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The NEW Anti-Semitism
...an End Time Factor?
Anti-Semitism Raises its Head in
Serbia
Institute for War and Peace Reporting
Though very small in number, Serbia’s Jewish community is being
increasingly targeted by an array of ultra-nationalist groups.
By Dragana Nikolic-Solomon and Ljubisa Ivanovic in Belgrade (BCR No 544,
04-Mar-05)
The slogans hint at a future settling of accounts. "Juden Raus", "Achtung
Juden", "Jews out of Serbia" and "Death to Jews and Gipsies", they
proclaim, the words providing a chilling echo of the Holocaust that
decimated European Jewry more than half a century ago.
But few Jews actually see these slogans in Serbia today. Providing ample
proof of the claim that anti-Semitism doesn't need Jews to flourish, the
latest wave of anti-Semitism in Serbia has broken over a community that
is a shadow of its former self.
The community is now down to a tiny 3,000 or so among Serbia’s total
population of around eight million, and in the 2002 census only about
1,200 people declared themselves Jewish.
Most Serbs have never even met a Jew. Even before the Second World War,
the community was small, making up 0.45 per cent of the population.
After the Holocaust and the migration of most survivors to Israel, the
figure has dwindled further to 0.3 per cent.
But while few Jews remain, anti-Semitism is flourishing. Many bookstores
stock copies of the infamous Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion,
the early 20th-century book from Russia that fraudulently claimed to
reveal a Jewish conspiracy against the world's non-Jewish, and
especially Christian, population.
More disturbingly, a list of prominent Serbian Jews was recently posted
on the website of a neo-Nazi organisation, alongside messages posted by
site visitors calling for them to be killed.
Although Stormfront is a German group, most Serbian commentators
conclude that they could only have obtained this list with the help of
Serbian colleagues.
The list includes prominent activists and artists, such as the head of
the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence, Sonja Licht, actor Predrag
Ejdus, singer Djordje David, marketing expert Srdjan Saper and the head
of the Union of Jewish Communities, Aca Singer.
A catalogue of anti-Semitic literature in Serbian, which it says "every
National Socialist and racially aware nationalist should read" is
contained on the site on a page named "Serbian National Socialist
Library".
Among the recommended texts is an article entitled “Jews – the Enemies
of the Balkan Peoples.”
Professor Ratko Bozovic, a sociologist at Belgrade University, told IWPR,
“These incidents are not isolated. They are part of a growing
phenomenon.”
Other experts agree that Serbia is becoming a hotbed of extreme racist
ideologies - partly a consequence of a decade of warfare under Slobodan
Milosevic, when the media painted Croats, Muslims and Albanians as the
demonic enemies of innocent Serbs.
At the beginning of the wars in Yugoslavia, the regime initially tried
to link Serbs and Jews as joint victims of fascism during the Second
World War, promoting the activities of front organisations such as the
Serbian-Jewish Friendship Society.
But when this initiative failed to achieve the desired result
internationally, anti-Jewish propaganda began to circulate, including
claims that Serbs were falling victim to a Jewish lobby in Washington.
This propaganda reached a climax during the 1999 NATO air strikes over
Kosovo, when Jews in President Bill Clinton’s administration were
accused of being behind a master-plan to bomb Serbia.
Bozo Prelevic, a Belgrade lawyer, says belief in an anti-Serb conspiracy
among the Jews is a legacy of the Milosevic era, when the regime media
began to list Jews and Freemasons among all the other schemers plotting
Serbia’s misfortunes.
Even after democratic parties took power in October 2000, Serbian
society continued to blame others for its problems, Professor Bozovic
says - regardless of whether these others are Roma, Jews, Albanians,
Americans, the Hague tribunal or rich investors, whom many see as
economic colonisers.
A casual surf of right-wing web sites in Serbia reveals an abundance of
anti-Semitic literature and propaganda.
The site of the Serbian Defence League, an organisation which says its
mission is to document the Zionist "genocide against the Serbs",
features the claim that "research has uncovered that Jews in position of
power were conspiring to break up Yugoslavia into states friendly with
Israel, because it needed their votes in the UN Security Council".
The organisation claims Jews were directly responsible for NATO's
bombing of Serbia in the late Nineties. "The Jews introduced resolutions
[to the UN] to bomb the Serbs and make them pay for what Israel is doing
to Moslems," it says.
The Serbian Defence League says Jews have "stolen the Serbian holocaust"
because "the biggest genocide in World War II was committed against the
Serbs in Nazi Croatia, and not against the Jews in Germany".
Aca Singer, veteran leader of the diminished Jewish community in Serbia,
says the wave of hostile graffiti, as well as the threatening messages
on various websites, are a cause for concern.
The community has now filed six criminal-law cases against the
perpetrators but there is little hope that anything will be done.
The websites are located abroad, so neither the police nor the courts
can take action and there is no law penalising the propagation of hatred
on the internet.
Singer says it is significant that anti-Semitic incidents have increased
since the fall of the Milosevic regime in October 2000. He believes this
may be because the advent of democracy has released feelings about Jews
that were previously well concealed.
"In the past five years over a hundred anti-Semitic books have been
published in Serbia," said Singer.
"Some of the latest are ‘The Serbs In The Claws Of The Jew’ and ‘Jewish
Ritual Murder’. The latter, published by IHTUS Christian Books, says
Jews kill Christian children in order to knead bread with their blood."
The IHTUS web site features copious amounts of anti-Semitic literature
and calumnies. An article entitled "Ritual Murder among Jews" repeats
all the old medieval libels against Jews as killers of innocent
Christians.
"When a ritual murder is carried out for [the Jewish feast of] Purim,”
it says, “then the victim is usually a grown-up Christian. “This blood
is then dried and mixed with baking powder to make triangular cakes…. It
is possible to use the dried blood left over from the murder at Purim
for the upcoming Passover festival."
The IHTUS publishing house is a privately-owned company, whose
headquarters are in Zabalj in Vojvodina, the northern province of
Serbia.
Publisher in chief Ratibor Djurdjevic was a member of a right-wing,
pre-Second World War organisation named Dimitrije Ljotic. After
emigrating to the US, Djurdjevic returned to Serbia in 1990.
Djurdjevic expounds his views on the website, claiming his books are
important for Serbs and Christians because they disclose information
about "the powerful, but unrecognised rulers of the world – Jewish
bankers. They are the most important collaborators of Satan in his evil
enterprise against Jesus Christ."
He adds that these unnamed Jewish bankers have brought much evil to the
Serbs, having "started the war against the Serbs; provided assistance to
the disintegrating forces in Yugoslavia; set Bosnia on fire; imposed a
cruel embargo on Serbia and Montenegro; armed the Croats and Muslims...
[and] demonised Serbs all over the world".
The Serbs are an obstacle to the forces of Jewish conquest in the
Balkans, he argues. Djurdjevic's site promises future publications in a
similar vein.
IWPR tried to contact Djurdjevic, using the email and telephone number
listed on his website, but without success.
However, Branislav Jakovljevic, a director of IHTUS, told IWPR that
their books did not accuse all Jews of crimes against Christians, merely
some.
“It is a sin to accuse all Jews,” he said. “Amongst them there are
ordinary people who haven't sinned against God.” The problem begins, he
added, with “the European and American media who are run by Jewish
bankers and who are responsible for creating a bad image of Serbs”.
Anti-Semitism in Serbia is not limited to discussions on
foreign-registered websites and slogans painted anonymously on walls,
however.
It reaches young people through organisations such as Obraz, which
target students and other young people with their hardline nationalist
message.
Obraz, which means “Honour” is a right-wing movement preaching
allegiance to the Serbian Orthodox Church and to Serbdom in general and
encouraging passionate hostility to a list of what it calls enemies of
the nation and the church. Mladen Obradovic, president of Obraz, told
IWPR that Obraz’s core values were love of God and good will to people,
regardless of where they come from. But their website tells a different
story. A mission statement on the site contains a strongly-worded
"Proclamation to the Enemies of Obraz", who are defined as "Zionists,
converts to Islam, Ustashe [Croat fascists], democrats, false pacifists,
perverts, criminals and drug addicts".
The above groups "shall be justly punished, because they should not be
allowed to ruin the health of Serbian youth", the proclamation adds
menacingly.
Obradovic was more nuanced in describing Obraz’s stance on Jews to IWPR.
“Because we are Christians, we cannot and do not want to hide the truth
that many Euro-Atlantic powerful people of Jewish origin have revealed
themselves as open enemies of the Serbian people,” he said.
“Differentiating between enemies and friends cannot be called
anti-Semitism,” he added. According to Obradovic, the only people in
danger in Serbia today were the Serbs themselves.
How far such views reach down to ordinary people is open to question.
According to a survey in 2003 by the Belgrade Centre for Studying
Alternatives, a think-tank specialising in tracking public opinion,
anti-Semitism was more widespread than many once thought.
Nine per cent of respondents openly declared themselves as anti-Semites,
while another 31 per cent said they were undecided, the survey said.
Many people on the street seem confused in their understanding of
history and ready to blame Jews for their country’s recent setbacks.
One taxi driver told IWPR that “Hitler was Jewish and the fact that they
[the Nazis] killed millions of their own people is evidence of how bad
they are”.
He said Jews were responsible for the destruction of Yugoslavia because
“Tito was Jewish”. He added, “The Jews wanted to destroy Yugoslavia for
their own economic interests”.
Another woman interviewed on the street said Jews exaggerated the
dangers of anti-Semitism for their own benefit. “Jews use anti-Semitism
on purpose to gain privileges for themselves,” she said.
According to Belgrade University professor of psychology Zarko
Trebjesanin, anti-Semitism appeals to the many losers in Serbia’s
troubled society.
“Anti-Semites are people who feel unfulfilled, so they often identify
strongly with their own race,” he said. “These people suffer from
inferiority complexes and seek an identity in the collective, embracing
extremist theories in the process.”
Trebjesanin pointed out that many Serbs had died while trying to save
the Jews from the Holocaust, “The Yad Vashem Centre in Jerusalem has
cited 113 names from Serbia among the 19,141 righteous”, a reference to
the people honoured for saving Jews.
While the websites continue churning out their poison, most of Serbia’s
remaining Jews say they feel calm, while calling for the government to
react more firmly.
Aca Singer says the current legal penalties against the dissemination of
hate-filled views are too weak.
"The penal code should include a provision on anti-Semitism as a
criminal offence," he said.
Serbia’s poor economic situation is one factor behind the upsurge of
anti-Semitism, he added.
"Jews have been suspected by many nations throughout history.
Particularly so if you take into account the deeply-rooted belief that
the Jews control global financial and political developments."
Dragana Nikolic-Solomon is IWPR country director for Serbia and
Montenegro. Ljubisa Ivanovic works for the Belgrade daily Politika
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