Der Verlust des „Yerusalayim chico“. Auf den Spuren der sephardischen Jevreji in Sarajevo

Abstract

When the Sephardic Jews were forced to abandon their homes due to the Alhambra Decree in 1492, they started scattering in different regions all over the world, looking for new places to offer them shelter and peace, a ‘Sefarad II’. Sarajevo, the capital of today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina, represented a significant centre, in which the Sephardim soon began to establish an active community. The motivation for this illustrated essay emanates from a personal ‘discovery’ commencing atop the hill Trebević, which is home to the second eldest Jewish cemetery in Europe both bearing witness of  the 1425 days lasting Siege of Sarajevo as well as the history and fate of the djidió (which is how the Sephardic Jews call themselves in ‘Bosnian’). After more than five centuries of rootage in the Balkans, the current situation in Sarajevo could be described as characterised by a loss of ethnical and cultural diversity with the typical features of the Sephardim gradually fading away.