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Bosnian Jews mourn Moris Albahari, one of Sarajevo’s last Ladino speakers
(JTA) — Moris Albahari, a Holocaust survivor, former partisan fighter and one of the last Ladino speakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s dwindling Jewish community, passed away at the age of 93 last month.
It is believed that he was one of four native Ladino speakers remaining in a country where the Judeo-Spanish language once flourished and was spoken by luminaries like Flory Jagoda, the grande dame of Ladino song, and Laura Bohoretta, the founder of a uniquely Sephardic feminist movement in Bosnia.
Bosnia’s small Jewish community — with barely 900 members throughout the country, 500 of whom live in Sarajevo — are mourning the loss of a living link to communal memory as well as a dear friend.
“From you, uncle Moco, I learned a lot about Judaism, about life, about nature and especially about people. About both the good and the evil,” Igor Kožemjakin, the cantor of the Sarajevo Jewish community, wrote in a memorial post on Facebook, referring to Moris as “Čika,” or uncle, a term of endearment in Bosnian.
“It is a terrible loss, especially for Sarajevo. Our community is very small, especially after the Holocaust,” Eliezer Papo, a Sarajevo-born Jew and scholar of Ladino language and literature at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “We’re not speaking just in terms of prominent members of the community, we’re speaking in terms of family members. Everyone is like a family member.”
When Albahari was growing up in the 1930s, the Jewish community of his native Sarajevo numbered over 12,000. Jews made up more than a fifth of the city and it was one of the most important centers of Jewish life in the western Balkans.
In his youth, the city was part of what was then the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Formed out of the borderlands between the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires, it was a multiethnic state composed of Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, Slovenians, Macedonians, Hungarians, Albanians and more. Among them were many Jewish communities both Ashkenazi and Sephardic.
The unique mix of of Muslim, Jewish, Catholic and Orthodox Christian communities, with their mosques, synagogues and churches defining Sarajevo’s skyline, earned the city the nickname “Little Jerusalem.”
Speaking in a 2015 documentary made by American researchers, “Saved by Language,” Albahari explained that his family traced their roots back to Cordoba before the Spanish Inquisition, and through Venice, before settling in what would become Bosnia when it was part of the Ottoman Empire.
“We didn’t want to ‘just’ write an article about Moris or Sarajevo; we wanted [the audience] to see what we saw and hear what we heard,” Brian Kirschen, professor of Ladino at Binghamton University, who worked on the documentary with author Susanna Zaraysky, told JTA. “This resulted in a grassroots initiative to create the documentary.”
In the film, Albahari takes the researchers and their viewers on a tour through what was Jewish Sarajevo, giving glimpses of the thriving Ladino speaking community in which he was raised and explaining how ithe language would save him many times, when the Nazis and their Croat allies, the Ustaša, came to shatter it.
“In sharing your story of survival during the Holocaust, you opened doors that remained closed for decades,” Kirschen said in a memorial post on Facebook. “Some of your stories were even new to members of your family, but each survivor has their own timeline. While you experienced great pain during your life, from your story, we also learn about moments of kindness and heroism. Through your story, you also taught us about the power of language.”
Albahari wasn’t yet a teenager when, in 1941, Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy invaded Yugoslavia. The Nazis occupied the eastern portion of the country, including what is now Serbia, while they raised up a Croat fascist party, known as the Ustaša, to administer the newly formed “Independent State of Croatia” — often known by its Serbo-Croatian initials, NDH — in the western regions that included the modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Ustaša collaborated in the Nazis’ genocidal plans for Europe’s Jewish and Roma comunities, and they had genocidal designs of their own for the Orthodox Serb communities living in the NDH.
To that end they established the Jasenovac concentration camp, which would become known as the Auschwitz of the Balkans. By the war’s end it had become the third largest concentration camp in Europe, and behind its walls the overwhelming majority of Sarajevo’s Jews — at least 10,000 — were massacred. Including Serbs, Jews, Roma and political dissidents of Croat or Muslim Bosniak background, as many as 100,000 people were killed in Jasenovac.
Albahari was 11 years old when the Ustaša came to deport him and his large family to Jasenovac. A former teacher working as an Ustaša guard in the town of Drvar, where the train stopped, warned Albahari’s father, David, about their destination, and he was able to help his son escape from the train.
The teacher helped guide the young Moris to an Italian soldier named Lino Marchione who was secretly helping Jews.
This was the first case when Albahari’s Ladino came in handy. Ladino is largely based on medieval Spanish, with a mixture of Hebrew, Aramaic, Turkish and other languages mixed in. For speakers of Serbo-Croatian, a Slavic language, it’s entirely incomprehensible. But for a speaker of another Romance language such as Italian, it’s not such a stretch to understand, and Moris was able to converse with his Italian savior.
With his family gone, he was taken in by a Serb family, and changed his name to Milan Adamovic to hide his Jewish identity. Still, by 1942, it became clear that neither as Adamovic nor Albahari would he be safe in the town. So he fled to the mountains.
“If there was [a battle] I took clothes from a dead soldier to wear, I lived like a wolf in the mountains, you know. Visiting villages [asking for something] to give me for eating, it was a terrible time,” Albahari recalled in “Saved By Language.”
He would only feel safe in villages under the control of partisan forces. Yugoslavia was the only country in Europe to be liberated from Nazi rule by its own grassroots resistance.
During his time in the mountains, Albahari joined up with a partisan unit aligned with the movement of Josip Broz Tito, who would lead Communist Yugoslavia after the war. By the war’s end, Tito’s partisans numbered over 80,000 and included more than 6,000 Jews, many in prominent positions, such as Moša Pijade, who would go on to serve as vice president of the Yugoslav parliament after the war.
Moris was out on patrol as a partisan when he came upon a group of American and British paratroopers. They raised their weapons at him, thinking he was an enemy. Moris tried to communicate, but he spoke no English.
When he asked the soldiers if they spoke German or Italian, they shook their heads. When he asked about Spanish, one perked up: a Hispanic-American soldier by the name of David Garijo.
In Ladino, Alabahari was able to explain that he was not an enemy but could lead them to a nearby partisan camp where they would be safe.
“Ladino saved my life in the war,” Albahari recalled in the documentary.
At the partisan camp, Morris received even bigger news: The family that he had assumed had all perished after he left the train were in fact alive. The former school teacher and Ustaša guard who had warned his father had met them at the next train junction to help them escape. Furthermore, around half of the Jews in the train car were able to escape using the same hole Moris used during his initial escape.
Ultimately the family all survived the war, unlike so many other Jews of Sarajevo.
“Where is Samuel, where is Dudo, where is Gedala? They never came back,” Albahari lamented, listing missing neighbors while walking through Sarajevo’s old Jewish neighborhood in the documentary. “Maybe we are happy because we are alive after the Second World War, but also unlikely because every day we must cry for these dead people.”
When Moris returned to Sarajevo, it was an entirely different place from the bustling Jewish community he had once known.
Gone was the sound of Ladino in the streets and alleyways of Bascarsija, the market district where so many of Sarajevo’s Jews had once lived. Gone were the synagogues — only one of the many synagogues that had existed before WWII still functions. Gone was the robust Jewish life that was once a central part of Sarajevo.
Moris was still only 14 by the war’s end, so he returned to school and ultimately graduated at the top of his class. He became a pilot and later director of the Sarajevo Airport.
In this new world, Ladino was spoken, if at all, only in the home.
“Always, when I hear Spanish, I hear my father and mother, and all the synagogues, prayers in Ladino and rabbis who spoke Ladino. But that is in the past,” Albahari says in “Saved by Language.”
Eliezer Papo, who is a generation younger than Albahari, recalled that in his youth Ladino had long been reduced to a language of secrets.
“Mostly, Ladino was used when the elders didn’t want youngsters to understand,” Papo said.
Only later, in the 1980s, did community members realize what was being lost and begin to gather to maintain their language, recount what Jewish Sarajevo had been like and share their wartime stories of survival.
“He never took his story to the places of revenge, but he took it and his life experience to a place of ‘Never again,’ not just ‘Never again for Jews’, but never again for anybody,” said Papo.
Like many Sarajevans, World War II would not be the last major conflict Albahari would see. Less than 40 years later, war would once again come to Sarajevo with the break-up of Yugoslavia.
From 1992-1995 the city remained under constant siege by Bosnian Serb forces looking to break away from what would become Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moris joined with other Jews of Sarajevo in working to provide aid to their fellow Sarajevans during the harsh period.
Sarajevo’s synagogue was turned into a shelter and a soup kitchen. The community ran a network of underground pharmacies and a message service allowing Sarajevans to get word to family and friends outside of the city during what became the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare.
“Moris was an inspirational persona to many members of Jewish community and La Benevolencija,” Vlado Anderle, the current president of that local Jewish humanitarian organization told JTA. “He was a man with such inviting spirit and energy.”
When the dust settled on the breakup of Yugoslavia, and the new Bosnian state rose from its ashes, Moris found himself once again in a new role.
During the communist era in Yugoslavia, religious activity was discouraged. Sarajevo’s Jews emphasized the ethnic character of Jewish culture rather than the religious one. In the new Bosnia and Herzegovina, that was no longer true. So the community worked to reconnect with their religious identity as well.
“Everybody looked up to the people who had Jewish upbringing before the Second World War,” Papo recalled. “This doesn’t mean that they were rabbis. Just that they knew it better than anyone else.”
Moris, whose formal Jewish education ended in his preteen years, was appointed president of the community’s religious committee.
As such it often fell on him to represent Judaism to the Bosnian society at large, often in a very creative way, according to Papo, who in addition to being a scholar of Ladino is ordained as a rabbi and serves the Sarajevo community as a rabbi-at-large from Israel.
In one case, while being interviewed on a major Bosnian television station, Moris was asked why Jews cover their head with a kippah or other hat during prayer. Moris’ response, or rather creative interpretation, as Papo called it, was made up on the spot.
Moris’ interpretation began with the ancient temple in Jerusalem where Jews once had to fully immerse in a ritual bath before entering.
“Since the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed it was reduced to washing the uncovered parts of the body only, before entering a synagogue, similarly to Muslims: the feet, the head, the hands…” Papo recalled him saying. But in Europe, as Moris’ answer went, they began to cover more and more of their body. “In Europe they started wearing shoes, so the feet were not uncovered anymore, and then they started wearing a hat, not to have to wash their head… you know it’s Europe, one could catch a cold if going out with wet hair…”
“A few months later, I came to Sarajevo, and found that everyone has heard this explanation and is talking about it, not just people in the community, but in the street,” Papo said. “And you know, I let it pass, I couldn’t correct them, it was just so beautiful. That was his genius.”
“Identity is all about telling stories. And Moris was one of the great storytellers of the community,” Papo added. And through his stories he expressed an identity which was “made of the same contradictions that Sephardic Judaism is made of, that Sarajevo is made of, that Bosnia and Herzegovina is made and that Yugoslavia was and is made of and that the Balkans are made of.”
Albahari is survived by his wife and a son.
—
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Reform Judaism helped craft the Voting Rights Act. Its evisceration gives Jews a new mission
Last week, the Supreme Court further gutted what is left of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The Court’s ruling was terrible for the country, and particularly for communities of color whose votes will be diminished by this decision. But the ruling touched another, very personal nerve because the Voting Rights Act was partially drafted in my office, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
The RAC is a longtime hub of civil rights activity. From the earliest days after our 1962 dedication, Reform movement staff with the RAC worked alongside the staff of other civil rights and public interest organizations, including the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. The era’s social justice luminaries, our movement’s leaders among them, would gather around our conference table to discuss, debate and craft policies to address racial injustices — including legislation that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Many American Jews have no idea of our community’s connection to the law’s origins, rooted in a Jewish commitment to working across lines of difference and in an understanding that our safety is in solidarity with other marginalized communities who experience bigotry. But as Jews, we all know that we can only flourish in a true democracy in which every voice is heard, because every vote counts equally.
For decades, section two of the Voting Rights Act helped ensure that voters of color had a fair opportunity to participate in the political process. By narrowing how states can use race data to draw electoral maps, the Court’s ruling will dilute the voices of communities of color, and further weaken a law often called the “crown jewel” of the Civil Rights Movement — one that was the product of a moral struggle in which people of many faiths, including Jews, risked their lives.
Rabbi Dick Hirsch, the founder of the RAC marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma because he understood that American Jewish safety is tied to the health of American democracy. During Freedom Summer, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner — two white, Jewish men — were murdered alongside James Chaney, a non-Jewish Black man, while registering voters in Mississippi. Goodman and Schwerner did not see voting rights as someone else’s issue, but understood fighting for them to be a Jewish obligation.
That understanding is rooted in Jewish tradition. The Talmud teaches that “a ruler is not to be appointed unless the community is first consulted.” The VRA, which was reauthorized repeatedly over the decades by bipartisan majorities in Congress, was a crucial step to ensuring that communities of color were fairly consulted on the issues that affect their lives.
For decades after Reconstruction, Black representation in Congress was negligible and at times effectively nonexistent. That began to change only after the VRA became law. Today, there are more than 60 Black members of Congress, the highest number in American history. That progress was not inevitable. It was the direct result of legal protections that ensured fair access to the ballot.
By making it easier for states to defend discriminatory maps under claims of partisanship, the Court has weakened one of the most important tools to ensure fair representation. The result will be fewer fair Congressional maps — an effort well underway, in the wake of the decision, in states like Tennessee — less representative institutions, and a political system that reflects fewer voices.
Some will argue that this is simply the normal push and pull of constitutional interpretation, but history suggests otherwise. When democratic norms weaken, minority communities are among the first to feel the consequences.
For American Jews, this progression is not theoretical. Our security and prosperity, in this country as others, have depended not only on physical protection, but also on good laws, functional institutions and a system of checks and balances that uphold equal rights and reject discrimination.
George Washington recognized this in his 1790 letter to the Jewish community of Newport, Rhode Island, in which he promised that the United States would give “to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.”
In recent years, we have seen how fragile those protections can be.
Antisemitism has risen sharply, often alongside forces that divide Americans along racial, ethnic, and political lines. Efforts to weaken voting rights, undermine trust in elections and concentrate power do not occur in isolation. They are part of a broader pattern that threatens the pluralistic democracy on which Jewish life in the U.S. depends.
When the Court took a major piece out of the VRA in 2013’s Shelby v. Holder decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously warned in her stinging dissent that the Court’s decision was “like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.” Today, the rain has not stopped. If anything, it is falling harder.
We must persevere through this storm. The path forward will not be easy, but it is clear.
In legislatures, we must push for stronger protections, among them state-level voting rights acts and renewed federal legislation. In the courts, advocates must continue to challenge discriminatory practices wherever possible. And at the ballot box, citizens must exercise their right to vote with renewed urgency.
For the Jewish community, this is a moment to organize. Through initiatives such as the Reform Movement’s 2026 Every Voice, Every Vote campaign, Reform Jews and our allies are working to expand access to the ballot and defend the democratic system that has allowed our community to thrive. This is how we put our values into practice.
Democracy requires participation, vigilance and a willingness to defend the rights of others. It demands that we act against all wrongdoings, not only when our own rights are directly threatened.
For Jews, that responsibility is part of our tradition and our history. As Rabbi Hirsch famously observed at the RAC’s dedication, “our forefathers did not rest with the issuance of general pronouncements from the detached heights of Mt. Sinai. They descended into the valley of reality.”
The Supreme Court decision is not just another technical shift in election law. It is a setback for American democracy, and for those of us who understand that democracy is not just a system of government but a moral commitment.
The question is whether we will meet this moment.
Democracy will not defend itself.
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Majority of New York City Jewish Voters Dissatisfied With Mamdani, Poll Shows
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani holds a press conference at the New York City Office of Emergency Management, as a major winter storm spreads across a large swath of the United States, in Brooklyn, New York City, US, Jan. 25, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Bing Guan
A new poll of Jewish voters in New York City points to deep dissatisfaction with Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s leadership, particularly over his handling of rhetoric tied to the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The survey, conducted by Mercury Public Affairs in partnership with The Jewish Majority, sampled 665 Jewish voters who cast ballots in last year’s mayoral election between Feb. 17 and 28. Its findings suggest a growing disconnect between Mamdani and the local Jewish community, building upon an already tense and fraught relationship.
According to the newly released poll, 58 percent of respondents rated Mamdani’s job performance as “fair” or “poor,” including 40 percent who said it was “poor.” Just 32 percent said he was doing an “excellent” or “good” job. The numbers indicate that a clear majority of Jewish voters surveyed are dissatisfied with the direction of the city under the mayor’s leadership.
The survey also highlights sharp concern over Mamdani’s response to the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a slogan widely condemned by pro-Israel advocates as inciting violence against Jews. Sixty-one percent of respondents said the mayor’s refusal to explicitly denounce the phrase has “emboldened pro-Hamas protesters,” reflecting alarm among many Jewish voters about rising antisemitism and public safety.
For many in the community, the issue goes beyond rhetoric. Critics argue that failing to clearly reject language associated with violence risks normalizing extremism at a time when Jewish communities in the US and globally have reported increased threats. New York City has experienced an ongoing surge in antisemitic hate crimes in the two-and-a-half years since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel.
The “glogalize the intifada” slogan, which gained traction at pro-Palestinian protests worldwide amid the Israel–Hamas war in Gaza, has been criticized by many Jewish New Yorkers who associate it with calls for violence against Jewish and Israeli civilians. The term “intifada,” Arabic for “uprising,” is widely known from two bloody periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Israelis. Many observers have argued that calls to “globalize the intifada” encourage activists to take up political violence worldwide, especially against the Jewish community and supporters of Israel.
In June 2025, Mamdani defended the phrase by invoking the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during World War II. In response, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum repudiated the then-mayoral candidate, calling his comments “outrageous and especially offensive to [Holocaust] survivors.”
Mamdani has also faced scrutiny over his handling of issues pertaining to antisemitism and the Jewish community. The Mamdani administration revoked the city’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism when the mayor entered office, arguing that rigid definitions can risk conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism and may complicate the handling of politically sensitive speech.
IHRA — an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries including the US and Israel — adopted the “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations. Law enforcement also uses it as a tool for matters such as hate-crime investigations and sentencing.
The mayor’s office has also voiced support for divestments from Israeli bonds. The suggestion has received substantial pushback from the city’s business community, noting that the bonds have been a safe, long-standing investment for city pension funds and that financial decisions must be separated from political pressure. City Comptroller Mark Levine recently touted the bonds’ decades-long record of repayment and argued his office’s responsibility was to maximize returns for retirees, not respond to shifting political campaigns.
The poll’s findings align with voting patterns from the most recent mayoral election, in which Mamdani struggled to win broad support among Jewish voters. He received 26 percent of the vote within the group, far behind his chief opponent, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who secured 55 percent. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa received 8 percent.
Observers speculate the numbers could pose a longer-term challenge for Mamdani as he navigates a city with the world’s largest population outside of Israel.
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Molotov Cocktail Attacks Target Jewish Institutions in Argentina in Two Incidents Within a Week
A display in Buenos Aires of pictures and names of victims of the 1994 AMIA bombing, in which 85 people died and hundreds more were wounded. Photo: Reuters/Marcos Brindicci.
Argentine Jews are on edge after Jewish institutions in Buenos Aires were targeted in Molotov cocktail attacks in two separate incidents in less than a week, deepening security concerns within the local Jewish community.
On Sunday, unknown individuals threw a homemade firebomb at the Chabad Lubavitch Jewish Community Center in La Plata, a city in southeastern Buenos Aires, in a brazen attack marking the second within a week.
Local authorities reported no significant material damage or casualties, though the incident has fueled alarm over a broader pattern of violence targeting Jews across the country.
The Buenos Aires Security Ministry and Police Counterterrorism Division have opened an investigation into this latest incident, examining possible links to an attack last week that appears to share a similar modus operandi.
The Delegation of Argentine Israelite Associations (DAIA), the country’s Jewish umbrella organization, strongly condemned this second attack, warning of a disturbing pattern of incidents and calling for an urgent investigation and clear condemnation.
“Violence must be countered through education and by bringing those responsible to justice. When hatred goes unpunished, it escalates, and today it is once again surfacing in tangible acts that cannot be normalized,” DAIA said in a statement.
“There is no room for indifference. Antisemitism is not an isolated incident, it is a threat that demands a firm response, coordinated institutional action, and the strict enforcement of the law,” it continued.
NUEVO ATAQUE ANTISEMITA EN LA PLATA
Una vez másExpresamos nuestro más enérgico repudio frente a un nuevo ataque antisemita ocurrido en la ciudad de La Plata, esta vez contra la sede de Jabad Lubavitch.
Advertimos que la violencia debe ser combatida con educación y con el… pic.twitter.com/h1jrYg56hY
— DAIA (@DAIAArgentina) May 3, 2026
In an alarming earlier attack, the Israelite Literary Center and Max Nordau Library in La Plata was targeted Thursday when unidentified individuals threw a homemade Molotov-type device at the building’s entrance.
Although the device failed to ignite, it shattered the building’s windows and caused some material damage. Fortunately, no fires broke out and no injuries were reported.
The center condemned the attack, pointing to a “growing level of antisemitism nationally and internationally” and warning that such trends are contributing to a broader climate of hostility.
“We cannot separate this episode from the rise in antisemitism and the climate of intolerance that enables expressions of hatred. This compels us to promote, now more than ever, a democratic coexistence based on respect for pluralism,” the statement read.
“These acts do not intimidate us – they strengthen our conviction to continue building culture, critical thinking, and community,” it continued.
In response to these latest attacks, Jewish institutions across the country have strengthened preventive protocols and reinforced internal security and surveillance measures.
La Plata Mayor Julio Alak denounced the attack as an assault on democratic coexistence and pluralistic values, reiterating that the city will firmly uphold mutual respect and reject all forms of hatred.
The DAIA called on authorities to act swiftly, identify those responsible, and apply the full extent of the law, stressing the need for decisive action to prevent further incidents.
“Impunity cannot be an option. This is an expression of hatred that not only harms the Jewish community but also threatens the fundamental values of coexistence, respect, and democracy,” the organization said.
“Every act of antisemitism that goes unpunished sends a message of tolerance toward hatred. Every firm response from authorities is a clear signal that society is unwilling to back down,” it continued. “To ensure these incidents do not happen again, determination, action, and justice are required.”