Montenegro Gets A Rabbi While Waiting For A Synagogue
BUDVA, Montenegro (JTA) — For the first time in over a century, the Jewish community of this small Balkan country has its own resident rabbi, its leaders said.
Ari Edelkopf, a Los Angeles-born Chabad rabbi, settled in the capital Podgorica several weeks ago with his wife, Chana, and seven children. He said he is officiating from his home while waiting for the construction of the country’s first synagogue.
Edelkopf also is Montenegro’s first resident rabbi since it became independent in 2006, breaking away from Serbia.
Jasa Alfandari, the president of the Jewish community of Montenegro, thanked Edelkopf, whose last rabbinical posting was in Russia, for his service to the community Thursday night at the opening of the fifth annual Mahar conference hosted in Montenegro for Balkan and Central European Jews with funding from the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, the World Jewish Congress and the Jewish National Fund, among other sponsors.
Some 400 people attended the weekend gathering in the coastal city of Budva, including communal leaders from across the region.
The cornerstone for a synagogue in Montenegro will be laid next year in Podgorica, said Milo Djukanovic, a former prime minister of Montenegro who attended the Mahar conference as its keynote speaker.
Montenegero has about 400 Jews.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
