Sarajevo’s Jewish Community // The Inevitable Degradation of Chemistry
The colourful interior of Sarajevo’s Ashkenazi Synagogue // © Christophe Cappelli // Shutterstock.com
Much like Sarajevo, the story began in the Baščaršija. Well, it actually started in Spain, but stick with me for a moment, we'll get there in the end. In fact, the story should really start with the ghastly green and yellow facade of Papagaj, routinely voted ‘Sarajevo’s Ugliest Building’. That seems harsh, beauty being in the eye of the beholder and all that, but this one pushes that theory to the limits.
If I’m being entirely honest, I have a soft spot for it. That could be sympathetic, but how can one let something be universally disliked and stand idly by? Stick up for the little guys, come on. Truth be told, Papagaj is the modern-day Inat Kuća. Not moved to its position out of stubbornness, but staying exactly where it is whether you like it or not.
Papagaj takes all the attention here, allowing the grandiose Ashkenazi Synagogue to go about its business in relative secrecy. When you first notice the synagogue, it seems unreal that it could ever pass as anything remotely secret. Its Pseudo-Moorish stylings are impossible to ignore once you see them. Old photographs have the synagogue standing out even more dramatically, although I suppose there wasn’t a large yellow and green block standing next to it until the 1980s.
The Ashkenazi Synagogue and Papagaj, side by side // © John Bills
But no, I’m getting ahead of myself, the story of Sarajevo’s Jewish community doesn’t begin with the Ashkenazi Synagogue. It begins in the middle of the 16th century. Depressingly, it begins with persecution. Actually, scratch that, go back a little further, to the end of the 15th century and the wretched Alhambra Decree.
Searching for the beginning is futile, so we might as well just ink in March 31, 1492, as our start date. That comes with a caveat of 800 years (give or take) of Muslim rule in Spain, but we haven’t got all day. King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castille had conquered Granada, ending centuries of Islamic hold in the south of what is now Spain, and they weren’t about to extend an olive branch to the Jewish community. Quite the opposite; the entire community had until the end of July to get out or face the consequences.
The consequences in question came in the form of the Spanish Inquisition, an inquisition so notorious that it comes with capitalisation. Unsurprisingly, the Jews were quick to move, but finding safe land was practically impossible. Many paid for safe passage across the sea but were thrown overboard once payment had been made. Most neighbouring nations proved equally intolerant.
And this is where the Ottoman Empire comes in. Sultan Bayezid II was all too happy to welcome the Jews, famously pondering that calling King Ferdinand II intelligent was impossible if he was choosing to impoverish his country and enrich Bayezid’s in this way. The Jews were welcomed, given refuge from humiliation and persecution. It didn’t happen overnight, but the 16th century saw the first Jews settle in Sarajevo. The first document issued by the court in Sarajevo mentioning the community dates back to 1557.
The Old Temple in the heart of Sarajevo. Note the circumcision chair to the left // © MehmetO // Shutterstock.com
Sarajevo’s Jewish community didn’t start with the beautiful Ashkenazi Synagogue on Hamdije Kreševljakovića (named after a historian, for the record). It started with what is now called the Old Temple, today housing the Jewish Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was a bitterly cold day when we visited, but any pretence that walls and a ceiling would provide refuge from the chill was abandoned once we walked inside. If anything, it was colder inside than out.
Spread over three floors in the modern age, the Old Temple was built at the end of the 16th century and acted as a community all-in-one for Sarajevo’s growing Jewish community. There was nothing ostentatious about its design, and neither should there have been. Faith blossoms in the inner workings of the individual, not in flamboyant displays of aesthetics, and the same is ostensibly true of houses of worship. Don’t judge churches, synagogues, mosques and the rest from the outside. Don’t judge them at all.
I’m only human, I've come to accept that, so the sight of a circumcision chair created immediate judgments in my mind. The old circumcision knife only increased such thoughts. I’m not in a position to put together a credible opinion on the subject of the foreskin (although, being a male, I should have learnt something about it by now?), but the mere mention of the process is enough to induce crossed legs and feelings of discomfort. The knife was thankfully cased away in an exhibit next to a registrar detailing the circumcisions that had taken place at the beginning of the 20th century. Much like the proverbial car crash, it was difficult to look away.
Isak Samokovlija // © John Bills
The second floor celebrated the development of the Jewish community in Sarajevo, from establishing the first newspapers and societies to portraits of individuals who had left their indelible marks on history. There was Laura Papo Boherto, the writer and feminist who did more than most to change the portrayal of Sephardic women in public discourse. There was Isak Samokovlija, the writer and physician who put together magical stories of a small community doing its best to get by, and the illustrations of Olovo-born Daniel Ozmo, the painter who made a name for himself in artistic circles before being executed with thousands of others at Jasenovac Concentration Camp.
Thus, the Holocaust. What is there left to say about the Holocaust? The whole thing obliterates the limits of human imagination, massacres, and murder on a simply unfathomable scale. No matter how often you read stories, see photographs or listen to testimonies, it is objectively impossible to truly comprehend. The third floor of the Old Temple was given over to this insane slaughter of an entire people, a slaughter that decimated Sarajevo’s Jewish Community.
Of course, there was hope in it all, as the long list of individuals who risked their own lives to save others attested. 49 people who defied the natural instinct for survival because that same instinct had been removed from the agency of others. Incredible stories, one and all, but the very fact that they had to exist in the first place is difficult to look past. The collective insanity of the Holocaust is something that renders everything else superfluous.
We moved from the Old Temple slowly towards the Ashkenazi Synagogue, Sarajevo’s functioning synagogue in the modern day. The interior was stunning, a grand celebration of art and function that had me craning my neck in the hope of getting it all in view, a futile task but one that I’d do all over again. The colours have faded, but these are colours that retain a glow despite the unavoidable fading of time and the inevitable degradation of chemistry, patterns that retain a vitality because of what they represent, less so because of the subjective aesthetics. Green was the dominant colour, but uasing the term ‘dominant’ is entirely pointless. Humanity isn’t a colour, after all.
Sarajevo’s Jewish Cemetery // © Omri Eliyahu // Shutterstock.com
Our tour ended at the National Museum (after a brief stop at the Jewish Cemetery), but a slight miscommunication meant we didn't see the famous Sarajevo Haggadah. I wasn’t bothered in the slightest, convinced as I am that history and story are more important than anything that my four eyes can experience, but still. Besides, the Haggadah deserves its own attention, which will come in time.
Fewer than 1,000 Jews live in Bosnia and Herzegovina today. Where was I going with all of this? Truth be told, the intensity of the Holocaust knocked me off course. How could it not? It obliterated Judaism in Europe, and BiH didn’t avoid the carnage. What started all those centuries ago as a place of refuge for Jews eventually became another in the long list of crimes against a maligned people. Papagaj takes the attention away from the Ashkenazi Synagogue, and I don’t know how I feel about that.
