Book on the Righteous - Jevrejska opština Zemun

Righteous Among The Nations - Serbia
Historical Background
Palestine Bureau) was opened to be later replaced by the
Mission of the Jewish Agency.
Official relations between the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
and the Palestine were maintained through honorary
consulates in Tel Aviv and Haifa. The General Consulate
of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was opened in Jerusalem
on December 31, 1936. A diplomat of experience and a
prominent member of the Yugoslav Board in WWI, Dr.
Ivo Dedjuli was appointed General Consul. Although
this higher level of diplomacy should have furthered
economic cooperation, the level of trade exchange between
Yugoslavia and the Palestine was for the most
part symbolic. Dedjuli recommended that Yugoslav exporters
should take advantage of the fact that Yugoslav
Jews enjoyed full civil rights, but this had little effect on
the level of economic exchange with the Palestine.
Beside political relations established among the Kingdom
of SCS and the Palestine close cultural ties were
also maintained. The Kingdom SCS General Consul to
Cairo was present at the opening of the Hebrew University
in Jerusalem in 1925. In honour of the occasion
a succession of formal events were organized in the
country with the attendance of high-ranking representatives
of state, public and science communities. In
September 1922 throughout the Kingdom films picturing
the successful reconstruction of Jewish life in the
Palestine were shown in cinemas. According to reports
published in the Jewish press, these films were received
by an eager public. Among the films shown was the first
Palestinian talking movie “Country of toil and future”.
The film had its opening night on February 15, 1936,
in the Great hall of Kolarčev NationalUniversity. The
Jewish poetess Elisheva, member of the Palestine PEN
club, appeared before the Belgrade public in 1931. At
a public literary evening she read her poems granting
one of them to the Serbian Literary Herald where it
was published that same month. At the beginning of
1938 the Hebrew theatre company “Habima” from Tel
Aviv staged four extremely successful performances in
national theatres in Belgrade and Zagreb. The famous
violinist and founder of the Symphonic orchestra of
Tel Aviv, Bronislav Huberman visited Belgrade and on
January 29, 1939 held a concert in the hall of Kolarčev
National University. The concert stirred the interest of
the public and was attended by a large audience of Belgrade’s
admirers of music.
Relations between Jewish Communities and their surrounding
social environment grew stronger in the period
between the two wars although the quality of these
relations differed largely from one region to another.
In the case of Serbian society, primarily that of Belgrade,
the feeling of kinship had been fortified by the
struggles, battles and deaths of the First World War. It
came as natural that business activities connected Jews
to their social surroundings, but interrelations were
dictated by other factors, too. In their lifestyles, way of
dressing, habits, the majority of Jews differed little from
their social environment. While in earlier times Jews,
primarily Sephardim, lived mostly in separate areas of
towns, in the period between the two wars they increasingly
began to live in other city parts also which again
influenced their integration into society in general. 13
Certain Jewish ceremonies and holiday celebrations
were looked on as social events enjoyed by a substantial
part of the population and their Jewish acquaintances.
The holiday of Purim was specially celebrated with
mirth and gaiety in Belgrade, at Jalija and Dorćol where
Belgraders from other city parts paid visits to their Jewish
friends. In the First World War these parts of the city
had sustained great damage and during the period between
the wars lost much of their previous Jewish atmosphere.
Although celebrations of Purim and Pesah had
lost much of their prior character, they still remained
social events in which many Serbs took part. This was
not only the case with Belgrade. The entire local elite,
prominent men in the company of their wives came to
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