Life of the Jewish Community in the Serbian City of Šabac

This article examines the brief history of a Jewish community in an important but provincial city in Serbia—Šabac. In order to accomplish that task, the author consulted a variety of archival materials, collected the last surviving oral traditions, and conducted fieldwork. It is the author’s hope that this article will provide insight into the lives of the Jewish citizens of Šabac as well as provide materials to compare these lives with the lives of individuals from Jewish communities in other provincial Serbian towns.

The city of Šabac is located on the right bank of the Sava river, about 80 kilometers due west of Belgrade. Until the end of World War I, it rested on the border of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, and was thus conducive to commercial trade. Economic prosperity benefited individuals, families, and the town in which they lived. In the Šabac community people of various faiths—Orthodox Serbs, Muslims, Catholics, and Jews—coexisted. The members of the Jewish community followed either Sephardic or Ashkenazi rites. Because of its favorable geographic location, the city strongly attracted Jewish people. However, not all the Šabac Jews lived in one specific area of the city, in a sort of a ghetto. They did not have their own section, a mahala, like Belgrade’s Jalija and Fišeklija, but rather their households were concentrated around the center of the town. They lived and worked mainly along a few streets: Artiljerijska (Vlade Jovanovića), Pocerska (Masarikova), Pop’Lukina and Beogradska (Karađorđeva). They were totally immersed in the Šabac milieu. They wrote in the Cyrillic alphabet and spoke Serbian, and only the eldest used Judeo-Spanish.

They maintained neighborly relationships and, over the fence, gave to one another warm and sweet-smelling cakes, pancakes, and dumplings with plums. On long winter nights, young men and women sang nostalgic songs about Spain and Palestine, and the beloved Sephardic love song Adio, kerida. Young Jewish children played in the gardens, sat on the house steps during their school breaks, and washed their sticky fingers and mouths at the water-well pump in the yard or in front of the house. During the afternoon, they continued to play in the streets.¹

During festivities and funerals, feelings of joy and sadness were shared by the entire community. The people gathered around the synagogue, preserving the ancient customs from their old country. They read to the children from the Hagada (Haggadah), a book with stories about traditions. It was believed that peace was preserved by the mezuza, containing a parchment scroll of the Torah, which was attached on the right side of the entrance door frame. On another door post, they put small metal plaques with a most holy prayer addressed to the God of Israel. Shabbat candlesticks were displayed inside the house of worship in readiness for the Sabbath.

The birth of a boy was greeted with the exclamation “Basmian tov” (“to a good sign”) because, after the parents died, there would be somebody to say Kadish—the ancient prayer of lament—in Aramaic. To a person born on Lag Baomer and Purim they gave the name Šimon, Mordehaj, or Menahem. The arrival of daughters was greeted modestly, but the girls were given aristocratic names: Sultana, Rejna, Dona, Regina, Malka.² The first-born boy would be given the name of the paternal grandfather with an addition of Buhor, Buki, or Bukich. On that occasion, it was also obligatory to buy something to avoid bad spells. The first-born daughter would also be known as Buhora, Bukica, or Bohoreta in addition to her other given name, that of the father’s mother. The second born child would carry the name of the mother’s parents, and all subsequent children would be given Biblical names. If a child survived a serious illness, the name Živko (from živeti, ‘to live’ in Serbian) would be added to their birth name. The Ashkenazi would name the first-born child after the maternal grandfather only if the grandfather was deceased, so that the baby would thus replace the deceased ancestor...