Event today: Balkan Jews: Hidden History

When: Wed 11 Dec 2024,  5 pm

Join Zoom Meeting : https://universityofleeds.zoom.us/j/86003390212?pwd=O48YGx03trpwbbSbaZedCbmSNrjj9B.1  

Meeting ID: 860 0339 0212 

Passcode: 2r.SPE 

Until the beginning of the 21st century, scholars, Jewish community leaders from other countries and the general public believed that Jews had never lived in Montenegro, the smallest and least populous republic of former Yugoslavia, a mountainous land on the southeastern shore of the Adriatic sea. However, several years after Montenegro's declaration of independence in 2006, the Jewish Community of Montenegro was founded and Judaism recognized as the fourth traditional confession of the new state. There are several hundred Jews living in the country today, organized in two communities, and they are very active and publicly visible. Jewish places of memory and Jewish infrastructure, including synagogues and kosher catering, now also attract visitors from abroad. This seemingly sudden and surprising appearance of Jews in a country where no organized Jewish community had previously existed will be the subject of the 2024 Selig Brodetsky Memorial Lecture.

Dr František Šístek is assistant professor at the Institute of International Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University in Prague, and research fellow at the Institute of History, Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. He focusses on the history of former Yugoslavia (especially Montenegro), nationalism and modernization, images and stereotypes of the Balkans, competing interpretations of the past in Southeastern and Central Europe, cultural history and contemporary Balkan culture.