Jewish Community of Zagreb
The Jewish community in Zagreb is one of ten Jewish communities in Croatia . The other Jewish communities in Croatia have their headquarters in Čakovec , Daruvar , Dubrovnik , Koprivnica , Osijek , Rijeka , Slavonski Brod , Split and Virovitica . In 2008 the Jewish community in Zagreb had 1,500 parishioners. President of the Zagreb Jewish Community is Ognjen Kraus . The community's rabbi is Luciano Moše Prelević .
Antiquity
The first historically secured traces of Jewish life and Jewish community in today's territory of Croatia date from the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD. They were discovered on grave slabs in the former Salona, today's Solin . The oldest Jewish grave slab with precise personal data was discovered in Senj , Croatia . The name of the Jew Arelius Dionisus, who came from Tiberias , is written on it. The first historically secured traces of a synagogue were discovered in the former Mursa, today's Osijek.
middle Ages
Evidence of Jewish life in Zagreb comes from a court file from 1373. It mentions Elias Judaeus. Another testimony is recorded in court files dating from 1444. They tell of a break-in into a Jewish house ("domus judaeorum").
Jewish Community of Zagreb
19th century
The Zagreb Jewish Community was founded in 1806. When it was founded, it had a total of 56 parishioners. The first parish rabbi was Aron Palotta in 1809. The congregation first celebrated their service in the Lukačić house, which was located on Petrinjska ulica in Zagreb. The first Jewish community cemetery was established in 1811. In 1833 the Zagreb Jewish Community acquired a building for a new parish hall and a synagogue at the Petrinjska Ulica / Amruševa Ulica intersection in Zagreb. The first pogrom against the Jewish community of Zagreb took place in 1838. At that time, the community of Zagreb had 300 parishioners. Zagreb businessmen demanded the expulsion of all Jews from the city of Zagreb. As a result, the Zagreb Jewish Community, together with the Jewish Community from Varaždin , sent a petition to the Croatian Sabor on May 18, 1839 for all Jewish communities in the territory of the then Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia . In this petition they called for the guarantee of their civil rights , which should include the protection of all Jewish communities on the entire Croatian territory. In 1840, Article 29 of the Act was passed by the Croatian-Hungarian Parliament. This ensured that native and newly immigrated Jews could settle anywhere in the state, except in mining areas. In addition, this article made it possible for Jews to set up factories, to work in retail and handicrafts, and to employ Jewish assistants and journeymen. For this purpose, they were given the opportunity to work in the sciences and arts for the first time . Another possibility through the passed article of the law was the permission to keep one's own tribal books in one's own language . The acquisition of real estate was also guaranteed. This acquisition of real estate was not fully implemented in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia. Individual Jews could not purchase real estate; only Jewish communities that had royal permission to do so were allowed. In 1840 another church was opened on Gajeva Ulica 7 in Zagreb. In 1841, the Zagreb Jewish Community opened a three-year primary school with German as the language of instruction. In the same year there was the first split within the community between Orthodox Jews and Neologists . The Jewish-Orthodox orientation of the parishioners celebrated their service in the Ružična Ulica in Zagreb. In 1842 the Zagreb Jewish Community established the Jewish cemetery ("Petrovo Groblje" / St. Peter's Grave) on Vlaška Ulica 7. With its petition of April 23, 1843, the Zagreb Jewish Community called on the Croatian Sabor to finally emancipate ( Jewish emancipation ) for all Jewish communities in the Croatian territories to implement politically and thus civil rights. The male parishioner Jacques Epstein founded the humanitarian community "Humanitarian Association " in Zagreb in 1846 . In 1850 the Habsburg Empire equality of Judaism with Christianity . In 1850, the Jewish community member Gjuro Hrischler was the first Jew to be elected to the Zagreb city council. In 1853 religious disputes were settled within the Zagreb Jewish community. On October 30, 1855, the Zagreb Jewish Community decided to build a new synagogue. The municipality of Zagreb had 756 members in 1857, and in 1857 the municipality purchased a piece of land in Petrinska Ulica. The new headquarters of the Jewish community in Zagreb, on which a church was built, was built on this site. In 1858 the Orthodox Jewish church in Zagreb was closed. In 1865 the first Jewish school was opened in Zagreb. The Croatian language was introduced as a compulsory subject. In 1867, the community's new synagogue was inaugurated on today's Praška Ulica in Zagreb. With the law of October 21, 1873, Jews in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia acquired all civil rights. In 1879 the Jewish Orthodox community was founded in Zagreb. According to statistics from 1880, the Jewish community of Zagreb had a total of 1,285 community members. The Croatian language was introduced into Jewish worship through Rabbi Hosea Jacobi . In 1887 the Jewish women from the Zagreb community founded the first Jewish women's community called "Jelena Prister". As the first Jew ever, the community member Ljudevit Schwartz was elected to the Croatian Sabor. In 1890 the Jewish community had a total of 2,000 members. The Jewish youth of Zagreb founded the middle school community in 1898 . She directed and held literary meetings. The new headquarters of the Zagreb Jewish Community was moved to Palmotičeva Ulica in 1898.
20th century
In 1900 the Jewish community in Zagreb grew to a total of 3,237 community members. In 1900, 54% of the Jews in Zagreb stated Croatian as their mother tongue. The first Jewish prayer book in Croatian and on Croatian territory was published by the Zagreb Rabbi Gavro Schwarz in 1902. In 1904 the Croatian Jewish Student Community was founded in Zagreb. On February 7, 1906, the legal provision for the establishment of Jewish religious communities in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia took place. With this passed legislation, the Jewish Orthodox community was abolished, and the "Old Believers" were united within the Jewish community in Zagreb. The first Jewish newspaper in the South Slavic- speaking area was published in Zagreb in 1906. The other publications took place in the years 1909 to 1911 in Osijek. With the will of the parishioner Lavoslav Schwarz, a foundation was established for the establishment of the first Jewish retirement home . The retirement home was opened in 1910. The first Jewish sports and gymnastics club called "Makkabi" was opened in 1913 in Zagreb. The first Jewish weekly "Tjednik" was published in 1917 in Zagreb. It was the most widely read Jewish advertising paper in the South Slavic area until 1941. In 1919 the "Alliance of Hebrew Religious Communities" was founded in the SHS Kingdom . It followed, at the same time, the establishment of the alliance "The Zionists of Yugoslavia ". The electoral list of this alliance won the votes of the Zagreb Jewish Community in 1920. A total of around 75,000 Jews lived in the SHS Kingdom. In 1921 the first meeting of the Hebrew Faith Communities in the Kingdom of Serbs , Croats and Slovenes was held in Zagreb. In 1921 the Jewish community in Zagreb had 5,970 parishioners. The People's Workers' Association was founded in Zagreb in 1921 and consisted of Jewish assimilants and anti-Zionists. In 1924 the Union of Jewish Rabbis was founded in Zagreb. The head office was moved to Belgrade . In the same year the Association of Jewish Boy Scouts was founded. It was called "Ahdut Hacofim" and was later renamed Hašomer Hacair . In 1925 the Makkabi Alliance of Yugoslavia was founded. In the same year the Sephardic student body "Esperanza" was founded in Zagreb. In 1926 a Jewish Orthodox community was established. The Sephardic Jews of Zagreb followed this example and at the same time founded their congregation in 1927, as well as the lodge called B'nai B'rith . In 1928 the first Jewish women's association "Zionist Women of Yugoslavia" was founded. In 1931 the international architectural competition for a project for a Jewish hospital in Zagreb ended. During this competition, 225 projects were presented to the Zagreb public. In 1939 the "Zimska" synagogue in Zagreb was consecrated. Due to the emergence of National Socialism, there were around 1,000 Jewish refugees from Austria and Germany in Zagreb and the surrounding area in 1939 . Demographic statistics from 1940 indicate that the Zagreb Jewish Community had 9,367 parishioners, of which 8,712 were Ashkenazi Jews, 625 Sephardic Jews, and 130 Orthodox Jews . It is estimated that in 1940 a further 2,000 people were not registered as community members in Jewish communities, and that they were / or lived in mixed marriages .
1941-1945
With the seizure of power by the fascist Ustasha and the establishment of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH), the tragedy of Judaism began in what is now Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina . In 1941 there were 25,000 Jews living on the territory of Croatia. 20,000 to 23,000 Jews were registered in Jewish communities. 2,000 Jews were assimilated. From April 18 to June 6, 1941, so-called race laws were passed in Zagreb, modeled on the Nuremberg Laws . As a result of this, there was initially abuse , robbery and court judgments against the Jewish population. This was followed by deportations of Jews to assembly camps , labor camps , and later extermination / death camps . The largest extermination camp on Croatian territory was the Jasenovac concentration camp . At least 13,116 Jews were killed there by the Ustaše regime. On October 10, 1941, the Zagreb synagogue was destroyed by Croatian fascists. During 1941 and 1942, most of the Jewish community members from Zagreb, including women, children and the elderly, were deported to the extermination camps. Between May 3 and 5, 1943, 1,500 Zagreb Jews were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp with their community rabbi Miroslav Šalom-Freiberger and the President of the Zagreb Jewish Community, Hugo Kon . Despite these events, the Zagreb Jewish Community continued to exist and endured the greatest reprisals from the Ustaše regime. In 1941, the Jewish Orthodox and Sephardic congregations in Zagreb came together. Of the 12,000 Jews who lived in Zagreb before World War II , only about 3,000 survived the genocide and wartime under various circumstances. Of the 75,000 Jews in the entire area of ex-Yugoslavia, 60,000 did not survive the Holocaust .
post war period
After the end of the Second World War, the Zagreb Jewish community slowly began to recover. The survivors and returned refugees from the Zagreb Jewish Community contributed to this. In December 1945 the first post-war meeting of the "Alliance of Hebrew Communities" was held in Zagreb. Between 1948 and 1952, half of the Jews left the Zagreb Jewish Community and emigrated to Israel . As a result, the Zagreb Jewish community lost between 1,200 and 1,500 members. In 1954, the Zagreb Jewish Community begins to build a new "Lavoslav Schwartz" home for the elderly. The retirement home was opened in 1957. In 1986, to commemorate the destruction of the synagogue in Zagreb during World War II, the Jewish community placed a plaque on the nearby house on the vacant synagogue plot at 7 Raška Ulica. In 1988 the Zagreb Museum held an exhibition in collaboration with the Zagreb Jewish Community under the title "Jews in Yugoslavia". This exhibition also took place in Sarajevo , Belgrade , Novi Sad and New York , among others .
1991
With Croatia's independence from the multi-ethnic state of Yugoslavia in 1991 , the membership of the Jewish community in Zagreb in the alliance of the "Hebrew Communities of Yugoslavia" also ended. The Zagreb Jewish Community has been the center of the Jewish community in Croatia since 1991. In 1995 the Coordination of Jewish Communities in Croatia was founded. Its members include the Jewish communities of Čakovec , Daruvar , Dubrovnik , Koprivnica , Osijek , Rijeka , Slavonski Brod , Split and Virovitica . The Jewish communities in Croatia have a total of 2,000 community members.
