The Jews of the Bay of Kotor and the Montenegrin Littoral From the Middle Ages Until 1918

Abstract

The article provides a historical overview of the Jewish presence in the Bay of Kotor and the Montenegrin Littoral from the Middle Ages until 1918. The author first discusses the traces of Jewish presence in available sources from the medieval pe­riod and Venetian times. He also mentions the little researched history of the Jewish settlement under Ottoman dominance in the northwestern part of the Bay. Most attention is devoted to the better documented presence of the Jews during the Habsburg rule (1815–1918). Migrations from other parts of the Habsburg Empire led to the establishment of a continuous Jewish settle­ment and a permanent Jewish community, numbering over a hundred people before the First World War.