Stolac -- the name means "stool" in the South Slavic dialects - is a beautiful village on the river Bregava, which cuts through the bleak, limestone mountains of Hercegovina, about 20 miles southeast of Mostar, the region's main city. It is sacred to Bosnians of all faiths, and was proposed as an international cultural site by the Bosnian government. The village's surroundings include a massive deposit at Radimilje of pre-Islamic Bosnian burial monuments, or stecci, of inconceivable value for the world

Bosnia is a country with five historical identities: Muslim, Sephardic, Serbian, Croatian, and Gypsy. Although Sephardim have been absent in numbers since the Holocaust, they once accounted for one out of six residents in Sarajevo, and their literary achievements, mainly involving poetry and song, are well known to Bosnians. But Stolac is especially important to Jews as the location of the grave of a rabbi, Rav Moshe Danon. Beginning in the mid-19th century, Sephardim made regular pilgrimages there from Sarajevo and elsewhere in Bosnia. The story of the rabbi of Stolac, as Rav Danon is known to surviving Bosnian Sephardim, reveals many facets of the mountainous country's existence, and deserves to be retold -- along with its contemporary postscript.

* * * * *

Rav Moshe Danon did not serve as rabbi in Stolac, and was not born there; he is associated with the town only because he died near it, on the road to Eretz Israel. But the events that led to his departure from Bosnia for the Holy Land are legendary, reflected even in beautiful Sephardic balladry.  The tale begins in 1819, when a mentally-disturbed Jew named Moshe Haviljo, living in the old Turkish city of Travnik north of Sarajevo, converted to Islam and took the name "Dervish Ahmed." The title "dervish" should have indicated an affiliation with the less-rigid intellectual traditions of Balkan Muslim mysticism.

But whatever the circumstances of his apostasy, Haviljo soon emerged as a ferocious enemy of the Jews. He posed as a holy man and miracle worker, and began inciting Muslims against his former coreligionists. Another Jew, Benjamin Pinto, went to the governor of the province, and denounced the swindles and lies of "Ahmed." Soon theconvert died, or was killed. But in the words of a Sarajevo grand rabbi and community chronicler, Dr. Moritz Levi, writing almost a century later, "ignorant folk among the Muslims, believing the convert to be a true miracle-worker, lamented his death and complained to the new Turkish governor, Ruzhdi-Pasha."

The convert's death provided a prete t for Ruzhdi-Pasha to attack the Jews in general. The small and poor Jewry of Travnik did not offer much of a target, and they were left in peace. But the governor's eyes had turned to the Jews of the great city of Sarajevo; he demanded a payment of 50,000 Austrian gold groschen from them, as indemnity for the dead convert. He then ordered the arrest of ten of Sarajevo's leading Jews, beginning with Rav Danon, the outstanding Jewish spiritual leader in the country. Furthermore, the fine was increased to 500,000 groschen to be paid within three days, or the Jews would be executed. 

Panic seized the Sarajevo Sephardim as they faced a wholesale assault on their security and their rights. The situation looked extremely grim. But then a well-known Sarajevo Jew, Rafael Levi, who was greatly respected by Muslims, had the idea of appealing to his neighbors' humanity. On the night before the hostages were to be executed, Rafael Levi went to the coffee houses where he knew Muslims met and talked, and exhorted them with an emotional description of the dreadful threat hanging over the Jews. 

The Muslims were profoundly touched, and consoled Levi for the tears he shed as he spoke. Then, "all together, as if they were one," the Muslims swore an oath, pledging to give up their lives, if necessary, to save the arrested Jews. Before dawn the ne t morning, some 3,000 Bosnian Muslims armed themselves, surrounded the governor's palace, seized the jail, and liberated Rav Danon and the other imprisoned Jews. The Bosnian Muslims later denounced Ruzhdi-Pasha to the Sublime Porte in Istanbul.

A decade afterward, Rav Danon left for Palestine, but he died near Stolac in 1830. Annual pilgrimages to his grave, on his birthday, June 14, were common among the Bosnian Sephardim until World War II; photographs survive of adults clustered around the Hebrew-inscribed gravestone, a sarcophagus in the unique Bosnian Jewish form, known as a "seated lion." Sad meditation on such images has become, of course, a common experience for all writers on recent Jewish history, as, in the faces of the pilgrims, mostly women, we see many who must have died in the Holocaust. As with other such saintly Jewish monuments in the Sephardic world, the tomb was also honored by local Muslims, especially dervishes.

* * * * *

The main sources on this incident include Die Sephardim im Bosnien, by Moritz Levi, published in 1911, and an outstanding 1992 study by the Bosnian Muslim academic Muhamed Nezirovic, Jevrejsko spanjolska Knjizevnost (Jewish Spanish Literature). Prof. Nezirovic, whose book is one of the best and most complete accounts of a Sephardic community, cites an e tensive, unpublished work by Moritz Levi on the confrontation of the virtuous Rav Danon and the evil, Haman-like Ruzhdi-Pasha. Yet such evil persists: fewer than 50 copies of Prof. Nezirovic's book, which was printed only months before the outbreak of the Bosnian war, survived the conflict: the unbound sheets were cut up and used for cigarette paper. 

Ballads about these events were composed during the 19th century, and in the first decades of the 20th. Two, among what seem to have been many, were printed in 1987 in the monumental, two-volume Romancero Judeo-Español of Samuel M. Elazar, a compendium of ballads, short lyrics, religious songs, and other Sephardica published in Sarajevo. As with Prof. Nezirovic's book, the war brought the destruction of the whole stock of this anthology, when Serb troops set fire to the publisher's warehouse.

One of these ballads, sung to a lively Purim tune, begins,

Sabida es la maravilla
Y contada en larguilla
Haremos chica poesía 
En favor del Rav Danon

Well-known is the marvellous tale
Many times told in many words
Let us sing a little ballad 
In honor of Rav Danon

The text continues with a refrain praising Rav Danon for his wisdom, vision, and the merit of his pilgrimage, while also describing the effects of the pilgrimage on others:

En Mostar fueron sentados
Varones pocos bien encontrados
Con firmamentos fueron atados 
Por visitar Rav Danon

In Mostar some youths were waiting,
All together, well dressed, well spoken
They'd made pledges unto heaven
To visit the grave of Rav Danon

A second ballad on the theme ends with a description of the governor, Ruzhdi-Pasha, driven from Sarajevo:

Muchos sí a él entesados, 
Salió cosa que no iba pensando, 
Todo su saber perdió,
Y a Travnik el huyó

Many assembled around his palace, 
And something happened he didn't expect
He lost all his mental powers 
And to Travnik he quickly fled

* * * * *

When the Bosnian war began in 1992 Stolac was defended against the Serbs by united Croat and Bosnian Muslim forces. But it was "liberated" by Croat armed forces or HVO in 1993. "Ethnic cleansing" began immediately. 

The Croatian opposition journal Feral Tribune reported on what ensued. In an article by Gordan Malic, published on April 29, 1996, the paper stated, "a Bosnian university professor, Fahrudin Rizvanbegovic, was arrested as a civilian in Stolac, his birthplace, in July 1993, and was transferred to an HVO 'collection center' in the location of Dretelj. He spent si  months in Croat concentration camps (Dretelj and Ljubuski) and witnessed cruel interrogations, torture, hunger and murders." 

Prof. Rizvanbegovic was later named Minister for Education in the government of the Bosnian ("Croat-Muslim") Federation. Feral reported that "according to his estimate, during the summer months of 1993 there were about 20,000 Muslim Bosniaks in the 'collection centers:' in Gabela, Dretelj, Ljubuski, at the Helidrome near Mostar, in Otoka near Vitina, Kocerin, Posusje, Duvno, Sujica, Bijelo Polje and Siroki Brijeg... Tens of Bosniaks died from the consequences of torture. (N)one of the criminals has been tried; the commanders of the camps were promoted to new duties, while the 'collection centers' were disbanded and emptied or are still used for the same purpose." 

Feral further noted that "Roy Gutman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, who witnessed these crimes himself.finds the explanation for this conflict in the reasons given by the commander of the HVO units,General Slobodan Praljak. In an interview with Gutman, General Praljak openly defined the war using the German term Lebensraum (living space) which once upon a time had been used as the justification for the Nazi aggression against the European east

"The 'ethnic cleansing' of Stolac.was completed during the first five days of August 1993. Out of more than 8,000 Stolac Muslims (more than 80 percent of the town population), only a few families remained in the town, mostly thanks to mixed marriages, commercial contacts or debts of another nature - for example the one that was repaid to a Muslim family by the Catholic bishop of Mostar... The Muslim family had done the same thing for him fifty years before, saving him from the persecution of Partisans," Feral added. 

Croatian president Franjo Tudjman, according to the paper, "had his own opinion about the 'character' of these institutions: 'Others have camps too.' " 

Worst of all, "the recognizably Islamic buildings in Stolac (which made up a large proportion of the town) had been burned and then razed to the ground... The Muslim cemetery... was the only object to survive untouched during the first days of the HVO rule. Nevertheless, in the wake of the Dayton Agreement, it was demolished."

* * * * *

All four mosques in Stolac were levelled, and in most cases the remains were taken away by the Croat vandals. 

The Sultan Selim Javuz (Imperial) Mosque, dating from 1519 and among the oldest in Bosnia, has vanished. It was burned and then twice dynamited. The Hadjisalih Buro/Alipasa Rizvanbegovic Mosque, established in 1732, was also burned down and the ruins dynamited. Only a strip of empty grass remains. 

The Hadji Ali Mosque, built in 1736, with a well and fountain, and a distinctive octagonal minaret, was burned down and then blown up.

The recently-restored complex of the Ismail-Kapetan Saric Mosque, built in 1741 and richly decorated, was attacked by Croat troops, and the mosque was set on fire. Its roof and minaret collapsed. 

HVO thugs also vandalized or destroyed numerous historic residences and libraries, as well as a fine Serbian Orthodo church. They painted their initials on all the vandalized structures. 

In addition, the problem of refugee return, after the Dayton Agreement that ended the Bosnian War, has been extremely severe in Stolac,with 70 separate incidents of attacks and other violent actions against Muslims and Serbs seeking to return to their homes, in the year 1998. In December 1998, International Police station at Stolac was vandalized, and the Croat police officers serving in the town are all currently under suspension for their failure to adequately investigate attacks on returnees. 

The gravity of the cultural vandalism in Stolac and the continuing insecurity in the town has provoked considerable concern on the part of Jewish scholars knowledgeable about the life of Rabbi Danon and the significance of his tomb. For this reason, I and my colleague Laura Peterson, who is the regular correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle in Bosnia, determined to attempt a visit to the grave. With the assistance of Grace Kang, a civil affairs expert with the UN Mission in Mostar, and Alfred Reich, an officer of the International Police in Stolac, both of them American citizens, we were able to complete an inspection of the grave and to even pronounce the Jewish memorial prayer or kaddish at the site, as well as to take photographs. 

I was not the first person of Jewish origin to visit the grave since the outbreak of the war in 1992. That very great honor belongs to a Sarajevo Jew who now lives in Israel, Milan Hamovic, 62. Mr. Hamovic is married to a descendant of Rabbi Danon, and he visited the grave and pronounced kaddish on 25 February 1999. However, Jakov Finci, President of the Jewish Community of BH, stated that I was the first to go to the site as a special representative of the Community. 

We completed our visit on the Sabbath, 13 March 1999. I wish to express my most sincere thanks to Ms. Kang and Officer Reich for their assistance in this task.

* * * * *

The tomb of Rabbi Danon consists of a monumental stone in the old Bosnian Jewish style known as "seated lions," the most famous e amples of which are found in the Sephardic Cemetery of Sarajevo (the protection of which was a major issue in the recent war and its aftermath). The form is unique and clearly shows the influence of the Bosnian stecci.

The tomb is inscribed in Hebrew as follows:

THIS STONE IS HERE PLACED SO THAT IT BE A SIGN AND MONUMENT FOR THE BURIAL OF THE SAINTLY PERSON WHOSE WORKS WERE WONDROUS AND OF WHOM IT WAS SAID THAT HE WAS PIOUS AND SAINTLY HE WAS OUR MASTER TEACHER AND GREAT HAHAM RAV MOSHE DANON HIS GOOD WORKS AID US. AMEN. HE LEFT THIS WORLD ON THE 20TH DAY OF SIVAN 5590

As previously noted, after his death in 1830 the tomb of Rabbi Danon became a place for regular pilgrimages by Bosnian and other Balkan Sephardic Jews. The similarity of this practice with pilgrimages to the graves of Islamic holy men in such places as Buna, also in Hercegovina, is worthy of note. Unfortunately, the practice virtually disappeared with the genocide of Bosnian Sephardim during the Holocaust.

****

As I was able to confirm, the tomb of Rabbi Danon is secure. The cemetery is located at Krajsini, a few kilometers west of the town itself.  The grounds are rather well kept, all things considered. There is a substantial paved area surrounding the Danon tomb in the form of a menorah, and a menorah also decorates the gate of the iron fencing. There are two other tombs in the cemetery, for a total of only three Jewish dead in the cemetery. The third tomb in location is inscribed in German, and in Latin letters,

ARNOLD SILBERSTEIN Gestorben im Mai 1889.

The second grave stone is without an inscription.  A remaining issue involves the existence or absence of a chevra or mourners' shelter at the cemetery. In a recent interview, Minister Rizvanbegovic informed me that the chevra had been set afire by Croat militia. I found no trace of such a structure. It is interesting to note, therefore, that a Sephardic song about the Stolac pilgrimages, included in the Elazar Romancero, describes the erection of such a structure. Its apparent demolition should be thoroughly investigated. 

Minister Rizvanbegovic, whose family is rightfully considered outstanding among the Muslims of eastern Hercegovina, also recounted the pride his forbears felt at accommodating Jewish pilgrims to Stolac during the months of May and June, in the years before the existence of hotels. He described his own careful and loving attention to the grave of Rav Danon, so long as he lived in the town. He had, he said, asked friends to continue tending the monument after he was forced to leave. 

Minister Rizvanbegovic's interview concluded with a reminiscence that eloquently expressed the psychology of Bosniaks and the attitude of Bosnian Muslims to their Jewish neighbors. At one moment during the war, after his escape to Sarajevo from the concentration camp at Dretelj, he and his wife were left with no more than 50 deutschemarks. He went out one morning to buy a container of oil, which cost DM 35. However, he was accosted by a woman who offered him a copy of the Sarajevo Haggadah for DM 30. The expenditure would make it almost impossible to buy oil, he realized; how would he e plain such a purchase to his wife. And yet, after some bargaining, he handed over his precious deutschemarks for the copy of the glorious Jewish manuscript.  It was the first book in his new library. "This is destiny," he said quietly. 

It is profoundly desirable that the memory of Rabbi Danon move all residents of Stolac and of Bosnia-Hercegovina in general, to permit the complete protection and restoration of all such moments. In addition, it is to be hoped that, in the spirit of human solidarity shown by the Sarajevo Muslims who assisted their Jewish neighbors, the return and safe residency of all former refugees be assured. The work of the United Nations civil affairs and International Police personnel are of obvious importance for the success of this project. 

This visit was carried out two weeks after I heard and read the Megillat Esther in a study room off the prayer hall of the Ashkenazi Synagogue and Jewish Community Center in Sarajevo, en los días de Purim, the year 5759.

Sarajevo, March 1999