62 · Ömer Turan
hundred years. The Jews did not not want to leave their Muslim com-
patriots behind and wanted the latter to join them.^49 Stephen Schwartz
describes Jewish religious and cultural achievements in Bosnia under
Muslim rule and explains how Bosnian Muslims and Sephardi Jews got
on well in the past and present. Obviously, he has no positive remarks
about Serbs.^50 Sarajevo was called the little Jerusalem of the Balkans in
the past, but now it has very few Jewish families left, if there are any at
all. The last mosque of Belgrade, Bayraktar Camisi, was burned five years
ago. Similar cruelties were conducted against the Muslims in Kosovo by
the Serbs.
Romania
Russian influence increased in the Romanian Principalities after the Turks
lost the 1828–29 Ottoman-Russian War. Legally they were dependent on
Istanbul until 1878, but in practice the representatives of the Russian tsar
were the most influential figures in the country. In that period, as a reflec-
tion of the anti-Semitic climate in Russia, they put anti-Semitic articles in
their constitutions. The rights of the Jews were limited. In order to limit
their increase and power, an article ordered the deportation of the Jews in
the Moldovian constitution. Citizenship rights were not given to the Jews
of Romania. For instance, the sentence of “only foreigners of Christian
religion may become Romanians” was put in the constitution of 1866.
Emphasizing that Romania was a Christian Roman country, several
laws were issued against Jewish religious, educational, economic, and
cultural life after Romanian independence in 1878. Between 1899 and
1904, one-quarter of the total Jewish population of Romania (41,754) left
the country.^51 Many of them drifted toward Turkey. They were hoping
to create agricultural colonies there.^52 When Carol Iancu analyzed the
factors in the rise of anti-Semitism in the nineteenth and early twenthi-
eth centuries in Romania, he put religious factors above other economic,
political, and xenophibic factors. He comments, “Whereas prior to 1878,
it was the lack of assimilation which seemed to justify hostility toward
the Jews, after that date, it was rather the fear of such assimilation which
explains the severe legislative measures taken against them.”^53
Even though Romania had to sign a treaty concerning minority rights
like the other Balkan countries at the end of World War I, it was not willing