Serbian Jews - Jews in Central Serbia

Jews in Central Serbia

With generally good relations between the Jews and Serbs, the Jewish communities prospered, and by the 19th century Jewish merchants were largely responsible for the trade routes between the Ottoman Empire's northern and southern territories.

Beginning in 1804, the Serbs began to fight the Ottoman Turks for independence. Many Jews were involved in the struggle by supplying arms to the local Serbs, and the Jewish communities faced brutal reprisal attacks from the Ottoman Turks. The independence struggle lasted until 1830, when Serbia gained its independence.

The new Serbian government was friendly toward the Jewish community. Under rule of Milos Obrenovic, the Belgrade Jewish community had its own money issue. The situation of the Jews briefly improved under the rule of Prince Mihailo Obrenović (ruled 1839-1842). The Jews were a very respected minority in Serbia after the Obrenovic dynasty ended. The very first act of Serbian King Petar I was royal support for building a new synagogue in Belgrade.

With the reclamation of the Serbian throne by the Royal House of Obrenović under Miloš Obrenović in 1858, restrictions on Jewish merchants were again relaxed, but three years later, in 1861 Mihailo III inherited the throne and reinstated anti-Jewish restrictions. In 1877 a Jewish candidate was elected to the National Assembly for the first time after receiving the backing of all parties.

In 1879, the Baruh Brothers Choir was founded in Belgrade as a part of the Serbian-Jewish friendship, the oldest Jewish choir in the world, that still exists to today.

The waxing and waning of the fortunes of the Jewish community according to the ruler continued to the end of the 19th Century, when the Serbian parliament lifted all anti-Jewish restrictions in 1889.

By 1912, the Jewish community of Serbia stood at 5,000. Serbian-Jewish relations reached a high degree of cooperation during World War I, when Jews and Serbs fought side by side against the Central Powers.

In the aftermath of World War I, Montenegro, Banat, Bačka, Syrmia, and Baranja joined Serbia through popular vote in those regions, and this Greater Serbia then united with State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (from which Syrmia had seceded to join Serbia) to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which was soon renamed Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Serbia's relatively small Jewish community of 13,000 (including 500 in Kosovo), combined with the large Jewish communities of the other Yugoslav territories, numbering some 51,700. In the inter-war years (1919–1939), the Jewish communities of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia flourished.

Prior to World War II, 10,000 Jews lived in Belgrade, 80% being Ladino-speaking Sephardi Jews, and 20% being Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews.