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Bosnia’s Jewish community is putting together an archive for an eventual museum
(JTA) — As their numbers dwindle, Bosnia’s Jewish community is creating an archive of Balkan Jewish history, including documents, photographs, artifacts and genealogies to preserve the Bosnian Jewish story.
The Jewish Community of Bosnia Herzegovina group acquired a 7,500 square foot space in downtown Sarajevo in the fall, with the hopes of turning the eventual archive into a museum.
Eli Tauber, 72, who has written several books on Bosnian Jewish culture and history, is leading the project.
“Our idea is to write the history of the Jewish people in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Tauber told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “But this is not so easy, we are talking about 500 years of history and not just history but people, families and the destinies of all those people across 500 years.”
Today, at most 900 Jews live in Bosnia and Herzegovina, around 500 in the capital Sarajevo. But before the Holocaust, Sarajevo was about 20% Jewish and known lovingly as “little Jerusalem” for its variety of synagogues, mosques and churches — both Catholic and Orthodox — all in close proximity.
Sephardic Jews first arrived in the region during the time of the Ottoman Empire, after fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. Ashkenazi Jews followed suit when the area fell under Austro-Hungarian rule in the 1870s.
The Holocaust, which in western Yugoslavia was implemented by Ustaše — a brutal Nazi puppet regime — decimated Bosnia’s Jewish community. Less than 40 years later, the Bosnian War, another genocidal conflict which broke out during the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, caused many of those who remained to emigrate to Israel and beyond.
Eli Tauber in Sarajevo in 2018. (Elvis Barukcic/AFP via Getty Images)
Tauber has been criss-crossing the Balkans for the project, working with state archives and meeting with descendants of Bosnian Jews in cities from Belgrade to Vienna to Budapest.
“I just returned from Belgrade a few months ago with 7,000 scans,” he told JTA on a recent call.
He said he hopes the archive — which is still at least two years away from completion — will help reconnect all those who left to the country they or their ancestors had come from.
“What is important is that at the end we will establish some computer program with family trees, for all those people who have their roots in Bosnia, and find all that they did,” Tauber said.
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Long Island town ordered to pay $19M after blocking Chabad synagogue construction
(JTA) — After nearly two decades of legal sparring, a town on Long Island has been ordered to pay a local Chabad center $19 million, settling claims that officials unlawfully blocked the construction of a synagogue on its rabbi’s property.
Rabbi Aaron Konikov and Lubavitch of Old Westbury sued the Village of Old Westbury in 2008, after the village passed a law in 2001 governing places of worship as Konikov sought to build a synagogue on his property.
Local officials enacted the law two years after Konikov planned a ceremony to announce a new building on the land where he already operates a synagogue. They decreed that houses of worship could be built only on plots of 12 acres or more. Konikov owns a 9-acre plot.
In October, U.S. District Judge Gary Brown ruled that the 2001 ordinance “unconstitutionally discriminates against the free exercise of religion and is therefore facially invalid.”
Old Westbury agreed to pay the plaintiffs in the suit $19 million as part of a consent decree, which was signed by Brown on March 18, Newsday reported this week.
“This consent decree may not be modified, changed or amended except in writing signed by each of the parties approved by the court,” Brown wrote. “Each party participated fully in the negotiation and drafting of the terms of this decree, and any ambiguity shall not be construed against any party.”
Kornikov did not respond to requests for comment on Monday. But he may soon be switching into construction mode for his long hoped-for synagogue, for which preliminary plans show a 20,875-square-foot building and an adjacent parking lot.
The $19 million payment will be made by the village’s insurance providers, and Lubavitch of Old Westbury has until Jan. 15, 2027, to apply for a special-use permit from the village to build a synagogue, according to Newsday.
The ruling marks a notable victory for emissaries of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, who have often been met with legal challenges when establishing centers. Last July, the Village of Atlantic Beach in New York agreed to pay Chabad of the Beaches $950,000 to settle a legal battle over the construction of a new community center.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Long Island town ordered to pay $19M after blocking Chabad synagogue construction appeared first on The Forward.
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Iran claims synagogue in Tehran was ‘completely destroyed’ by US-Israeli strike
(JTA) — Iranian state media claimed on Tuesday that a synagogue in Tehran was “completely destroyed” by a U.S.-Israeli strike.
The claim was impossible to verify. Footage of the alleged attack on the Rafi-Niya Synagogue posted online showed open Hebrew prayer books scattered among the rubble of a building.
The synagogue was damaged when a nearby residential building in Tehran was attacked, according to Iranian news agencies. The Rafi-Niya Synagogue is located near Palestine Square, an epicenter of the Iranian regime’s anti-Israel propaganda.
The United States and Israel have been bombing sites in Tehran for more than a month since launching a war on the Islamic Republic regime. Israel emphasized that it does not target religious sites.
Homayoun Sameyah Najafabadi, the only Jewish representative in Iran’s parliament, condemned the attack in a video published by Iran’s official IRIB News outlet.
“The Zionist regime showed no mercy towards this community during the Jewish holidays and attacked one of our ancient and holy synagogues,” Najafabadi said. “Unfortunately, during this attack, the synagogue building was completely destroyed, and Torah scrolls remain under the rubble.”
About 8,000 Jews live in Iran and worship in dozens of synagogues. The war has exacerbated their delicate position, as they are technically granted freedom of religion but face peril if they demonstrate any connection to Israel or dissent against their government. Hundreds of Iranian Jews who have applied for refugee status because of religious persecution are trapped in the country after the United States halted refugee admissions.
The alleged attack comes one day after the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted footage of an undetonated missile on a street, writing that an “Iranian regime missile struck next to a mosque in Israel.”
“A regime that targets civilians and sacred spaces of all religions has no red lines,” the ministry wrote in a post on X. “Nothing is off limits for them.”
On Tuesday, the Israeli prime minister’s office issued a statement about the alleged damage to the Rafi-Niya synagogue. “Iran is firing missiles at civilians, Israel is striking terror infrastructure,” it said. “Missiles on civilians versus precision strikes on terror targets. That’s the difference.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Iran claims synagogue in Tehran was ‘completely destroyed’ by US-Israeli strike appeared first on The Forward.
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Attacker killed in gunfight outside closed Israeli consulate in Istanbul
(JTA) — One attacker was killed and two others injured in a gunfight with police outside the Israeli consulate in Istanbul on Tuesday morning.
The consulate has been largely closed since 2023, when the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza escalated diplomatic tensions between Turkey and Israel.
Turkish authorities said they had identified the three attackers in the incident, in which two police officers were also lightly injured. The man who was killed, whom they identified as Yunus ES, had “connections with a terrorist organization that exploits religion,” the Ministry of the Interior announced. It did not identify the organization.
Turkish authorities also did not immediately tie the incident to the consulate, noting that a major bank and other businesses were located closer to the firefight. They said the attackers had driven to Istanbul from Izmit, about an hour and a half away, and had brought both long-barreled guns and pistols.
The U.S. Embassy in Turkey issued a security alert for the area and Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, saying that it targeted the Israeli Consulate.
“We appreciate the Turkish security forces’ swift action in thwarting this attack,” the ministry said on X. “Israeli missions around the world have been subjected to countless threats and terrorist attacks. Terror will not deter us.”
The incident comes at a moment of high alert for Jewish and Israeli sites around the world, with terror threats escalated amid the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. Bombings have damaged several Jewish institutions in Europe, with the latest incident being an explosion outside a pro-Israel Christian center in Nijkerk, Netherlands, over the weekend.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Attacker killed in gunfight outside closed Israeli consulate in Istanbul appeared first on The Forward.