CIONISTIČKI POKRET U KRALJEVINI SRBIJI I KRALJEVINI JUGOSLAVIJI 1902-1941.
ZIONISM IN THE SERBIAN KINGDOM AND IN THE KINGDOM OF YUGOSLAVIA 1902-1941

Summary/Abstract: Zionism, the Jewish national and political movement was formed towards the end of the 19th century with the purpose of creating a national state for the Jews in Palestine, the land of their origin. The first traces of the Zionist movement in the south-Slavic region appeared in the academic society »Bar Giora«, founded in Vienna in 1902 by Jewish students from Balkan countries. The first Zionist association in Belgrade was formed in 1905 under the name »Gideon«. In 1919 the Zionist Association of Yugoslavia was formed in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia with its center in Zagreb. The founders of the Zionist movement in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia were mainly young Jews from Ashkenazi quarters. In Serbia, both in Belgrade and in the provinces, inhabited mostly by Sephardic Jews, the movement’s organization developed more slowly. It became more active in the thirties, prompted by a rise in anti-Semitism in several European countries. Towards the end of the period between the two world wars the Zionists represented the strongest organized group within the Yugoslav Jewish community. They proceeded to take over leading positions in the majority of Jewish communities as well as in the central institution of Yugoslav Jews - the Association of Jewish Religious Communities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Immediately following the end of World War One, the movement was being sponsored by four to five thousand Yugoslav Jews whose number grew to over ten thousand just before the Second World War. Yugoslav government institutions did not hinder the organized activity of the Zionist movement. On the contrary, the attitude of the Yugoslav government was generally benign and was sometimes openly supportive of this movement at international meetings.

• Details
• Contents