Antisemitism Worldwide 2000/1

There are 2,000 Jews in Yugoslavia out of a total population of 10 million. Most of the Jews live in Belgrade the capital, but there are smaller communities in Novi Sad, Nis, Sambor and Subotica. During the 1999 NATO air strikes against Yugoslavia, many Jews, mainly women, children and the elderly, left the country, and not all have returned. The Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia is the community roof organization. Inter-marriage is traditionally high in Yugoslavia, but among mixed families there is a high level of affiliation with the community. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has been especially active in catering to the spiritual and material well-being of the Jews of Yugoslavia.

The end of the Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia in October 2000 ushered in a new era under the presidency of Vojislav Kostunica, who is committed to bringing Yugoslavia closer to the Western community and to deepening the process of democratization. The small Jewish community has praised Kostunica’s policies but also expressed alarm at the upsurge in antisemitic activity since his rise to power (see below). Aca Singer, president of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, spoke of a “a paradox, we can’t explain. Antisemitism does not run deep among Serbs, but still we are concerned at the trend and are watching the situation” (JTA [Jewish Telegraph Agency], 2 May, 14 May 2001). It should be noted that antisemitic eruptions also followed the fall or decline of strong repressive regimes such as the former Soviet Union and Argentina.

The Kostunica regime has made various gestures of respect and good will toward the Jewish community. Kostunica was the first Yugoslav leader to attend a Holocaust Day memorial ceremony, in April 2001, along with Israeli diplomats. Although Yugoslav leaders, including Milosevic, had often stressed the close ties between Serbs and Jews during World War II, this was more in the context of Yugoslav, or rather Serb, opposition to rehabilitation of the World War II fascist Croat legacy, than of the overall fate of the Jews during the Holocaust. Generally, Serbian Jews abroad, including in Israel, were more sympathetic to the Serb side in the “Yugoslav wars of succession” because of their wartime anti-fascist legacy and especially because of their suffering under the fascist regime.

Relations with Israel have also improved since Milosevic’s downfall, although diplomatic relations and ties continued throughout the recent Balkan wars, including during the NATO offensive against Yugoslavia in 1999.

Following the NATO offensive against Yugoslavia in 1999, antisemitic factors within and outside Serbia, as in East and Central European countries, attempted to link Jewish interests with US and NATO policies and claimed that top Jewish officials in the US were behind the attacks. After the war and the fall of Milosevic, antisemitic manifestations increased. A series of antisemitic manifestations was registered beginning in October 2000. Anti-Jewish slogans and swastikas were daubed in several cities, including on the building of the Jewish community in Belgrade, and Jewish memorial plaques in the towns of Kikinda and Zrenjanin were vandalized. In February 2001 Jewish gravestones in Zrenjanin were desecrated. The Yugoslav media reported widely on the incidents and President Kostunica condemned them in a letter to the Jewish community. The antisemitic slogans and swastikas in Belgrade might have been related to the opening of an exhibition on the life and plight of Roma – since usually pro-Roma activities are linked by antisemites to Jewish interests – and to the visit by the president of the World Jewish Congress, Israel Singer, to Yugoslavia for talks on the return of Jewish property.

Antisemitic themes had actually emerged during the last months of the Milosevic regime. Besides having allegedly initiated and led the US-NATO attack against Yugoslavia, Jews were accused of having been active in the opposition working to topple Milosevic. As the Yugoslav authorities, prior to the fall of Milosevic, attempted to silence the opposition media, the Serbian Defense League (SDL) website spread vicious racist and anti-Jewish allegations. In May 2000 it reported “based on an e-mail” from Serbia that “once again subservient Serbs are demonstrating under orders from their Jew masters. The Jew servants are deceiving the youth into joining the opposition [against Milosevic] created by Jews.” This item and several others like it lashed out at the involvement of Hungarian-born Jewish philanthropist George Soros in supporting the anti-Milosevic opposition by providing fellowships in the US for opponents of the regime.

The SDL website also promotes Holocaust denial and accuses Jews of “demonizing Serbs.” “The SDL’s most wanted Jews for genocide of Serbs” list, with accompanying photos, includes Clinton administration officials such as Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger, William Cohen and Richard Holbrook, as well as US politicians of Jewish origin, such as Tom Lantos, Joe Lieberman and Dianne Feinstein.