Ancient community Jewish traders and merchants first arrived in what is now northern Croatia in the first centuries of the
Common Era, when
Roman law allowed free movement throughout the
Empire. A coin from the
Bar Kokhba revolt in Judaea (132–136 CE) was discovered in
Zadar, though it remains unclear whether it was brought there by a Jewish refugee, an enslaved captive, or a Roman soldier who had fought in the war. There is also an ancient inscription from
Senj that mentions "Aurelius Dionisius, a Jew from
Tiberias." and an excavation in
Solin discovered
Jewish graves from the same period. A Jewish community in
Split was found to have also emerged in the 3rd century. In the 7th century Jews sought refuge in
Diocletian's Palace after the
Dalmatian capital
Salona was overrun by the
Avars. A synagogue was built into the western wall of the palace in the 16th century, and descendants of the Salona refugees are still living in the area.
Early Middle Ages One of the oldest written sources, which could indicate the presence of Jews on Croatian territory, comes from the letter of the vizier
Hasdai ibn Shaprut, which was sent to
King Joseph of the
Khazars. This letter from the 10th century refers to the "King of the Gebalim - Slavs", see the article
Miholjanec, whose country borders the country of the
Hungarians. The King sent a delegation, which included "Mar (
Aramaic:"Lord") Shaul and Mar Joseph", to the Caliph
Abd-ar-Rahman III of Córdoba. Delegates reported that
mar Hisdai Amram came to the Khazar king's palace from the country where the "Gebalim" lived. In
Hebrew "gebal" means "mountain". Hungarian sources reported, that a
vineyard near Miholjanec was named "master of the mountain". Croatia is also represented as a country of "Gebalim" in a letter of Bishop Gauderich addressed to Anastasius as a co-author of the legend of Cherson in the 9th century.
Late Middle Ages The Jewish communities of Croatia flourished in the 13th and 14th centuries, with the communities enjoying prosperity and peaceful relations with their
Croatian neighbors. This ended in 1456, when Jews, along with most non-Catholic Croats, were forced out. There followed 200 years where there are no records of Jews in Croatia.
Arrival of the Spanish Refugees is the second oldest synagogue in Europe. It is built in the
Sephardic style. prior to
World War II in Yugoslavia, according to the 1931 census The 15th century saw increasing persecution of Jews in areas of Spain retaken in the
Reconquista. From 1492 onward, Jewish refugees fleeing the
Spanish and
Portuguese Inquisitions arrived in
Ottoman territories, including the
Balkan provinces of
Macedonia and
Bosnia. Some of these refugees found their way to Croatia, in particular to
Split and
Dubrovnik, on the
Dalmatian coast.
Habsburg rule In the 17th century, Jews were still not permitted to settle in northern Croatia. Jews traveled to Croatia as traveling merchants, mostly from neighboring
Hungary. They were generally permitted to stay only a few days. By 1880, there were 13,488 Jews in Croatia, rising to 20,032 by 1900. At the beginning of the 20th century, there were 21 Jewish communities in Croatia, the largest being in Zagreb (3,000 people) and
Osijek (3,000 people). The Jewish community of Croatia became highly successful and integrated. By 1900, 54% of Zagreb Jews and 35% of all Croatian Jews spoke
Croatian as their mother tongue. Despite their small numbers, Jews were disproportionately represented in industrial and wholesale business in Croatia, and in the timber and food industries. Several Jewish families were amongst Croatia's wealthiest families. Despite the apparent wealth, most Jews were middle class, and many second generation Croatian Jews were attracted to the fields of law and medicine.
World War I World War I brought about the collapse of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, and upheaval for the Jewish communities of the region. After the war, Croatia joined with
Slovenia,
Serbia which included
Vardar Macedonia and
Montenegro, and
Bosnia and Herzegovina to form the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Prior to World War II, the Croatian, and especially the
Zagreb Jewish community, was the preeminent community of Yugoslavia. In 1940 there were about 11,000 Jews living in Zagreb: about 76% were
Ashkenazi Jews, 5%
Sephardi Jews, 17% unaffiliated and the remainder being
religious. and massive demonstrations took place in the Yugoslav capital,
Belgrade. Prince Paul was overthrown, and a new government under
Peter II and
Dušan Simović, also ethnic Serbs, took power. The new government withdrew its support for the Axis but did not repudiate the Tripartite Pact. Nevertheless, Axis forces, led by
Nazi Germany,
invaded Yugoslavia on April 6, 1941. With Germany and Italy's support, the Croatian ultra-nationalist
Ustaše movement came to power in the newly established
puppet state called the
Independent State of Croatia (NDH). The Ustaše were notoriously
antisemitic, and wasted little time in instituting anti-Jewish legislation and persecuting the Jews under their control. Like Nazis forced Jews to wear armbands with a yellow Star of David, the Croatian Ustaše regime forced Jews to wear armbands with the letter "Ž" for "Židov", the word for “Jew” in Croatian. NDH Interior Minister
Andrija Artuković said in 1941 upon the proclamation of ethnic laws: "
The Government of NDH shall solve the Jewish question in the same way as the German Government did". Already in April 1941, the
Ustaše and Volksdeutsche burned the synagogue and destroyed the Jewish cemetery in Osijek, while the
Ustaše mayor of Zagreb,
Ivan Werner, ordered the destruction of the main Zagreb synagogue, which was completely razed in 1942 The Ustaše set up a number of
concentration camps with the most notorious being
Jasenovac in which 20,000 Jews were murdered. , known Croatian Jewish industrialist, being forced to remove his ring upon arrival at the
Jasenovac concentration camp. During the Holocaust, a total of 29–31,000 Jews in the NDH were killed, around 75% by the Ustaše and around 25% by the Germans. This constituted 79 percent of the country's pre-war Jewish population, including 20,000 of the 23,000-25,000 Croatian Jews. Only 5,000 Croatian Jews survived the war, most as soldiers in
Josip Broz Tito's
National Liberation Army or as exiles in the Italian-occupied zone. After Italy capitulated to the
Allied Powers, the surviving Jews lived in free Partisan territory. When Yugoslavia was liberated in 1945, Croatia became part of the new Yugoslav federation, which eventually became the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Post-war community After 1945, atheism became the official policy of
Yugoslavia and Croatia, and because of this there were no
rabbis in Croatia until the mid-1990s. Most Croatian Jews identified as
Yugoslavs, or as Serbs or Croats. After the founding of
Israel, about half of the survivors renounced their Yugoslav citizenship as a prerequisite for leaving the country and acquiring Israeli citizenship. Those who opted to leave for Israel signed a document by which they left all property, land, and other unmovable property to Yugoslavia. The post-war Jewish community of Croatia became highly assimilated, with 80% of Zagreb's 1,500 Jews either born into
mixed marriages, or married to non-Jews. In 1991, there were approximately 2,000 Jews in Croatia. ==Twenty-first century==