Dear All:
On Friday, we had a driving tour of Zagreb and saw some of its main attractions/buildings etc. from our tourbus. We then headed out to the "Jewish" cemetary. It was the most bizarre Jewish cemetary that we had ever seen. There were Jewish and Christian graves interspersed, there were family burial plots with Jewish and Christian members buried together with both a magen David and a cross together on the matzeiva and then there were persons who had a magen david beside their "born date" and a cross beside their "death date" indicating that the person had converted during his/her life.
When we discussed this with the Rav of the community on Shabbat, he explained that there had not been a rav in Croatia for close to 60 years, from the beginning of WWII until he arrived in 1998. And therefore during the communist rule when there was rampant assimmilation and no rabbinic leadership in place, things were tremendously hefker. He also explained that under communist rule everything was nationalized and run by the state. They established a bylaw which said that if a grave is not maintained by family members, then they lose their right to it. Not maintained by definition was that no one tended to it, there were no flowers and no visits. The body could then be disinterred and transferred to a public site and sold again to someone else. And since there were few Jews left after the war, many Jewish graves (with Jewish headstones in place) were resold to christians. Absolutely amazing. The rav is trying now to change the bylaws.
When we discussed this with the Rav of the community on Shabbat, he explained that there had not been a rav in Croatia for close to 60 years, from the beginning of WWII until he arrived in 1998. And therefore during the communist rule when there was rampant assimmilation and no rabbinic leadership in place, things were tremendously hefker. He also explained that under communist rule everything was nationalized and run by the state. They established a bylaw which said that if a grave is not maintained by family members, then they lose their right to it. Not maintained by definition was that no one tended to it, there were no flowers and no visits. The body could then be disinterred and transferred to a public site and sold again to someone else. And since there were few Jews left after the war, many Jewish graves (with Jewish headstones in place) were resold to christians. Absolutely amazing. The rav is trying now to change the bylaws.
From there, we drove about an hour to the site of the largest Nazi death camp in Yugoslavia (called Jasenovac) where most of the Zagreb community were murdered. There is a large monument in place. There are none of the original buildings left in place. We spoke a bit about the history of the place, we davened, made a keil moleh and kaddish and sang ani maamin and hatikvah. Quite a moving visit.
We were back in town at 4 PM and had some time to roam around the downtown area before getting ready for Shabbos.
There were numerous issues with the hotel re Shabbat (electronic keys, sensors that would shut air conditioning and lights on and off, automated doors etc. We discussed all of these and found solutions that helped us enjoy shabbat with no chilul shabbat.
Friday night before candle lighting, our bus dropped us off at the shul which is on the thrid floor of an apartment building. The building belonged to a Jewish family before WWII and the actual apartment was the home of a well to do jewish family. They had since repatriated the apartment and were letting the shul use it as the community centre for the city's jewish population.
Besides our group of 39, perhaps 10-15 locals (men and women) showed up for minyan. Mincha was at about 8:30 PM. The rav davened kabbalat Shabbat (sefaradic, quite nicely) and then we had a very nice seudah with divrei torah, zemiros, and a very warm atmosphere. We were back in the hotel by 11 PM.
Davening in the morning began at 9 AM. There were a few more locals this morning and two other Israeli touring couples.
After davening the Rav, Rabbi Dr. Kotel Da-Don (originally from Netivot, Israel) gave a very nice dvar torah and took questions from our group. There are about 1500 jews in Zagreb. He began coming as a student to lead services for RH and YK in 1993. In 1998, after he had received semicha (Yeshivat Hakotel) and his law degree, he agreed to move with his wife to assume the role of Chief Rabbi for one year. The one year has now become 14 years. He and the rebbitzin have 4 kids and they have established kashrut and a day school. There is also a chabad rav here (originally from Montreal) and they have established a kindergaten that feeds the main school. Quite remarkable achievements under very difficult circumstances.
We had a good rest in the afternoon and we returned to the shul for mincha, seudah shlishit, maariv and havdalah.
We had a good rest in the afternoon and we returned to the shul for mincha, seudah shlishit, maariv and havdalah.
Tomorrow we are off to Slovenia.
Hope all are well...
Shavua tov and all the best
Fran and David
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