History of the Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Thehistory of the Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina(Serbo-Croatian:Jevreji Bosne i Hercegovine;Jevrejski narod Bosne i Hercegovine) spans from the arrival of the first Bosnian Jews as a result of theSpanish Inquisitionto the survival of the Bosnian Jews through theHolocaustand theYugoslav Wars. Jews are one of the minority peoples ofBosnia and Herzegovina, according to thecountry's constitution. The Bosnian Jewish community is composed of bothSephardicandAshkenazi Jews.
Judaism and the Jewish community in Bosnia and Herzegovina have one of the oldest and most diverse histories of all the former Yugoslav states, and is more than 400 years old, in terms of permanent settlement; records of Jewish presence in Bosnia and Herzogovina date back to the second century CE.Some scholars have argued that there has been a more or less continuous presence of Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina since the Roman Empire.Bosnia, then aself-governing province of the Ottoman Empire, was one of the few territories in Europe that welcomed Jews after their expulsion from Spain.
At its peak, the Jewish community of Bosnia and Herzegovina numbered between 14,000 and 22,000 members in 1941. Of those, 12,000 to 14,000 lived in Sarajevo, comprising 20% of the city's population.
Today, there are 281 Jews living in Bosnia and Herzegovina, recognised as a national minority. They have good relations with their non-Jewish neighbors.
In 1189,Ban Kulinof Bosnia issued a charter that guaranteed mutual free trade and movement for merchants fromDubrovnikthrough Bosnian territory, which enticed some Jewish merchants to settle in the area.At least one Jewish house of worship from the Middle Ages has survived to provide physical evidence of the presence of Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina.The remains of a Roman or Byzantine synagogue were found in the village ofDabravine, nearZenica.
Jews had been forced to leave Spain by 31 July 1492 by theAlhambra Decree; the day was further delayed to 2 August 1492, which coincided withTisha B'Av.The first Jews from Spain andPortugalarrived in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the early 1500s.
As tens of thousands of Jews fled theSpanishandPortugueseInquisitions,SultanBayezid IIof the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jews who were able to reach his territories.Sephardi JewsfleeingSpainandPortugalwere welcomed in – and found their way to –Bosnia and Herzegovina,Macedonia,Thraceand other areas of Europe under Ottoman control. Jews from the Ottoman Empire began arriving in numbers in the 16th century, settling mainly inSarajevo. The firstAshkenazi Jewsarrived from Hungary in 1686, when the Ottoman Turks were expelled from HungaryAmong them wasTzvi Ashkenazi, who remained in Sarajevo for three years as rabbi. 
The Jewish community prospered inBosnia, living side by side with their Bosnian Muslim neighbors, as one of the largest European centres forSephardi Jewryoutside of Spain.
Jews in the Ottoman Empire were generally well-treated and were recognized under the law as non-Muslims. Despite some restrictions, the Jewish communities of the Empire prospered. They were granted significant autonomy, with various rights including the right to buy real estate, to build synagogues and to conduct trade throughout the Ottoman Empire.Jews, along with the other non-Muslim subjects of the Empire, were granted full equality under Ottoman law by 1856.
In the late Ottoman time, the Sarajevo-based Sephardi rabbiJudah Alkalaiplayed a prominent role as a precursor of modernZionismby advocating in favor of the restoration of the Jews to the Land of Israel.
TheAustro-Hungarian EmpireoccupiedBosnia and Herzegovinain 1878, and brought with them an injection of European capital, companies and methods. Many professional, educatedAshkenazi Jewsarrived with theAustro-Hungarians. TheSephardi Jewscontinued to engage in their traditional areas, mainly foreign trade and crafts.
Sephardic Jews have certainly had a stronger role in BiH, given that only inSarajevo,Banja LukaandTuzlaseparate Ashkenazi communities were active, whereasTuzlawas the only city in which the Ashkenazi were numerous (thereHilde Zaloscerwas born).
In this periodMoshe ben Rafael Attiasachieved prominence as scholar of the Islamic faith and of medieval Persian literature.
World War I saw the collapse of theAustro-Hungarian Empire, and after the warBosnia and Herzegovinawas incorporated into theKingdom of Yugoslavia.
In the census of 1921,Ladinowas the mother language of 10,000 out of 70,000 inhabitants of Sarajevo.By 1926, there were 13,000 Jews inBosnia and Herzegovina.
The Bosnian Jewish community remained prominent after the unification of Yugoslavia. In the 1920s and 1930sKalmi Baruhwas a pioneer of Sephardic studies andHispanic studiesand an eminent leftist intellectual.Daniel Ozmowas active in Belgrade as a progressive painter and printmaker.Isak Samokovlijaalso started his literary career in the 1930s, which he continued after the war.Laura Papo Bohoretawas an active feminist and writer.
In 1940, there were approximately 14,000 Jews inBosnia and Herzegovina,with 10,000 inSarajevo.
With the invasion ofYugoslaviain April 1941 by theNazisand their Allies,Bosnia and Herzegovinacame under the control of theIndependent State of Croatia, aNazipuppet-state. TheIndependent State of Croatiawas headed by the notoriouslyanti-SemiticUstaše, and they wasted little time in persecuting non-Croatssuch asSerbs, Jews andRomani people.
On 22 July 1941,Mile Budak– a senior Minister in the Croatian government and one of the chief ideologists of theUstašemovement –  declared that the goal of the Ustaše was the extermination of "foreign elements" from theIndependent State of Croatia. His message was simple: "The basis for the Ustasha movement is religion. For minorities such asSerbs, Jews, andGypsies, we have three million bullets."In 1941,Ante Pavelić– leader of the Ustaše movement – declared that "the Jews will be liquidated in a very short time".
In September 1941 deportations of Jews began, with most Bosnian Jews being deported toAuschwitz(many first to Kruščica concentration camp) or toconcentration campsinCroatia. The Ustaše set upconcentration campsatKerestinac,Jadovna,MetajnaandSlana. The most notorious, where cruelty of unimaginable proportions was perpetrated against Jewish andSerbianprisoners, were atPagandJasenovac. AtJasenovacalone, approximately one hundred thousand people were murdered (half of whom were Serbs), including 20,000 Jews.
ByWar's end, 10,000 of the pre-WarBosnian Jewish population of 14,000 had been murdered.Most of the 4,000 who had survived did so by fighting with theYugoslav,JewishorSovietPartisansor by escaping to the Italian controlled zone(approximately 1,600 had escaped to the Italian controlled zone on theDalmatian coast- among themFlory Jagoda,néePapo). 
Jewish members of theYugoslavArmy became German prisoners of war and survived the war. They returned toSarajevoafter the war.Avraham Levi-Lazzaris, who emigrated to Brasil, became explorer of the first mines of diamonds inRondônia, whileMoses Levi-Lazzaris(1944–1990), mechanical engineer, became a Trotskyist militant.
The people of Sarajevo helped many Jews to abscond and exfiltrate - among many, the story of the Hardaga and Kabilio familiesas well as of the Sober-Dragoje and Besrević familiesbecame particularly noteworthy after the war. The Righteous among the Nations from Bosnia and Herzegovina are those Bosnians who were honored by theYad Vashem MemorialasRighteous Among the Nations, i.e. non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from being murdered. Forty-nine Bosnians have been awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations.
The Jewish Community ofBosnia and Herzegovinawas reconstituted after theHolocaust, but most survivors chose to emigrate toIsrael.The community came under the auspices of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, based in the capital,Belgrade.
Jewish personalities remained prominent in Socialist Bosnia and Herzegovina.Cvjetko Rihtmanwas the first director of the Sarajevo Opera in 1946–1947; his sonRankowould later be part of the Sarajevo rock band Indexi.Oskar Danonalso achieved fame ascomposerandconductorduring Yugoslav times.Ernest Grinwas one of the leading Yugoslav medical doctors and a member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Academy of Sciences and Arts.Emerik Blum, founder ofEnergoinvest, was Sarajevo's mayor from 1981 to 1983 and a member of the Organizational Committee of the1984 Winter Olympics.Ivan Ceresnjeswas active as an architect, supervising the restoration of Jewish buildings and sites, including theAshkenazi Synagogue, theKal Nuevotemple, and the 16th-centuryOld Jewish Cemetery, Sarajevo, whose project he was slated to present 24h before the war broke out in March 1992.
In the early 1990s, before theYugoslav Wars, the Jewish population ofBosnia and Herzegovinawas over 2,000,and relations between Jews and their Catholic,Orthodox, andMuslimneighbors were very good.
The Jewish community of Bosnia and Herzegovina was headed byIvan Ceresnjesfrom 1992 until his emigration toIsraelin 1996.His tenure coincided with theBosnian Warof 1992–1995.When thebesieging Serb armyoccupied the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo, from where they sniped on the city, Ceresnjes gave permission to theArmy of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovinato target the cemetery.
The Sarajevo Jewish humanitarian society,La Benevolencija, also provided aid to thousands of besieged Sarajevo residents, supplying food, medicine, and postal and radio communications.Ceresnjes told a local paper that the nonsectarian relief effort was partly a gesture of gratitude to local Muslims who had hidden Jews during theNazioccupation of Yugoslavia.After the war started,La Benevolencijaassisted theAmerican Jewish Joint Distribution Committeein the evacuation of 2,500 Sarajevo residents, only one-third of whom were Jewish. There were 11 evacuations in all, three by air early on in the war, and eight by bus convoy after the airport had been closed to civilian traffic.While other convoys were stopped, the Ceresnjes convoys all got through, as field staff from the Joint negotiatedcease firesto ensure safe transfer.
In 1997, the Jewish population of Bosnia and Herzegovina was 600, about half of whom were living in Sarajevo.Most Jews who had fled Sarajevo and Bosnia chose to remain in Israel after the wars had ended, though some returnedand others moved elsewhere, such asRobert Rothbart(born Boris Kajmaković).
The Jewish Community in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been led byJakob Fincisince 1995.
TheConstitution of Bosnia and Herzegovinareserves certain top political positions, including membership of thePresidencyand of theHouse of Peoplesto members of the threeconstitutive peoples(Bosniaks, Croats and Serbs).In 2009 theEuropean Court of Human Rightsestablished in theSejdić and Finci v. Bosnia and Herzegovinaruling that the country's Constitution violates theEuropean Convention on Human Rights. An agreement between political parties to amend the Constitution accordingly is still pending, notwithstanding international pressure.This has not prevented Bosnian Jews from achieving prominent positions: among them,Sven AlkalajwasMinister of Foreign Affairsfrom 2007 to 2012.
In 2024, Jews and Muslims from Bosnia jointly observedInternational Holocaust Remembrance Dayto facilitate dialogue and respect in response to theIsrael-Hamas War.
The SarajevoHaggadahis a 14th-centuryilluminated manuscriptwhich has survived many close calls with destruction. Historians believe that it was taken out of Spain bySpanish Jewswho were expelled by theInquisitionin 1492. Notes in the margins of the Haggadah indicate that it surfaced in Italy in the 16th century. It was sold to thenational museuminSarajevoin 1894 by a man named Joseph Kohen.
During World War II, the manuscript was hidden from the Nazis by Dr. Jozo Petrovic,the director of the city museumand by Derviš Korkut, the chief librarian, who smuggled the Haggadah out to a Muslim cleric in a mountain village near Treskavica, where it was hidden in the mosque among Korans and other Islamic texts.During the Bosnian War of 1992–1995, when Sarajevo was under constant siege by Bosnian Serb forces, the manuscript survived in an underground bank vault.
Afterwards, the manuscript was restored through a special campaign financed by the United Nations and the Bosnian Jewish community in 2001, and went on permanent display at the museum in December 2002.
The oldest synagogues in Bosnia and Herzegovina were built by the Sephardi community in the 16th century.
During the Austro-Hungarian period, the new Ashkenazi community also built their own temples, often adopting theMoorish Revivalarchitectural style, as in the case of Sarajevo'sAshkenazi Synagogue. Most of them were destroyed during World War Two, including Sarajevo'sIl Kal Grande.Four synagogues remain in Sarajevo:
TheJewish Municipality of Sarajevo, also the Jewish community of Sarajevo, is a religious organization of citizens ofBosnia and HerzegovinaofJewish originwith a seat inSarajevo.
The history of Jewish immigration to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sarajevo began in 1492 after the Spanish Catholic state under Ferdinand and Isabella managed to break the power of the Muslim rulers in Spain. For the remaining citizens of the Muslim and Jewish faiths, a time of discrimination and pressure to accept Christianity or leave has begun. At that moment, the Ottoman government allowed Jewish exiles from Spain to settle in their territory. Around 1551, the first Jewish families moved to Sarajevo, and as early as 1565, a Jewish (Sephardic) municipality was founded in Sarajevo. At the request of Sarajevo's Muslim leaders,Kanijeli Siyavuş Pasha, when he arrived in Sarajevo in 1581, had a large inn built as apartments for Jews, in order to live as a special people in the city. However, the Ottoman government did not impose on the Jews the ghetto provisions first established by the Christian rulers. Siyavuş Pasha managed to get permission from the sultan for the Jews of Sarajevo to build their ownsynagogue.
In the rest of the country some synagogue buildings have been preserved and renovated (such as inDoboj) but they do not host services.
Sephardi Jews were first mentioned inBanja Lukain the 16th century. Till theAustro-Hungariantime, the Jewish population ofBanja Lukawas exclusively of Sephardi Jews, originating from Spain and Portugal. They were into crafts and trade; crafts are practiced by the poorer Jews while those somewhat better off were into trade. Since 1878, Jews have given great impetus expansion of the capitalist economy and the spread of Western European ideas inBanja Luka. According to data from 1815 to 1878, holders of import-export trade wereSerbs,Jews, andMuslimsare oriented towards the internal trade and handicrafts.Ashkenazi also settled in town in the 19th century. BeforeWorld War II,Banja Luka's Jewish Community consisted of a few hundred families. They were nearly all wiped out during the Holocaust in Yugoslavia. Today the number of Jewish families in Banja Luka is in the order of tens. TheJewish cultural center Arie Livnewas opened inBanja Lukain 2015.