08 September 2006
The head of the Croatian and Zagreb Jewish community (ZOZ), Dr Ognjen Kraus, has protested against what he calls "the intolerable and destructive interference of the state" in matters of local Jewish community. In a statement quoted by the Croatian news agency "Hina", Kraus said that the leadership of the 200-year-old ZOZ, recently elected in democratic elections, had been forced to issue this protest on behalf of community members because senior state and city officials had allowed small group of former ZOZ members to register, contrary to the law, their own association as a religious community, to close down the old Jewish school, and to open a new one under their control. Kraus claims that the group of former ZOZ members managed to gain financial help for the school because they were politically suitable. He goes on to claim that Ivo Goldstein, president of the newly-established Jewish association Bet Israel, was also announcing the takeover of a Jewish day care center using the same methods. Kraus announced that he would send a protest letter to the Croatian government, the European Union and the World Jewish Congress, to which the Croatian Jewish community is affiliated. The "Jutarnji List" newspaper recently reported that Bet Israel president Goldstein wanted to carry out the takeover of the primary school in secret and in collusion with the city authorities in order to avoid that the ZOZ leadership would not know what was going on. According to the article, the Zagreb city authorities financed the new Jewish primary school with US$ 350,000 and the school was opened by the city's mayor Milan Bandic on 3 September.
