History of the Jews in Bulgaria
The history of the Jews in Bulgaria goes back almost 2,000 years. Jews have had a continuous presence in historic Bulgarian lands since before the 2nd century CE, and have often played an important part in the history of Bulgaria.
Today, the majority of Bulgarian Jews live in Israel, while modern-day Bulgaria continues to host a modest Jewish population.
Roman era
Jews are believed to have settled in the region after the Roman conquest in 46 CE. Ruins of "sumptuous" second-century synagogues have been unearthed in Philipopolis, Nicopolis, Ulpia Oescus, and Stobi. The earliest written artifact attesting to the presence of a Jewish community in the Roman province of Moesia Inferior is a late 2nd-century CE Latin inscription found at Ulpia Oescus bearing a menorah and mentioning archisynagogos. Josephus testifies to the presence of a Jewish population in the city. A decree of Roman Emperor Theodosius I from 379 regarding the persecution of Jews and destruction of synagogues in Illyria and Thrace is also proof of early Jewish settlement in Bulgaria.Bulgarian Empire
After the establishment of the First Bulgarian Empire and its recognition in 681, a number of Jews suffering persecution in the Byzantine Empire may have settled in Bulgaria. Jews also settled in Nikopol in 967. Some arrived from the Republic of Ragusa and Italy, when merchants from these lands were allowed to trade in the Second Bulgarian Empire by Ivan Asen II. Later, Tsar Ivan Alexander married a Jewish woman, Sarah, who had converted to Christianity and had considerable influence in the court. She influenced her spouse to create the Tsardom of Vidin for her son Ivan Shishman, who was also a Jew according to Jewish law, which determines religion according to the mother. Despite her Jewish past, she was fiercely pro-Church, which in those times was accompanied with anti-semitism. For example, in 1352, the church council ordered the expulsion of Jews Bulgaria for "heretical activity",. Physical attacks on Jews followed. In one case, three Jews who had been sentenced to death were killed by a mob despite the sentences having been repealed by the tsar.The medieval Jewish population of Bulgaria was Romaniote until the 14th to 15th centuries, when Ashkenazim from Hungary and other parts of Europe began to arrive.
Ottoman rule
By the completion of the Ottoman conquest of the Bulgarian Empire, there were sizable Jewish communities in Vidin, Nikopol, Silistra, Pleven, Sofia, Yambol, Plovdiv and Stara Zagora.In 1470, Ashkenazim banished from Bavaria arrived, and contemporary travellers remarked that Yiddish could often be heard in Sofia. An Ashkenazi prayer book was printed in Saloniki by the rabbi of Sofia in the middle of the 16th century. Beginning in 1494, Sephardic exiles from Spain migrated to Bulgaria via Salonika, Macedonia, Italy, Ragusa, and Bosnia. They settled in pre-existing Jewish population-centres, which were also the major trade centres of Ottoman-ruled Bulgaria. At this point, Sofia was host to three separate Jewish communities: Romaniotes, Ashkenazim and Sephardim. This would continue until 1640, when a single rabbi was appointed for all three groups.
In the 17th century, the ideas of Sabbatai Zevi became popular in Bulgaria, and supporters of his movement, such as Nathan of Gaza and Samuel Primo, were active in Sofia. Jews continued to settle in various parts of the country, and were able to expand their economic activities due to the privileges they were given and due to the banishment of many Ragusan merchants who had taken part in the Chiprovtsi Uprising of 1688.
Modern Bulgaria
A modern nation-state of Bulgaria was formed under the terms of the Treaty of Berlin, which ended the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–78. Under the terms of that treaty, Bulgarian Jews of the new country were granted equal rights. In 1909, the massive and grand new Sofia Synagogue was consecrated in the presence of Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria as well as ministers and other important guests, an important event for Bulgarian Jewry. Jews were drafted into the Bulgarian army and fought in the Serbo-Bulgarian War, in the Balkan Wars, and in the First World War. 211 Jewish soldiers of the Bulgarian army were recorded as having died during World War I. The Treaty of Neuilly after World War I emphasized Jews' equality with other Bulgarian citizens. In 1936, the nationalist and anti-semitic organization Ratnik was established.In the years preceding World War II, the population growth rate of the Jewish community lagged behind that of other ethnic groups. In 1920, there were 16,000 Jews, amounting to 0.9% of Bulgarians. By 1934, although the size of the Jewish community had grown to 48,565, with more than half living in Sofia, that only amounted to 0.8% of the general population. Ladino was the dominant language in most communities, but the young often preferred speaking Bulgarian. The Zionist movement was completely dominant among the local population ever since Hovevei Zion.
World War II
Bulgaria, as a potential beneficiary from the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939, had competed with other such nations to curry favour with Nazi Germany by gestures of antisemitic legislation. Bulgaria was economically dependant on Germany, with of 65% Bulgaria's trade in 1939 accounted for by Germany, and militarily bound by an arms deal. Bulgarian extreme nationalists lobbied for a return to the enlarged borders of the 1878 Treaty of San Stefano. On 7 September 1940, Southern Dobruja, lost to Romania under the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest, was returned to Bulgarian control by the Treaty of Craiova, formulated under German pressure. A citizenship law followed on 21 November 1940, which transferred Bulgarian citizenship to the inhabitants of the annexed territory, including around 500 Jews, alongside the territory's Roma, Greeks, Turks, and Romanians. This policy was not replicated in the territories occupied by Bulgaria during the war.Starting in July 1940, Bulgarian authorities began to institute discriminatory policies against Jews. In December 1940, 352 members of the Bulgarian Jewish community boarded the S.S. Salvador at Varna bound for Palestine. The ship sank after running aground 100 metres off the coast of Silivri, west of Istanbul. 223 passengers drowned or died of exposure to frigid waters. Half of the 123 survivors were sent back to Bulgaria, while the remainder were allowed to board the Darien II and continue to Palestine, where they were imprisoned at Atlit by the British Mandate authorities.
In January 1941, Tsar Boris III enacted the Law for Protection of the Nation, introduced to the Bulgarian Parliament the preceding October and passed by parliament on 24 December 1940, which imposed numerous legal restrictions on Jews in Bulgaria. The bill was proposed to parliament by Petar Gabrovski, Interior Minister and former Ratnik leader in October 1940. His protégé, government lawyer and fellow Ratnik, Alexander Belev, had been sent to study the 1933 Nuremberg Laws in Germany and was closely involved in its drafting. Modelled on this precedent, the law targeted Jews, together with Freemasonry and other intentional organizations deemed "threatening" to Bulgarian national security. Specifically, the law prohibited Jews from voting, running for office, working in government positions, serving in the army, marrying or cohabitating with ethnic Bulgarians, using Bulgarian names, or owning rural land. Authorities began confiscating all radios and telephones owned by Jews, and Jews were forced to pay a one-time tax of 20 percent of their net worth. The legislation also established quotas that limited the number of Jews in Bulgarian universities. The law was protested not only by Jewish leaders, but also by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, some professional organizations, and twenty-one writers. Later that year in March 1941, the Kingdom of Bulgaria acceded to German demands and entered into a military alliance with the Axis Powers.
The Law for the Protection of the Nation stipulated that Jews fulfil their compulsory military service in the labour battalions and not the regular army. Forced labour battalions were instituted in Bulgaria in 1920 as a way of circumventing the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, which limited the size of the Bulgarian military and ended conscription into the regular military. The forced labour service set up by the government of Aleksandar Stamboliyski supplied cheap labour for government projects and employment for demobilised soldiers from the First World War. In the first decade of its existence, more than 150,000 Bulgarian subjects, "primarily minorities and other poor segments of society" had been drafted to serve. In the 1930s, in the lead-up to the Second World War, the trudova povinnost were militarised: attached to the War Ministry in 1934, they were given military ranks in 1936.
After the start of war, in 1940 "labour soldiers" were established as a separate corps "used to enforce anti-Jewish policies during World War Two" as part of an overall "deprivation" plan. In August 1941, at the request of Adolf-Heinz Beckerle - German Minister Plenipotentiary at Sofia - the War Ministry relinquished control of all Jewish forced labour to the Ministry of Buildings, Roads, and Public Works. Mandatory conscription applied from August 1941: initially men 20-44 were drafted, with the age limit rising to 45 in July 1942 and 50 a year later. Bulgarians replaced Jews in the commands of the Jewish labour units, which were no longer entitled to uniforms. On 29 January 1942, new all-Jewish forced labour battalions were announced; their number was doubled to twenty-four by the end of 1942. Jewish units were separated from the other ethnicities - three quarters of the forced labour battalions were from minorities: Turks, Russians, and residents of the territories occupied by Bulgaria - the rest were drawn from the Bulgarian unemployed.
The Jews in forced labour were faced with discriminatory policies which became stricter as time went on; with increasing length of service and decreasing the allowance of food, rest, and days off. On 14 July 1942 a disciplinary unit was established to impose new punitive strictures: deprivation of mattresses or hot food, a "bread-and-water diet", and the barring of visitors for months at time. As the war progressed, and round-ups of Jews began in 1943, Jews made more numerous efforts to escape and punishments became increasingly harsh.
In late 1938 and early 1939 Bulgarian police officials and the Interior Ministry were already increasingly opposed to the admittance of Jewish refugees from persecution in Central Europe. In response to a query by British diplomats in Sofia, the Foreign Ministry confirmed the policy that from April 1939, Jews from Germany, Romania, Poland, Italy, and what remained of Czechoslovakia would be required to obtain consent from the ministry to secure entry, transit, or passage visas. Nevertheless, at least 430 visas were issued by Bulgarian diplomats to foreign Jews, of which there were as many as 4,000 in Bulgaria in 1941. On 1 April 1941 the Police Directorate allowed the departure of 302 Jewish refugees, mostly underage, from Central Europe for the express purpose of Bulgaria "freeing itself from the foreign element".
The Bulgarian irredentist seizure in 1941 of coveted territory from Greece and Yugoslavia and the formation of the new oblasts of Skopje, Bitola, and Belomora increased Bulgaria's Jewish population to around 60,000. These were forbidden to have Bulgarian citizenship under the Law for the Protection of the Nation.
From early in the war, Bulgarian occupation authorities in Greece and Yugoslavia handed over Jewish refugees fleeing from Axis Europe to the Gestapo. In October 1941 Bulgarian authorities demanded the registration of 213 Serbian Jews detected by the Gestapo in Bulgarian-administered Skopje; they were arrested on 24 November and 47 of these were taken to Banjica concentration camp in Belgrade, Serbia and killed on 3 December 1941.
In the wake of the Wannsee Conference, German diplomats requested, in the spring of 1942, that the Kingdom release into German custody all Jews residing in Bulgarian-administered territory. The Bulgarian side agreed and began to take steps for the planned deportations of Jews.
The Law was followed by a decree-law on 26 August 1942, which tightened restrictions on Jews, widened the definition of Jewishness, and increased the burdens of proof required to prove non-Jewish status and exemptions. Jews were thereafter required to wear yellow stars, excepting only those baptized who practised the Christian eucharist. Bulgarian Jews married to non-Jews by Christian rite before 1 September 1940 and baptized before the 23 January 1941 enforcement of the Law for the Protection of the Nation, rescinding the exemptions allowed to such cases allowed by the Law. Exemptions for war orphans, war widows, and the disabled veterans were henceforth applicable only "in the event of competition with other Jews", and all such privilegii could be revoked or denied if the individual were convicted of a crime or deemed "anti-government" or "communist".
In spring 1943, the Bulgarian authorities finalized arrangements with the Reich Main Security Office for the first wave of planned deportations, targeting Jews in Sofia and the Bulgarian-occupied territories of Thrace, Macedonia and Pirot. In February 1943 the Bulgarian government, possibly in response to the changing tide of the war, indicated through Swiss diplomatic channels its willingness to allow Jews to leave for Palestine on British vessels across the Black Sea. The Bulgarian overture was rebuffed by British Foreign Minister Anthony Eden, on the grounds that "if we do that then the Jews of the world will be wanting us to make a similar offer in Poland and Germany there are simply not enough ships."
In the first half of March 1943, Bulgarian military and police carried out the deportation of most Jews, 13,341 in total, from the Bulgarian-occupied territories beyond Bulgaria's pre-war borders, transported them by train through Bulgaria via transit camps established for the purpose there, and embarked them on boats bound for Vienna in Nazi Germany. On the eve of the planned deportations, the Bulgarian government made inquiries regarding the destination of the deportees and asked to be reimbursed for the costs of deportation. German representatives indicated that the deportees would be used as labour in agricultural and military projects. As recorded in the German Archives, Nazi Germany paid 7,144.317 leva for the deportation of 3,545 adults and 592 children destined for the Treblinka extermination camp. 4,500 Jews from Greek Thrace and Eastern Macedonia were deported to occupied Poland, and 7,144 from Vardar Macedonia and Pomoravlje were sent to Treblinka. None survived. On March 20, 1943, Bulgarian military police, assisted by German soldiers, took Jews from Komotini and Kavala off the passenger steamship Karageorge, massacred them, and sank the vessel.
No Jews were deported from Bulgaria proper. News of the deportations in the occupied territories incited protest among opposition politicians, members of the clergy and intellectuals in Bulgaria. While Tsar Boris III was initially inclined to continue with the planned deportations, deputy speaker of parliament and prominent member of the ruling party Dimitar Peshev persuaded him to delay. On March 19, 1943, Peshev introduced a parliamentary resolution to halt the deportations; the resolution was rejected by the ruling party, which forced his resignation by the end of the month. Peshev's resignation was followed by further protests, notably from Metropolitan Stefan I, which persuaded the tsar to suspend the deportations indefinitely in May 1943. Shortly thereafter, the Bulgarian government expelled 20,000 Jews from Sofia to the provinces. Special trains were arranged and the Jews were assigned specific departures, separating family members. A maximum of 30kg of property per person was allowed; the rest they were forced leave behind, to sell at "abusively low" prices, or which was otherwise pilfered or stolen. Bulgarian officials and neighbours benefited from the proceeds.
The Bulgarian government cited labour shortages as the reason for refusing to transfer Bulgarian Jews into German custody. Expelled men were conscripted as forced labour within Bulgaria. Some of the property left behind was confiscated. Shortly after returning to Sofia from an August 14 meeting with Hitler, Boris died of apparent heart failure on 28 August 1943.
Dimitar Peshev, opposition politicians, the Bulgarian Church, Tsar Boris, and ordinary citizens, from writers and artists, to lawyers and former diplomats, have been variously credited with saving the Bulgarian Jews from deportation. Later, Bulgaria was officially thanked by the government of Israel for its defiance of Nazi Germany. This story was kept secret by the Soviet Union, because the royal Bulgarian government, the King of Bulgaria, and the Church took actions that contributed to the huge public outcry and calls from the Bulgarian people to defend their Jewish friends and neighbours. The communist Soviet regime could not countenance credit to be given to the former authorities, the Church, or the king, as all three were considered enemies of communism. Thus, the documentation proving the saving of Bulgaria's Jews only came to light after the end of the Cold War in 1989. The number of 48,000 Bulgarian Jews was known to Hitler, yet not one was deported or murdered by the Nazis.
In 1998, to thank Tsar Boris, Bulgarian Jews in the United States and the Jewish National Fund erected a monument in the Bulgarian Forest in Israel honouring Tsar Boris. However, in July 2003, a public committee headed by Chief Justice Moshe Bejski decided to remove the memorial because Bulgaria had consented to the delivery of the Jews from occupied territories of Macedonia and Thrace to the Germans.
After World War II and diaspora
After the war, most of the Jewish population left for Israel, leaving only about a thousand Jews living in Bulgaria today. According to Israeli government statistics, 43,961 people from Bulgaria emigrated to Israel between 1948 and 2006, making Bulgarian Jews the fourth largest group to come from a European country, after the Soviet Union, Romania and Poland.The various migrations outside of Bulgaria has produced descendants of Bulgarian Jews mainly in Israel, but also in the United States, Canada, Australia, and some Western European and Latin American countries.
Historical Jewish population
Info from the Bulgarian censuses, with the exception of 2010:Colors= id:lightgrey value:gray id:darkgrey value:gray id:sfondo value:rgb id:barra value:rgb ImageSize = width:650 height:400 PlotArea = left:50 bottom:50 top:30 right:30 DateFormat = x.y Period = from:0 till:7000 TimeAxis = orientation:vertical AlignBars = justify ScaleMajor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:1000 start:0 ScaleMinor = gridcolor:darkgrey increment:500 start:0 BackgroundColors = canvas:sfondo BarData= bar:1200 text:1200 bar:1569 text:1569 bar:1700 text:1700 bar:1800 text:1800 bar:1878 text:1878 bar:1884 text:1884 bar:1887 text:1887 bar:1892 text:1892 bar:1900 text:1900 bar:1910 text:1910 bar:1920 text:1920 bar:1930 text:1930 bar:1940 text:1940 bar:1949 text:1949 bar:1967 text:1967 bar:2000 text:2000 bar:2009 text:2009 PlotData= color:barra width:22 align:left bar:1200 from: 0 till:100 bar:1569 from: 0 till:54 bar:1700 from: 0 till:300 bar:1800 from: 0 till:750 bar:1878 from: 0 till:1415 bar:1884 from: 0 till:2168 bar:1887 from: 0 till:2202 bar:1892 from: 0 till:2696 bar:1900 from: 0 till:3602 bar:1910 from: 0 till:4436 bar:1920 from: 0 till:6663 bar:1930 from: 0 till:6675 bar:1940 from: 0 till:5960 bar:1949 from: 0 till:1220 bar:1967 from: 0 till:1000 bar:2000 from: 0 till:700 bar:2009 from: 0 till:500 PlotData= bar:1200 at:100 fontsize:XS text: 100 shift: bar:1569 at:54 fontsize:XS text: 54 shift: bar:1700 at:300 fontsize:XS text: 300 shift: bar:1800 at:750 fontsize:XS text: 750 shift: bar:1878 at:1415 fontsize:XS text: 1,415 shift: bar:1884 at:2168 fontsize:XS text: 2,168 shift: bar:1887 at:2202 fontsize:XS text: 2,202 shift: bar:1892 at:2696 fontsize:XS text: 2,696 shift: bar:1900 at:3602 fontsize:XS text: 3,602 shift: bar:1910 at:4436 fontsize:XS text: 4,436 shift: bar:1920 at:6663 fontsize:XS text: 6,663 shift: bar:1930 at:6675 fontsize:XS text: 6,675 shift: bar:1940 at:5960 fontsize:XS text: 5,960 shift: bar:1949 at:1220 fontsize:XS text: 1,220 shift: bar:1967 at:1000 fontsize:XS text: 1,000 shift: bar:2000 at:700 fontsize:XS text: 700 shift: bar:2009 at:500 fontsize:XS text: 500 shift: TextData= fontsize:M pos: text:Population of the Plovdiv Jewry | Notable Bulgarian Jews
|