RECONSTRUCTING JEWISH IDENTITY IN CROATIA: TOWARDS A REFINED SYMBOLIC ETHNICITY

Nila Ginger Hofman DePaul University, Chicago

This paper has two aims. To begin, it to our understanding of ethnic identity examines whether the symbolic ethnicity negotiation in capitalist as well as post- model is relevant to identity negotiation socialist societies. among Croatian Jews. In symbolic I argue, employing ethnographic ethnicity, individuals are not so much and historic analyses, that the imposition interested in the maintenance of traditional of an essentialist view of Jewish identity lifestyles as they are with choosing how to express cultural identity. In the past, by national and supranational scholars have either employed the model to constituencies may ultimately have discuss identity negotiation among ethnics adverse effects on cultural groups such in the United States and other core as the Croatian Jews who have embraced societies, or they have dismissed it humanist and idiosyncratic versions of altogether. The second aim describes the Jewish identity since the mid-nineteenth existing tension between the self-images of century (Goldstein 1988). Ethnographic the Croatian Jews and those projected on data reveals that despite a lack of strong them by others. Both Croatian “cultural religious commitments and highly diversity campaigns” and international idiosyncratic expressions of cultural Jewish support organizations consider identity, Croatian Jews are not on the Jewish identity to have an essentially religious core. Programs sponsored by road to amalgamation. I suggest that the these constituencies have constructed disappearance thesis, put forward by the pronounced cultural differences between critics of symbolic ethnicity, is Croatian Jews and non-Jewish Croatians. contradicted by the experience of Croatian Jews and that Jewish identity The symbolic ethnicity model negotiation in Croatia reflects national has not been employed to analyze and supranational dimensions of cultural identity negotiation in cross-national identity formation without dislocating comparisons. Although the model’s the importance of individual meanings. treatment of identity negotiation continues to be highly applicable to ethnics in core as well as post-socialist Methods societies, I suggest that the model needs to be refined to include cultural forces The conceptualization of this that highlight temporal and political paper is based on ethnographic and aspects of identity construction. historic information collected over the Community based, national and course of three visits to Croatia between supranational dimensions of identity 1997 and 2000. Library research and construction must be included in an participant observation methods in the application of symbolic ethnicity if the Jewish Community Center Zagreb model is going to continue making a (ZOZ) were used. Jewish community life contribution to ethnic theory. Extending in Croatia was examined prior to World the analysis of the model to include War II and compared to contemporary broader dimensions will also contribute expressions of Jewish identity. During my research in Croatia I kept abreast of associated with monolocality is local political events, conducted research disappearing. Gans argues that this at the libraries of the Ethnographic explains why ethnic cultures do not Institute in Zagreb and the community experience the straight-line assimilation ZOZ center. I participated in many patterns that melting-pot theorists have organized social activities including proposed, but instead respond to social religious services, Torah study groups, pressures with patterns of behavior in seminars on Jewish education and which ethnic and religious identities are meetings with seniors, women and maintained on an idiosyncratic basis. youth. I also spent a good deal of time in While Gans applies his model the company of friends discussing specifically to ethnics in the United politics and the changing meaning of States, he clearly intends the model to Jewish identity over coffee in the have wider applications (Baldassar 1999, recently kosherished café of the ZOZ. Björklund 1987, Buckser 1999, Levine 1993, Sprott 1994). Throughout my research I worked closely with two key Gans's model of symbolic consultants, an observant member who ethnicity appropriately describes the introduced me to the spiritual world in importance of nostalgia and sentiments the ZOZ and his antagonist a consultant to identity negotiation. Gans argues that who defined herself as a secular Jew. many ethnic cultures in the United States Both were invaluable resources. They employ symbolic ethnicity rather than respected the neutrality of my position in formal rites and religious-based cultural the community as well as my social practices and values. A concern with engagement in both religious and Jewish identity rooted in nostalgia and cultural activities though neither sentiment (“cultural Judaism”) as participated in both these spheres of opposed to rigorous adherence to Judaic activity. I took their views to be practices and traditions, are paradigmatic representative of the religious minority examples of symbolic ethnicity. and the majority of Croatian Jews who While nostalgia and sentiments define themselves as secular Jews. While are deemed relevant to the invention of my key consultants viewed one another tradition, his critics have viewed Gans’s as antagonists they unknowingly shared model as a precursor to the many views pertaining to Croatian disappearance of ethnics. In response, politics. Gans has insisted that nothing in his Analytic Context model implies that groups employing symbolic ethnicity will dissolve within a Herbert Gans uses the related fixed period of time. Symbolic ethnicity concepts of symbolic ethnicity (1979) is more accurately regarded as a social and symbolic religiosity (1994) to refer identity strategy that helps maintain to a range of strategies associated with individual allegiances to cultural ethnic and religious identity negotiation (ethnoreligous) heritage. Gans further in contemporary societies. Symbolic claims that ethnicity is not "doomed to ethnicity helps to mitigate the social and fade away before the irresistible forces psychological upheaval experienced by of assimilation,” but could instead cultural groups as they adapt to a "become a permanent source of identity" (post)modern world in which interaction (Gans 1992: 44-45). Gans’s is not the only model that The linkage between the interprets the “post-traditional” terms in disintegration of Jewish identities with a which contemporary identities are decline in religious observance is not understood. Alba (1990) and Waters universally accepted. Bershtel and (1990, 1999) have proposed models Graubard (1992) have disputed the thesis which complement symbolic ethnicity. that non-religious behavior among Jews These scholars seem to share the view will result in cultural assimilation. that ethnic identity negotiation in many Jonathan Webber (1997) points out that post-industrial societies greatly relies on an image of all Jews identifying as individual expressions of identity. Gans's members of an ethnoreligious group is critics, however, assume that symbolic no longer applicable since sociopolitical ethnicity is a misreading of the processes have impacted European Jews communitarian basis of cultural in their respective countries differently. identities (Bershtel and Graubard 1992, Similar, Chervyakov, Gitelman and Conzen et al. 1992, Kivisto and Nefzger Shapiro (1997) argue that Jewish 1993). identity in Russia has become fused with national identities to the extent that i Like the critics of Gans's model, ts no longer possible to divorce Jewish a number of scholars writing on Jewish identity negotiation from citizenship and identity construction have asserted that the national political economy. Jews engaged in idiosyncratic expressions of Jewish identity will Building upon the views of these ultimately disappear as a group. scholars, my analysis of the identity Predictions that Jewish identity will strategies employed by Croatian Jews disappear are typically based on expands the model of symbolic ethnicity sociocultural processes such as the near to include historic and contemporary absence of religious inclinations images, collective and individual prevalent in many socialist societies. The meanings, local and global influences, view that a decline in Jewish religiosity and national politics as important eventually results in a weaker sense of variables in the process of cultural Jewish identity or disintegration has identity negotiation. I argue that the been put forward by a number of locus of an idiosyncratic or individual scholars who have studied Jewish basis of identity construction must, identity maintenance in the United States ultimately, reside within larger-than- (Amyot and Singelman 1996, Bakalian individual cultural forces. 1993, Cohen 1983). A similar view has been advanced by scholars studying Background Jewish identity maintenance in Europe Most early Jewish settlers in (DellaPergola 1994, Keller 1966, Croatia were merchants from regions Schweid 1994) and is epitomized by within the territory of the Austro- Harriet Pass Friedenreich's remark that: Hungarian Empire. Speaking either "[The] vibrant Jewish communities of Hungarian or German as their mother interwar Yugoslavia, well adapted to tongue, they measured their success in survival in a multinational state, live on terms of social acceptance in Croatian today as memories, not as realities" society (Svob 1997). The lack of a (Pass Friedenreich 1984:210). culturally unifying language reflects, as elsewhere within the Empire, a natural desire to establish socioeconomic advancement, politics and culture stability. The ambition to integrate into without a commitment to Jewish non-Jewish society by marrying non- religious laws. of Jews was an important by-product Parallel to the development of achieving socioeconomic success. The modern Croatian society and the relative eighteen-century haskalah (Jewish form integration of Jews in the mid-nineteenth of European enlightenment) helps century was the emergence of Croatian explain why more devout forms of national consciousness. The Croatian Judaism, such as those practiced in other language provided a focal point for parts of Europe (e.g. orthodox national identity and thus a means for communities prevalent in Russia and nationalist-minded Croats to question Poland), never took hold among their loyalty to the Empire (Buntak Croatian Jews (Johnson 1988). In 1996:386). The nationalist movement in response, the nineteenth-century Croatia developed largely in response to Neologe movement, which was the rising tendency towards concerned with the modernization of Germanization within the Empire and Judaism, did manage to attract some the fact that both the French and the participants. But even with the reform- Hungarians had already begun to assert minded character of the movement, there their national identities. The Jewish was only one Neologe synagogue response to Croatian nationalism was (seating up to 300 people) in operation threefold: Croatian Jews either exhibited in the largest (11,000 members) Jewish compliance with Croatian national community in Croatia (Goldstein 1998). ideals, a fierce alliance to Zionist ideals, The reason that Croatian Jews or a combination of these ideological managed to retain their identity, given positions. their lack of a culturally unifying The first response, compliance language, non-committal religious with Croatian national ideals, relates participation and growing rates of back to the willingness of Croatian Jews exogamy is because the laws with in the to participate in civil society and Empire were such that Jewish improve their social standing -- a participation in gentile social and strategy that may be traced back to political life remained limited. Except emancipation trends among European for brief periods of time when r ulers Jews in the early nineteenth-century. An who advanced Jewish emancipatio n rose example of this is the use of Croatian as to power, e.g. Joseph II (1780-90) and the language of instruction in Jewish Frans Joseph (1847-1897) Jews were schools and synagogues. forced to live in separate social worlds. Jewish societies, which developed in The second response, a fierce response to de jure emancipation, can be alliance to Zionist ideals, provided organized into four overlapping Croatian Jews with an alternative categories: humanitarian, intellectual, expression to Jewish religious identity. political, and recreational. The common By emphasizing the need to establish a thread among the societies was that each Jewish nation-state, Zionism allowed for provided a vehicle for members to non-religious Jews to affirm their become active in the Jewish world and identity as Jews by supporting political devote themselves to Jewish social or cultural aims. The Zionists were organized through a number of societies response to the diminished pool of such as the Bar Giora association of Jewish marriage partners after 1945. Jewish students, Young Guard, a While the rates have remained stable in socialist youth organization, and the last fifty years, since the 1990s the societies that prepared Jews for growing number of individuals who immigration to Palestine in the early identify as Jews has been on the rise, a twentieth century. B'nai B'rith, an statistic that reflects the desire of international organization that attracted intermarried Croatian Jews to raise their people interested in the advancement of children with a Jewish consciousness. Jewish cultural, educational and political Another important social aspect life, gained popularity during that time of Jewish Croatian social identity is as well. These trends, which continued cosmopolitanism. Early on Croatian throughout the twentieth-century and Jews began to regard themselves as have been reinvigorated in the last cosmopolitans. This response that can be decade, were never regarded by the traced to the ideological principles of ruling powers as inconsistent with equality and openness associated with Croatian nationalism. cosmopolitanism as well as the standing The third response, a tradition of Croatian Jews to blend into combination of these ideological gentile society. The construction of a positions, was the most remarkable. cosmopolitan identity was related to Croatian Jews remained loyal to trends in urbanization that swept Europe Croatian national ideals whether or not in the nineteenth and twentieth- they identified as Zionists. This can be centuries, and secular ideologies explained by noting that nineteenth- prevalent among the emancipated Jews century nationalism presupposed, and of central Europe. The promise of social even encouraged ethnic consciousness advancement, opportunity and equality and (certain forms of) sectarian lies at the heart of the liberalism that patriotism so long as such sentiments did produced intellectuals such as Theodor not threaten Croatian nationalist efforts. Herzl, one of the fathers of the Zionist In the twentieth-century Croatian Jews movement and Sigmund Freud. Arising continued to embrace a worldview that is in opposition to cosmopolitanism were rooted in non-religious commitments various definitions of nationhood and that emphasized humanistic values. myths related to ethnic purity that These sentiments would in time prevail to the present. resemble Brotherhood and Unity, a slogan that came to symbolize the Local Meanings political ideology of President Tito’s The use of cultural symbols is an Yugoslavia (who held office between important element of symbolic ethnicity. 1945-1980). However, the newer Croatian Jews use symbols such as meaning of “unity” that emerged after ethnoreligious artifacts, foods, festivals Croatia’s separation from Yugoslavia and other social activities to express would have very different consequences cultural identity. The importance of for Croatian Jews. these symbols is reflected in the recent High rates of exogamy are a popularization of Star of David continued reality. In modern times, pendants, menorahs (a seven branch exogamy patterns may be explained as a lamp used in religious services) and other Judaica either worn or exhibited at history. A cultural society that hosted home.i Further evidence of the lectures and events like Jewish music emergence of cultural symbols in and exhibits of Jewish Croatian artists Croatia can be seen in the popularization was formed during that time, now of Jewish cookbooks written by Croatian referred to as “Jewish community Jews, as well as the proliferation of revival.” While the society published a various books, newspapers, lectures and monthly paper covering events pertinent radio programs addressing Jewish to the Jewish world, the events themes. In addition to these, Croatian themselves did more than educate the Jews can join a Jewish folklore dance public about Jewish life. Partaking in group, ceramics class, soccer team and, activities hosted by the cultural society with a little luck, participate in the were seen as an important way of "being Makabiada (Jewish Olympic games). Jewish" or "getting in touch with one's They can choose to study Hebrew, roots." Participation in community Jewish music, Jewish history or Torah in events was considered central to the Jewish community centers. All these process of Jewish identity maintenance pursuits (including Torah reading) are in Croatia. It is through participation in regarded as leisure social activities and various social groups that Croatian Jews are not for the sake of practicing made sense of their world and made religiosity or living a “traditional” choices about all aspects of their cultural Jewish life according to Jewish law. identities. Community members did so Rather they are an expression of at their leisure. They were less "cultural Judaism" or interest in Jewish concerned with enacting culture through cultural history. Since many of these obligations as with living culture on activities are organized by Jewish individual terms. On the whole, community centers, the basis of these community members seemed to be more types of identity enactment requires concerned with day-to-day social affairs social interaction among group and a rise in xenophobia than with members. Jewish religious laws or the high exogamy rates that continued to dilute Although an exact number was the community. One consultant made difficult to obtain, about 3000 the following comment when I asked how individuals who identify as Jewish reside he understood the continuation of Jewish in present day Croatia. The largest and community life in Croatia: most vibrant Jewish community is in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia. The ZOZ I don't think our community will die community center has about fifteen because we are intermarrying or not hundred members and has experienced a praying on Friday night. In the end a marked (14%) increase in its community dies when people stop membership since the 1990s (Sprajc, visiting the community. personal communication 1997). Jewish community centers in Croatia and It is clear that the people here are elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe coming to the community center for experienced revival during the late something. The center does not exist 1980s and early 1990s as Jewish by itself. educators were brought in from abroad to teach Hebrew, Jewish culture and When asked directly, community as specialized seminars on topics related members associated religiosity with to Jewish cultural history, "working doctrine, nationalism and non- vacations," private visits and study cosmopolitanism. Indeed, many people I abroad programs, and the kibbutz spoke with did not regard religious experience. Allegiance to Zionism, practice as an important part of their which for economic reasons was Jewish identity. Friday night services strongly supported by the Croatian were practically empty while social government, continues to serve as one of events organized by the cultural society the most important aspects of Jewish were well attended. As one consultant identity in Croatia.ii remarked: Croatian Nationalist Politics and I believe that Judaism gives us the Jewish identity freedom and the opportunity to choose how to express ourselves as Life in a society undergoing Jews. I have chosen the way I wish social upheaval encourages feelings of to be Jewish. I have met people who pride and belonging to one's ethnic have chosen to keep kosher. A group, particularly if the nationalism kosher couple visited me recently. I practiced in that society is exclusivist did not insult or asked them why (Verdey 1996). In this connection, they kept kosher. I don't keep Anthony Smith (1986) has argued kosher but I always make sure I persuasively for the view that nostalgia have paper plates, plastic knives and plays an important role in the forks at home in case they visit. construction of common goals and a sense of belonging to something larger than oneself. The Croatian nationalist The emphasis in these anecdotes movement of the 1990s, which promoted was on individual and humanistic Croatian ethnicity largely by expressions of Jewish identity. constructing non-ethnic Croatians as Consultants believed that Judaism or outsiders and emphasizing ethnicity, has Jewish cultural heritage gave them the in some ways reinforced Jewish “freedom and opportunity to choose” identities. Contemporary Jewish identity how they would want to express identity. negotiation in Croatia reflects ways of The increased focus on choice and coping with a de facto outsider status individualism may be read as endemic of that has informed Jewish identities in post-socialism. Europe for centuries. Other examples of identity Although my consultants negotiation were found in the continued identified with national politics and the allegiance to Zionism. For many idea of building a democratic nation- Croatian Jews, support for the State of state, they did not identify with the Israel is a significant expression of xenophobic regime that followed Jewish identity. Although active Croatia's secession from Yugoslavia. As membership in various Zionist the Croatian right developed a voice, organizations was the primary outlet for Jews began turning to the Jewish expressing allegiance to the movement, community for an alternative voice. at the time of my research different Indeed, involvement in Jewish means for supporting Israel existed such communal life in the recent past has provided a reasonable alternative to the late President Tudjman proposed changing meaning of Croatianess. A erecting a memorial for both victims and renewed connection with the Jewish murderers at the site. The proposal was community served the function of met with outrage and caused large ideologically forestalling social isolation numbers of people to gather on from Croatian society. Membership in Holocaust Memorial Day in April 1998 the Jewish community had other to protest. Among those who protested advantages as well. For example, during Tudjman’s proposal were individuals the war in Croatia (1991-1995) who identified as Serbs, anti-fascist and community members were able to send former communists. Speakers called for their children to stay with families in the justice, the restoration of Jasenovac and United States and Israel. These respect for the memory of the victims. temporary immigrations were sponsored They warned that the numbers of victims by international Jewish organizations should neither be belittled nor buried and organized through Jewish along with the remains of their communities in Croatia. executioners. Minority group members have been gathering to protest the As the right grew louder renaming of the Victims of Fascism (although not larger), xenophobia began Square in Zagreb. As one consu to be seen as a real threat to Jews. The ltant put it: "Changing the name of the square fear was further reinforced by the [back to its original name] is an Croatian government’s attempt to opportunity for Croatia to begin the repress memories associated with the process of de-Ustashazation." notorious Ustashas, a fascist party which was supported by the Nazis and held Contested Meanings power between 1941-1945. This was accomplished by downplaying atrocities The disassociation of Croatia the Ustashas committed against the from the Balkans, communism and Serbs, Gypsies, communists, non- southeastern Europe more generally, compliant Croats and Jews during World along with her desire to be included War II and constructing Croatian World among Europe’s “chosen nations,” is War II criminals as the victims of the well served by promoting non National Liberation Army revolt led by threatening minorities such as Croatian Tito’s army. An important response to Jews. During my research in Croatia, these threats was the development of Jews, who are the smallest minority solidarity among Croatian minorities group in Croatia, were given far more who continue to gather and mark events media attention than other Croatian such as Anti-Fascism Day and Holocaust minorities. The promotion of Croatian Memorial Day. Jews not only served to obscure Croatia’s role in the Holocaust, an issue An area of contention has been that has recently received critical the number of victims who perished in attention from the international media Jasenovac, a Croatian concentration and from human rights organizations, camp established during the Ustasha but has also emphasized Jews as regime. Some have claimed that the “others.” number of lives lost in Jasenovac is as low as 40,000 while others estimate the While the motives of the death toll around 700,000. In 1997, the Croatian government and the international Jewish community differ religion. These cultural diversity substantially, both have attempted to programs that advance Jewish religious impose a view of Jewish identity that is culture clearly exist not for their own at odds with the self-images of the sake or the promotion of an inclusive Croatian Jews themselves. The view multicultural society. These programs promoted by the Croatian government have particular agendas that seek to through the recent implementation of promote Croatian Jews as exotic, cultural diversity programs, derives in religious and different from ethnic part from Croatia's desire to eventually Croatians. Jewish religious practices, join the European Union and to stabilize which are often misunderstood and the nation's economic crisis. The view regarded as curious by non-Jewish promoted by the international Jewish Croatians, have received an abundance community reflects a commitment to of media attention. Local journalists secure the future of Central and East have interviewed the chief rabbi of European Jews. The efforts of both Croatia several times since his groups embody the assumption that inauguration in 1998. The topics of these Jewish identity revolves around an interviews have ranged from Jewish orthodox religious core or a notion of religious practices to the future of the Jews as separate from other Croatian Jewish community in Croatia. Television citizens. This view of Jewish identity is programs about Jewish religious laws in conflict with the multiple meanings of and practices as well as foreign Jewish identity and the humanistic and documentaries, which depict the lives of idiosyncratic terms in which Croatian ultra-orthodox Jews, have been aired. Jews identify as Jews. Other public displays of interest in Jews and their religion include a course on The aforementioned Judaism at Zagreb University, a constituencies regard cultural identity as permanent installation of Judaica in one essentialist or traditionalist. Essentialist of Zagreb’s main museums, sponsorship views of identity incorporate meanings of public art shows on Jewish religious associated with consanguinial ties and a themes and radio programs featuring sense of innate one-ness among group interviews with prominent members of members. Such views have the effect of the Croatian Jewish community. strongly juxtaposing selves from others. Additionally, the Ministry of Culture has For essentialists, identity construction is provided funds for Jewish education understood through presumed social centered on Jewish religious and cultural characteristics defined through themes and invited the rabbi to the immutable customs and values. Croatian parliament on several Alternatively, in humanist terms identity occasions. construction is based on values of tolerance and liberal democracy. More The view that Croatian Jews are importantly, humanists view identity as essentially different from non-Jewish contingent on individual choice rather Croatians is supported through the than rooted in blood-ties. cultural diversity programs. To discern these, however, it is important to realize The cultural diversity programs that such campaigns have not focused sponsored by the Croatian Ministry of exclusively on essentializing Jewish Culture are premised on the view that identities. Indeed, cultural diversity Jews must be submerged in tradition and programs in Croatia originated with social organization of Jewish Matica Hrvatska, an organization which communities in Croatia. For the first sought to construct Croatian ethnicity time in some sixty years Croatian Jews and Croatian as a separate language from can choose to get married in a Jewish Serbo-Croatian, the official national orthodox ceremony. Moreover, they can language of Former Yugoslavs. Thus the have a local rabbi perform rites of promotion of ethnoreligious passage (e.g. circumcision, bar mitzvah, consciousness among ethnic Croatians marriage and burial ceremonies) and originally served to justify Croatian important Jewish holidays. nationalism and secession from the Croatia's cultural diversity Former Yugoslavia. Such programs also programs thus share with the helped construct ethnic Croatians as international Jewish support categorically different from ethnic organizations the tendency to promote minorities living in Croatia. This has identity maintenance by reifying contributed to a general atmosphere of differences between cultural groups and xenophobia that has had negative exaggerating the importance of religious uch consequences for minority groups s consciousness. Both tendencies conflict as Serbs and Bosniacs (Bosnian with the humanistic and idiosyncratic Moslems). worldviews of the Croatian Jews The international Jewish themselves. In reality, non-committal community has also been concerned religious participation and integration in with the promotion of Jewish identity in Croatian society are central aspects of Croatia. Emphasizing religious and Jewish Croatian identities. cultural components of Jewish identity, Jewish support organizations have begun Summary "rehabilitating" Jewish community The interplay between religious centers throughout Croatia and the behavior and the stability of Jewish Former Yugoslavia by financing a full- identity may be far more complex than time rabbi, the restoration of a small the disappearance prognosis implies. synagogue in Dubrovnik (which has a Cultural identity, rather than an index of community of less than 50 Jews) and the disappearance of Croatian Jews, has stressing Jewish religious education. The been a relatively permanent feature of rabbi of Croatia has found sponsors Jewish identity negotiation since its among orthodox communities outside inception in the nineteenth-century. the country to finance young Croatian Cultural memory and the role of political Jews religious education abroad. and socioeconomic reform have been Changes have been implemented in the crucial in shaping and transforming community centers themselves. The cultural groups such as the Croatian rabbi has kosherised community centers Jews. I have argued that one way of and implemented various Jewish laws understanding the identity strategies of therein, campaigned for group the Croatian Jews is to begin with an conversion to counteract high exogamy account of the historical context and the rates and provided opportunities for political culture in which they are those interested in studying and situated. Doing so should provide a rich practicing orthodox Judaism. In many framework for understanding Jewish ways, the rabbi has revolutionized the identities in Croatia as constructed in response to pressure felt by all Croatian latter is a response to what is perceived citizens to identify as members of an as a modern world crisis in Jewish ethnic group. I have also pointed out that identity maintenance. The emphasis on the effect of our increasingly the religious aspects of Jewish identity interdependent world, in which many has had a polarizing effect both within different images of cultural identity are Jewish communities in Croatia and projected, needs to be taken into between Croatian Jews and non-Jews. account. Contrary to the traditionalist views of Even though individuals have Jewish identity, Jewish identity can always been capable of creating and never be understood as stable or transforming individualized meanings of incontestable. Instead, its meaning is cultural identity, cultural identity continually revised by individuals. The negotiation is never a completely real crisis for Croatian Jews has been the random process that is meaningless to fact that these outside institutions have others. Idiosyncratic expressions of ignored the multiple versions of Jewish cultural identity are at the same time a Croatian identity that have coexisted for product of collective imagining, time decades. Despite this, Jewish Croatian and space. In light of this, Croatian Jews identity continues to embody a negotiate their cultural identities commitment to humanistic ideals of primarily through humanistic values and tolerance, experimentation and membership in social organizations. The contingency. The situation for Croatian organizations are important precisely Jews might improve if Jewish because Jewish community life in communities in Croatia were respected Croatia was never confined to Jewish and allowed to flourish on their own neighborhoods or synagogues. Jewish terms. societies and organizations in the Towards a Refined Symbolic nineteenth and twentieth centuries Ethnicity flourished in response to Croatian nationalism. The same trend emerged Symbolic ethnicity is useful to again in the last decade when Croatian the extent that it helps to interpret the Jews were once again cast as outsiders. social mechanisms through which Croatian nationalism has not only not individualized meanings of identity are threatened but also in some ways negotiated in the contemporary world. fortified Jewish consciousness. This fact Factors that indicate the applicability of implies a strong relationship between the symbolic ethnicity to Croatian Jews construction of ethnic minorities as include the consumption of cultural “others” and Jewish identity negotiation. symbols and various social activities that enact these symbols. Additional factors We have seen that even though that are characteristic of Jewish identity the objectives of Croatian cultural negotiation in Croatia include high diversity programs and the international endogamy patterns, non-committal Jewish organizations differ substantially, religious practices and the abiding both aim to cultivate Jewish religiosity absence of unifying cultural language. It by promoting an essentialist view of is clear from the foregoing discussion Jewish identity. The former can be that involvement in Zionist movements, traced to ideas about ethnicity that serve humanitarian or recreational societies in to justify Croatia's political agenda; the Jewish community centers enables have shown, simply inconsistent with the Croatian Jews to interpret culture and history and narratives of the Croatian negotiate identity in terms of a variety of Jews. Failure to acknowledge the different meanings. The fact that these dynamic and contingent character of factors continue to play an important ethnoreligious identity negotiation is role in Jewish identity negotiation often due to plain inattention to the suggests that Jewish identities in Croatia historical, political and international are far from disappearing. dimensions of identity construction. If we look carefully at the historical record, Symbolic ethnicity falls short of we can see the thoroughly contextual describing the case of the Croatian Jews nature of Jewish identity construction in because it does not account for the Croatia as well as its complex relation to multiple social and political contexts in the surrounding political and global which groups are situated. It also falls environment. In pointing this out, I do short of describing ethnic identity not mean to advance an inversion of the negotiation characterized by our straight-line assimilation theory, in terms globalization. Scholars who have of which the future of the Croatian Jews employed the symbolic ethnicity model as safely insulated from the threat of have not given enough weight to the role being swallowed up by the larger of history and national and supranational community. In other words, I want to politics in their analysis of particular challenge this view without making the groups. As I have argued, Jewish parallel mistake of supposing that the identity construction in Zagreb is rooted future of the Croatian Jewish comm in an historical trajectory and relies on unity is secured. Rather than prognosticating the manipulation of cultural symbols, about the future of Jewish identities (a humanistic and idiosyncratic temptation which the Croatian Jews interpretations of Jewishness. To better themselves resist) we are better off understand identity negotiation strategies trying to incorporate a view of Jewish among Croatian Jews, one must begin identity into Gans’s model that with a careful analysis of Jewish ultimately leads to a better Croatian history, Croatia's troubled understanding of the cultural factors political culture, which presently seeks underlying identity negotiation. to construct non-ethnic Croatians as outsiders, and the influence of Jewish A more thorough look at the supranationals on the meaning of Jewish historical and political context of identity. identity negotiation among contemporary ethnics provides su The deterministic claim put pport forward by scholars who assert that the for the extension of the model beyond core societies. Symbolic ethnicity decline in religious behavior of Jews helps interpret individual and collective inevitably signals their eventual identity negotiation strategies among dissolution fails to acknowledge the Jews living in post-socialist societies contingency and cultural complexity of irrespective of Gans's original intentions. Jewish (or any other) identity To sum up, many aspects of symbolic negotiation strategies. The idea that ethnicity can help to account for the Jewish identity is somehow divorced identity strategies by clarifying the wa from national politics, or that it unfolds ys in which subjective meanings inform the along a predetermined trajectory, is, as I nature of identity negotiation. A revised Bjorklund, Ulf. 1987. 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Hrvatskoj: Migracije i Promjene ii u Zidovskoj Populaciji, Zagreb: In contrast to former Yugoslav D-Graff. politics, Croatia has recently (1998) established diplomatic ties with Verdery, Katherine. 1996. What was Israel. Yugoslavia's official policy Socialism, and What Comes was pro-Arab and anti-Zionist. Even Next? Princeton: Princeton though Yugoslavia was among the University Press. first nations to recognize the state of Walters, Mary C. 1990. Ethnic Israel in 1948, its official policy Options: Choosing Identities in supported the Palestinian national America, Berkeley: University of cause (Pass-Freidenreich 1984:208). California Press. During the Yom Kippur War in Walters, Mary C. 1999. Black October 1973 and six years after the Identities: West Indian country's diplomatic break with Israel Immigrant Dreams and American in 1967, Yugoslavia aligned herself Realities. Cambridge, with the Arab world while publicly Massachusetts: Harvard equating Zionism with racism. University Press. Despite Yugoslav foreign politics, the Jewish Croatian communities Webber, Jonathan. 1997. "Jews and continued to nourish its ties with Judaism in Contemporary Israel. The recently established Europe: Religion or Ethnic diplomatic ties between Israel and roup?" Ethnic and Racial Croatia are viewed as desirable for Studies, vol. 20, no. 2, 257-279. several reasons. Diplomacy is thought to improve trade relations, the tourist Acknowledgements industry and perhaps to mitigate Research for this paper was supported by Croatia's infamous role during World grants from the Memorial Foundation War II. for Jewish Culture and the Purdue Research foundation. I thank Daphne Wineland, Teri Strenski, Katie Watson and John DeMoulpied for their suggestions.