Jewish Historical Museum, Belgrade

Jewish Historical Museum

Јеврејски историјски музеј
Established	1948
Location	Stari Grad, Belgrade, Serbia
Coordinates	44°49′17″N 20°27′25″E / 44.8213°N 20.4569°E
Director	Vojislava Radovanović
Owner	Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia

The Jewish Historical Museum (Serbian: Јеврејски историјски музеј, Jevrejski istorijski muzej; JHM) is located on Kralja Petra street in the Stari Grad neighborhood of Belgrade, situated to the southeast of Kalemegdan, near the Museum of Pedagogy. Founded in 1948, the JHM is the only Jewish museum in Serbia.^[1] The museum is situated in a building constructed in 1928 for the Sefardic community.^[2] The museum’s collection is comprehensive and also complex in its content, with exhibits arranged thematically. It focuses on Belgradian Jews from the 2nd century until World War II,^[3] encompassing the lives of Jews who lived in Serbia and Yugoslavia.^[4] There is a predominance of memorial displays ^[5] as well as a large collection of documents and photographs which attest to the Holocaust in which many Jewish families were totally decimated.

History

The museum is located in a building designed by Samuel Sumbul in 1928 for the Jewish Sephardic community; an inscription near the top of the building states: "The Home of the Jewish Religious-School Community".^[6] The Jewish Historical Museum was founded in 1948.^[6] The Federation of Jewish Communities had the intention to establish a museum to cover some 2,000 years of history from the earliest history of Belgrade.^[7]

In 2005, the museum donated a thematic collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archives Project Division. It contained documents regarding "arrests and persecutions of, and reprisals against, Jews, members of antifascist movements, communists, and the general population" as well as documents regarding concentration camps in the former Yugoslavia.^[8]

Unlike the Jewish museum in Sarejevo, which is administered by the city, the Belgrade museum falls under the auspices of the Federation of Jewish Communities.^[9] Milica Mihajlović, daughter of General Herbert Kraus, Minister of Health,^[10] served as curator (1964–90) and director (1990–06) before retiring in 2007.^[11] The current director is Vojislava Radovanović.

Features

A rich collection of items, documents and photographs on the history of the Jews in Yugoslavia is in the possession of the museum.^[12] There are 1,000 ethnological items including books and historical and Holocaust collections, as well as paintings and drawings.^[1] The museum has documents related to the Zemun Jews.^[13] The archives in the museum also contain several of the annotated documents related to the sufferings of the Jews of Yugoslavia written by Jasa Almuli, former president of the Belgrade Jewish Community.^[14] The museum's embroidery and costume collection was displayed in 1978 in London at the International Centenary Conference of the Folklore Society.^[15] In September 2013, a new exhibition opened called "Synagogical Ritual Items", containing deported items which were never displayed previously.^[1] In addition to the museum, the building houses a children’s theater, the Jewish Community Belgrade (second floor), and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia (third floor).^[6]

Publications

The Jewish Historical Museum has published numerous books including "Studije i gradja o Jevrejima Dubrovnika" which contains studies and documents related to Jews who lived in Dubrovnik.^[16] Since the 1960s, the museum has published a historical magazine, Zbornik.^[17]

See also

• History of the Jews in Serbia

References

1. "Synagogical Ritual Items Exibition [sic] In Jewish Historical Museum Belgrade". inNews (InSerbia Network Foundation). September 10, 2013. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
2. Fellner, Dan. "The Jewish Traveler: Belgrade". Hadassah Magazine.
3. "Museums". Belgradian. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
4. Radovanovic 2010, p. 5.
5. Cohen 2012, p. 116.
6. "Jewish Historical Museum". museu.ms. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
7. Kerenji 2008, p. 206.
8. "Selected records from the archives of the Jewish Historical Museum, Belgrade". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Retrieved 9 October 2013.
9. Gordiejew 1999, p. 133.
10. Gordiejew 1999, p. 332.
11. Cohen 2012, p. 132.
12. Jovan Janićijević (1996). Kulturna riznica Srbije (in Serbian). Izd. Zadruga Idea. p. 242. Јеврејски историјски музеј (Краља Петра 71/1) располаже богатим збиркама јудаике - текстила, метала и других ри- туалних предмета, као и великим бројем фотофафија и докумената који говоре о историји Јевреја Југославије
13. Albahari 2011, p. 35.
14. Palavestra, Abroad & centar 2003, p. 133.
15. American Folklore Society 1978, p. 3.
16. Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, p. 271.
17. Jugoslovenski istorijski časopis (in Serbian). 1988. p. 257. Ове године ће сс навршити равно две деценије од покре- тања новог историјског часописа под називо.м Зборник, а у издању Јев- рејског историјског музеја у Београду ["This year will be precisely two decades since the beginning of the publishing of a new historical magazine named Zbornik, published by the Jewish Historical Museum in Belgrade"]

Bibliography

• Albahari, David (28 April 2011). Leeches. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. ISBN 978-0-547-54908-8.
• American Folklore Society (1978). Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Newsletter 2. Simon Bronner. IND:30000116752837.
• Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles. Viator. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-02392-5.
• Cohen, Richard I. (2012). Visualizing and exhibiting Jewish space and history. Institute by Oxford University Press.
• Gordiejew, Paul Benjamin (1999). Voices of Yugoslav Jewry. SUNY Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-4022-3.
• Kerenji, Emil (2008). Jewish Citizens of Socialist Yugoslavia: Politics of Jewish Identity in a Socialist State, 1944--1974. ProQuest. ISBN 978-0-549-81639-3.
• Palavestra, Predrag; Abroad, Association of Serbian Writers; centar, Srpski P.E.N. (2003). Jewish writers in Serbian literature. ASWA. ISBN 978-0-9541777-3-7.
• Radovanovic, Vojislava (2010). "The Jewish Historical Museum In Belgrade" (pdf). The Federation of Jewish Communities of Serbia. Retrieved 8 October 2013.

External links

• Official website