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    • Main contributor: Maor Malul
    Wordcloud serbian jewish surnames
    Wordcloud serbian jewish surnames

    Serbian Jewish surnames are those hereditary family names found in the country of Serbia, as well in smaller Jewish communities of Serbian origin in other parts of the former Yugoslavia like Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro and the partially-recognized Kosovo. Smaller groups of Serbian Jews can also be found in Israel, Germany and the USA, where they have migrated after the dissolution of Yugoslavia

    The first Jews arrived in what today is Serbia during Roman times, although there is little documentation prior to the 10th century. Some of these communities have either disappeared or become absorbed by Ashkenazi communities in the Serbian part of the Pannonian Plain at the north of the country. In general, the Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late XV century, when Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula after the Alhambra Decree and the Spanish Inquisition arrived to the safety of Ottoman-ruled areas, including Serbia, with many settling in Belgrade.[1] However, a plurality of the Jewish community of Serbia has been of Ashkenazi origin, mostly settled in Vojvodina, which for many years was a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,[2][3] and whose communities developed just like their peers in today’s Hungary, until the region’s unification with the then-Kingdom of Serbia and later into Yugoslavia. Around 14,500 out of a pre-war population of 16,000 Serbian Jews were killed in the Holocaust.[2] Most of the surviving community resides today in Belgrade,[4] Novi Sad and Subotica, or has emigrated to Israel, especially the Sephardic Jews.[3][5]

    Serbian Jewish naming conventions

    Tombstones of Mirjam Sasson and Joel Zannenberg. Zemun Cemetery, Serbia.
    Tombstones of Mirjam Sasson and Joel Zannenberg. Zemun Cemetery, Serbia.

    As in most of Central and Eastern Europe, the use of hereditary surnames among Ashkenazi Jews in Serbia did not take place until the Edict of Toleration was issued by Joseph II for the Jews of Hungary in 1783. Sephardic Jews did bring hereditary surnames with them, as the custom of surnames had already existed in the Iberian Peninsula for over around 700 years. As the official language in Serbia (and one of the official languages of former Yugoslavia) is Serbo-Croatian, a slavic language which is generally written using a modified version of the cyrillic alphabet, some spelling differences can be found when comparing documents issued by Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Yugoslav and Serbian authorities, especially taking into account that in Serbian, foreign names are phonetically transliterated, while this is not done in the other variants of Serbo-Croatian.[6] Thus, it is expected to see spelling variations like Kiš instead of Kiss, Davičo instead of Davicho, Šlomović instead of Solomonovich; Alkalaj instead of Alcalay; Kon instead of Kohn and Šefer instead of Schäffer. Similarly and depending on the time period, names in the tombstones may be written in Hebrew and either Cyrillic or Latin characters, with names in Cyrillic alphabet being the norm since the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbia, later Yugoslavia and today's Republic of Serbia; Latin characters are more common in tombstones from the Habsburg and Hungarian monarchies.

    Serbian Jewish surnames of Sephardic origin

    A significant number of the Serbian surnames of Sephardic origin are commonly across the Balkans and Turkey, due to their origin in the Jews who settled in the Ottoman Empire in the XV century. However, as in all over the former Yugoslavia, they are spelled differently from Sephardic Jewish surnames from Turkey or Greece, like Kovu instead of Kovo, Altarac instead of Altaras and Bahar instead of Behar. Some of the most common Serbian Jewish surnames of Sephardic origin are:

    Serbian Jewish surnames of Ashkenazi origin

    Novi Sad Synagogue.
    Novi Sad Synagogue.

    Most of the Ashkenazi Jews of Serbia are or can trace their ancestry to the province of Vojvodina. As it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary during the Dual Monarchy, the policy of Magyarization also made many Jews change their surnames to Hungarian-sounding ones, in some cases retaining the Serbian spelling conventions. Some of the Serbian Jewish surnames of Ashkenazi origin are:

    Celebrities of Serbian Jewish origin

    • Bella Rochel Fraynd, kown as Rahela Ferari, Serbian actress who appeared in more than ninety films from 1951 to 1993
    • Yosef "Tommy" Lapid (born Josip Tomislav Lempel), Yugoslav-born Israeli radio and television presenter, playwright, journalist, politician and government minister.
    • David Albala (born Kovu), Serbian military officer, physician, diplomat and Jewish community leader.
    • Oskar Davičo, Serbian and Yugoslavian novelist and poet, revolutionary activist and politician, three-time winner of the NIN literary Award
    • Danilo Kiš, Yugoslav novelist, short story writer, essayist and translator
    • Jelena Đurović, Serbian-born Montenegrin journalist, writer and political activist

    See also

    Explore more about Serbian Jewish surnames

    References

    1. ↑ Belgrade, Serbia. Jewish Virtual Library
    2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Serbia. Jewish heritage Europe
    3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Serbia. World Jewish Congress
    4. ↑ In impoverished Serbia, Jewish community is isolated — and rapidly shrinking. Times of Israel
    5. ↑ Alcalay, I. The Jews of Serbia. Berman Archives at Stanford University
    6. ↑ Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a grammar: with sociolinguistic commentary - Page 3 Ronelle Alexander - 2006 -"... name in original Serbian (Cyrillic) Serbian (Latin) Croatian George Џорџ Džordž ; George Mary Мери Meri Mary ; Winston Churchill Винстон Черчил Vinston Čerčil Winston Churchill ; Charles de Gaulle Шарл де Гол Šarl de Gol Charles de Gaulle ;"
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