Bosnia-Herzegovina: Survey of Jewish Sites Released

Sarajevo, Bosnia. Gate to Old Sephardi Cemetery before restoration. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber / US Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad (2000)

Sarajevo, Bosnia. Pre-burial house at Old Sephardi Cemetery during restoration. Photo: Samuel D. Gruber / US Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad

Bosnia-Herzegovina: Survey of Jewish Sites Released
By Samuel D. Gruber

I am pleased to report the release by the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad of a report on the survey of Jewish Heritage Sites of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The survey of over 60 sites was organized and sponsored by the Commission, and carried out by researcher Ivan Ceresnjes, a former leader of the Bosnian Jewish community who is now with the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem. I edited the report and contributed to some of the sections when serving as Research Director of the Commission. Ruth Ellen Gruber also provided important information.

Most of the data and photos in the report were collected from the early to mid-2000s. Some additions and corrections were made as late 2008. For the most part the situation for Bosnian Jewish sites has gotten worse except in the major centers of Sarajevo and Mostar.

Mostar, Bosnia. Memorial at Jewish Cemetery.
Photo: Samuel D. Gruber / US Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad

Donja Gradina, Bosnia. Execution site and memorial. Photo: Ivan Ceresnjes / US Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad

The report includes information on synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust sites in about three dozen towns. Most of this materials has never been published.The survey focused on cemeteries and Holocaust-related sites. Synagogues and former synagogues are listed and briefly described, but photos of synagogues are no not included.

Tuzla, Bosnia. Boot-shaped"gravestones at Jewish cemetery.
Photo: Ivan Ceresnjes / US Commission for Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad

I first got involved in Jewish heritage sites in Bosnia when the Commission helped raise funds and organize the restoration of the prayer and pre-burial house at the venerable Sephardi cemetery in Sarajevo. The cemetery had suffered greatly during the Siege of Sarajevo and the building had been heavily damaged by fire. A picture of the restored structure is on the cover of the report. Many other sites have not fared so well. Many sites are still in ruins, and cemeteries are overgrown. Some cemeteries may still have landmines from the civil war.

The Commission has also recently posted edited versions of my reports on the surveys of Jewish sites in Romania and Moldova. In all, the Commission organized close to 20 countrywide surveys of Jewish and other religious and ethnic minority sites during the years I was involved as Research Director. We did this work on shoestring budgets, always collaborating with local experts and enthusiasts and making our findings available to local Jewish communities and government cultural authorities. You can read more here about the Commission's work and consult some of the surveys.

Bosnia: Some Thoughts of Jewish Sarajevo and People of the Book

A picture for Shavuot: Moses Receiving the Law as represented in the Sarajevo Haggadah

Your blogger surveying Sarajevo Jewish cemetery when last in Bosnia

Some Thoughts of Jewish Sarajevo and People of the Book
by Samuel D. Gruber

Ruth Ellen Gruber and Bob Cohen have posted interesting accounts of Jewish Sarajevo that every reader of People of the Book will want to visit. you can read more, too, by Ruth and me about Jewish sites in Bosnia at the Jewish-Heritage-Europe website.

I mention People of the Book, the best selling account of the Sarajevo Haggadah, because author Geraldine Brooks will be speaking in (my home of) Syracuse this fall as part of the prestigious Gifford Lecture Series and I have been asked by the Sisterhood of Temple Concord to give a pre-lecture on the art and history of the story. So this week I've enjoyed reading the book. Though utterly fictional, it does provide a lot more food for thought than a Dan Brown novel, and its actually inspired me to look at a number of historical episodes in a new light.

For me the book resonates since it hits at least four of my major interest areas: medieval Spain (where I am now engaged in evaluating aspects of the recent Jewish finds in Lorca); the Venice Ghetto (the origins of which I have been researching for the past few years); Fin-de-Siecle Vienna and the origins of modern "Jewish Art;" and post-siege Sarajevo (where I spent time on the restoration of the burnt-out pre-burial house/synagogue on the Jewish cemetery site).

Pre-burial chapel / synagogue in Sarajevo Jewish Cemetery during restoration.

Photo: Samuel D. Gruber 2000

Since most of what Brooks provides are emotionally challenging and cathartic (and sometimes fatal) stories about people, she really has little to say about the places where her stories unfold. Its mostly atmosphere, but I did like her account of drunken young Venetians in the Ghetto at night, and also her ability to conjure up some sense of a Juderia in oppressive 15th century Spain. Most of all, from an art historical view, she gets kudos for her descriptions and evocations of the incredible long, hard, and often painful work that was required to produce the illuminated manuscripts we cherish. Of course, much the same could be written about any pre-modern craft - and it should be. Maybe the time has come for a novel about building and decorating a synagogue...or perhaps just a Discovery Channel episode of "How Things are Made."

Ruth and Bob both write about the Old Sephardi Synagogue in Sarajevo - one of the least known but most important synagogues in Europe. I have previously described the building, first built in in 1581, : " --> The narrow, three-bay long main space of the central prayer hall has thick walls which support a series of interior domes, echoing the arrangement of many Byzantine churches and Ottoman mosques, but contrasting with both: more emphatically axial than a mosque, but without the crossing that would be normal in a church. The main space is surrounded on three sides by galleries on two levels. At one end there is an apsidal space for an Aron Kodesh."

I have not been back to Sarajevo since it has been restored and rededicated as a synagogue (it is also a museum), but will be looking for an opportunity to do so. I recently met Mario Kabiljo, the educator at the Jewish Museum in Sarajevo, and its sounds like there are some exciting plans for the museum in the works. When I have a report I'll let you know.


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Webwatch: Extensive information on Jewish sites in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The website www.Jewish-Heritage-Europe.eu has added extensive information about Jewish heritage sites in: Bosnia-Herzegovina. Jewish-Heritage-Europe.eu has been gradually adding substantive information on hundreds of little-known Jewish sites in more than forty European countries. The Bosnia report, which has information about more than 50 sites in 27 localities relies heavily on information in two reports supported by the United States Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad based on research by Ruth Ellen Gruber and Ivan Čerešnješ. Čerešnješ, a researcher at the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University is former president of the Jewish Community of Sarajevo. The United States Commission was active in Bosnia as a major funder of the restoration of the ceremonial hall/synagogue at the Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo.