ROME — As they joined the rest of the nation in anxiously awaiting the definitive outcome of Sunday’s presidential election, Yugoslavia’s 3,000 Jews knew that this Rosh Hashanah could open up a new world — not just a new year.
“We are all now, together with the whole country, expecting changes, after 10 long years of suffering and fear,” said one Jewish activist.
Opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica claimed victory in Sunday’s poll, and Jews were among the tens of thousands of his jubilant supporters who later celebrated in Belgrade’s streets.
Although Kostunica finished first in the election, the state said he had not crossed the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff with incumbent President Slobodan Milosevic, whose brutal nationalistic policies have isolated and economically ruined Yugoslavia in the past decade.
With Kostunica’s 48.22 percent of the vote to 40.23 for Milosevic, the opposition claims Kostunica won outright and accused the indicted war criminal of fraudulent tallying. Kostunica has refused to join the Oct. 8 runoff. Milosevic has conceded his defeat, but he refuses to step down from power.
“There is no specific Jewish issue in this mess, if you don’t count a graffiti I saw on a wall the other day: ‘Kostunica, son of a Jewish woman’ — probably meant as an insult,” said Brane Popovic, a former president of the Belgrade Jewish community who is a longtime supporter of the opposition.
Although in recent years Yugoslav Jewish leaders were able to attend international Jewish meetings, they often felt isolated from the world Jewish community — particularly during last year’s NATO bombing of Yugoslavia.
Yugoslav Jews attending the General Assembly of the European Council of Jewish Communities held in Nice, France, in May 1999 said they felt as if they were double victims — of NATO and of Milosevic.
Dire economic conditions hit the largely elderly Jewish community hard, making social welfare integral to community activities, namely, operating soup kitchens.
“Most of our young members left Yugoslavia, and we believe that even if there will be changes for the better they won’t return,” said Mira Poljakovic, leader of the International Council of Jewish Women’s chapter in the Yugoslav city of Subotica.
“So our High Holy Days are sad ones,” she said, noting the “elderly people who are sad because they are alone, without their families.
The council is organizing collective dinners after synagogue services.