Conservative Political Forum

Inspired by a recent post about Jews.



Jehuda Alkalaj (photo above), a Sephardic rabbi and writer, whose ideas are considered to be the forerunners of Zionism, was born in the city of Sarajevo (Bosnia) in 1798, and moved into the town of Zemun (Austria back then, modern day Serbia) in 1825. There, he built a Sephardic synagogue, and conceived the idea of Jewish return to the Holy Land. He founded a society for returning to the Holy Land in 1840, and its members were gathering in the capital of Serbia, Belgrade, and in the Serbian town of Šabac. Theodor Herzl continued Jehuda's work in Budapest (Austria-Hungary), and is regarded as the founder of Zionism.



Serbian Prince Miloš Obrenović (1780-1860, pictured above) had a close Jewish friend David. Turkish pasha called Miloš once to visit him in the Belgrade fortress, but Miloš's friend David advised him not to come, which proved to be a good decision, because it was revealed later that the pasha wanted to assassinate him. Since then, Miloš gave David a nickname Davičo from the grace for saving his life, which David's descendants adopted as their family name. Prince Miloš was a great protector of Jews, granting Jewish traders special rights and privileges.



The roots of Serbian-Jewish friendship date from the rule of Prince Miloš Obrenović (1815-39, 1858-60) and the Second Serbian Uprising (1815, pictured above, with Prince Miloš waving his flag). Jews from Austria provided strong support to the Serbian rebels against the Ottoman Turks. It is believed that the Second Serbian Uprising gave an inspiration to the Austrian Jews that if Serbs were capable of regaining their Fatherland from the Ottoman Turks, then the Jews could achieve the same.



Jewish neighborhood in Belgrade, Jalija (photo above), after the Austro-Hungarian shelling in 1914. Serbs and Jews shared the same shelter and food and fought the same enemy together during the World War One.



Serbs and Jews in Austro-Hungarian captivity (photo above). They fought together, died together, and won the war together.



Danilo Albahari (photo above), a forwarder. Being very old and ill, the Austro-Hungarians offered him to present himself as a Bulgarian Jew, in order to avoid the captivity. He then straightened up from his chair with difficulties, and replied to them with pride: "I am a Serbian Jew!" Jewish youth gathered in the old synagogue, from where they joined the Serbian army first rows, with motto: "The face of Belgrade is bright!" Jewish Major Avram Berah took the command over a regiment, which fought heroically, and he was awarded with highest decorations.



The chief of the ministry of finance of the Kingdom of Serbia was a Jew, Avram Lević (photo above). Retreating from the invading German, Austro-Hungarian, and Bulgarian troops, alongside with the gold, paper money, and important documents, he secured the evacuation of the precious Serbian Orthodox Christian treasure, of which the most important was the oldest preserved book written in Serbian Cyrillic script, The Gospel of Prince Miroslav from 12th century. It was shipped from Albanian coast to France. After the ships sailed, Austria-Hungary sent a bomber to sink them. It happened that the pilot was an Austro-Hungarian Serb, and miraculously no ships were hit.



Dr David Albala was a Serbian Captain during the war, an another highly decorated officer. He was working as a medical doctor on a ship, which was a very lucrative job back then. At the beginning of the First Balkan War (1912-13), he left his job in order to join the Serbian army, where he participated in both Balkan Wars and First World War as a military doctor. In 1917, Serbian government sent him to the United States in a diplomatic mission, when he managed to gather a million dollars of war loans. He was working on promoting the Serbian war goals among the American Jewry. His wife, Paulina Lebl Albala, who was the chief of the organization of university graduated women in Belgrade, also helped him, alongside with the religious leader of Serbian Jews, rabbi Isak Alkalaj, who also travelled to the United States to gather help.



Kingdom of Serbia was the first country after United Kingdom to officially support the creation of Jewish state. Serbian ambassador in Washington sent a letter (pictured above) to Captain Albala, in which he stated: "I wish you to express to your Jewish brothers the sympathy of our Government and of our people for the just endeavor of resuscitating their beloved country in Palestine which will enable them to take their place in the future Society of Nations according to their numerous capacities and to their unquestioned right. We are sure that this will not only be to their own interest, but at the same time to that of the whole of humanity. You know, dear Captain Albala, that there is no other nation in the world sympathizing with this plan more than Serbia. How should we not participate in your clamors and sorrows lasting ages and generations, especially when our countrymen of your origin and religion have fought for their Serbian fatherland as well as the best of our soldiers? It will be a sad thing for us to see any of our Jewish fellow-citizens leaving us to return to their promised land, but we shall console ourselves in the hope that they will stand as brothers and leave with us a good part of their hearts and that they will be the strongest tie between free Israel and Serbia." The Serbian letter marked the first time any government had referred to the yet-to-be-born Jewish state as “Israel,” presaging the name that would be adopted by the nascent republic three decades later.



Serbian poet of Jewish origin, Stanislav Vinaver (photo above), a Lieutenant in Serbian army during the war, lead the last company of Yugoslav volunteers from Russia. Their train was passing over recently defeated Bulgaria. During a two-hour stop in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, the soldiers were strictly forbidden to leave their wagons. But, using Bulgarian lack of vigilance, he ordered his company to leave the train, and then he lead them to the city, marching with military step towards the church of Holy Sunday, where the sacred relics of Medieval Serbian King Milutin (1282-1321) were placed, to pay them omage. Bulgaria then asked for their punishment for breaking the peace treaty provisions, but was rejected.



Serbian-Jewish glee club founded in Belgrade in 1879, called "Baruh Brothers Choir" since 1952, is the oldest Jewish choir in Europe (photo above). They perform songs in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Ladino languages.

[Taken from (not in English, sorry): http://www.blic.rs/riznica/istorije/10-cinjenica-o-jevrejsko-srpskom-prijateljstvu/qzxzwlx.]

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When I look at this, what a heroic times we had once, contrary to the modern pussy time.

Good job, thanks for posting Milos.

Previously, I did some injustice when I generalized things about Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, so I needed to correct myself a bit. I know I've been messing around here too much, and maybe you have allowed me too much freedom, which I appreciate. So, I am always in a worry, when I post something, would it be appropriate. And since the Internet is a global phenomenon, it is difficult sometimes to adjust to a local site. But it is even more difficult on social networks, like Facebook, when I have both conservative and progressive friends, and even some national-socialists, and I follow some Jewish pages, and there are people of different nationalities, and I want not to offend anyone, but still to keep my genuine attitude, ha ha, it's a mess.

I really don't know where that public fixation on Jews comes from, I mean why Jews, why not someone else? It is difficult to explain. Maybe because Jews were blamed for crucifying Jesus, but some also blamed Romans for the same. These are all too simplified generalizations. At least, Christians should know who the greatest enemy of the humanity is, and he is not human. As you can see, we had very patriotic, and even nationalistic Jews, back then. But, some others had different experience, for example, 90% of the leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia were Jewish. So, to some people like Hitler for example, Jews were equal to communism. But there are also very capitalistic Jews, and so they are being blamed for being rich.

Today, I think most people associate Jews with George Soros and his "open society" bullshit. The problem is many Jews fall for his philosophy and support him.

Hello zemljace :)

That's a great post, even I didn't know some of that stuff and I pride my self in knowing a lot about our history. Thanks Hvala.

Sorry for reactivating this topic, but I just came up to this video, which is also kind of old. But this is amazing.

PM Netanyahu: "The friendship between the Jewish and Serbian peoples goes back to thousands of years to the time of the Roman Republic."

PM Netanyahu obviously knows something, very brave of him to acknowledge this fact to the world public. But modern history science still claims that we were barbarians who came out of nowhere to the Balkans in the 7th century AD.

Reflective and well intentioned comments; yet a demurral.
The mover and shaker behind creating a Jewish Homeland was Great Britain and hardly Serbia.
PM Disraeli, himself a Jew, as well as Lord Palmerston and Lord Shrewsbury; were stalwart supporters of the Jewish people, who were largely Tory voters from the English Merchant Class.
As a result, in 1917, a formal letter to Lord Rothschild from David Balfour of the Foreign Office, stated that Britain would fully support a Jewish Homeland in the Mandate of Palestine; following the war.

Ok. But Rabbi Yudah Ben Solomon Chai Alkalai (1798-1878) is also regarded as one of the precursors of the modern Zionist movement. While he was living in the town of Zemun from 1825 to 1874, which was back then on the southern border of Austria-Hungary to Serbia, and is now a suburb of Belgrade, he was inspired by the Serbian liberation from the Ottoman Turks to start thinking of the Jewish liberation from the same Ottoman Turks. In the introduction to his "Darkhei No'am" book which he published in 1839, he described his wish for all Jews to return to Israel, and stated: "What are we, the Jews, doing? We are wandering from city to city all over the world in the search for existence, but we are not comming to Eretz Israel, at least to live on plain bread and water." Apart from creating an impressive literary output, Alkalai also toured Western Europe in 1851-1852, including Great Britain, and spread his message among local communities. He was a family friend to Theodor Herzl, at whose initiative the Zionist Organization was founded.

As for the Serbs, despite much sentimental commentary, they were hardly the "good guys" before, during and after the Great War.
In fact, a Serbian Military Unit self labeled "Unity or Death", organized and carried out the execution of the King and Queen of Serbia by having them thrown from the highest pinnacle of the Royal Palace at Belgrade, in 1903.
Later one of their terrorist Officers, Captain Dragu Dimitri, created the infamous"Black Hand" in 1911, which precipitated the assassination of the Austrian Crown Prince, Francis Ferdinand in 1914 and in the process changed the world forever and infinitely for the worse.

Well, it depends on the point of view. The Kingdom of Serbia gave the greatest sacrifice to the Entente victory in the Great War, we lost 1,300,000 people, which made one third of the entire country's population, and 60% of all men.

Regarding the "Unity or Death - Black Hand", they were a bit controversial. They were a secret organization of officers, related to Free Masonry, and not related to the official Serbian government. I am sure they were honest patriots, but I can't support their methods, and their assassination of the royal couple, King Aleksandar and Queen Draga Obrenović in 1903, and also more than a hundred of their family members and major supporters. It had a long story behind it. The royal dynasty of Obrenović was traditionally close to Austria and Germany. King Aleksandar tried to connect more with Russia. Russians demanded from him to abolish the liberal constitution from 1888 and establish his autocracy, which was very unpopular measure among the people. He asked for a bride from the Romanov dynasty, but he was refused. He then married Draga, his mother's close friend, who was much older than him, and was suspected of being infertile, and so not able to produce the successor to the throne. To add to the tragedy, later Austrian excavation of their grave during the occupation allegedly revealed that she was pregnant at the moment of assassination, they found remains of a small fetus. Before the assassination, King Aleksandar was waiting for years to be received by the Russian Czar in Russia for the support, but their meeting had been delayed over and over. It was obvious that Russia wanted to remove him, they probably wanted a new king who would join the alliance against Austria and Germany in the preparation for the Great War. But the new King Petar (1903-1921) from the Karađorđević dynasty was regarded the most loving king ever, because he was the most liberal and the most close to the common people. The "Black Hand" was later tried and destroyed in 1917 by the Regent Aleksandar Karađorđević for alleged plot to assassinate him, too.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie was also controversial. The court in Vienna didn't like them, and wanted them dead. It is most likely that they stand behind their assassination, in order to get rid of them, and also to have the reason to accuse and attack Serbia. That Gavrilo Princip guy, the shooter, was so bad at shooting, that he couldn't hit a tree from a few yards distance, and he fired his shots in Sarajevo with his eyes closed. There are some indications that the true assassinator could have been some Austrian sniper. Another sad fact was that Sophie was also pregnant at the moment of her assassination.

It seems that the Great War was inevitable, because everyone wanted it. Germany wanted to become a colonial power. Britain, France, and Russia agreed to prevent Germany from becoming a colonial power. Austria-Hungary wanted to destroy Serbia as a permanent threat to its southern borders. Romania, Serbia, and Italy wanted to destroy Austria-Hungary and take its territories in which ethnic Romanians, Serbians, and Italians lived. Slavic peoples in Austria-Hungary - Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes - wanted to gain independence. Bulgaria wanted to take Serbian part of Macedonia. Jews wanted to destroy Turkey and establish the Jewish state in Israel. It is funny to claim that just one event sparked the Great War.

And if the "Black Hand" wanted to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, why did they send a bunch of teenage dilettantes for the job, when they could have sent some experienced sharp shooters? It does not make any sense, why did they send those kids there.

I wouldn't believe in racial or cultural causes for the Great War, I believe they were predominantly economic. As you already stated, nations only have interests. Russia had no problems with conquering and dividing Poland together with Prussia and Austria from 1772 to 1795, the three also formed their conservative Holy Alliance in 1815 to prevent revolutionary movements in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. But, after the unification of Germany in 1871, it was rapidly becoming the leading World industrial and economic power. Also, at that time, oil enters the game, and changes perspectives. By 1888, Germany had received permission from Turkey to exploit its oil reserves in the Middle East, and to start building the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. That is when Russia suddenly turns its back to Germany and allies with Britain and France. Russia, Britain, and France, were also interested in exploiting the Middle-Eastern oil, but only Germany got permission from Turkey. The Berlin-Baghdad Railway and a German port in the Persian Gulf were also threatening the British colonies in Africa and India, and also lowering the significance of the Suez Canal, which Britain wanted to control. This also had a lot to do with Serbia. The dynasty of Obrenović had participated in the bulding of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway over the Serbian territory. I believe that was one of the main reasons why it was overthrown in 1903, and the dynasty of Karađorđević was brought, who were firm allies to Russia, Britain, and France. With their arrival, the Berlin-Baghdad Railway was blocked, and so Germany needed to conquer Serbia.

Look at this article.

http://www.revisionist.net/hysteria/baghdad-bahn.html

Some excerpts from the article.

Hidden Motives: An Exotic Railroad and a rapidly expanding Global Oil Economy

One of the least publicized motives for World War One arose with the planned German construction of a Baghdad to Berlin Railway in the dying Ottoman Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century. The French had already connected Istanbul to Paris and London with their Orient Express. The Baghdad Railway would connect Berlin and other major cities in Europe with a Constantinople-Baghdad line. Engineered in 1872 by Wilhelm von Pressel, in 1888 Sultan Abdul Hamid II asked Deutsche Bank, a leader in electrical development, for financing.

International bankers in both London and New York also recognized the future need for petroleum, and control over that necessary fuel would be key to great profit and political power. The Berlin-Baghdad railway would have linked Germany with her new African colonies, and the trade of goods and agricultural products would benefit from a port on the Persian Gulf. This in turn could provide direct access to Middle East oil, and the new German railway would bypass the Suez Canal which opened in 1869. This plan stepped on some big toes: an 1875 loan to the British from the Rothschild banking family put the British in line for eventual major control of the Canal and all of its anticipated profits. The Railway project was a threat to Britain’s financial system at a time when Britain was lagging behind Germany in energy sources, technology, agriculture and industry.

Increasingly, a revolution in the technology of naval power was required if the Royal Navy was to continue its unchallenged hegemony of the seas, and that was in the shift from coal to oil power. By the time Winston Churchill was First Lord of the Admiralty, the conversion of the British Navy to oil was strongly advocated, and since England had abundant coal but no known oil, but it soon became a national security priority to secure large oil reserves outside Britain. The Baghdad rail link was increasingly seen in London as a threat to that future oil security and the British response to growing German power was to craft a series of alliances, both public and secret, with its former rivals of France (who was still furious at Germany and wanted revenge not competition) and with Russia.