Funerary Photography as a Source for the Dress of Sephardic Jews in Belgrade: From Traditional Costumes to Civil Emancipation

A valuable source of knowing the manner in which Sephardic Jews in Belgrade were dressed is the Sephardic Jewish cemetery space. Numerous funerary photographs of deceased family members memorise the appearance of Jews who lived in Belgrade from 19th century to the beginning of World War II. The selected photographs were taken during the life of the deceased as a form of a portrait, marking their individuality and the manner of self-representation expressed through clothing. Visualizing of Jewish Sephardic identity of men and women through traditional costume can be consistently followed through these photographs, memorising the appearance of the Belgrade community. In a wider sense, bearing in mind the diverse age and gender structure, they contribute to the knowledge of clothing practices and appearance of Sephardim in the Balkans.

The Second World War brought the erasing of memory to everything that belonged to the domain of private memory, related to ego documents, photographs and similar sources. Therefore, the space of the Sephardic cemetery has an excuisite documentary value as a space of visual remembering of an entire community through the means of funerary photography which was a form of expressing and permanent memorising of civil dignity during 19th century. Since it is possible to observe the period of almost an entire century, the manner of transformation and Europeisation of the Belgrade community can be clearly noticed, which emancipated itself also in following the wider social currents of de-Ottomanisation, which is consistently confirmed through the application of costume and clothing style.