Diversity of Jewish Experience and Identity as Portrayed in the Postwar Literature of Former Yugoslavia

A Yugoslav Jewish writer after the Holocaust found himself in an orphaned community, as 85% of its members had perished. This new environment, encouraged by the Yugoslav Federation`s Socialist ideology, was primarily secular while the religious traditions became delegated to a cultural heritage. The core of the Jewish identity became characterized by "double belonging". In the heterogenic multi-national, multi-ethnic and multi-religious post-World War Two Yugoslavia, with a small Jewish community composed of both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Holocaust survivors, in a secular environment, the only common "Jewish" denominators became: (a) belonging to the Jewish community; (b) vague interest in Jewish heritage and Jewish age-old thought and wisdom; (c) the strong sense of a unique common destiny.

Nevertheless, the quest for Jewish identity in the post Holocaust era as

well as the topics dealing with Jews and Judaism, became one of the central

issues to the outstanding number of Yugoslav Jewish and non-Jewish writers.

The abundance of their literary works represents a challenging phenomenon due to the sheer quantity, as well as diversity and high literary standards.

I shall present some of the main themes and traits characterizing the work of a few well known Jewish writers in postwar Yugoslavia: Danilo Kiš, David Albahari, Aleksandar Tišma, Filip David, Judita Šalgo, Gordana Kuić, Frida Filipović and Ana Šomlo. In the second half of the 20^th century they dealt with the problematic of Yugoslav Jewish post-Holocaust existence, sense of identity and capacity of survival in a rapidly changing social, political and cultural environment.