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ABSTRACT
The Federation of Jewish Youth Associations of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (SŽOU-KSHS) was founded in 1919, and it encompassed a series of Jewish youth associations in Yugoslavia and abroad. Very Zionist in its outlook from the start, its aim was to recruit the future halutzim (pioneers) from the ranks of the Yugoslav Jews. This paper will examine the history of the Federation, especially through its official journal Gideon, and through other Jewish press articles of the same period. It will focus not only on the promotion of a new ‘Jewish mentality’, but also on the construction of new gender relations and of a new Jewish identity as a whole. Finally, though this paper will not give an account of all affiliated associations, it will attempt to focus on the most important moments of some of them.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The last Yugoslav inter-war census was in 1931, where 68,405 individuals identified themselves as Jews, out of a total population of 14.5 million. Freidenreich, Jews of Yugoslavia, 218.
2. Freidenreich, Jews of Yugoslavia, 40.
3. For a more recent account on the topic, see Dogo and Catalan, The Jews and the Nation-States. Neologues, or Reform Jews, generally believe in the legitimacy of religious change and in the possibility of adopting Jewish practice to the needs of the present and, to a certain extent, to integration within the surrounding society. On the other hand, the Orthodox Jews believe in maintaining strict observance of religious practices. Both of these movements emerged in the German lands in the nineteenth century, as a result of legal emancipation, and spread among the Ashkenazim. The Sephardim, especially those living in the Ottoman Empire, remained largely unaffected by both movements.
4. See Freidenreich, Jews of Yugoslavia, 155.
5. “Statut Saveza,” 33.
6. “Nakon sleta,” 133.
7. “Senta,” 5.
8. “Skupština,” 5.
9. “Žid. oml. Društvo,” 184.
10. Simon bar Giora was a Jewish rebel leader during the First Roman-Jewish War, in the first century AD.
11. Lebl, Da se ne zaboravi, 185; and Blam, Jevrejska Kulturno-Umetnička Društva, 11.
12. Blam, Jevrejska Kulturno-Umetnička Društva, 21.
13. “Radni program,” 5–6.
14. Barmeo and Nord, Civil Society.
15. Crampton, Eastern Europe, 13, 18; and Žutić, Sokoli, I.
16. Banac, The National Question, 153–69, 226–31.
17. Goldstein, Židovi u Zagrebu 59, 60, 89–90, 321–3.
18. Koljanin, Jevreji i antisemitizam.
19. Djokić, Yugoslavism, 137–56; and Lampe, Yugoslavia, 164–8.
20. Goldstein, Židovi u Zagrebu, 318.
21. An old currency in Palestine, the meaning is derived from a Sumerian measure of weight. After the 1897 Basel Congress, it was designed to be an annual tax for the ZO/WZO.
22. Goldstein, Židovi u Zagrebu, 340.
23. Zahra, “Imagined Noncommunities,” 93–119.
24. Lichtenstein, Zionists in Interwar Czechoslovakia, 1–28.
25. The latter is probably true for the Hashomer Hatzair. In his memoir Life in Dark Ages, Ernst Pawel states that during his stay in Belgrade in the 1930s, he and his comrades used the local Hashomer Hatzair cell as a cover organization for a Jewish section of the illegal Yugoslav Communist Party. Ernst Pawel, Life, 53. This, however, remained seemingly unnoticed by the Yugoslav police even in the face of thorough investigation; see Goldstein, Židovi u Zagrebu. 351.
26. ‘The Land of Israel’, a Biblical term frequently used in the source material; here it is used both for its symbolic value for the Zionists, and for its still undetermined territorial limits.
27. Ohana, Modernism and Zionism, 7; and Goldstein, Židovi u Zagrebu, 103.
28. In the source material ‘hebraizacija’, here rendered as hebraization, refers to the spread and teaching of the Hebrew language by the Jews.
29. “Radni program,” 6.
30. Ibid., 6.
31. Ibid., 6; and “Statut saveza,” 33.
32. Licht, “Poruka omladincima,” 102–3.
33. See note 29 above.
34. Tolnauer, “Osvrt na savjezno vjeće,” 12.
35. A Jewish military leader in the Bible.
36. On the figure of Erich/Cvi Rothmüller/Rotem see: Goldstein, Židovi u Zagrebu, 373–6; and Loker, “Cvi Rotem,” 477.
37. Rothmüller “O omladini i o sletu,” 153.
38. The most-up-to-date work that includes news on the restitution process and an inventory of this source material is Mihailović, “Arhivska građa,” 71–91.
39. This criticism of the rank and file was not necessarily a generational question, but more a divergence between the leadership and ordinary members. It is true that Cvi Rothmüller and Miroslav Shlomo Freiburger, members of the “Zadruga”, were both born in 1903, whereas Albert Weiss, the chief exponent of “galutism” was born in 1905, (for definitions of both “Zadruga” and “Galutism” see below); however, the author does not feel that this age difference could be interpreted as a generational difference. The perceived generational gap observable in the sources was with older Zionists such as Aleksandar Licht (1884–1948) Lavoslav Šik (1881–1942) or David Albala (1886–1942).
40. Tolnauer, “Poslije sarajevkog sleta,” 185–7.
41. Engelmann “Jevreji u Osijeku,” 294.
42. Steiner, “O kulturnom radu,” 109–16.
43. Singer “Tajnički izvještaj,” 195.
44. Altmann, “Tajnički izvještaj,” 108.
45. Licht “Poruka omladincima,” 102; Freiberger “Naša zadaća,” 273–8; and Avni “Fanatici ideje,” 75–6.
46. Salomon J. Alkalaj (1878–1929) was a medical doctor and participated in the 1912–18 wars. He was active in the World Sephardi Federation and in the Zionist movement, and also in the War Veterans’ Association.
47. Alkalaj, “Sefardska omladina,” 2.
48. De Majo, “Iz Jugoslavije,” 4.
49. Singer, “Popust na železnici za učesnike sleta,” 144; “Popust na železnici,” 24; and D.A. “Beogradsko pismo,” 10.
50. “Statut Saveza,”34.
51. For a more recent account on the topic see Dogo and Catalan, The Jews and the Nation-States.
52. Tolnauer, “Poslije sarajevkog sleta,” 185; and Rothmüller, “Trećemu sletu,” 272.
53. “Here I must state a disturbing fact, that many youngsters, who have come to the slet, didn’t actually attend the conference itself. It is true that some were busy with gymnastic exercises, but many didn’t come, with the only excuse that they are not interested in the conference. Enough with the words, we must act – this is a nice saying but one must not forget that actions (even those at the slet and all the practical results) are born from words”, Tolnauer, “Poslije sarajevkog sleta,” 186.
54. “Seksualna etika i omladina,”; and Goslar, Die Sexualethik der jüdischen Wiedergeburt.
55. Rothmüller, “Ideologijski i stvarni rezultati sleta,” 4.
56. Gross, “Dva omladinska dana u Osijeku,” 3.
57. Romano, “Omladinski zapisci,” 259–61.
58. Today Hit’ahdut HaTzofim VeHaTzofot BeYisrael is the Israel Boy and Girl Scouts Federation, and scouting was the main activity of the Yugoslav tzofim as well. Literally, Ahdut HaTzofim, could be translated as “Watchmen’s Union.”
59. Freiberger, “Ahdut Hacofim,” 5.
60. Yugoslav Zionists, and especially the Youth Zionists were very open towards socialist ideas. Thus, the Israel they imagined would not have been a purely capitalist/bourgeois state and thus the indication of a “Jevrejska radna Palestina” here translated as “Hebrew labour Palestine.”
61. “Omladinski izvještaji za Savezno Vijeće,” 7.
62. Romano, “Dojmovi sa sleta,” 3.
63. Gross, “Bilješka,” 6.
64. Rafailović, “Albert Vajs,” 50–1.
65. Weiss, “Katastrofa omladinskog pokreta,” 5–6, 6, 4–5.
66. Galut – Hebrew: Exile [B.M.]
67. Weiss, “Katastrofa omladinskog pokreta,” 5.
68. Židov, 54, X, 6–8; and 2, XI, 4–5.
69. See note 2 above, 148.
70. “Izvješće,” 7.
71. Rothmüller, “Ideologijski i stvarni rezultati sleta,” 5.
72. Rothmüller, “Iz vodstva,” 5.
73. Kamhi, “Iz vodstva,” 7.
74. Radni Odbor SŽOU, “Vjesnik SŽOU,” 5.
75. See note 22 above, 234.
76. See note 61 above, 7.
77. “Vjesnik SŽOU. Referati Saveznome vijeću,” 6.
78. Wertheim, “Rad i stanje,” 160–1.
79. By 1937, however, even Hanoar had ceased to exist due to the lack of funding. Goldstein, Židovi u Zagrebu, 231.
80. See note 2 above, 166.
81. See note 22 above, 347.