(In Croatian: Margelov institut) 

The Margel Institute bears the name of Rabbi Dr. Moshe Margel (1875–1939), a reputable Jewish scholar from Croatia. The institute is placed in Zagreb, the Croatian capital with the highest number of Jews in the Republic of Croatia. Before the Holocaust, Zagreb had three Jewish communities with four synagogues and the Jewish population of twelve thousand Jews. In 2007 Zagreb had 232 Jews. From 2006 it has two Jewish communities.

Our Institute was established by a group of Croatian Jewish enthusiasts in February 2007 as NGO of the Jewish minority in Croatia. As a cultural Jewish organization, the Institute acts independently from eleven Croatian Jewish communities, on the whole territory of the Republic of Croatia, and is one of the most prominent Jewish organizations in Croatia, already equally well known abroad. From the beginning the Margel Institute closely collaborates with the Simon Wiesenthal Centre from Jerusalem and the Jasenovac Research Institute from New York.

The Margel Institute from Zagreb was made for monitoring of anti-Semitism and for fighting against anti-Semitism and all other forms of intolerance inside the Croatian society. The organization works in the sense of induction of positive atmosphere in the relations between Jewish minority and the Croatian majority in the Republic of Croatia, working through popularization of the Jewish culture and through mutual care about the Jewish cultural and historical legacy in Croatia. Our priorities are research of the history of the Jewish community of the Western Balkan, and we particularly want to keep the remembrance on Holocaust alive in Croatia. We also support the preservation of the domestic Jewish religious tradition. 

 

Our activities:

- to follow all aspects of anti-Semitism and other forms of intolerance in the press, on TV and radio-programs, in the printed publications and in the Croatian web-space;

- to spread the positive and fruitful atmosphere between Jewish and Croatian people through round tables, educational workshops and public lectures, publication of books and other printing material in the area of history, culture and sociology, annual reports, excursions to the Jewish sites in Croatia and abroad, public notification of the contribution of the Croatian Jewry to Croatian culture, art, science and economy;

- to publish works on the Jewish history in the area of the Western Balkan;

- to celebrate the important events in the history of the Croatian Jewry and the Israeli State and to commemorate the events from Holocaust in Croatia and Europe;

- to encourage care for cultural and religious legacy of the Jewish people in Croatia, the synagogues, the cemeteries, the monuments, and the preservation of the domestic Jewish tradition in its authenticity;

- to establish contacts with the Jewish organizations in country and abroad for better fulfillment of our tasks;

- to keep the memory on the Holocaust victims intact;

- to care on the Jewish memorial sites, the Memorial Area of the Ustashi death camp Jasenovac in the first place;

- to fight against historical revisionism and any negation, distortion, diminution and misrepresentation of the Holocaust phenomenon.