Jewish Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Jewish Museum or Museum of the Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina is housed in the oldest synagogue in Bosnia and Herzegovina, built in 1581. The Museum was opened in 1966, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the Jewish arrival to Sarajevo. The initiator of its foundation was the esteemed hispanist Mr. ph. Samuel Elazar, then the president of the Jewish Community in Sarajevo, with the support of many well-known personalities of Jewish and non Jewish circles. Many experts are of the opinion that this was the finest exhibition space in the whole of ex-Yugoslavia; and indeed, on entering the Synagogue, one steps into a different, sheltered world, which attests to the centuries-old presence of the Jews in this country and to the contribution they made to its development in many fields, particularly science and the arts. Particular attention is devoted to the suffering of the Jews during World War II. This dependency of the Sarajevo Museum is located in Velika avilja.
