Crkveno-śkolska everejska opśtina, Beograd Jewish Synagogue and school community in Belgrade Jüdische Synagogen-Ausbildung, Gemeinde Belgrad (Fond 1429)

The legal status of the Jewish community of Belgrade was formalized by an official charter in 1866. Its first president was Jahiel Ruso, and its rabbi during the period 1886-1894 was a famous Berlin scholar Simon Bernfeld. Ashkenazi Jews, whose religious autonomy was recognized by the Serbian government, established their own community in 1892. In 1939, there were 10,388 Jews in Belgrade, 8,500 were Sephardim; 1888 were Ashkenazi. Jewish membership in religious community was required by law. The Sephardic community’s primary mission consisted of religious meetings, educational, social and cultural activities for its members. Both communities were liquidated after the Nazi occupation in April 1941. After the war, the Jewish community was reconstituted. The Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia, formed in the aftermath of World War II to coordinate the Jewish communities of post-war Yugoslavia, also lobbied for the right of Jews to immigrate to Israel. More than half of Yugoslav survivors settled in Israel after World War II.

Rossiĭskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennyĭ arkhiv

Forms part of the Claims Conference International Holocaust Documentation Archive at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This archive consists of documentation whose reproduction and/or acquisition was made possible with funding from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

Source of acquisition is the Russian State Military Archive (Rossiĭskiĭ gosudarstvennyĭ voennyĭ arkhiv), Osobyi Archive, Fond 1429. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives received the filmed collection via the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum International Archival Programs Division in 2009.