Book on the Righteous - Jevrejska opština Zemun

Righteous Among The Nations - Serbia
Historical Background
large community existed in Osijek, and relatively large
communities in the towns of Varaždin, Slavonski Brod,
Vinkovci, Vukovar, Zemun. Relocation of Jews rose in
numbers significantly after the restriction of settlement
inside Military boundary zones was lifted; the demilitarization
of 1878 and again 1881 brought Jews to almost
all towns and most villages inside Srem. In Jewish
Communities in Croatia and Slavonija, primarily in the
most portentous, the Zagreb community, integrationists
(assimilates) were predominantly antagonistic toward
the National Jewish Movement. They felt bound to the
Croatian National ideology and politics. However, Zionism
was gradually gaining a growing number of followers
and was dominant in Zagreb after the foundation
of the Yugoslav state.
Jews living in Southern Hungary in the territory of the
once Serbian Vojvodina, were committed to the sovereign
Hungarian nation. Although they were Ashkenazi
stemming from German speaking regions and culture,
they relatively quickly accepted the Hungarian language,
the Hungarian concept of nation, state and culture
in the second half of the 19 th century. The number
of Jews rose constantly, mostly in the Hungarian capital,
Budapest, where by 1910 they made up for one quarter
of the population. Significant Jewish centres in Bačka
were the towns of Subotica and Novi Sad with large
communities in Senta and Sombor, and smaller ones in
a series of other towns and smaller settlements. In Banat
the largest Jewish centre was Veliki Bečkerek (today’s
Zrenjanin), and smaller ones in Pančevo, Novi Bečej,
Vršac, Velika Kikinda and a few other places. The period
from the end of the 19 th century up to the “white terror”
of 1919-1920 was considered by Hungarian Jews as a
time of great prosperity, while historians referred to it as
the period of Hungarian-Jewish symbiosis, i.e., emancipation
and assimilation. Such conditions resulted in the
fact that once they found themselves living inside a new
state, many Jews sided with ethnic Hungarians in the
feeling of injustice done to them. Zionism in these parts
began to take root only after the state of Yugoslavia was
formed.
Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina had lived for four
centuries within a traditional oriental civilization, i.e.,
the Ottoman feudal system which had profoundly embedded
itself in the social structure of these regions.
The changes brought by the 1878 Austro-Hungarian
occupation were significant both for Jews and the rest
of the population. As representatives of the new government
and men of business, the “new arrivals” were
looked upon as “carpet beggars” equally by Jews and
the remaining population. Among these new arrivals
was a large number of Ashkenazi Jews. However, the
new and the old were equally influenced by changing
circumstances. Thus the newly arrived Jews came to accept
the new milieu, above all by accepting the native
Serbian language. The “accelerated” Europeanization
of these regions, with all its controversies and injustices,
was in part effected by the presence of Jewish capital
and entrepreneurship from other parts of the Monarchy.
All this brought great change into the traditional way of
living affecting all, Jews included. Improvements in living
conditions were especially felt in the field of health
protection where physicians, new arrivals of Jewish
origin, played an important part. Here too, the Zionist
movement developed gradually with the membership
accepting the national name of Židov (Jew) opposed to
the traditional name Jevreji (Jews). 5
According to the first census of the population of the
Kingdom of SCS in 1921 of the total number of inhabitants
12.017.323 there were 64.159 (or 64.746), i.e.,
0.53% Jews. That same year the census of the Ministry
of religion registering citizens by their religious persuasion,
showed that the figure was somewhat lesser, i.e.,
64.405 were Jews or 0.49% of the total of 13.934.038
inhabitants. In 1931 the new census of the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia showed that there were 68.405 Jews living
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