Kosovo’s Tiny Jewish Community Aims To Punch Above Its Size

Yoel Kaplan is a Chabad rabbi who has been emissary to Kosovo since 2011. He also serves neighboring Albania and Greece. Kosovo’s Jewish community is “very warm and receptive,” he told JNS. Kaplan was assisted by the late Yisroel Finman, a rabbi who immigrated to Albania, in keeping the Jewish presence in the area running.

Ottoman censuses document a Jewish home in the area—in the city of Vučitrn—at least as far back as 1455. A large group of Sephardic Jews, who had been expelled from Spain and Portugal in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, arrived in Kosovo, and Jewish life has thrived since, albeit in small numbers of late.

Kosovo became an annexed part of the Italian protectorate of Albania (1939-43) during World War II, and some 200 of 500 Kosovo Jews were murdered in the Holocaust. The Italians turned those Jews over to the Nazis. Some died in the Germans’ Sajmište concentration camp in Yugoslavia, and others perished in Bergen-Belsen in northern Germany. Three Holocaust survivors from Kosovo are still alive today.

Kosovo’s Jewish community is adamant that Muslim Kosovars aided and hid Jews in this darkest hour. They cite continued good relationships between Kosovo’s Jewish and Muslim populations, as in Albania. Historically, Kosovo’s Jews spoke Ladino, but in recent years, they have switched to Albanian.

Under communism, Jewish life deteriorated in Yugoslavia. Pristina’s two synagogues were forced to close. The other cities aren’t known to have had shuls. A Holocaust memorial now stands where a synagogue once did. Many historic buildings in Pristina’s old city bazaar, once home to vibrant Jewish life, were razed.

The 1998-99 Kosovo War was a difficult time for the country and its Jews, and it triggered mass emigration. When the U.S.-led NATO mission went to war with Yugoslavia, the conflict ended, with the latter forced to withdraw from Kosovo in 1999.

In light of U.S. assistance in its struggle for independence, Kosovo is a very pro-America country. The capital features a statue of former President Bill Clinton and a street named for former President George W. Bush. Residents and tourists can see Fourth of July and Presidents’ Day parades in Kosovo. The U.N. still does not recognize Kosovo, however.