Help Needed To Build Montenegro Synagogue
Two Jewish organizational leaders asked Montenegro’s president to help the Balkan country’s small Jewish community build a synagogue.
The issue was raised last week during a visit to Montenegro by Vadim Rabinovich and Joel Rubinfeld, both chairmen of the recently established European Jewish Parliament. Montenegro, an area of the former Yugoslavia that became independent in 2006 and has about 660,000 residents, has a Jewish population of a few dozen, according to the EJP. A 2007 Montenegrin statistical study of the country’s population found 12 Jews.
Rubinfeld and Rabinovich met with President Flip Vujanovic, Foreign Minister Nebojsa Kaluderovic and other politicians. Local politicians from Montenegro’s capital, Podgorica, reportedly support the Jewish community’s wishes to build a synagogue and a Jewish community center.
The Montenegrin politicians asked for support for the country’s efforts to qualify to enter the European Union, according to EJP.
Earlier this year, the country’s prime minister, Igot Luksic, signed a statement recognizing Judaism as Montenegro’s fourth official religion.
According to the European Jewish Congress, “there is no public manifestation of anti-Semitism” in Montenegro and the Holocaust was “not carried out in an organized way” in Montenegro before the end of 1943, when the Germans conquered the area.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
