Behind the Headlines: Bosnians Search for Jewish Roots, a Security Blanket Amidst the War

Ljerka Danon is a sleuth.

As the Sarajevo Jewish community’s designated genealogist, Danon, 63, has since the start of the 17-month-long civil war in the former Yugoslavia spent her days scouring through the record books of the city’s last remaining synagogue, aiding Bosnians in search of their Jewish roots.

Danon, a horticulturist by trade, said her interest in genealogy began when many Bosnians — unsure of their heritage — approached her in hopes of discovering if they were Jewish.

“All of a sudden there was a rush by Bosnians to discover who they were. Were they Serb, Croat, Muslim or Jewish?” she said.

“Before the war, no one cared if you were from one group or another. They all wanted to be Yugoslavs. Now it means everything,” she explained.

Danon said with a half-smile that being Jewish in the midst of the Bosnia conflict is a source of security, as Jews are not expected to serve in either the Serb, Croat or Muslim armies and have not yet been asked to ally themselves with one group or another.

“Yes, we still suffer the same as the other Bosnians,” she said. “We still get shot at, our homes still get bombed, none of us have running water or electricity. But there is no outward anti-Semitism. We are not a direct part of the conflict.”

Danon described Bosnia as a mixing bowl of cultures and religions.

“There are so many people here born of mixed marriages that it is no surprise that so many don’t know who they really are,” she said. “That’s where I come in.”

Danon, whose husband is also Jewish, said she too is the product of a mixed marriage.

“My mother is Jewish and my father is a Croatian Catholic,” she said. “We weren’t brought up in a religious household, so it wasn’t important.”

INTERMARRIAGE SAVED JEWS

Danon said many of Yugoslavia’s once-large Jewish community were saved by mixed marriages during World War II.

“If we wanted to survive as a people in one form or another, we had to intermarry,” she said.

According to Danon, Sarajevo’s Jewish community numbered nearly 1,500 before the civil war, but nine evacuations later it now hovers around 700.

Jewish historians for many years referred to Sarajevo as “Little Jerusalem,” or E1 Chico Jerushalaim, as it was known in Ladino. There are still eight buildings in the old city constructed as synagogues.

“Through my searches I’ve found almost 200 new members” of the Jewish community, Danon said.

Danon said her methods are quite simple, explaining that she got her first lessons in genealogy from another amateur genealogist, a local judge.

“I had no idea how to do this,” she said, thumbing her way through a tattered book chronicling the 19th-century birth records of the city’s Sephardic community.

“It’s all here. All the records of birth, death and marriage. As long as there have been Jews in Sarajevo, someone has written it down in one of these books.”

Danon said an average search takes about a day, with more complex searches taking upward of a week or longer.

“If someone comes to me with all of the papers in order, I can find out if they are Jewish the same day,” she said. “The problem with many people, however, is not whether they are Jewish or not, but how Jewish are they.”

“Most come from families where perhaps their grandmother or grandfather was Jewish,” she continued.

“Then their parents were perhaps in a mixed marriage and they themselves were too. So they come to me wanting to know if their children or their grandchildren are Jewish. That is a very difficult question to answer,” she said.