Serbian-Jewish Friendship Society

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The Serbian-Jewish Friendship Society was founded in Belgrade, Serbia in 1987 by Klara Mandić, who is also the society's spokesperson. The official, primary focus of the Society was to establish full diplomatic relations between Israel and Yugoslavia, an act which had previously been stymied by Tito's communist regime. In addition to calling for diplomatic relations with Israel, the society also publicly advocated the idea that the sufferings of the Jewish people were identical to those undergone by the Serbs, and that Serbs and Jews had enjoyed long-standing good relations with each other. Some, however, have questioned the real motivations of those belonging to and administrating the Society, for several reasons; although Mandić considers herself to be a "Jewish Leader," only six of the society's several thousand claimed members are Jews. Moreover, in 1992, Mandić gave to the American Jewish press a phony account of Croats killing a Jewish woman names Ankica Konjuh. This account was cited as evidence of Croatian anti-semitism. In truth, as Mandić was well aware, Konjuh was neither Jewish, nor was she killed by Croats. Ankica Konjuh was a sixty-seven year old Croat who was one of 240 people killed as part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by Serbian Military forces. In December of 1991, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia met to demand that Mandić stop representing Konjuh as the first Jewish victim of the war.