Croatia Part 2 - June 2012

We had a great night's sleep...well deserved. 

Up at 7:25 AM for Shacharit minyan in one of the Hotel's conference rooms. Then we went to the dining room for breakfast. In addition to the permissible foods from the regular buffet....orange juice, tea, coffee and some of the cereals, our guide had brought along frying pans and went into the kitchen to fry us omelettes for breakfast....quite good. We all made lunches, (tuna, peanut butter and jam and egg sandwiches, plus fruits etc) and then boarded the bus for local touring.

We visited the UNESCO protected sites of the island town of Trogir and the Old City of Split. Both are reminiscent of the Old City of Jerusalem (l'havdil) in terms of the narrow alleyways and their thousand plus year old  walls of the cities.

Split which is now a city of more that 200,000 people (second largest city in Croatia) has an old palace from the third century that is mostly intact which was built as a summer palace and final resting home (after retirement) for the Roman Emperor Dioceles. Located within the palace are some indications (menorot scratched into the walls etc) that there was a shul and a Jewish presence within the ancient walled city. This indicates that there was an ancient Jewish community here.

There is a much more recent shul that is in the Old City and which has been restored into working order by the Jewish community of Split. We visited the shul and were greeted by the vice president who spoke to us about the ghetto that was in the city and how the community was decimated by the Germans in the Holocaust. He then told us how they had rebuilt the shul in the 1990's and the shul is used sparingly because most of the community is irreligious. They do get together every Friday night for Shabbat dinner; however, there is no religious component to their gatherings. The only time the shul is used for anything religious is when groups like ours come by. So we davened mincha there.

We then walked to the top of one of the hills surrounding the city and visited the ancient Jewish cemetary which has graves from the 1600's. The building which once served as the morgue is now a bar with a beautiful patio that has this amazing vista of the city. The building still has a sign "Tzadok Hadin" etched into the wall above the door to the bar.

We then had a bit of free time to roam around the ancient city and pedestrian shopping streets before returning to the hotel. We had a few hours of rest time (which is why I have the chance to post this update now) and soon we will daven Maariv and have dinner.

Hope to post some more tomorrow....

Hope all are well

All the best

Fran and David