Bosnia: Jewish Community, Sarajevo Mayor Urge Action over Anti-Semitic Graffiti

Via Inside Sarajevo:

Bosnian Jewish Community denounced two recent anti-Semitic incidents and urged the authorities to act.

A prominent member of the Bosnian Jewish Community posted on Facebook photos of anti-Semitic graffiti in two residential buildings in Sarajevo and Tuzla, featuring Nazi swastika and word “Juden”. According to the post, members of the Bosnian Jewish community live in those buildings.

“We have received the news with deep indignation and disappointment, aware that those incidents will not threaten the good neighborly relations that the Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina have built and are building with their fellow citizens of other ethnic and religious groups. We appeal to the authorities to identify and sanction the perpetrators in accordance with the law,” said the Jewish Community.

The Jewish Community said that they have always attached great importance to the absence of anti-Semitic incidents in Bosnia.

Sarajevo mayor also issued a statement, condemning the incidents.

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Bosnia: Anti-Semitic graffiti found on homes of Jewish community members

Via European Jewish Press:

Jewish community leaders in Bosnia have expressed concern after anti-Semitic graffiti were discovered this week in the country’s capital Sarajevo and in Tuzla on homes of community members.

“We received this news with regret and bitterness, aware that these incidents will not violate the good neighbourhood relations that Bosnian Jews have built with their fellow citizens from other ethnic and religious groups,’’ the Jewish community said in a statement issued on Friday.

“We appeal to the competent authorities to identify and punish the perpetrators,” it said, stressing that the country has no recent history of anti-Semitic incidents.

Jews have been equal citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina for more than 450 years and they did not deserve something like this, said the community President Jakob Finci. […]

About 1,000 Jews live in the country, half of them in Sarajevo and the rest in Mostar, Zenica, Tuzla, Doboj and Banja Luka.

Two-thirds of the community left after the outbreak of conflict in the former Yugoslavia (1992-1995), but the tendency toward emigration has slackened. Some 90% of the community is Sephardi. However, only older people still speak Ladino.

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Balkan Jewish conference discusses threat of anti-Zionism

Via Haaretz:

Hundreds of Jews from the Balkan states met recently in Montenegro for a first conference of its kind.

Most said they do not suffer from antisemitism but there were some Jews who disagreed.  One presented a 4th grade schoolbook from the Republika Srpska (Serbian repbulic in Bosnia) which says that the "Jews are a shitty nation and violated the Ten Commandments".  A representative from Macedonia asked "Are we brave enough to deal with the antisemitism, or it's better to stay silent and thereby show our loyalty to our countries?"

All representatives were concerned about the new antisemitism (ie, anti-Zionism), and it was extensively discussed at the conference.

Bosnia: Does Bosnian football have an anti-Semitism problem?

Via Balkanist:

BiH officials often pride themselves as a country with little to no Anti-Semitism polluting its society. These same officials will point out that BiH’s Jewish community originally arrived in Sarajevo in 1565 after being expelled from Spain in 1492 and that they have been able to maintain their traditions and identity for centuries despite living in a majority Muslim country. Jakob Finci, the head of the Jewish community in Bosnia and former ambassador to Switzerland, will often reiterate in international media (and indeed at Balkanist) that ”this country is almost entirely free of anti-Semitism.“ Furthermore there is a popular and mythologized narrative claiming that the Bosnian and Jewish people are two ”brotherly nations” destined to friendship due to their mutual experience of suffering and victimhood.

However, just one quick glance at (social) media discourses quickly makes one question this statement. The portal Prometej.ba i.e. has compiled an insightful and shocking account of everyday anti-Semitism in the BiH media space, which only echoes what can be found on various forums and social media sites. But is this “only” a new kind of ”digital hate speech” perpetuated by the beauty of internet anonymity or is it a manifestation of a growing and real anti-Semitism in BiH?

Take the attacks on popular hip-hop artist Edo Maajka in 2014. Last year, Maajka was attacked in the media over his “failure” to condemn the Israeli attack on Gaza, which resulted in repeated insults via social media. As Maajka was married to a Jewish woman, and lived in Tel Aviv, the insults ranged from despicable personal attacks to the usage of clearly anti-Semitic tropes and patterns. At the time, a commentator in the Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje, pointed out that the reaction was not just an angry response to Israeli policies, but that in Bosnian society, Jews and Judaism had increasingly come to be stigmatized as a hostile alien presence, in BiH and seemingly the world as a whole.

Across the former Yugoslavia there is an ongoing banalisation of anti-Semitism. This is especially visible in the world of sport, through various fan practices, as I have previously argued with regards to the singing of the fascist salute ‘Za dom spremni’ by Croatian fans. A factor in explaining the rise of anti-Semitic incidents and discourses coincides with the rise of religious conservative and Salafist groups in BiH over the past few years. Not to say that they have been the driving forces behind an increasingly radicalized and polarized public discourse in reference to the Middle East in general, and the Israel vs. Palestine conflict in particular, but these groups have certainly played a significant role all the same. Indeed, the fascinating (and disturbing) transformation of the wide-spread narrative/myth of Bosnians as being a ”brotherly nation” with the Jewish people to one of anti-Semitic solidarity with the “Palestinian people”, as is being argued in many anti-Jewish, anti-Israeli, anti-Zionist, and anti-Semitic statements all over the internet, would certainly be worthy of more research.

Furthermore, as much as stadiums should be understood as a public sphere, there are mechanisms and reflexes as to how football “fan tribes” react to (particularly external) criticism. They want to provoke, with the fullest of intentions to shock. Yet the expressions prior, during, and after the game (especially in social media) indicate that the anti-Semitic sentiments were genuine and there was no feeling of wrong-doing. It was in fact, a moral, courageous act, to read these comments, one motivated by enlightened Bosnian “anti-Zionism.”  more

Bosnia: Soccer fans protest ahead of match against Israel

The Times of Israel reports:

Hundreds of Bosnian soccer fans rioted outside a hotel where players of the Israeli National Team were staying ahead of a match against Bosnia in the Euro Cup qualifiers.

Bosnian fans lit flares and threw smoke grenades near the hotel in Zenica, according to a Ynet report. Bosnian police deployed hundreds of officers along the route from the hotel to the stadium ahead of the match, which begins at 9:45 p.m. Israel time (6:45 p.m. GMT). 

A picture posted to Facebook of the protest showed the Bosnian fans stepping on an Israeli flag, and a separate video shows the fans shouting “Palestine” during their march.

Special units from the Israel Police were cooperating with their Bosnian counterparts ahead of the match, dubbed “high risk” by officials.

A security official from the Bosnia-Herzegovina Football Federation, Adis Hajlovats, confirmed to the Turkish Anadolu Agency that Israeli players and administrators would be protected by special police during their time in the country. 

Video: Here.

In April 2015, Bosnian soccer fans waved Palestinian flags and chanted "Kill, kill, the Jews" prior to the Austria-Bosnia friendly in Vienna.

Bosnia: Arrest made in attack on Bosnian Jewish leader

JTA reports:

A man was arrested in connection with the attack on Bosnian Jewish leader Eli Tauber.  Tauber, an adviser on culture and religious affairs for the Jewish Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was attacked by a man wielding a weighted chain at a cafe in central Sarajevo. Many witnessed the attack.   The attack, which was widely reported in the Bosnian media, occurred on March 21 while journalists from National Geographic magazine were interviewing Tauber about the status of Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

No motive has been determined, but the attack has received high-profile coverage by the local media. Some fear that Tauber, who recently established a foundation to promote Jewish culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina. was attacked because he is a prominent member of the Jewish community.  “If he was attacked because he is Jewish and because as such he is present in our media, just because he is doing his job, then it would be a very bad sign both for Sarajevo and for Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Jakob Finci, president of the Jewish Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told dalje.com.  Finci said it was the first such attack on a Jewish person in Sarajevo in 70 years.

Tauber said the attacker, identified as Ahmet Focak, intended to kill him. Focak was arrested two days after the attack. 

Also: Bosnian football fans wave Palestinian flags, chant "Kill, kill, the Jews" in Vienna

Bosnia: Football fans wave Palestinian flags, chant "Kill, kill, the Jews"

Via Sporting Balkans.

Bosnia fans waved Palestinian flags and chanted "Kill, kill, the Jews" prior to the Austria-Bosnia friendly in Vienna yesterday.

Bosnia: Jewish leader attacked in Sarajevo

Watch Antisemitism Europe reports:

On Saturday night the counselor for culture and religion of the Jewish community in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Eli Tauber, was physically attacked and suffered a serious head injury in ‪Sarajevo‬. The attacker got arrested by the police.







See also: Palestinians say attacks on Jews serve the Zionists

Bosnia: Palestinians say attacks on Jews serve the Zionists

A few days ago a senior official in the Jewish community was attacked in Sarajevo. Though the motive for the attack is unclear, various organizations condemned it with the assumption that it's antisemitic.

What I found interesting was the Palestinian community's response.  Who serves to profit from an attack on Jews?  Those evil Zionists, of course.  

After condemning the attack the Palestinian community adds that this terrorist act serves the policies of Netanyahu and the Zionist propaganda, which aims to strike fear into the hearts of European Jews so they would leave Europe and go to Occupied Palestine.

Please note that the Palestinian community does not recognize the two state solution.  They believe that Israel should be wiped out and that Jews have no right to their ancestral homeland.

Bosnia: Fans in EuroBasket game hold up Israeli flag with swastika

Erez Gurion, an Israeli judge in a EuroBasket game (Bosnia and Herzegovina vs. Island) was greeted by fans holding an Israeli flag with a swastika.

The fans also demanded that a Palestinian flag be hung next to the Israeli one, but later agreed to hold it separately. (clip here)

More: YNet

Bosnia fans shout "Jews go home" at Rio fan festival

CNN journalist Harry Reekie reports: Group of Bosnia fans outside Rio fan festival chant 'Jews go home' to man carrying Israel flag.

Group of Bosnia fans outside Rio fan festival chant 'Jews go home' to man carrying Israel flag. Racism alive and well it seems. #CNNWorldCup
— Harry Reekie (@HarryCNN) June 12, 2014