SEAS RICKMAN SCENESETTER: ANTI-SEMITISM RARE, BUT SPLIT IN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 ZAGREB 001362 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PHUM HR SUBJECT: SEAS RICKMAN SCENESETTER: ANTI-SEMITISM RARE, BUT SPLIT IN JEWISH COMMUNITY COMPLICATES PROPERTY RESTITUTION REF: ZAGREB 768 ¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY AND COMMENT: Overt anti-Semitic acts are rare in Croatia; the Government, NGOs and religious communities work together to promote tolerance as part of Croatia's recovery from ethnic conflict which ended eleven years ago. When members of the Jewish community were harassed in Zagreb in June, the Croatian Helsinki Committee facilitated a roundtable where GOC officials, NGO and religious community representatives, diplomats and others addressed the issue (reftel). Parliament subsequently toughened penalties for ethnically-motivated crime. ¶2. (SBU) Croatia joined the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research in November 2005, and is in the process of rewriting textbooks to teach the Holocaust. The Ministry of Culture will open a new interpretive center at the site of the WWII-era Jasenovac concentration camp in November 2006. ¶3. (SBU) In August, 18 members of the 1500-member Zagreb Jewish Community (ZOZ) left to form the rival Bet Israel organization. The ZOZ leadership interpreted Bet Israel's speedy registration with state authorities as unfair meddling by Croatian President Mesic, who has apparently taken sides to support the newer group. The split is likely to slow down property restitution and the anticipated reconstruction of the original Zagreb synagogue. Although the Justice Minister told the Ambassador in July that the GOC planned to submit the necessary amended legislation (to permit application for WWII-era property restitution for U.S, citizens) in September 2006, this has not yet occurred. ¶4. (SBU) SEAS Rickman will meet with the Minister of Culture, with a number of officials and teachers involved in Holocaust education, and with representatives of both Jewish groups in Zagreb. The most helpful message the two communities could hear would be to focus jointly and constructively on the goal of rebuilding the synagogue. END SUMMARY AND COMMENT ANTI-SEMITIC ACTS RARE ¶5. (U) As noted in the Human Rights Report, anti-Semitic acts are generally rare in Croatia, where Jews make up less than one percent of the population. Before the pro-Nazi Ustasha regime came to power during WWII, the community numbered 23,000; 5000 survived the war and there are approximately 2000 in the community now, with 1500 of those in Zagreb. The Zagreb Jewish Community (ZOZ) recently celebrated 200 years of existence. ¶6. (U) In June, police pressed charges against a 21-year-old student for sending threatening e-mails to the ZOZ which insulted victims of the Holocaust and expressed the hope that Iran would launch a nuclear attack on Israel. Separately, in June two youths wearing Nazi insignia verbally and physically assaulted the ZOZ rabbi. Responding to these incidents, ZOZ and the Croatia Helsinki Committee sponsored a roundtable discussion on anti-Semitism in Croatia. Ephraim Zuroff, Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, attended, as did representatives of the GOC, the Parliament (whose Human Rights Committee had quickly condemned the incidents),all major religious communities, ethnic minorities, the OSCE Mission and several Embassies (reftel). ¶7. (U) Following the visit to Zagreb of Pierre Besnianiou, head of the World Jewish Congress, Parliament in July passed changes to the Penal Code to clearly define and increase penalties for ethnically- and minority-motivated hate crime. In November, the Human Rights Center organized a public discussion titled "All Different - All Equal" to mark the international day of the struggle against fascism and anti-Semitism. A GOC spoke about the Council of Europe's campaign and its implementation in Croatia. The Human Rights Center director also used the event to present conclusions from an OSCE meeting on promotion of tolerance titled "Education towards Promotion of Mutual Respect and Understanding and Education on Holocaust". HOLOCAUST EDUCATION ¶8. (U) Croatia joined the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research in November 2005. To qualify, the GOC had to submit a baseline study addressing many aspects of Holocaust education. The U.S. was Croatia's "sponsoring" country and the State Department's Office of Holocaust Issues (OHI) assisted the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport to prepare its application for membership and spoke in favor of Croatia's bid. ¶9. (U) Site of a WWII-era concentration camp, the Jasenovac Memorial Center intensely cooperates with the USHMM. In 2005, USHMM and Jasenovac began phase II of their International Partnership Among Museums (IPAM) program. IPAM is an exchange program which, in association with the American Association of Museums and U.S. embassies, partners museums around the world with U.S. institutions for periods of two to five years. Phase II concentrated on mounting an educational center at Jasenovac, and educating the Croatian public about the Holocaust and about the history of the Jasenovac prison camp. On November 27, Jasenovac will officially open the permanent exhibit and educational center. ¶10. (U) In addition to facilitating the IPAM exchange, the Embassy has also directly supported Holocaust education in Croatia. Working with the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport, the Embassy has annually sent 2-5 Croatian high school teachers for summer teacher-training programs in the U.S., through a cooperative program among the U.S. Department of State, the Association of Holocaust Organizations (AHO) in New York, and the United States Holocaust ZAGREB 00001362 002 OF 002 Memorial Museum (USHMM). The Embassy also covered the costs of translating and printing a USHMM teachers guide on Holocaust education, which is being distributed to all primary and secondary schools in the country. In 2005, the USHMM participated in the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport's annual seminar for approximately 50 high school history teachers on studying and teaching the Holocaust. In addition, there have been regular contacts and travel between the U.S. and Croatia of Jasenovac and USHMM staff. ¶11. (SBU) Updating textbooks with information about the Holocaust and the wider issue of anti-Semitism remains a work in progress. The authors of a 2005 study cited a lack of information on Jewish ethnic identity and genesis of anti-Semitism. For example, they observed that existing textbooks implied that racist laws in the (fascist) Independent State of Croatia had no domestic roots but occurred exclusively under the influence of Germany. Zagreb University history professor Ivo Goldstein told the Embassy recently that a number of high-school textbooks have been updated. The ZOZ, in cooperation with Yad Vashem and the Visual History Foundation, hopes to publish by the end of 2006 an analysis of history textbooks for primary and secondary schools. SPLIT IN THE JEWISH COMMUNITY ¶12. (SBU) The mostly Ashkenazi 1500-member Jewish Community of Zagreb (ZOZ) split in August 2006 over a dispute about replacement of the rabbi and mishandling of proceeds of a parking lot at the location of the former Synagogue. Some 18 members left the Community with the rabbi and subsequently established and registered their new group in October under the name Bet Israel. Bet Israel elected history professor Ivo Goldstein as president, and established a small Jewish primary school with teachers who formerly worked for ZOZ, forcing ZOZ to close its own school, although it maintains a kindergarten and Senior Center. ¶13. (SBU) ZOZ leaders subsequently complained to the press and to the U.S. Ambassador that Bet Israel did not meet the legal requirements to register as a religious organization, and filed a lawsuit to annul the registration. ZOZ also alleges that Croatian President Mesic (who holds a non-partisan position as head of state) interfered on behalf of Bet Israel. (NOTE: Despite his apparent slant in favor of Bet Israel, Croatian President Mesic has a long record of promoting human rights. In September he received the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation award in New York. END NOTE) Relations have deteriorated to the point that ZOZ refuses to accept any alternative to the de-registration of Bet Israel. ¶14. (SBU) The split is likely to affect restitution of property, which has been at a standstill since 2005. Although a previous government promised to return ZOZ's major claim, the former Chevra Kadisha building in central Zagreb, only limited progress has been made by the current government since it came to power in late 2003. Other ZOZ claims are a holiday resort in Crikvenica and land in the north of Zagreb. Some property was returned to Jewish communities in Osijek in 2005, while the site of the former Vukovar Synagogue was returned in 2004. The GOC is now increasingly reluctant to pursue property restitution due to the unclear situation with two potential claimants. ¶15. (SBU) The GOC in September committed to partially finance reconstruction of the original Zagreb Synagogue destroyed in 1941. Under the proposal they would reconstruct 4,000 square meters of the future Synagogue, about half of the project that ZOZ submitted for approval in 2004. ZOZ rejected participation in the proposed working group that would include Bet Israel. In fact, the ZOZ president recently told Embassy officials that ZOZ would reconstruct the building on its own, even if it means significant postponement, rather than work with Bet Israel on the GOC proposal. BRADTKE