Biljana Albahari
Narodna biblioteka Srbije, Beograd
albaharibiljana@gmail.com

No. 28 (May 2016), p. 85-108

A Review of Jewish Periodicals in Serbia from 1888 to Word War II

Summary

The Jewish community made a distinctive part of the cultural, economic, artistic and social life of Serbia up until World War II. One of the most important parts of the activities of the Jews in this region was publishing books and periodicals that were thematically covering a variety of areas of their life in Serbia and beyond. So far the Jewish press in Serbia has been treated partially and sporadically, as a part of different projects, but never within special institutions or at the national level. Except for a few extremely important bibliographical sources, magazine articles and book chapters, there are no comprehensive retrospective reviews, and certainly no organized and exhaustive resources that would enable determining and analyzing its impacts on the Jewish community of Serbia or the whole of society in which the Jews lived. The aim of this work is to contribute to a wider insight into this valuable material. It should also contribute to preserving the memory of a significant field of interest of the Jewish community of Serbia, which is an essential part of the Serbian history and society. Before World War II, there were 34.000 Jews on the territory of modern Serbia, out of whom only a few thousand remained after the war. During the short period from the late 19th century to the present day, they have launched and published more than 60 periodicals. These publications have significantly promoted education not only of members of the Jewish community, but also of the Serbian society as a whole. The three publications that were being published during World War II, in a military prison camp Osnabrück in Germany and the Italian concentration camp Sumartin on the island of Brač, are especially valuable.
This review is made according to the territorial-national principle and includes all the Jewish periodicals that have been issued on the territory of Serbia (Kingdom of Serbia, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Kingdom of Yugoslavia). Units are listed in chronological order, from appearance of the first Jewish magazine El Amigo del Pueblo, printed in 1888, until the beginning of World War II. In order to facilitate identification of the publications, since they were published in different languages, some units contain Serbian translation of the titles. The described periodicals were published in Serbo-Croatian, Serbian, Hungarian, German, Ladino and Yiddish. Some of them are multilingual. They were written or printed in Latin, Cyrillic and Hebrew script. Most of the described titles are available, in the Jewish Historical Museum, Matica Srpska Library and the National Library of Serbia. For each title, we gave information about the institution where it could be found. Printed material which has not survived was also recorded. All available resources are specified in notes and footnotes, and the list of relevant literature and sources.
The paper dealt with 46 periodicals. The description of each publication contains its title, subtitle, the first and last publishing years, publisher, editor, place where the magazine was launched, printing house, format, publication frequency, character or orientation of the magazine and other relevant bibliographical notes.
Information contained in this paper could be of benefit to the wider scientific community, researchers, librarians, cataloguers, as well as the Jewish community, in our country and abroad. It could serve as a basis for further collecting this old and valuable material and its research.

Keywords:

periodicals, Serbia, Jews, newspapers, printing, collections, yearbooks, bulletins, retrospective review, bibliographical sources

Submitted: 6th January 2016
Correction to the manuscript: 26th January 2016
Accepted for publication: 7th February 2016.

A Review of Jewish Periodicals in Serbia from 1888 to Word War II by Biljana Albahari is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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