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Bulgaria's Jews
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There are currently approximately 5000 Jews in Bulgaria (around half of whom live in the capital), the meagre remnants of what was historically a much larger community. Their presence in the country dates from at least the tenth century, although the most significant increase in Jewish numbers came about at the tail end of the fifteenth century, when the
Sephardic community
expelled by the Christian monarchs of Spain were resettled throughout the Levant and the Balkans by the considerably more tolerant Islamic rulers of the Ottoman Empire. Speaking the Ladino language (a mixture of medieval Spanish and Portuguese), the new arrivals established trading colonies in Bulgarian towns such as Nikopol, Ruse and elsewhere, although it was
Sofia
that became their cultural and social centre.
Bulgaria is one of the few European countries in which there seems to be no tradition of popular anti-Semitism. Even during the struggle to free Bulgaria from the Ottoman yoke, when Greeks and Turks were frequently perceived as national enemies, Jews managed to retain their status as respected members of the Bulgarian community. Jewish leaders dissuaded the Ottoman authorities from setting fire to Sofia in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, something that wasn't forgotten by Bulgaria's post-independence leaders. Things changed for Bulgaria's Jews (a community that by now numbered some 48,000) in February 1940 , when Tsar Boris III appointed a pro-Nazi government under rabid anti-Semite Bogdan Filov, in the hope of forging an alliance with Hitler's Germany. Filov immediately set about introducing descriminatory legislation, closing down Jewish cultural institutions in January 1941, and forcing Jews to wear the yellow star in September 1942. Uniquely in eastern Europe, however, the bulk of Bulgaria's Jews were saved from the Holocaust. Neither the sitting government nor Tsar Boris III can take much credit for this; they would have passively accepted Nazi plans to murder their Jewish subjects had not public opinion prevented them from doing so. In January 1943 the Bulgarian government responded to German demands for the deportation of Balkan Jews by promising to hand over 20,000 Jews from Bulgarian-occupied Thrace and Macedonia. On discovering that there were only 11,000 Jews from this source, they decided to make up the shortfall by rounding up Jews from Bulgaria proper. Jewish community leaders in Kyustendil complained to their MP, Dimitar Peshev, who began to rally support for the Jews among his parliamentary colleagues. Fearing a back-bench revolt, Prime Minister Filov went ahead with the deportation of the Jews from Macedonia and Thrace - all of whom perished in the death camps - but backed down from the other deportations, opting instead to intern Bulgaria's own Jews within the country itself. Sensing that they enjoyed widespread popular sympathy, Jewish leaders in Sofia organized a mass protest on May 24. The demonstration didn't save them from internment, but it succeeded in alerting Bulgarian public opinion to their predicament. A wide cross-section of Bulgarian society supported the Jews: intellectuals wrote letters of protest on their behalf, and Orthodox priests expressed grave concerns about their treatment. The government henceforth remained deaf to German demands for further deportations, and the vast majority of Bulgarian Jews survived the war, returning to their homes after the Communist coup d'etat of September 1944.
Communist Bulgaria
presented something of a paradox to many Jews. On one hand the new order was welcomed, because it placed all citizens on an equal footing whatever their race. On the other hand, religious institutions of all kinds were persecuted, and Jews were encouraged to abandon their traditional beliefs in favour of state-sponsored atheism. Faced with the choice of staying in Bulgaria or emigrating to the new Jewish homeland in Palestine, the vast majority of Jews chose the latter, 90 percent of them leaving the country between 1948 and 1951. Those who remained were able to retain a sense of Jewish identity, although their religious and community life was now placed under the aegis of a single state-controlled organization. The latter was dissolved in 1990 and replaced by
Shalom
, a non-governmental cultural organization which has made great strides in the revival of Jewish traditions, and the renewal of contacts with Bulgarian Jews throughout the world. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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Bulgaria,
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