SARAJEVO ROSE See page 66 for a description of this pamphlet. Stephen Schwartz SARAJEVO ROSE A Balkan Jewish Notebook SAQI n association with THE BOSNIAN INSTITUTE Author’s Note Most of these texts originally appeared in various periodicals; places and dates of publication are indicated in endnotes. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 86356 592 1 copyright © Stephen Schwartz 2005 The right of Stephen Schwartz to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988 This edition first published 2005 SAQI 26 Westbourne Grove London W2 5RH www.saqibooks.com in association with The Bosnian Institute To my parents “Yo me mancharía toda Por salvar la mi bandera” Classic Sephardic song “There is no whisper quieter than the print in a book, to be read by a person in solitude.” Nehemiah Hiyya Cajón (c. 1655–c. 1730) “All, young and old, put on the sword, More voracious than the beasts of the forest; All cry for liberty, the wise and the ignorant; The fury of battle rages like the stormy sea.” Rachel Morpurgo (1790–1871) “Lord of the world, master of forgiveness, master of every soul, powerful God of the spirits of all creatures, in your power are all the souls of the living and the spirits of all humanity!” Livriku de la orasjon ke se dizi e Stolac dispoes de TEFILA sovre la KEVURA del CADIK maalot Moreno arav rebi MOŠE DANON zehuto jagen alenu AMEN, Trezladado por mano del hadži MOŠE HAJIM moreno arav Alevi, Saraj en anjo 5697 “I arrive now at the ineffable center of my story. And here begins my despair as a writer.” Jorge Luis Borges “That was twelve years ago. I still thought within the framework of certain ideas. For example, I believed in Hegel … the Hegelian Logos in the process of events.” Miroslav Krleža Contents Illustrations 9 1492–1992 and Beyond: The Sephardic Legacy 13 A Manifesto for the Sephardim of Sarajevo 22 On Kalmi Baruh Street 27 In Jewish Sarajevo 40 Homage to Muhamed Nezirović 165 Abraham Kohen Herrera: Notes on a Renaissance Jewish Traveler 172 The False Messiah’s Lost Tomb 208 Jews in the Albanian Lands 228 Five Yugoslav Classics 238 Isak Samokovlija and the Iron Rose 255 In Bucharest 261 To Elias Canetti: A Memorial for the Balkan Sephardim 271 Bibliographical Notes on Religious Judaism in the Balkans 276 Illustrations Sarajevo’s “Spanish” (Sephardic) cemetery, 2000. 15 Bosnian postage stamp commemorating the Sarajevo Haggadah. 18 The view from Ulica Safeta Mujića, Sarajevo, 1999. 36 Moses Strikes the Egyptian. 44 Two historical photographs, from the 1920s and 1930s, of pilgrims at the grave of Rav Danon. 48 Stephen Schwartz, Marko Oršolić and Don Viktor Sopi, Albanian Catholic priest, Bistrazhin, Kosova, 2000. 53 The Peć patriarchate of the Serbian Orthodox Church, 2000. 56 A Jewish grave in Prishtina, Kosova, 2000. 57 Synagogue in Mostar, Hercegovina, built 1904, now a children’s theatre, as seen in 1999. 58 The author at the grave of Rav Moshe Danon, Stolac, 1999. 60 Ashkenazi shul, Sarajevo, built 1902, as seen in 2000. 66 The Benevolencija Jewish pharmacy on Hamdija Kreševljaković Street, Sarajevo, 1998. 80 Interior of the first Sarajevo synagogue (Kahal Viejo), founded 1581, as seen in 1999. 114 10 Illustrations Zenica synagogue, built 1906, as seen in 1997. 115 The first Sarajevo synagogue and the second (Kahal Nuevo), first recorded 1746, as seen in 2000. 116 Jakob Finci, Sarajevo, 1997. 119 Sarajevo chazzan David Kamhi, 2000. 120 Sarajevo shammash Moric Albahari, 1999. 121 Kemal Bakaršić (left), Ivan Čerešnješ (right), Sarajevo, 1999. 124 Poet and screenwriter Abdulah Sidran, documentary filmmaker and journalist Zijad Mehić and Jovan Divjak, Sarajevo, 1999. 128 The Jewish graveyard at Sanski Most, 2000. 134 The Bjelave-Mejtaš synagogue in Sarajevo, founded 1900, restored in 1924, today unused for religious purposes, as seen in 1999. 135 The former building of La Benevolencia, the Jewish welfare society, on the street named for the revived organization, Ulica Benevolencija, 1998. The building itself became the headquarters of the Bosnian federal police after the 1992–95 war. 136 The second-floor window columns of the 1931 Grand Sephardic Synagogue in Sarajevo, as seen in 2004; the only visible evidence of the former use of the building, which was destroyed in 1941 by the Ustaša and Nazis. It is now the Bosnian Cultural Center. 137 Hamdije Unkić and Admiral Mahić, Sanski Most, 2000. 138 Mahić, Schwartz, Amir Talić, Ammar Talić, Sanski Most, 2000. 139 Tombstones vandalized by Wahhabis at the wrecked Hadum mosque in Gjakova, Kosova, 2000. 149 Muhamed Nezirović (left), with the author, Sarajevo, 1999. 167 Poster for the 5th Conference on the Social and Cultural History of the Jews on the Eastern Adriatic Coast, Dubrovnik, 2004. 174 Jewish grave marker in Kotor, Montenegro, 2001. 213 The Kulla e Ballshajve or Ballsha tower, reputed residence of Sabbetai Zvi, Ulqin, 2001. 214 Southern niche in the Kulla e Ballshajve, Ulqin, 2001. 215 Danilo Kiš (1935–89). 240 Illustrations 11 Miroslav Krleža (1893–1981). 241 Miloš Crnjanski (1893–1977). 241 Meša Selimović (1910–82). 244 Isak Samokovlija (1889–1955). 256 The Bucharest Choral Temple, 1995. 263 The 1846 Sephardic synagogue, Bucharest, 1995. 264 The Aziziye mosque in Tulcea, Romania, 1995. 267 Ferida Osmanović, who fled from Srebrenica, hanged herself near the UN base at Tuzla, 1995. 269 Elias Canetti (1905–94). 273 The Morpurgo Bookshop, Split, the most famous Jewish cultural establishment in Dalmatia, 2004. 280 1492–1992 and Beyond: The Sephardic Legacy In 1992, Americans marked the cinquecentennial of Columbus’s first voyage with heated debates over the merits and demerits of his “discovery.” Jews spent the year revisiting the expulsion of the Spanish Jews on July 31, 1492, and re-evaluating the history of the Sephardic Diaspora. The order for the Jews to leave Spain, originally issued March 30, was extended to the end of July, so that as Columbus’s fleet of three ships departed westward, on August 3, the explorer and his crew witnessed other ships raising anchor for the Muslim East, bearing Jews invited to resettle in the dominions of the Turkish Sultan. It was a time of upheaval throughout the known world: the Ottomans who welcomed the exiled Spanish Jews had pressed deep into the Balkans, and at the same time Granada, the last Muslim kingdom in Spain, was finally subjugated by Castile. Columbus’s voyage would provide immense opportunities in the New World for the pillaging impulse of those Castilian-speaking 14 Sarajevo Rose knights who conquered the Spanish Islamic realm. This turmoil ended a period of nearly 800 years in Spanish history during which the world’s monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, had coexisted and cross-pollinated as they never have since. But the events of 1492 also resulted in the emergence of new streams in human culture: most significantly, in Ibero-America, but also in the Islamic culture of North Africa, especially Morocco, and in the lands where the Jewish fugitives settled. In their numbers, the expelled Jews journeyed to Morocco – where many remained in close contact with Spain, as some do today – to Portugal, Italy, and later to northern Europe and the Americas. But above all, they traveled to Turkey and its then possessions in southeastern Europe. Over the next 200 years, the first wave would be followed by thousands of Jews expelled from Portugal, as well as “hidden” or “crypto-Jews,” converts to Christianity who allegedly practiced their ancestral faith in secret. Also known as marranos (a hate term best avoided, as it means “swine”), the purported “crypto-Jews” were harried from Spain by the Inquisition along with thousands more whose only offense was their Jewish ancestry. Thus, Sephardic Jews share with Latin Americans a continuing awareness of the “birth trauma” associated with the year 1492. The Sephardim kept alive the memory of their Spain, especially its main language – the dialects of Castilian that came to be known as Judeo-Spanish (its liturgical form is called Ladino). In their new dispersion, in Bosnia-Hercegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, Greece, Romania, Bulgaria and Albania as well as in Turkey itself, they preserved the Spanish past. In towns large and small, throughout the mountainous Balkans, they lived as they had in the highlands of Spain, in Aragón and Andalucía. Various books were published in 1992 and afterward, commemorating the date in Jewish history. The Sephardic Journey, a catalogue of a long-term exhibit at Yeshiva University edited by Haham Solomon Gaon, includes several excellent essays as well as numerous fine illustrations of Sephardic costumes, religious objects, printing and other items, from all the areas of 1492–1992 and Beyond: The Sephardic Legacy 15 Sarajevo’s “Spanish” (Sephardic) cemetery, 2000. (Photograph by Stephen Schwartz) the Mediterranean where the Sephardim resided. The catalogue is especially valuable for its attention to Sephardic achievements in manuscript illustration and typography. In Istanbul, the Macedonian metropolis of Salonika, Venice, Izmir, and Sarajevo – the five capitals of the Mediterranean Sephardic world – Spanish-speaking Jews, in the 15th through the 19th centuries, wrote numerous treatises on religious law and mysticism, while also creating notable literary works. They committed them to Hebrew print in volumes that are among the finest examples of early presswork. Volumes issued by the Sephardic printers of Istanbul and Fez were the first known books printed in the Turkish domains and in Africa. Some of the graphic art in these early works is exceptionally beautiful, such as the “frame” or decorative page border designed by Alfonso Fernández de Córdoba, which rivals the best of latter-day Art Nouveau design.