Rabbi Pinchas Zaklas, of the Chabad of Croatia in Zagreb, walked just steps behind Andrej Plenković, the Balkan state’s prime minister, at a Holocaust remembrance ceremony last week at the site of the former Jasenovac concentration camp site. The two being in lockstep is relatively new to Chabad’s relationship with the country and has the Trump administration to thank, per text messages that JNS reviewed.
Since April 15—during Passover—a marked police car has been posted around the clock outside the Chabad building. The Chabad rabbi told JNS that he had long sought such protection for this community from the state, but was stonewalled.
JNS viewed text messages, in which Pete Hegseth, the U.S. defense secretary, and Christopher Landau, the deputy U.S. secretary of state, responded to requests for help from the Croatian Chabad, as did Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. (JNS sought comment from the two Trump administration officials and from the congressman.)
“The United States government is a strong advocate for religious freedom for all,” the embassy’s public diplomacy section told JNS. “The U.S. embassy in Zagreb is aware of the Chabad community’s request for registration, and we have urged the government of Croatia to evaluate and respond to that request in line with Croatian law.”
Zaklas told JNS that Sara Lustig, Plenković’s special advisor for Holocaust issues and combating antisemitism, called him on April 15, during Passover’s intermediate days, to inform him that police protection would start that evening. (JNS sought comment from Lustig, a former co-president of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, which penned the widely-used working definition of Jew-hatred.)
The rabbi doesn’t think that Jew-hatred is to blame for having long been denied police protection.
Jews enjoy relative safety in the Catholic-majority country compared with other European countries, although the border of Muslim-majority Bosnia, which is reportedly accepting Gaza refugees, is less than a three-hour drive from Zagreb.
“There are 1,700 Jews in Croatia’s small but highly active Jewish community,” per the World Jewish Congress. “Fighting antisemitism and other harmful ideologies has proven difficult in the nation, especially in light of the historical revisionist efforts to absolve the fascist Ustaše Movement of its responsibility for the mass murder of Jews and Serbs during World War II.”
“Despite this, Croatian Jews are supported by the government and have full and equal rights,” per the congress. It adds that Croatia and Israel have full diplomatic relations.
Zaklas told JNS that a community needs to qualify as “minority” under Croatian law to qualify for police protection. The state recognizes the longer-established Jewish community as such, but hasn’t done so with Chabad.
The Chabad rabbi told JNS that an intra-Jewish conflict is at play, with the World Jewish Congress, which has long been entrenched in European Jewish life, loath to cede its role representing Croatian Jews. He thinks that Croatian Jewish communities generally got along until he filed for official government recognition.
“They’re all the time fighting against us, all the time, from the first day, whatever we do,” Zaklas told JNS, of the congress. He said that he has heard that representatives of the congress badmouth Chabad. “I’m not a conflict guy. I’m not that type,” he told JNS. “What I’m doing now, I don’t have a choice, because it’s a question of life. But they always push against us.”
‘Only place where you can find a minyan’
Ernest Herzog, executive director for operations and head of combating antisemitism, intelligence and security at World Jewish Congress, told JNS that the congress “deeply values Chabad’s contributions to global Jewish life and acknowledges its unwavering commitment to Jewish education, outreach and spiritual service.”
Herzog told JNS that the congress encouraged Zaklas to request security for his community and “welcomed the recent decision to enhance protective measures at the Chabad House and fully support it.”
“At the same time, it is regrettable that such heightened security remains a necessity for Jewish life to thrive safely in today’s world,” he said.
Michal Brandl, associate professor and chair of Jewish and Holocaust studies at the University of Zagreb, told JNS that rivalry in Croatia’s Jewish community is between the recognized, secular Jewish community and Chabad, rather than between the World Jewish Congress and the latter.
“Chabad is the only place in Croatia where you can find a minyan,” Brandl said. “Some in the recognized, secular community, I believe, see Chabad as an encroachment on their views of how Judaism should fit into Croatian society.”
Herzog told JNS that Chabad’s requests must be done by the book. “World Jewish Congress has consistently and publicly advocated for robust security for all Jewish institutions across Croatia, including the Chabad House in Zagreb,” he said.
In the experience of the World Jewish Congress, the national Croatian police and other government authorities “have approached their responsibilities with professionalism and seriousness, making determinations based on objective risk assessments and the evolving security environment,” Herzog told JNS.
He added that under the law, there is a minimum registration period for associations and there must be a certain number of adherents to qualify for recognition.
Chabad hosts between 100 and 150 guests regularly on Friday nights, according to Zaklas. He thinks his community faces a catch-22, in which it needs to demonstrate numbers to receive security, but many Jews, who would otherwise attend events at the Chabad center, are afraid to do so without police protection in the aftermath of Oct. 7.
“These are matters of legal procedure, not communal preference or political influence,” Herzog told JNS. “As such, the question of recognition is entirely within the competence of the Croatian government and its legal framework.”
The Croatian census notes 500 Jews in the country, but Zaklas thinks there are some 3,000 in his community and another 2,000 throughout Croatia, including in Palmotićeva, which has a synagogue and Jewish community center.
The rabbi told JNS that his former secretary comes from a Jewish family, but she was never a member of the official Jewish community. Under a Nazi puppet regime during the Holocaust, the Croatian government got a list of registered Jews that belonged to a rabbi in Zagreb.
“Because of what happened here, her mother told her, ‘don’t ever register anywhere,’” Zaklas said of his former secretary. “Some people, if they need to be registered, they will not come.”
Since he filed the application for recognition about a year-and-a-half ago, Zaklas said that he has received neither approval nor denial.
The rabbi managed to reach the Trump administration with help from Duvi Honig, of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce in New York. The two spent weeks contacting administration officials.
“They understand that they cannot just ignore me anymore, although they ignored us for many years,” Zaklas said, of Croatian officials. “It just shows you the pressure is working.”
Plenković’s staff evidently thinks differently. In an email to Zaklas from the prime minister’s office, the posting of the police officer was attributed to a “recommendation by Croatia’s intelligence agencies and the Ministry of the Interior,” after “a recent anti-Zionist rally” organized in front of the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs.
The Interior Ministry “has the resources to provide long-term, 24/7 security for Chabad House, and the Croatian government supports this assessment,” the prime minister’s office wrote, adding that “we are glad to ensure permanent safety,” Zaklas told JNS.
To Zaklas, nothing will be permanent until his community achieves official state recognition, particularly with the future of European Union funding in doubt.
“This is why it’s so important to be recognized as a community, because this is the law,” he told JNS. “The law obligates the government, and then no one can change it.”