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Thehistory of theJews inSlovenia and areas connected with it goes back to the times ofAncient Rome. In 2011, the small Slovenian Jewish community (Slovene:Judovska skupnost Slovenije) was estimated at 100 to 130 members, of whom around 130 are officially registered,[1] most of whom live in the capital,Ljubljana.
The ancient Jewish community ofSlovenia predated the 6th-centurySlavic settlement of the Eastern Alps, when theSlavic ancestors of the present-daySlovenes entered their current territory.[2] The first Jews arrived in what is now Slovenia inRoman times, with archaeological evidence of Jews found inMaribor and in the village ofŠkocjan inLower Carniola. In Škocjan, an engravedmenorah dating from the 5th centuryAD was found in a graveyard.[3]
In the 12th century, Jews arrived in theSlovene lands fleeing poverty inItaly andcentral Europe. Even though they were forced to live inghettos, many Jews prospered. Relations between Jews and the localChristian population were generally peaceful. In Maribor, Jews were successful bankers, winegrowers, and millers. Several "Jewish courts" (Judenhof) existed inStyria, settling disputes between Jews and Christians.Israel Isserlein, who authored several essays on medieval Jewish life inLower Styria, was the most important rabbi at the time, having lived in Maribor.[4] In 1397, Jewish ghettos inRadgona andPtuj were set ablaze by anonymous anti-Jewish assailants.[5]
The first synagogue inLjubljana was mentioned in 1213. Issued with aPrivilegium, Jews were able to settle an area of Ljubljana located on the left bank of theLjubljanica River. The streetsŽidovska ulica (Jewish Street) andŽidovska steza (Jewish Lane), which now occupy the area, are still reminiscent of that period.
The wealth of the Jews bred resentment among theInner Austrian nobility and the burghers, with many refusing to repay Jewish money-lenders, and local merchants considered Jews to be competitors. The antisemitism of the Catholic Church also played an important role in creating animosity against the Jews,[6] In 1494 and 1495 the assemblies of Styria and Carinthia offered Austrian Emperor Maximilian a bounty for the expulsion of the Jews from both provinces.
Maximilian granted their request, citing as reasons for the expulsion the Jewish pollution of the Christian sacrament, the ritual killings of Christian children, and the defrauding of debtors.[6] The expulsions started immediately, with the last Jews expelled by 1718.[7][dubious –discuss] The Jews were expelled from Maribor in 1496.[8] Following separate demands by the citizens of Ljubljana for the expulsion of the Jews, Jews were expelled from Ljubljana in 1515.[9] After the expulsion of the Jewish community, theMaribor Synagogue was turned into a church.[8]
In 1709, theHoly Roman EmperorCharles VI, ruler of theHabsburg monarchy,[10] issued a decree allowing Jews to return toInner Austria. Nevertheless, Jews in that time settled almost exclusively in the commercial city ofTrieste and, to a much smaller extent, in the town ofGorizia (now both part ofItaly). The decree was overturned in 1817 byFrancis I, and Jews were granted full civil and political right only with theAustrian constitution of 1867. Nevertheless, the Slovene Lands remained virtually without a consistent Jewish population, with the exception of Gorizia, Trieste, the region ofPrekmurje, and some smaller towns in the western part of theCounty of Gorizia and Gradisca (Gradisca,Cervignano), which were inhabited mostly by aFriulian-speaking population.
According to the census of 1910, only 146 Jews lived in the territory of present-day Slovenia, excluding thePrekmurje region.[7] Yet despite this, as elsewhere in Austria-Hungary, antisemitism started to intensify also in Slovenia, from the mid-19th century onward. propagated by prominent Slovene Catholic leaders, such as BishopAnton Mahnič andJanez Evangelist Krek. The former called for a war against Judaism and the latter sought to persuade believers that the Jews were transmitters of the most harmful influences.[10]
In 1918, in the chaotic transition between Austria-Hungary and the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, riots broke out against Jews and Hungarians in many places in Prekmurje.[11] Soldiers returning from the front and locals looted Jewish and Hungarian shops. On November 4, 1918, in Beltinci, locals looted Jewish homes and shops, tortured Jews, and set fire to the synagogue.[11] After the pogrom, the once powerful Beltinci Orthodox Jewish community, numbering 150 in the mid-19th century, disappeared. In 1937 the local authorities demolished the Beltinci synagogue[12]
Rampantanti-Semitism was among the reasons why few Jews decided to settle in the area, and the overall Jewish population remained at a very low level. In the 1920s, after the formation of theKingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia), the local Jewish community merged with the Jewish community ofZagreb,Croatia.[7]
According to the 1931 census, there were about 900 Jews in theDrava Banovina, mostly concentrated inPrekmurje, which was part of theKingdom of Hungary prior to 1919. This was the reason why in the mid-1930sMurska Sobota became the seat of the Jewish Community of Slovenia. During that period, the Jewish population was reinvigorated by many immigrants fleeing from neighbouringAustria andNazi Germany to a more tolerantKingdom of Yugoslavia.
Nevertheless, in the prewar period the Slovene Roman Catholic Church and its affiliated largest political party, the Slovenian People's Party, engaged in antisemitism,[13] with Catholic papers writing about "Jews" as "a disaster for our countryside", "Jews" as "fraudsters" and "traitors to Christ", while the main Slovene Catholic daily, Slovenec, informed local Jews that their "road out of Yugoslavia ... was open". and that from Slovenia "we export such goods [I.e. Jews] without compensation".[10] While interior minister in the Yugoslav government, the leading Slovene politician and former Catholic priest,Anton Korošec, declared "all Jews, Communists, and Freemasons as traitors, conspirators, and enemies of the State".[14] Then in 1940Korošec introduced two antisemitic laws in Yugoslavia, to ban Jews from the food industry and restrict the number of Jewish students in high schools and universities[10] Slovene Jews were severely affected, as Sharika Horvat noted in her testimony for the Shoah Foundation, "everything fell apart .... under the Korošec government."[10]
According to official Yugoslav data, the number of self-declared Jews (according to religion, not to ancestry) in Yugoslav Slovenia rose to 1,533 by 1939. In that year, there were 288 declared Jews in Maribor, 273 in Ljubljana, 270 in Murska Sobota, 210 inLendava and 66 inCelje. The other 400 Jews lived scattered around the country, with a quarter of them living in thePrekmurje region. Prior to World War Two, there were two active synagogues in Slovenia, one in Murska Sobota and one in Lendava. The overall number of Jews prior to the Axisinvasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941 is estimated to have been around 2,500, including baptised Jews and refugees from Austria and Germany.
The Jewish community, very small even beforeWorld War II and theShoah, was further reduced by theNazis occupation between 1941 and 1945; the Jews in northern and eastern Slovenia (theSlovenian Styria,Upper Carniola,Slovenian Carinthia, andPosavje), which was annexed to theThird Reich, were deported to concentration camps as early as in the late spring of 1941.[citation needed] Very few survived.[quantify] InLjubljana and inLower Carniola, which came underItalian occupation, the Jews were relatively safe until September 1943, when most of the zone was occupied by theNazi German forces.[citation needed] In late 1943, most of them were deported to concentration camps, although some managed to escape, especially by fleeing to the zones freed by thepartisan resistance.[citation needed]
In Ljubljana, 32 Jews were able to hide until September 1944, when they were betrayed and arrested in raids by the collaborationistSlovene Home Guard police and handed over to the Nazis, who then sent them to Auschwitz, where most were exterminated. The Slovene Home Guard greatly intensified the antisemitism already present in prewar Slovene Catholic circles, engaging in vicious antisemitic propaganda. Thus the Slovene Home Guard leader,Leon Rupnik, attacked Jews in virtually all his public speeches,[15] In 1944, the Home Guard newspaper wrote: "Judaism wants to enslave the whole world. It can enslave it if it also economically destroys all the nations. That is why it drove nations into war to destroy themselves and thereby benefit the Jews. Communism is the most loyal executor of Jewish orders, along with liberal democracy. Both ideas were created by Jews for non-Jewish peoples. The Slovenian nation also wants to bring Judaism to its knees, along with its moral decay and impoverishment."[16] The influential Catholic priest, Lambert Ehrlich, who advocated collaboration with the Italian Fascist authorities, campaigned against "Jewish Satanism," which he maintained was trying to get its hands on other peoples’ national treasures.[citation needed]
The Jews ofPrekmurje, where the majority of Slovenian Jewry lived prior to World War Two, suffered the same fate as theJews of Hungary. Following theGerman occupation of Hungary, almost the entire Jewish population of the Prekmurje region was deported toAuschwitz. Very few survived. All together it is estimated that of the 1,500 Jews in Slovenia in 1939, only 200 managed to survive, meaning 87% were exterminated by the Nazis, among the highest rates in Europe.[17]
Some Slovene Jews managed to save themselves by joining the partisans. Unlike the Polish resistance, which did not allow Jews in their ranks,[citation needed] the Yugoslav partisans welcomed Jews. 3,254 Jews in former Yugoslavia survived by joining the partisans, more than one-fifth of all survivors. After the war 10 Jewish partisans were named Yugoslav national heroes.[18] For assisting Jews during the Holocaust, 15 Slovenes have been namedRighteous Among the Nations, by Yad Vashem.
UnderCommunism inYugoslavia, the Jewish community inSocialist Republic of Slovenia numbered fewer than 100 members. The Federation of Jewish Communities was reestablished and upon the establishment of the State of Israel (1948), the Federation sought and received permission from the Yugoslav authorities to organize Jewish emigration to Israel.[19] 8,000 Yugoslav Jews, among them Slovene Jews, who were all allowed to take their property with them, left for Israel.[19] In 1953, thesynagogue ofMurska Sobota, the only remaining after the Shoah, which the handful of Jewish survivors were unable to maintain and therefore sold in 1949 to the city, was demolished by thelocal Communist authorities to make way for new apartments. Many Jews were expelled from Yugoslavia as "ethnic Germans",[citation needed] and most of Jewish property was confiscated.[citation needed]
In Ljubljana, Jewish properties were confiscated as "enemy property" by the City Confiscation Committee (Slovene:Mestna zaplembena komisija) and turned over to the communist elite.[20] These properties included the Ebenspanger Mansion (used byBoris Kidrič), the Mergenthaler Mansion (used by theOZNA, or secret police), and the Pollak mansion (used byEdvard Kocbek).[20] In addition, the Moskovič mansion was sold under questionable circumstances and is now used by theSocial Democrats,[20][21] the successor of theCommunist Party of Slovenia.[22]
TheJudovska občina v Ljubljani (Jewish Community ofLjubljana) was officially reformed following World War II. Its first president was Artur Kon, followed byAleksandar Švarc, and by Roza Fertig-Švarc in 1988.In 1969, it numbered only 84 members and its membership was declining due to emigration and age.
In the 1960s and 1970s, there was a revival of Jewish themes inSlovenian literature, almost exclusively by women authors.Berta Bojetu was the most renowned Jewish author who wrote inSlovene. Others includedMiriam Steiner andZlata Medic-Vokač.[23]
In the last Yugoslav census in 1991, 199 Slovenes declared themselves of theJewish religion, and in the 2011 census, the number was 99.[24] The Jewish community today is estimated at only 100 members.[25] The community consists of people ofAshkenazi andSephardi descent. In 1999, the first Chief Rabbi for Slovenia was appointed since 1941. Before that, religious services were provided with help from the Jewish community of Zagreb. The present chief rabbi for Slovenia, Ariel Haddad, resides inTrieste and is a member of theLubavitcher Hassidic school.[26] The current president of the Jewish Community of Slovenia is Andrej Kožar Beck.
Since the year 2000, there has been a noticeable revival of Jewish culture in Slovenia. In 2003, a synagogue was opened in Ljubljana.[27] In 2008, the Association Isserlein was founded to promote the legacy of Jewish culture in Slovenia.[28] It has organized several public events that have received positive responses from the media, such as the public lighting of thehanukiah in Ljubljana in 2009.[29] There has also been a growing public interest in the historical legacy of Jews of Slovenia. In 2008, the complex of the Jewish Cemetery inRožna Dolina nearNova Gorica was restored due to the efforts of the localSocial Democratic Party politicians, pressure from the neighboring Jewish Community ofGorizia, and the American Embassy in Slovenia.[30] In January 2010, the first monument to the victims of theShoah in Slovenia was unveiled inMurska Sobota.[30]
Occasional antisemitic incidents still occur, such as Holocaust denial and antisemitic pronouncements by Slovene right-wingers.[31] In April 2024, aWorld Jewish Congress delegation gathered in Slovenia in response to the Jewish community's call for governmental response to rising antisemitism. Following the delegation, WJC Executive Vice President Maram Stern issued anopen letter to the Slovenian Minister of Foreign and European AffairsTanja Fajon. The letter stated that "Invariably, tendentious attacks on Israel fan the flames of antisemitism… Ultimately, the people of Slovenia and the government will be most affected by the hatred that has been metastasizing throughout the country, and only you and your colleagues can administer the cure.”[32]
The only functioning Synagogue in Slovenia has been in theJewish Cultural Center at Križevniška 3 in Ljubljana since 2016, where the sefer torah of the Slovene Jewish community is located. Rituals are occasional for Sabbaths and for major Jewish holidays.
In 2021, anew Synagogue was opened in Ljubljana, which is also the first synagogue that is not managed by the municipality, but directly by the Jewish community.[33]
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