INTERGENERATIONAL MEMORY, LANGUAGE AND JEWISH IDENTIFICATION OF THE SARAJEVO SEPHARDIM REFLECTIONS ON BELONGING IN BOSNIA- HERZEGOVINA/YUGOSLAVIA, ISRAEL AND SPAIN Jonna Rock Dissertation zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades Doctor philosophiae (Dr. phil.) Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultät Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie Gutachter: 1. Prof. Dr. Christian Voß 2. Prof. Dr. David L. Graizbord Datum der Verteidigung: 20.02.2019 Funding This work was supported by ERNST LUDWIG EHRLICH STUDIENWERK Acknowledgements Above all, I would like to thank my interviewees in Sarajevo – Matilda Finci, Erna Kaveson Debevec, Laura Papo Ostojić, Yehuda Kolonomos, Igor Kožemjakin, Tina Tauber, Vladimir Andrle, A.A. and Tea Abinun – for sharing their reflections with me. I moreover express gratitude for the consultation I have had with Jakob Finci, the president of the Sarajevo Jewish Community, Dr Eliezer Papo, its non-residential rabbi, Elma Softić Kaunitz, its secretary general, and Dr Eli Tauber, who is responsible for the Community’s cultural activities. Further, I am most grateful to my first PhD supervisor, Professor Christian Voß, for his patience with the working process and extremely helpful and encouraging feedback and inspiring suggestions. Professor Voß did not only offer constructive comments on my work but also provided a creative and stimulating academic environment within his Lehrstuhl. He introduced me to a number of experts in my field of study (Professor Ivana Vučina Simović, Professor Kateřina Králová, Professor Jolanta Sujecka, among others), and he gave me an opportunity to participate in and/or organize international conferences, workshops and research seminars. Without Professor Voß’ expertise and guidance throughout my doctoral research (2014-2018), this endeavour would not have been possible. My second doctoral supervisor, Professor David L. Graizbord of University of Arizona provided invaluable feedback which has helped situate my work with the wider field of Sephardic Studies. I have learned much about Jewish and Sephardic history from Professor Graizbord. He also inspired me to view my topics from a far-away perspective and to better understand the ‘big picture,’ which was very intellectually rewarding. 2 Professor Sina Raschenbach offered helpful advice and comments on earlier chapters. Taking part in her research seminar at the University of Potsdam and attending a series of lectures that she initiated on ‘Sephardic Perspectives’ at the Selma Stern Center for Jewish Studies Berlin- Brandenburg have nourished my work. Professor Jussi Nuorluoto, who supervised my MA thesis at Uppsala University in Sweden, first encouraged me to study the Sephardim in Sarajevo, and has maintained an interest in my work, for which I am very grateful. Conversations and correspondence with James R. Samec helped me prepare for this thesis. Moreover, I am grateful to have had opportunity to present my work-in-progress at Charles University, Prague, Columbia University, New York, Humboldt University, Tel Aviv University, University of Potsdam, the Sephardic Summer School in Halberstadt, Germany, University of Warsaw, Uppsala University, Wrocław University, Queen Mary, University of London, and Goldsmiths, University of London, among other institutions. I am thankful for constructive criticism I received from among others Dr Aldina Quintana, Professor Christoph Schulte, Dr Eliezer Papo, Professor Glenda Abramson, Professor Hannes Grandits, Dr Hilary Pomeroy, Dr John Hulsey, Professor Michael Studemund-Halévy, Professor Peter Rutland, Professor Shmuel Refael and Professor Tamar Alexander. Besides those mentioned above, comments from reviewers of earlier versions of parts of the thesis – published in peer-reviewed journals: Judaica Petropolitana Journal and Nationalities Papers – have helped improve this work profoundly. Moreover, I thank the reviewers of chapters accepted for publication in edited volumes: Colloquia Balkanica, Das ZJS Jahrbuch, and The Ashkenazim and Sephardim in a European Perspective. I am also grateful to Cathy Scott, the commissioning editor for language and linguistics at Palgrave Macmillan who has been encouraging of my forthcoming study Intergenerational Memory and Language of the Sarajevo Sephardim that Palgrave Macmillan will publish on completion of this thesis. 3 I am indebted to Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk (ELES), the American Associates of the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, The European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS), Helge Ax:son Johnsons Stiftelse in Stockholm and to Paideia – The European Institute for Jewish Studies in Sweden – for generous support of my work. Without the financial support from ELES and help from Dr Dmitrij Belkin of ELES (now at Leo Baeck Institute) and Dr Maria Ulatowski of ELES I would not have been able to embark on and complete this project, for which I shall always remain grateful. Furthermore, I am thankful to friends and colleges who have encouraged me throughout this project. Especially, I want to thank Anja Olejnik, Carolina Spiegel, Emina Sab, Kristin Gissberg, Konstantin Meleounis, Maciej Wilga, Mathias Hannau and Zehava Khalfa for their support. That working on the thesis was an enjoyable process is in no small part due to my mother Yvonne, with whom I appreciated discussing this research. I am also grateful to Klemens who was there for Simon and Lia. I could not have started working on the thesis without having had the opportunity of getting to know my grandmother Anna. Finally, because of Dejan, I pulled the thesis together. My deepest thanks go to him for being such a dedicated person to me, Simon and Lia, and to this work. 4 ABSTRACT This study analyzes issues of language and Jewish identification pertaining to the Sephardim in Sarajevo. Complexity of the Sarajevo Sephardi history means that I explore Bosnia- Herzegovina/Yugoslavia, Israel and Spain as possible identity-creating factors for the Sephardim in Sarajevo today. The main body of the dissertation consists of empirical findings from my semi-structured interviews conducted with nine Sarajevo Sephardim of three generations between 2015 and 2018. I explore how Sephardim belonging to the different generations deal with the challenge of cultivating hybrid and hyphenated identities under tumultuous regime-changes and other destabilizing conditions. The thesis moreover pinpoints my interviewees dilemma of how to call the language that they speak after Yugoslavia collapsed in the 1990s, a period that saw the beginning of the disintegration of Serbo-Croatian as a language, at least in a sociolinguistic sense. My findings show that the elderly Sephardic generation insist on calling their language Serbo-Croatian, whereas the younger generations do not really know what language they speak – and laugh about the linguistic situation in Sarajevo, or rely on made-up categories such as ‘Sarajevan.’ Furthermore, only one of my interlocutor’s notion of Jewish identity is based on the traditional halachic definition, a definition that hinges on matrilineal descent. None of the interviewees emphasize the maintenance of Judeo-Spanish as a crucial condition for the continuation of Sephardic culture in Sarajevo. In this understanding, one can be Sephardic without speaking or understanding the Sephardic language. Similarly, the celebration of Jewish holidays is more important for the maintenance of identity across the generations than speaking a Jewish language. At the same time, the individuals also assert alternative forms of being Bosnian, ones that encompass multiple ethnicities and religious ascriptions. All the youngest interviewees however fear that the Sarajevo Sephardic identity will disappear in a near future. Unique characteristics of Sarajevo Sephardim include the status of the Sephardim and minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina given (1) the discriminatory Bosnian Constitution; (2) the absence of a law in Bosnia on the return of property; (3) the special situation wherein three major ethnic groups, and not just a single, ethnically homogeneous ‘majority,’ dominate the country; (4) the lack of a well-developed Jewish cultural infrastructure. Despite all of this, a rapprochement between the Sarajevo Jewish Community members and their religion and tradition is taking place. This phenomenon is partly attributable to the Community’s young religious activist and chazan, Igor Kožemjakin, who has attracted younger members to the religious services. The wider contention of this work lies in its exploration of the role and function of ideology in creating conditions for the transformation of identity in nationalist, patriotic as well as cosmopolitan terms. Moreover, it is a field-specific contribution. What one can learn by building bridges between the different South Slavic and Sephardic perspectives is explained in my thesis because language as a key identity marker forms a central question throughout the thesis. Thus, this dissertation also speaks to scholars engaged in studying the relationship between language and ethnic and/or religious identification, including those writing about contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina. Furthermore, my interviewees offer a constructive example to anyone engaged in studying post-conflict identity work. Keywords: contemporary Sarajevo Jewish culture; language ideology; oral history; intergenerational memory; anti-Semitism and the Islamization in Sarajevo; a comparative and historical approach 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements...................................................................................................................