and
economic relations with this centre of Jewish life. After the Spanish
expulsion the Jewish quarters ašsumed a distinctly Sephardic-Spanish
character. Ladino replaced the Greek vernacular and the тапу other
 Synagogue at Dubrovnik

The “Aragon” Synagogue at Bitola, destroycd duiing the Second World War
languages of the Jewish Diaspora, to become the lingua јтапса of the
communitjr. Spiritually the entire period is dominated by the mysticism
of the Safed school, veneration for its origmator, Ha’ari (Rabbi Isaac Lurie
Ashkenazi), accompanied by a passionate yearning for the Messiah whose
advent was expected апу day. All these were stones for the foundation
of a homogeneous Jewish community into which the Jews who had earlier
been dispersed all over Europe and were now scattered throughout the
Ottoman Empire, were to merge.
Salonica was one of the first Jewish commumties in Тигкеу to have
Hebrew printing presses, schools and colleges. In the second half of the
17th century the Messianic movement of Shabtai Zvi won numerous
disciples at Salonica by whom the Jewish communities of Serbia and
Bosnia, particularly that of Belgrade, were influenced. Although no direct
link can be traced between the “Court of Shabtai the Messiah” and the
communities of Serbia and Bosnia, the study of the Zohar and the mystic
lore of the Kabbala had stirred up Messianic hopes among the Jewish
people. The ground had been prepared, so that between 1650 and 1666
tbe Shabtaist movement was hopefully velcomed by the oppressed Jewish
masses in Europe, Asia Minor and Africa.

MACEDONIA (pp. 129—139)

The history of tbe Serbian Jews is commonly identified with that of
the Belgrade community. It is true that during the centuries of Ottoman
rule the majority of Serbian Jews lived at Belgrade, but there were
ancient communities in the Macedonian cities of Bitola and Skopje too.
Not long ago, Z. Efron found some Hebrew tombstones o£ the 18th century
also at Dojran near the Greek border.
The Iberian refugees founded two communities at Bitola, which
they named Aragon and Portugal whence they had come. Here Jews lived
uninterruptedly from the beginning o£ the 16th century down to the Nazi
holocaust in 1943. The “big courtyard” m the Jewish cpiarter is fre<juently
mentioned in the 17th century minutes of the Turkish Court at Bitola.
This town was the southern gateway to Serbia through which the Jewish
immigration from Constantinople and Salonica imported not only industrial
products but also the Messianic ideas from Safed. Until the beginmng
of the 20th century it remained the Jewish centre o£ Macedonia. In the
1903 census 8,200 Jews were counted, about 10 рег cent of the town’s
total population. They were highly susceptible to all that was going on
Tombstonc of Rabbi Meyuhas at Dojran, Maccdonia, dating from the уеаг 1766
in the Jewish world and lived an intensively Jewish life themselves. Yet
the Community’s economic resources gradually dwindled. Towards the
end of the 19tb century the Jewish residents of Monastir-Bitola began to
emigrate. After the 1943 disaster not a single Jew was left in the town.
Skopje has an even more ancient history. The town was destroyed in
an earthguake in the 6th century but was rebuilt. In the Middle Agcs
Skopje, situated at a vital highway junction, became ап important
commercial centre. Her small community like other communities in the
Ottoman Empire shared in the effort to take in Iberian refugees and at
the end of tbe 16tb century admitted a number of Магаппо families from
Italy, Spain and Portugal. Until 1943 there were several families members
of the Donmeh sect, descended from Jewish Shabtaists who had been
converted to the Islam. Down to the 17th century no discrimination in
commercial life was practised against the Jews; also the former Marannos
of the Pinto, Vidal, Abarbanel and Kalai families found prosperity in
various business branches. Several Jewish merchants, known as consuls,
acted as commercial agents for big foreign firms. Among tbe well-known
Rabbis of the town the names of Moshe Leon, Moshe Bardashi, Joseph
Handel, Aaron and Shlomo Abayov and Eliahu Arbaro should be men-
tioned.

SERBLA (pp. 139—171)

After the Battle of Kosovo (1389) the Serbian front moved north.
For over a hundred years the Turks made repeated unsuccessful attempts
to take the town of Belgrade until it finally surrendered ’to Suleiman
the Magnificent in 1521.
A local tradition has it that there have been Jews in Belgrade since
time immemorial. In the 16th century the city had two comraunities,
one Ashkenazi and опе Sepbardi, the former. being the older, its founders
having fled to Belgrade from Hungary and Germany during the Middle
Ages. Тће Sephardis came in tbe 16th century with the conquering
Turkish arrnies. The Community’s development in the Jewish quarter
of Jalija set in with the arrival of Meir Angel, the first Rabbi of Belgrade,
vvho wrote some treatises on the Jewish law, the Halakha. The community
prospered and grew in spite of the intellectual and cultural decline of the
Jews in tbe Ottoman Empire. In 1617, on the initiative of Yehuda Lerma,
a Yeshiva was opened whicb was to become a famous centre of Jewish
leaming. The Sepher Shemot, the great treatise of the prominent halakhist
1

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Simha HaCohen, was written in Belgrade. The contribution of the Belgrade
Jews to Jewish religious literature in the 17th century has no parallel in
the history of Yugoslav Jewry. The last important writer of the Belgrade
school was Joseph Almosnino, a native of Salonica who completed his
studies in the S.G. HaCohen Yeshiva of Belgrade. His writings, Edut
beYosef, published posthumously by his son Isaac, are the most charac-
teristic work of the Belgrade scbool. Wben the Turks laid siege to the
city in September 1688, the Jews were expelled and Joseph Almosnino
died in exile at far-off Nicolsburg in Moravia.
The peace treaty signed in Pozharevac in 1718 assured to both
Austrian and Turkish subjects unrestricted residence and commerce rights
in each other’s territory. Thus Turkish Jews settled in Vienna, the Austrian
capital, as well as in Temesvar and in the Hungarian capital of Buda,
and founded there Turkish (Sephardi) communities. While they had
full trading privileges in these towns, Austrian Jews were granted merely
temporary residence and were subject to the Jewish poll tax.
With the conquest of Serbia by the Austrians in 1718 the situation
of the Jews deteriorated in spite of the country’s economic prosperity.
Apart from a ritual slaughter-house no communal activities whatever were
permitted to the Belgrade Jews, so that this town ceased to exist as a centre
of Jewish life. After the Austrian retreat in 1739 a few Sephardic Jews
returned in the wake of the Turkish armies and restored the community.
Shlomo Shalem, a well known scholar of the time, was appointed Rabbi.
In the succeeding years the town changed bands several times until
it returned to the Turks in 1791. One of the first steps taken by the new
govemor, Topal Pasha (“the Lame”), was to take revenge оп the Jews
who had remained in the Jewish quarter instead of leaving. together
with the Ottoman armies. Мапу of tbem were imprisoned. So was Rabbi
Magriso, wbo died in prison.
At the outbreak of the Serbian rebellion under George Petrovich
Karageorge (1806-1807) most Belgrade Jews escaped to Zemun, Novisad,
Bosnia and the various Austrian towns. Those who stayed behind were
forcibly converted. Conditions improved for the retumees with the accession
of Prince Milosh Obrenovich (1815-1839 and 1859-1860). The Prince went
on fighting the Turks and in 1827 their occupation of the country was
ended. In 1833 Milosh obtained virtual independence for his principality.
The Turkish pasha remained only in the Citadel of Belgrade which served
him as residence till 1867.
 Shlorno Shalcm, Rabbi of Bclgrade. 1750—1761

The Dorchola Synagoguc in Belgrade (1819—1942)

 In 1830 the Turks published their last official document relating to
the Serbian Jews — an Imperial Ordinance (hati-sherif) reaffirming, in
true Ottoman style, the Jewish right of residence, соттегсе, land
acguisition and property without, however, relieving the tax burden. Prince
Milosh tried to improve relations between Jewish and Serbian mercbants
and frequently demonstrated his pro‫־‬Jewish sympathies. Among his fa-
vourites were Israel Hayim, Chairman of the Belgrade Community, and
Joseph Schlesinger, the military band conductor. Israel Hayim’s son, Hayim
Davitcho, became the Prince’s financial adviser. In 1835, however, the
Turkish Intelligence Department grew suspicious of his underground
political activities, so that he was compelled to escape to Vienna, following
his father who had already Ieft in 1813.
In 1842 Milosh’s son was deposed by his rivals. The new rulers
under the leadership o£ Prince Alexander Karageorge promised their
supporters to rid the provincial towns of Jews. Ву a decree all Jews
Iiving in the country and in the capital were evicted and confined to the
courtyard of the Belgrade Citadel. The severity o£ this order was some-
what relaxed ш 1856 when the Jews were allovved to reside in the suburbs
of Đelgrade. Not content with this partial concession the Jews, on the
12th of April 1858, boldly submitted a petition to the State Council
demanding civil equality and freedom of trade in all provincial towns
in accordance with the assurances contained in the hati-sherif of 1830.
The concessions granted in 1856 proved to be sham anyway. At the
beginning of 1861, sixty Jewish families mainly from Shabac, who had
somehow managed to elude eviction and had remained in the province,
were ordered to move to the Belgrade Citadel. An ordinance to that effect
was passed by the Senate in 1861 and confirmed by Prince Mihajlo,
Milosh’s son. The Jews submitted a memorandum to the Prince, demanding
the civil rights assured them by the 1833 treaty which established Serbia's
independence and was guaranteed by both Russia and Тигкеу. Тће
concluding sentence o£ the memorandum was an outcry of despair: “Should
Serbia be unwilling forthwith to comply with our demands, let her expel
us all — and we will seek anotber homeland”.
In 1863, as the Government was still obdurate, a group of 131
Belgrade Jews sent a memorandum to the British Consul Ricketts with
the request to bring their plight to the attention 0£ Queen Victoria. They
demanded observance of the Anglo-Turkish agreement providing for a
guaranteed freedom of movement and trade to Serbian Jews, and pleaded
 for the Queen’s intervention unless their just demands were satisfied.
When Ricketts tufned to the Serbian Foreign Minister Garashanin he was
told that сору of the memorandum had been forvvarded to the Prince;
the Minister hoped something would be done in the matter. At the
intercession of the АШапсе Israelite Universelle with the Turkish Govern-
ment, Ali Веу, the Turkish Plempotentiary in Belgrade, likewise called
upon Garashanin remindmg him that Serbia’s undertaking towards the
Jews was an integral part of the Anglo-Turkish agreement. In 1864 Moses
Montefiore, Chairman of the Board of Deputies, turned to the Prince
of Serbia by a letter sent through the Foreign Office in London. In his
answer, Garashanin assured Montefiore of the Prince’s benevolence toward
his Jevvish subjects. The reasons why they had not yet attained civil
equality were “such as no responsible government could disregard.” Thus
none of these numerous interventions bore fruit. The Belgrade press
helped to turn public opinion against the Jews; the Shabac paper Svetovid
attained the limit by demanding that the country’s есопоту be immediately
rid 0£ Jews and Jewish influence. Such incitement resulted in public riots
on the 16th of Јапиагу 1865, during which two Jews, Jacob AIcalay and
Shlomo Abinun, were killed.
In 1867 the Serbian Foreign Minister Ristich announced certain
reliefs regarding the eviction of the Jews from provincial towns; yet at
the same time Prime Minister Garashanin declared that Serbia would grant
the Jews no further concessions. Great Britain made her support of the
Serbian claim to the Citadel of Belgrade contingent on the grant of free
movement and full civil equality to the country’s Jews. When Gorchakov,
the Russian Foreign Minister, was informed of the British stipulation
ће replied that Russia, though having full understanding for Britain’s
desire to improve the condition 0£ the Serbian Jews, yet could not totally
disregard the contention of the Serbs that they were faced with the
necessity of defending their own interests against Jewish usury. Britain
then in plain words insisted on the repeal of the entire anti‫־‬Jewish
legislation, but Garashanin’s attitude remained intransigent. In 1869
the Skupshtina (Serbian Parliament) passed a new Constitution assuring
equal rights to all citizens except the Jews wbose residence remained
confined to Belgrade.
This again elicited a wave o£ protests from foreign consuls, but the
Foreign Minister Matich, in October 1869, rebutted their intervention
on the grounds that the Jews of Serbia in fact enjoyed full religious
freedom, their rabbis and schools were ascertained Government subsidies
and they could vote and were eligible for the Skupshtina and the local
councils. Тће restrictions relating, according to Matich, only to social life
were intended to prevent the increase of the Jewish population. The
Minister simultaneously reiterated all the commonplace accusations of Jewish
arrogance, reserve, mistrust toward gentiles, and so on. Nevertheless,
in 1878 the Congress of Berlin made it incumbent on the Balkan States,
including Serbia, to grant their Jews full civil rights. Russia alone at that
Congress spoke up in defence of their anti-Semitic attitudes. After a delay
of ten years Serbia finally submitted to the Berlin resolutions. The
Constitution of 1888 granted the Serbian Jews full equality with their
non‫־‬Jewish compatriots.
The Belgrade community has been organized along modern lines since
the chairmanship, ш 1866, of Yehiel Ruso, who was followed, between
1869 and 1896, by S.H. Davitcho, M.H. Farhi and J.M. Alcalay in that
order. In the nineties, the Chief Rabbi of Belgrade was Shimon Bernfeld,
who wrote a book оп Jewish history which was translated into Ladi.no by
J.M. Alcalay. ‫י‬
Although Jews were bound to military service yet until 1877 the
higher ranks were closed to them. In that уеаг the first Jew, A. Ozer, was
elected to the Skupshtina, which was, however, dissolved after the opening
session.
In 1869 a small Asbkenazi congregation was founded in Belgrade
against the protest of the Sephardis who were afraid of a split within the
small Jevvish community. Among the leaders of the Ashkenazi community
at the end of the 19th century Dr. B. Bril, L. Breslauer, J.L. Lebenson,
Dr. Sh. Pops and M. Stern should be mentioned.
Towards the end of the century assimilationist tendencies could be
observed. Ladino was regarded as an obstacle to true Serbo-Jewish rapproche-
ment. The young Jews regarded Serbian nationalism as a jumping board
to social and political co-operation. In order to popularize the Serbian
parties among Jews, the Jewish academic youth joined them in numbers.
This attitude found expression in the Belgrade Ladino monthly El Amigo
del Pueblo edited by Eli (Elich) Sh. Behar in 1888-1892, as well as in
the articles written by A.M. Ozerovich, H.S. Davitcho and J. Mandil
for various Belgrade papers. The assimilationist articles of D.A. Cohen
were rather popular at the time; they were printed in book form in 1897
under the title Besede (Sermons). D.A. Cohen’s brother, Leon Cohen,
the first Jevvish academic painter in Serbia, remained closer to his people,
and his paintings (Joseph’s Dream and others) all deal with Jewish topics.
The first Jewish associations furthering Serbo‫־‬Jewish rapprochement were
also founded at that time. Among them was the Serbo-Jewish choir (1880)
and the Potpora (Support), an association (founded in 1897) whose aim
was the advancement o£ education among youth. The assimilationist
momentum was weakened through the efforts of the early Zionists. The
decisive уеаг was 1897 when Dr. David Alcalay took part m the first
Zionist Congress in Basel.
In the three decades from 1837 to 1867 thirty five books, some in
Hebrew and others in Ladino, were printed at the Prince’s press in Belgrade.
Among them were reprints of Israel Najara’s poems, fragments from the
mystical literature o£ the Safed school, Joseph Caro’s Shulhan Arukh —
the codified Jewish law — and others. Tbese books were also distributed
in western Bulgaria, tbe place of origin of тапу a future member of
the Belgrade Jewish community.

BOSNIA (pp. 173—210)

During its extended rule over the Province (Vilayet) o£ Bosnia, the
Ottoman Empire made laborious efforts to propagate the Islamic faith
and culture which had been modified by tbe Arab civilization and style
o£ life. The infiuence of Arab architecture is still discernible in the designs
o£ тапу buildings in Bosnia.
After the battle of Kosovo (1389) the Turks for some time held only
a number of strongholds along the border. Later, however, they also fortified
the town o£ Vrhbosna, which was renamed Sarajevo in 1465. Ву the enđ
o£ the 16th century the entire former kingdom of Bosnia had fallen into
Ottoman hands. At first the new Ottoman regime was a pacifying factor,
but relations between the Empire and the province soon went downhill.
Alreađy in the 17th century signs o£ degeneration and corruption became
apparent. Appointments to local offices led to frequent serious upheavals
throughout the 19th century. This state o£ permanent unrest prompted
the Congress of Berlin in 1878 to entrust Austria with the occupation
of Bosnia and pacification of this troublesome territory. After the Austrian
occupation a number of the more 10yal Moslems preferred to emigrate
to Тигкеу. Some of them settled in Palestine, along the shore of Caesarea.
The foundations for a permanent Jewish settlement in Sarajevo were
laid in 1565. Three court decisions of that уеаг are extant relatmg to
litigations betvveen Jews and Moslems. The proceedings 0£ the Sharia
(religious Moslem) Court show that the Jewish guarter in Sarajevo was
set up in the confined space of a courtyard (Ckifut khan) in the centre
of the city near the main town sguare. In tbe course of time the Jewish
cpiarter was shifted to the north-western slopes of the surrounding hills.
The new quarter, Bjelave, was much more spacious than the narrow old
courtyard ghetto.
Tbe Community’s account books, the so-called pinakes (derived from
the Hebrew pinkas, a note-book) were a reUable historical source uniil
autumn 1941 when the Germans removed them from the archives of the
Sephardic community. They have not been rediscovered since. According
to the number of family heads baving seats in the synagogue in 1779,
the community must have been about a thousand strong at that time.
It is alleged that Nehemya Hayim ben Mosbe Науоп, one of the
followers of Shabtai Zvi, was born in Sarajevo about 1650. He himself
claimed Safed as his birthplace admitting though that his parents had come
from Sarajevo. Accused by rabbinical circles of being an undercover mis-
sionary of Shabtaism, he kept wandering from place to place. Well versed
in rabbinical literature and the mystical lore of the Zohar and Kabbala,
he stirred up the Messianic hopes of the Jews. In 1683 he moved from
Salonica to Belgrade, stayed there until 1687 to be captured the following
уеаг by the Germans at Valona. After his release he returned to Salonica.
From 1698 to 1702 he lived in Nablus, Jerusalem and Sidon. According
to stories spread by the rabbis of Constantinople (among whom he was
all but popular) he was a permanent failure everywhere. In Jerusalem
he was banished by the rabbis who proclaimed a herem against him.
One of his plans was to settle Shabtay’s disciples at Tiberias. Despite his
attachment to Judaism and the Land of Israel he continued his travels
through Europe and North Africa until the end of his days.
An outstanding figure in the history of the Sarajevo Jews was David
Pardo. Вот in 1719 m Venice where his father, Jacob Abraham, a native
of Dubrovnik, held the office of teacher and rabbi (hakham), David
settled in Split and lived there from 1746 to 1764. Elected rabbi of the
local community, he soon won fame for his profound knowledge of the
halakha. It was there that he wrote his first work, Shoshanim leDavid, a two-
volume commentary on the Mishna. His second great work Maskil leDavid,
an expository treatise on Rasbi’s exegesis, was published in 1761. In
Sarajevo Pardo found his second home. He was instrumental in setting up
 а charity organization there and founding a yeshiva that was to gain
renown among the Jevvish communities of the time. Here he also wrote
his Lamnatzeah leDavid dealing with the land ownership problems in the
Mishna. His Mikhtam leDavid is a collection of responses to questions
in religious matters that had been brought before him. His most important
work Hasdei David was a commentary оп the Tosephta to which he
devoted the last twenty years of his life (1772-1792). Мапу of his poems
found their way into Spanish and Italian ргауег books for the Jewish
holidays. In 1781 Pardo went to the H01y Land, a step that was fully
appreciated by his congregation. His departure was a festive event, and
the Community’s approval of his moving to the Land of Israel recorded
in the pinkas.
The only connection tying the so-called Hagadah of Sarajevo with
that town is the fact that it was found there and placed in the local museum.
It has been variously ascribed to 14th century Jewish artists in Spain,
Catalonia, Provence or Venice. However divided opinions тау be about its
origin, its excellent beauty and artistic values are undisputed. In general
tbe Jews of Sarajevo were renowned for their superior taste manifested,
among other things, in their women’s costumes and handicraft.
It is significant that the Jews of Bosnia were concentrated in Sarajevo
for a long time. Though under Ottoman rule their relations with their
gentile neighbours were peaceful enough, they were nevertheless isolated.
They still spoke the Castilian language and jealously watched over the
Spanish folklore and costumes, faithful to the tradition of their fathers.
An interesting sidelight is thrown on the history of the Jews of
Bosnia, those of Travnik in particular, by some letters preserved in tbe
State Archives of Vienna, which were vvritten by the Austrian consul in
Travnik, Mittesser, to his superiors in Vienna. Four of these letters are
reproduced in the Appendix to this book. During the first half of the
19th century Travnik was the seat of the Sultan’s Governor in Bosnia,
and also that of French and Austrian consuls who turned it into an
espionage centre. The Governors seemed on the whole to have little
contact with the Jews; yet two of them, Mustapha Pasha and his successor
Mehmed Ruzhdi Pasha, were involved in an abortive extortion attempt
in the tvventies of the 19th century.
The reforms introduced towards the end of the Ottoman regime
(1851-1877) gave fresh impetus to Bosnian есопоту in which the Jews
took prominent part. They had representatives appointed to the local
councils; Isaac Effendi Shalom, the first Jevvish doctor to attain academic
degree, was even elected to the High Council of the Vilayet. Late in his
life he went to Jerusalem where he died. His son, Shlomo Ziver Shalom,
together with Shlomo Javer Barukh, represented the Sephardi Jews of
Bosnia in the Turkish Parliament.
Ashkenazi Jevvs from Galicia, Bukovina, Slovakia and other countries
Zirst immigrated in numbers after 1878, though some stragglers had been
in Bosnia already at the end of the Ottoman period. They first came in
with the Austrian агту as soldiers, artisans, railway employees, administra-
tors, doctors, engineers and so on; with their arrival the social structure
of Bosnian Jewry undenvent a change. The first Ashkenazi community
was founded in 1880 at Sarajevo; later on there were Ashkenazi com-
munities also at Tuzla and Banjaluka. Relations between Ashkenazis and
Sephardis were often disturbed by mutual accusations, particularly during
the time of Kallay, the Hungarian Minister in charge of the occupied
territories. At the turn of the century about a quarter of the total Jewish
population of Bosnia were Ashkenazi Jews.
Under the Austrian regime the Bosnian foreign trade, which had
mainly remained in the hands of the Sephardis, prospered and flourished;
a number of Jewish топеу lenders turned into bankers while others set
up new industries — textiles, cigarette-paper, etc. There was a simul*
taneous increase of the Jevvish proletariat so that in the eighties about
one third of Sarajevo Jewry dwelled in slums.
For the Sephardi Jews of Bosnia Sarajevo was a cultural centre in the
Galut. In the second half of the 19th century the number o£ philantropic
and educational institutions grew considerably. The Ladino language and
Spanish cultural values were 10yally preserved and adhered to•. During
the first decades of the Austrian regime there was little incentive for
assimilation. The Sephardi Jews were loath to abandon their way of life
for the sake of becoming Croats, Serbs ог Bosnians. Their social ambitions
found ample outlet in their own associations such as La Humanidad,
La Gloria and, above all, La Benevolencia, an educational cultural society.
They had their own choir. La Lira (lyre) which in due time won
country-wide fame, and which was the first society that joined the Zionist
movement en bloc.

CROATIA (pp. 213—265)

Since the early Middle Ages the area encompassed by the Drava,
 Danube and Sava rivers has been known as Pannonian Croatia. Geo-
physically it is an extension of the Hungarian plain. Driven southvvard
by the turbulent events o£ the seventh century, the Croats, a Slavonic
tribe, during tbe Great Migration of Peoples settled within tbe borders
of Pannonia and Dalmatia, a territory that repeatedly shifted from Franco*
шап to Byzantine rule and vice versa. Theirs was the first mdependent
South Slavonic state on the Adriatic. Upon its collapse in 1091, the
Hungarian occupation allowed the Croats but limited autonomy which
was even тоге restricted under he Hapsburgs. The onslaught of the
Turks put an end to the ICingdom of Croatia. In tbe 16th century the
Hapsburgs retreated on a broad front and Ferdinand’s plan to set up
military border zones came to nil. After the 1699 Treaty of Srijemski
Karlovci, however, the Austrians resumed this project; parts of Croatia
were put under military rule, and restored to her only in 1881.
At the beginning of the 19th century the Croatian capital Zagreb
was no more than a small sleepy town ш a remote согпег of the Austrian
Empire. A few buildings, some dating from Medieval times, left perching
on its two hills — St. Stephen Cathedral on the Kaptol and a cluster of
secular buildings on the fortified Gritch — were the only vestiges of
lost Croatian independence. Nevertheless Zagreb became the centre of
the IUyrian Revival, a political movement aiming at the unification of
the South Slavonic peoples.
The pan-Slavic Illyrian ideals were not pursued with апу measure
of consistency. In 1867 an agreement was reached betvveen the Germans
and Hungarians living in the Austrian Empire. Tbe Austro-Hungariaij
Мопагсћу was born and the Hapsburgian Emperor became also King of
Hungary. The national aspirations of the other peoples united under
Austrian rule were simply disregarded. The Croats were expected to reach
a similar understanding with the Hungarians; it took the form of a
“Compromise” signed in 1868 allowing the Croats restricted autonomy.
At the same time the Hungarian annexed the Adriatic port of Fiume.
The Himgarians went on ignoring the rigbts of the Croats stipulated in
the “Compromise”, yet they managed to hold sway till the very collapse
of the Мопагсћу in 1918, when the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes
was formed. 5 'J I
Ву a resolution in 1729 the Sabor (Croatian Parliament) refused
to grant the Jews the residence right in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia.
But a decade later they began to mfiltrate again from Hungary and
Austria as peddlars, craftsmen and merchants. First came the war refugees
compelled to run away during the Austrian retreat from Belgrade in
1739. Тћеу were allowed to settle in the small border town of Zemun
which was under агту administration. They usually wandered on, but
19 families — Sephardis and Ashkenazis — stayed behind. A number
of descendants of these first settlers remamed at Zemun until the 1941
disaster.
Ironically enough it was by an order of 8th October 1753 signed
by no other than Maria Theresa, a strong upholder of the Church, that
Jews were allowed to stay at Zemun. The permit encompassed merely thirty
families, and was inheritable by only the eldest son of the family. Even tbis
limited tolerance was made conditional upon the payment of the Jewish
tax which secured them restricted freedom of movement and occupation,
while the acquisition of landed property was forbidden them altogether.
In spite of all restrictions, by the middle of the 18th century the
Jews of Zemun had penetrated not only into the military border zone
but also into Slavonia wbich had hitherto been “clear of Jews”. At
Osijek, the fortified capital of Slavonia, two Jewish families of altogether
eleven persons obtained residence permits in 1746 — again through the
benevolence of Maria Theresa, the Catholic Empress.
In the history of Yugoslav Jewry mention should be made o£
Burgenland. Already in the 16th century the Jews who had been exiled
from Styria and Кгауп took shelter m Burgenland. They came in much
bigger numbers in 1670 after being banished from Vienna, while some
found ways to Moravia. During the reign of Maria Theresa both new-
comers and old Jewish residents of Moravia were subjected to persecutions.
At a loss for a^ better choice they slipped across the border into Hungary
settling mainly on the estates of the rich landowners from Burgenland.
From there they crossed into the contiguous provinces, until £inally one
could find Jews settled all over Hungary from the district of Bratislava
m the north down to Zala in the south.
In 1782 Joseph II, Maria Theresa’s successor, issued his Toleration
Edict, and six years later the Агту Conscription Law. Ву the beginning
of the 19th century the Jewish Communities of Moravia and Western
Hungary, mcluding Burgenland, had emerged as a particular factor known
as the Central Еигореап Jewry, which was to become the cradle of тапу
a founder of Jewish communities in Croatia. Тће first Jews bad come
by appointment of rich Burgenland landowners as managers of their
 estates in Croatia. They were followed by others who crossed the rivers
Drava and Mura to settle in the villages and small towns along the
Hungarian border. So while in tbe other Balkan countries Jews were
mostly concentrated in towns, in Croatia they were dispersed in rural
areas. Later in their wanderings across Croatia the Jews converged mainly
оп three towns. The first Jews came to Varazhdin in 1777; ten years
later they made their арреагапсе ш Zagreb, the capital; and in 1789
we find tbe first Jews at Karlovac. At Zagreb, apart from the Gritch,
they chose also the Kaptol for residence, mainly along and around the
Lashka Street. Those were religious Jews from Burgenland and Hungary,
strict observers of the Laws and the Tradition, the core of the orthodox
community that was to be founded at Zagreb. As long as tbe Church
was the municipal administrative authority they were under the protection
of the Bishop of Zagreb.
Officially the Zagreb community was founded in 1806, about 50 уеагз
after tbe community of Zemun. Yet the Jewish cpiestion occupied the
Zagreb central authorities as early as 1729, and again in 1771 and 1783.
The problems were at the same time treated by the town of Varazhdin
in Borough Councils and in municipal meetings. The result was regularly
the same — the Jews were denied residence rights and even admission
to the towns except on market days. The first exception were six Jewish
families whom Count Erdody took under his tutelage in 1777, housing
them in bis own mansion in the centre of Varazhdin.
Until the forties of the 19th century repeated expulsion orders were
issued by the towns of both Karlovac and Varazhdm. Attempts to expel
tbem from the district of Karlovac were made in 1830 and again in 1838.
None of these orders were actually implemented, but they were used
by the Croats as a permanent scourge against the unwelcome Jew. The
small communitj of Krizhevci north-east of Zagreb was founded as late
as 1844 though Jews had lived there long before.
In 1840 the joint Hungarian-Croatian Parliament assembled ш Buda
and dealt, inter alia, with the Jewisb question. A proposal to grant the
Jews civil rights was rejected owing to obdurate opposition by the Croatian
delegates. Nevertheless a law was passed binding also for Croatia, according
to wbich the Jews were granted residence permit in апу Croatian
Iocality where they had their domicile on tbe date of the promulgation,
barring the mining districts. In 1843-1846 the Sabor again bad the
Jewish guestion on its agenda, but only canceled the Jewish tax.
 The assimilationist tendencies spreading among the well-to‫־‬do Jews
m Vienna, Berlin and Paris had somewhat belated repercussions in Croatia.
The conservative circles, especially the residents 0£ Lashka Street within
the municipal limits of the Kaptol Episcopate, looked with disfavour upon
the reformist tendencies of Rabbi Moshe Goldman. In 1841 they severed
Zheir connection with the Jewish Community and for fifteen years main-
fained a separate orthodox community. Wben the first Jewish school was
opened in Zagreb Goldman was put in charge of Jewish education ovei
the protests of the orthodox Jews who demanded his dismissal. In 1849
Rabbi Goldman abandoned his community for good — to adopt Christianity
and disappear from the Jevvish scene.
Тће Goldman incident was rather embarrassing for the Zagreb
commtmity. Its veteran officers resigned unwilling to continue their activity
in circumstances that were not compatible with the dignity of Judaism.
Under pressure from the authorities the rival camps finally reached a forced
and only superficial reconciliation in 1853. Jacob Epstein, an enthusiastic
young idealist, elected Community Chairman at the age of 32, tried to
put ап end to this dissension, but failed and resigned a уеаг later. The
rest of his short life was devoted to work within the Humanitats Verein;
at the age o£ 37, the disillusioned Epstein committed suicide. The charity
institution he had vvorked for existed until 1945. With the appomtment
of Hosea Jacoby as Rabbi o£ Zagreb in 1868, matters changed for the
better.
Some quite remarkable personalities were members of this community.
At the end of tbe century a timber merchant by the name of David
Schwarz tried to construct a dirigible airship; his heirs sold his design
to Zeppelin whose name was given to future dirigibles. Anton • Schwarz
was the first Jewish professional musician in Croatia; he and the Serbian
Jew Schlesinger are considered as pioneers among Jewish musicians in
Yugoslavia. | (
On the threshold o£ a rapid economic prosperity the Jews o£ Croatia
were given civil equality by the law passed on October 21st, 1873.
Ву this law the Sabor granted full political rights to tbe Jews, except
the right to perform conversions within the borders of the State.
Tbe wave of conversions 0£ Jews that swept over a number of
European countries at the beginning o£ the 19th century took hold of
Croatia only ш its last quarter, when the Jewish spirit and consciousness
were at a 10w ebb. In September 1883 the Jewish‫־‬Christian tension assumed
1116 Great Synagogue, Zagreb (1867—1942)
dangerous proportions as a result o£ the Tisza-Eszlar blood libel. The
first demonstrations were meant as a protest against the Hungarian
domineering insolence, but soon, by means o£ deft anti-Semitic incitations,
they were tumed into anti-Jewish riots. Starting at Samobor they spread
to Zagorje and Zagreb where they took the form of a veritable pogrom
lasting five days. The Jews did not react — not a single voice was raised
in protest.
In the Slavonian capital Osijek the establishment 0£ an organized
Jevvish community was forbidden for over a hundred years after the grant
of the first permanent residence permit. Finally the prohibition was
repealed in 1849. As ш Zagreb, the community madc rapid progress and
already by 1880 it had grown to 1900 — 8 per cent o£ Osijek’s total
population of 23,000, the largest concentration o£ Jews in Croatia.
In the few last years of the 19th century Osijek was turned into
a Zionist centre. Dr. Hugo Spitzer, son o£ Rabbi Samuel Spitzer,
took part in Zionist Congresses from 1898 on. Rabbi Dr. Armand
Каттка preceded him by a уеаг; he had the rare pnvilege of being
among the delegates to the first Zionist Congress in Basel. J.N. Schulhof
also was among tbe first to raise the Zionist flag. The Rabbi o£ the
neighbouring town of Djakovo, Dr. Marcus Ehrenpreis, reported to the
first Zionist Congress in Basel on the subject of Hebrew culture.

VOJVODINA (pp. 266—277)

Compared to the rest of the European Diaspora, the Jewish community
of Vojvodina is o£ fairly recent origin. Yet it is older than the Croatian
community.
The traces of the few Jews that lived there under the Ottoman rule
have been lost, so that the earliest extant records o£ Jewish life in
Vojvodina are of 1697, some hunđred years before the Jews from Burgen-
land reached Croatia. These first recorded Jevvs inhabited the neighbourhood
o£ Petrovaradin. After the Treaty signed betvveen Тигкеу and Austria
at Srijemski Karlovci in 1699, we find Jews at Novisad (then called
Ratzenstadt — Serbiau Townlet). The town’s chronicles referred to them in
1719 as “an obnoxious lot”, similarly to the attributes attached to the
Jews of Zagreb by Croatian authorities.
Even in this hostile atmosphere tbe Hevra Kadisha was o£ficially
acknowledged m 1729, and there was a Jewish school 1д the town. Ten
years later the first war refugees reached Novisad, among whom were
 the Jevvs who had abandoned Belgrade upon the retreat of the Austrian
агту. Another decade later, in 1749, the Statutes of the Jewish Com-
munity of Novisad were confirmed.
In Novisad the Jews inhabited the Jevrejska ulica, that is the Jewish
Street, in wbich they had acguired real estate in spite of all legal obstacles.
When they attained full civil equality in 1867 their representatives became
eligible to the Town Council. The Jevvish community grew in number
until, by the turn of the century, it was 2000 strong.
The founder of the Jewish СоттипИу of Subotica is believed to
have been Jacob Hershl-Hirsh who got his residence permit there in 1775.
Subotica had started developing from a village into an important com-
mercial centre. The founding of a Jewish Community was approved in
1786, but only thirteen уеагз later, after the intervention of the Crown’s
Commissioner, the Town Council allocated it a site for the construction
of a synagogue. Approximately at the same time a local Jewish school
was opened.
Apart from Novisad and Subotica there were some 50 congregations
in Vojvodina. Тће most unportant ones were m Sombor (founded in
1828), Senta (before 1793), Veliki Betchkerek (now called Zrenjanin,
in 1790), Vrshac and Pantchevo.
Until 1918 conditions of the Jews in Vojvodina were much the same
as in Hungary. All but a number of orthodox Jevvs were liberal neologists,
yet conservative enough to reject extreme reformism. In a multi-lingual
environment and in spite of their Hungarian patriotism they managed
to preserve their own singularity and the traditional values of Judaism.
When in 1918 this province became part of the new Kingdom of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes, the Jews of Vojvodina merged into Yugoslav Jewry
and in no small measure contributed to the сопппоп cause.

THE HARBINGERS OF THE JEWISH RENAISSANCE (pp. 278—305)

Yekutiel Hirschenstein and J.H. Alcalay were the two harbingers of
Jewish revival in Yugoslavia.
Вогп in 1779 in Burgenland, Hirschenstein was appointed Rabbi of
Varazhdin in 1812 and remained in tbat post until his death in 1849.
It was due to his enormous personal efforts that tbe threat of expulsion
was averted in 1820. He soon realized tbe futility of Napoleon’s Grand
Consistoire which convened ш 1806 in Paris, and đid not lose time to
make the revival of Jewish people his main preoccupation and concem.
Facshnilc of a Hcbrcvv lctter written by Yekutiel Hirschenstein (1779—1849), to Moshe Sachs,
dated 22nd Ab 5596 (1836)
Facsimile of a letter vvritten in German by Yekuticl Hirschcnstein to C.F.G. Seyfarl at Lcipzig,
datcd July 7th, 1837
His Zionist ideas were expressed in his correspondence with Moshe Sachs
of Jerusalem. During his stay in Vienna in summer 1836, the latter
informed Hirschenstein of his efforts to get the Imperial Court interested
in the resettlement 0£ Jews in Palestine. Hirschenstein, delighted at the
good news, disclosed to Sachs his own ideas ahout the future of the Jewish
people in their own homeland. The main problem, he believed, was how
to overcome the indifference of the Jews to their own fate and the world’s
imperviousness to their plight. Although he contemplated a theocratic
goveroment (by the kohanim) in the Holy Land, yet he advocated the
employment of secular means in the resettlement of the country and
in political action.
Of a different stamp was Yehuda Hai Alcalay. He was born in 1798
at Sarajevo where his father Shlomo was teacber. From him Yehuda
learnt Hebrew and was introduced to the elements o£ Jewish erudition.
Later he studied with the well-known scholars Rabbi Jacob Finzi and
Rabbi Eliezer Papo. He moved to Zemun in 1825 and stayed tbere almost
50 years performing a variety of fanctions — educator, preacher, hakham
and magid; fmally, after the death o£ Rabbi Samuel A. Massad, he became
Rabbi of Zemun. A pure Sephardi, be embarked on his Iiterary career
with a book written in Ladino, but his life’s interest was devoted to the
revival of the Hebrew language and the preservation of the Jewish people’s
unity. In his work “Like a Needle’s Ear” published in 1849 he says:
“Our worship and rites will no longer be sephardi or ashkenazi, nor shall
they follow the customs of Poland, France ог Italy, but will be Jewish —
one faith, one law ... All Jews shall return to their God in the Land
of their forefathers; апуопе living outside the Land of Israel resemblcs
the Godless; Jews outside their land worship other gods .. And here
is what he wrote in 1869 in a letter to the Hebrew paper Halevanon: “Our
brethren are screaming for help and want to go to America, to Siberia;
some desire to go back to Spain. They have all forgotten their own home-
land though in their daily prayers they keep reciting endlessly, ‘If I forget
tbee, O Jerusalem, тау ту right hand wither.’ ”
After the foundation of the Alliance Israelite Universelle, Alcalay
fougbt for the extension of its activities to Israel; he had also a share
ш the establishment of the Jewish Agricultural School at Mikve Israel
in 1870.
Another сопсегп of his was the plight of the Serbian Jews. Of course
his main preoccupation was the revival of the Jewish nation as a whole,
Ychuda Нау Alcalay (1798—1878) with his wife Esther
so that he was inclined to disregard “trifling matters”. Nevertheless in 1865
ће rushed to the aid of the victims of the Shabac pogrom, writing about
tbeir calamity and urging the persecuted to leave for Eretz-Israel. It was
the hopeless state of the Serbian Jews that prompted his own decision
to leave the Diaspora. Despite the disillusionment he had encountered on
his earlier visit to Jerusalem in 1871, ће took leave of his tiny Com-
munity at Zemun in 1874 and settled with his wife at Jaffa not far
from Mikve Israel, which ће cherished as the budding hope o£ ultimate
revival. He died at the age o£ 80 and was buried on the Mount 0£ Olives,
seventy years before the State of Israel came into being. Already twenty
years after his death Zionist pioneers were active in Bosnia, Serbia,
Slavonia and Croatia. Among them were such men as Dr. D. Alcalay,
G. Nahmias, N. Landau, B. Zauderer, A.D. Levy, G. Seidman, J. Mevorach,
J. Thau, Dr. H. Spitzer, Herman Licht and тапу others. Among them
was also Dr. Alexander Licht, the future lifelong leader of the Zionist
movement in Yugoslavia.

APPENDIX
THE ALCALAYS (pp. 313—315)
Since Moorish times there had been in Spain at least thirteen towns and
other spots called Alcala. The first Yugoslav Alcalays were carried off by
the current of fugitives and came to Salonica where they took part in
the progress of the city and contributed to the fame of the flourishing
Jewish community. But the setback towards the end of the 16th century
of both town and community caused the Jews to leave Salonica and
seek a home in other parts. The Alcalays can now be traced to Bulgaria,
and from here to Serbia and Bosnia. In the 18th century Abraham ben
Shemuel Alcalay was rabbi in the Bulgarian town of Dupnica. One of
his sons moved to Bosnia where he generated a ramifying family. Also
from Bulgaria came Jacob M. Alcalay who was at the head o£ the Belgrade
Jewish Community from 1886 to 1896, and who persuaded his Sofia
born relative Isaac to go to Vienna in order to pursue Jewish studies.
Later this Isaac became Chief Rabbi of Yugoslavia. The hazan Abraham
Alcalay, too, moved to Belgrade from Bulgaria, and had thirteen sons.
Some of the Belgrade Alcalays had not immigrated from Bulgaria direct
but had made a temporary home at Zemun or Shabac. Some others,
as for instance Dr. Solomon Alcalay, were born at Sarajevo.
To Bosnia the Alcalays had come either direct from Salonica ог
 through Bulgaria and Serbia. Salonica born Shlomo ben Moshe Alcalay
lived and died at Sarajevo. Here his son was born — Yehuda Нау Alcalay,
the herald of Zionism. Their relatives had taken home at Belgrade
or Shabac and are mentioned in the works of Yehuda Нау Alcalay.
The Alcalays o£ Sarajevo produced numerous personalities who were
prominent in the public life of the community. Asher Alcalay became
Chairman of the Sephardic community at the beginning 0£ the 20th
century. Dr. Vita Alcalay was member of the Bosnian Parliament towards
the end of the Austrian regime. Albert Alcalay became a well-known
Zionist leader.
David ben Moshe, who was born in Belgrade but bclonged to a branch
of the Sarajevo Alcalays, occupied a conspicuous place in Jewish life.
He moved to Vienna and acted there as ћакћат and teacher of the
Sephardic community. Also his Belgrade born son Moshe ben David was
active as teacher and hakham in Belgrade and Vienna, were his speeches
and sermons in Hebrew attracted attention. His son Dr. David M. Alcalay,
together with his wife Rahel (grand-daughter o£ Yehuda Нау), was
delegate at the First Zionist Congress o£ Basel; he later became a pioneer
and foremost fighter for the cause of Zionism in Serbia and, finally,
Yugoslavia. His son and daughter have settled in Israel.

THE SHALOM, PARDO AND ISRAEL FAMILIES (p. 315)

Joseph Hayim Shalom (d.1824) was hekim (undiplomaed physician).
He married Rahel, daughter of Isaac Pardo (who was second son of
the well-known Sarajevo rabbi David Pardo), and had with her eight
children. Isaac (1806-1874) was the first Jewish doctor at Sarajevo with
a university degree. He married Rahel Montiljo who bore him ten
children. Their daughter Flora married Moshe Israel; some of their children
are now in Israel. Another daughter, Esther, married the dental practitioner
Jaacob Sumbul; one of their sons— Isaac Isidor — was Chairman o£
the Sephardic community and La Benevolencia at Sarajevo, and another
son, the architect Shemuel, designed a number of Jewish public buildings
in both Belgrade and Sarajevo.

SOME FAMILIES IN ZAGREB (pp. 316—323)

The story of the Priester family is typical enough of the cross-
continent migration of the Central Еигореап Jews and of their life and
activities in Croatia. The family’s origin can be traced to Nicolsburg in
Moravia, a famous centre of Jewish learning. Jacob Cohen Priester
(17111796‫ )־‬moved to Gradisca on the Isonzo River in Italy near the
Slovenian border, a town which was under Austrian regime till the end
of World War I. There the Priesters were authorized beef suppliers to
the Austrian агту. Immanuel Priester (18141882‫ )־‬made the round
0£ cattle fairs at Varazhdin, Karlovac and Zagreb until in 1847 he decided
permanently to settle in the Croatian capital. He and his descendants
contributed ш no small measure to the industrial development of Zagreb.
The best known figure among them was ImmanueFs nephew Girolamo
(18451926 ‫ — )־‬the last member of the wealthy Priester clan. Remote
from all intellectual pursuits his main concern was business. He founded
a modern dairy and vegetable farm. He was a devout observer o£ the
Jewish religion and tradition and missed no opportunity of publicly declaring
his firm convictions and his devotion to Judaism.
In the 19th and 20th centuries three generations of the Ehrlich
family played rather a prominent part in the economic prosperity of
Croatia. Тћеу gave Zagreb guite outstanding architects, builders and
contractors.
The Deutsch-Maceljskis were pioneers o£ the Croatian timber
industry. They supported and financed the anti-Zionist movement of the
assimilationists. Shortly before the Nazi holocaust, however, the la3t
members of this family changed sides and contributed топеуз for the
Jevvish Colonization in Eretz Israel.
Тће stories of some other families, too, display interesting patterns
of integration into Croatia’s Jewry. Most of the earliest members of the
Jewish Community of Zagreb had come £rom Moravia and Burgenland.
The Glesingers and three generations of the Rosenberg-Hiršchls furnish
some fine examples o£ the role the Jews played in Croatia, particularly
at Zagreb.
Different again were the three generations of the Schvvarz £amily
at Zagreb. Ze’ev Wilhelm Schwarz, a man of great vitality and energy,
took part in the creation o£ almost all the Jewish communal institutions,
and was also active in Zagreb’s municipal enterprises. In 1860, at the
age of 28, ће became chairman o£ the Community Council, at a time,
too, when it had not £ully recovered from the Goldman affair. Schwarz’s
undaunted spirit kept him'in office for thirteen уеагз during which time
(1867) the large synagogue was built in the next vicinity of the town’s
main sguare on a site donated by the Priester family. Schwarz’s son
Ludvvig attained social and political prominence as a lawyer; at the age
of 29 he was elected to the Sabor; for 27 years, that is until 1914, he was
a delegate 0£ the Unionists, the ruling party. He defended Strassnoff
in the Zagreb shovv trial that aroused amusement throughout Europe. At
the beginning of the 20th century he was requested by the Croatian
Government to draft the Jewish Communities Law which was to regulate
inter-religious affairs. The Sabor accepted his excellent draft, which be-
came law on February 2nd 1906.

THREE SONS OF AN ASSIMILATED GENERATION (pp. 324—338)

Two Jewish turncoats illustrate the hazards of assimilation which
endangered Croatian Jewry already in the second half of the 19th century.
Hinko Hinkovich was born as Heinrich Moses in 1854 at Vinica in
the Croatian province of Zagorje. His parents bad come from Rechnitz
ш Burgenland. In 1883 he was elected to the Sabor as a delegate of the
Croatian nationalist opposition party of Startchevich. He became Christian
in spite of a firm promise to the contrary he had given his mother.
Later he gradually moved away from the anti-Serbian line of Startchevich
and Frank, and joined тоге progressive political circles favouring tbe
union of the Southern Slavs. In 1895 he and his wife left Croatia and
lived a few years in Paris and London. In 1901 he was back again at
Zagreb. The clash with local clerical circles was immediate. As defence
attorney for 53 Serbs charged with treason before tbe court in Zagreb
ш 1908-1909, he achieved ajremarkable triumpb with the acquittal of the
accused. Nevertheless he was soon himself charged with an offence against
tbe press law and sentenced to six months imprisonment. He managed
to escape to Paris, hovvever, and stayed in Italy and France until 1913.
With his reelection to the Sabor he returned to Zagreb, but as soon as
the World War broke out, he again escaped to Italy. He spent the war
years as a Yugoslav propagandist in Italy, Corfu, France, England and
the U.S.A. and did much to further the cause of the Southern Slava.
As a republican, however, he fell foul of the Yugoslav Council. He was
in Zagreb again in 1918, was ostracized by official circles, and had to
fall back on the support of his Jewish relatives. Tovvards the end of his
life he began to show signs of repentance for his defection. He died a
lonely broken man in 1929.
Joseph Frank was born in 1844 as the son of Immanuel Frank,
a timber merchant in Osijek. He graduated from the University of Vienna
and opened a lawyer’s office in Zagreb. He, too, joined the Startchevich
party. At the end of the century he managed to split it in order to be
elected leader of the extremist Croatian Frankist party. He combated the
discriminatory policy of‫ ־‬Hungary and also refuted апу аШапсе with
the Serbs whom he accused of collaborating with the enemies of Croatia.
He wanted to attain his Greater Croatia within a tripartite structure of
the Hapsburg Empire, based on Austria, Hungary and Croatia. After
Frank’s death and the birth of Yugoslavia his party went underground
but in 1941 its adherents, the Ustashi or rebels, became the rulers of
Croatia which had been made “independent” by the grace of Hitler.
Josip Frank’s son-in-law was the notorious Ustashi Commander Slavko
Kvatemik, and Frank’s grandson, Dido Kvaternik, was responsible for
the deaths of thousands upon thousands of Serbs and Jews in the ех-
termination camps of his “independent” homeland.
Vid-Hayim Morpurgo’s relation to Judaism is of a different kind.
Born at Split in 1838 to an observant Jewish family, he dedicated his
entire abilities to the Croatian cause in his capacity as bookseller, publisher,
industrialist, banker and particularly as politician. Remarkable is his share
in the success of the Croatian National Party /“narodnjaci”/ in the elections
of 1882 in Dalmatia. Though he was not active within the Jewish com-
munity, he was loyal to his faith and was buried in the Jewish cemetery
on Mount Магуап overlooking the city of Split.
 1515,jauuar l.lnnsbruck

•Vir Kazitnilian von gots gnađen. er-velter romischer кзузег zu’allenn-

tzeitten merer des reichs,in Germanien zu Hungern Balmatien Croatien etc.
kunig,ertzhertzog zu Osterreich,hertzog zu Burgunđi zu Brabannt vnnd
pfaltzgraue otc. Bekennen fur •vnns vnd vnnser firben vnnd nachkutcen
offcnnlich ciit disem brief vnnd tun kunt alleroeniglich đaz vnns die
erbcrn z/e'isen vnnscr getrc«en lieben n. burgeroaister,richtcr vnd rate
vnnser stat fcu Laybach anbracht,wie aus vnnaero vergonnen ain zeitlang
ett<?ouil jučen bey inen gewonđt-,iren wucher getribsn‫־‬,aber aus derselben
ircr hunnalung vnnd лисћегеу vnnser burger vnnd inwoner daselbst zu
Laybach in merklich verdcrbcn kumen vnd wo durch vns đarein nit gesehen
werae,scy zu besorgen,đieselb vnnser stat Laybach mechte dardurch noch
in grosser verderben vno nachtail kuoen vnna vnns đarauf vnnderthenig-
li-chen anrueffen vnnd bitten lasaen sy derselben juden zu enntleđigen,
auch sy vnnđ gemaine stat Iaybach oii freyhait zu uersehen damit sy vnnd
ir nachkumen ?zeitter nit schuldig sein ainich juđen mer in ewig zeyt bey
inen einkonien noch da wonen zu lassen.Vnnđ so wir dann derselben vnnser
vnnaerthanen vnnd burger verđerben zu uerhueten genaigt sein,‫׳‬haben wir
darunjb auch gegen ainer sucraa gellts,so sy vnns bezallt,gnediglichen
bcz/illigt die gedachte.n juđen daselbst zu Laybach austreiben ze lassen,
geben inen auch ala ertzhertzog zu Osterreich уоп sonndercn gnađen ,.‫;׳‬egea
.aise freyhait vnnđ tiin daz ‫׳‬.vissenntlich oit dem brief.also daz die geoel-
ten burgermaister,richter vnnd rate zu Laybach vnnd ir пасћкитшеп in
e«ig zeit »veitter nioht gepunden,schuldig noch verphlicht sein .sollen
kainen juden oer mit hewsslicher wonung bey inen in der berurten vnnsar
stat Laybach einkonaen noch da wonen ze lassen.Vnnd gebieten darauf
auch vnr!3eren gegenv/urtigen vrjnd jeden vnnsern .zukunfftigen ha‫׳״‬btlewten,
ver.vesern vnnd vitztuaben in Crain ernnstlich oit disem brief vnnd vcllen,
ydaz sy die’ obgenannten burgertnaister,richter• vnnd rate zu Laybach vnnđ
ir пасћкигашеп bey der obbestimbten vnnser gnađ vnnd greyhait von vnnsern
z/.egen• ves3tiglichen hanndtbaben vnnd haltcn vnnd da.vider kainen juden

in c.‫׳‬/ig zeit cit hcwsslicher •••/onung daselbst zu Laybach nicht ocr

einkoninien noch da las3en, đaz паупеп ,.vir ernnstlich.Kdltt vrkundt des
briefs,geben м in vnnser stat Ynnsprugg den ersten tag des monets
january,anno dotoini ctc. fanffzehcn hundert vnnđ io funfftzehennden,
vnnserer reiche des romischen• im neunundzv/aintzigisten vnnd des hun-
grischen iro• funff vnnd zaalntzigisten jaren.

per regem
per se
Gommissio domini
iaperatoris propria
 1S19,jauuar l.Innsbruck. I

* ч.. ‫• ■״‬,‫••• ־‬-w*f.

•Vir f<*axi(ni.lian von gots gnađen. er7-‫־‬elter romischcr kays'er zu allenn-
tzeitten merer đe3 reichs,in Germanien zu Hungern Palrcotien Croatien etc.
kunig,ertzhertzog zu Osterreich,hertzog zu Burgundi zu Brabannt vnnd
pfaltzgrnue ctc. Bekenncn fur •vnns vnđ vnnser £rben vnnd nachkumen
offcnnlich oit. disem brief vnnd tun kunt alleroeniglich đaz vnns die
erbcrn //eisen vnnscr getrcflen lieben n. burgeroaister.richter vnd rate
vnnser stat fcu Laybach antracht,wie aus vnnsera vergonnen ain zeitlang
ett/zouil jučen bey inen gewonđt‫׳‬,iren wucher ge.tribsn',aber aus deraelben
ircr hanndlung vnnđ лисћехеу vnnser burger vnnd in.voner daselbst zu
l!aybach in merklich verdcibcn kumen vnd wo đurch vns đarcin nit gesehen
werde,scy zu besorgen;đieselb vnnser stat Laybach mechte dardiirch noch
in grosser verderben vna nachtail kumen vnnđ vnna đarauf vnnderthenig-
li-chen anrueffen vnnđ bitten lassen sy derselben juden zu enntleoigen,
auch sy vnnđ gemaine ntat Laybach oit freyhait zu uersehen daoit sy vnnd
ir nachkumen weitter nit schulđig sein ainich juden mer in ewig zeyt bey
inen einkomen noch da v/onen zu lassen.Vnnđ so wir dann derselben vnnser
vnnoerthanen vnnd burger verderben zu uerhueten genaigt seint‫׳‬haben wir
darumb auch gegen ainer sunoa gellts,so sy vnns bezallt,gnediglichen
betfilligt die gedachten juden daselbst zu Laybach austreiben ze lassen,
geben inen auch als ertzhertzog zu Oaterreich уоп sonndercn gnađen v;egea
,dise freyhait vnnđ ttln đaz «iasenntlich mit đem brief,also daz die geoel-
ten burgermaister.richter vnnd rate zu Laybach vnnd ir пасћкитшеп in
e«ig zeit >veitter nicht gepunden,schulđig noch verphlicht aein so.Uen
kainen juden oer mit hews31icher v/onung bey inen in der berurtcn vnnsnr
stat Laybach einkoaaen noch da wonen ze lassen.Vnnd gebieten darauf
auch vnn3eren gegerr.vurtigen vrjnd jeden vnnsern .zukunfftigen ha‫׳‬vbtlev.‫־‬ten,
ver.vesern vnnd vitztuoben in Crain ernnstlich oit disem brief vnnd vellen,
^daz sy die' obgenannten burgermaister,richter• vnnd rate zu Laybach vnnđ
ir пасћкигашеп bey đer obbestiobten vnnser gnad vnnd greyhait von vnnsern
//egen• ves3tiglichen hanndtha'oeri vnnd halten vnnđ da.vider kainen juden

in c.7ig zeit cit hcusslicher ••70nung aaselbst zu Laybach nich.t □cr

einkommen noch da 1агзеп, daz таупеп wir ernnstlich.Kitt vrkundt des
briefs.geben м in vnnser stat Ynnsprugg den ersten tag des monets
january,anno domini ctc. funffzehcn hundert vnnd i□ funfftzehennden,
vnnserer reiche đes romischen• itn neunundz/zaintzigisten vnnđ des hun-
grischen iro• funff vnnd z.vaintzigisten jaren.

per regem
per se
Gommissio dotnini
iaperatoris propria