קהילת יהודי טראווניק

Gaon, Solomon (1912-1994), scholar and rabbi, born in Travnik, Bosnia (then part of Austria-Hungary). He moved with his parents to England. Gaon first studied at the yeshiva of Sarajevo, Bosnia, but received his rabbinic ordination from Jews' College in London. In 1949 he became Haham (Chief Rabbi) of the Sephardic congregations of the British Commonwealth and held the position until 1982. In 1963 he became involved with Yeshiva University in New York, and was integral in the founding of its Sephardic Studies Program and ultimately in 1976, after moving to New York, was made Professor of Sephardic Studies there.

At the time of his death, Dr. Gaon was chief rabbi of congregations affiliated with the World Sephardi Federation. An international spokesman for Sephardic Jews, he was a world-renowned scholar on their history and interpretation of Jewish law. He served as president of the Union of Sephardic Congregations of the United States and Canada.

Jakob (Jaša) Gaon (1914-1995), epidemiologist, born in Travnik, Bosnia and Herzegovina (then part of Austria-Hungary). Gaon graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in 1939 in Belgrade, Serbia (then part of Yugoslavia). After the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers he was a POW and detained most of the time at Ravensbrück camp where he assisted Soviet prisoners. After WW II, he specialized in epidemiology at Sarajevo and Belgrade during 1946-1949. He continued his studies in 1950, 1954 and 1962 in Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain and the USA, and in 1963 he received his MD. After 1964, he was a full professor at the Department of Epidemiology at the Sarajevo Medical Faculty and the head of the Institute of Epidemiology. Working for the Health Services of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he was instrumental in the suppression of the smallpox epidemic during the 1970s. Gaon was author of numerous papers, textbooks and monographs in the field of epidemiology. He was a corresponding member of Academy of Science of Bosnia and Herzegovina since 1967 and in 1973 became a full member. He was active in the Jewish community of Sarajevo. Because of the war in former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, along with his wife Marta he moved from Sarajevo to the Lavoslav Schwarz retirement home of the Jewish community in Zagreb, Croatia.

Sabetay Josef Djaen (also D’Jaen) (1883-1947), rabbi, author, and journalist, born in Pleven, Bulgaria. He studied at the Rabbinical Seminary in Constantinople (Istanbul) and then moved to Serbia and studied philosophy at the University of Belgrade. A Zionist, he traveled to the Land of Israel with the first group of immigrants from Bulgaria. A teacher of Hebrew and principal of the Sephardi school in Nis, Serbia, then a Hebrew teacher in Belgrade where he established Gideon and Hatchia Zionist youth movements. During WW I he was in Sarajevo and in Travnik, serving as inspector of the Sephardi schools in Bosnia, then part of Austria-Hungary. He worked hard to encourage emigration to the Land of Israel, particularly among Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews. Djaen served as chief rabbi of the Jewish community of Bitola, North Macedonia (then part of Yugoslavia) from 1924 to 1928, when he immigrated to Argentina and served as Chief Rabbi of the Sephardi communities of Argentina and Uruguay. During his tenure he also raised money in the Americas on behalf of the poor Jews of Bitola.

From his seat in Buenos Aires he travelled to the Jewish communities in the Argentinian provinces, among others he inaugurated the he Great Synagogue in the city of Corrientes, as well as to Araucania province in Chile where he managed to organize the Jewish community of Temuco that included many immigrants from Bitola. In early 1930s he traveled to Spain and was one of those who asked the Government of the Republic to extend the royal decree approved in 1924 that allowed Jews in the diaspora to return to Spain. It was valid for seven years. Djaen proposed the abolition of the Expulsion Decree of 1492, as well as the creation of a Spanish-Sephardic central.

He left Argentina in 1931 and moved to Bucharest, serving as Chief Rabbi of the Sephardi communities of Romania until 1941. After the establishment of the Fascist government in Romania in 1940, he was arrested several times, including during the Bucharest pogrom in January 1941 during which the Great Sephardi Synagogue, Kal Grande, was burned down by members of the Iron Guard anti-Semitic party. Along with other leaders of the Romanian Jewry, he was taken hostage and threatened with execution in case of "hostile behavior" of Jews "against the Romanian people". Djaen was one of the community leaders that organized assistance for the Jews deported to Transnistria and their relatives in Romania. Following the intervention of Miguel Ángel Rivera González, the General Consul of Chile in Romania, in 1944 Djaen was allowed to leave Romania for the Land of Israel, where he remained for a couple of years before returning to Argentina. He died in Tucuman, Argentina.

Djaen is the author of twenty plays in Ladino that were performed by Jewish schools and theater groups in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Argentina, and some were were translated into Serbian and performed at the National Theater in Belgrade. Some of his plays were published in Vienna in 1921-1922.  

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Also known as: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnia
Bosna i Hercegovina / Босна и Херцеговина

A country in southeastern Europe in the Balkan peninsula, until 1992 part of Yugoslavia. 

21st Century

Estimated Jewish population in 2018: 500 out of 3,500,000.  Main Jewish organization:

La Benevolencija - The Jewish Community of Bosnia and Herzegovina
Phone: 387 33 229 666
Fax: 387 33 229 667
Email: la_bene@open.net.ba