BOOKS
LIST OF EDITIONS BY THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ZEMUN THAT YOU CAN HAVE FOR A MINIMAL DONATION

NEW EXTENDED BOOK AND CD EDITION JUST PUBLISHED
"JEWISH COMMUNITY IN ZEMUN 1739-1945"

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Danilo Fogel

In 1998 the Jewish Community of Zemun decided to start its own publishing activity. The aim was to encourage our members to write about the history of our community, as well as to try their hand at all the other genres of literature and non-fiction. The original idea came from one of our members, Danilo Fogel, who wanted to collect all the available documentation about our community from its foundation until the present days. In 2002 this project, then named “Jewish Community in Zemun 1739-1945”, was eventually presented in a form of its first book. The year of 2000 is considered the year we began our publishing activity..
“The manuscript ’Jewish Community in Zemun’, which won Danilo Fogel the second shared prize at the 45th prize competition organized by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Yugoslavia in 2001, chronicles the history of Jewish community in Zemun from 1739 to 1945. Without any scientific or historiographic pretensions, the main aim of this chronicle is to “to save what is left to be saved from oblivion”, since there are only a few survivors who can testify to the life of the Jews in Zemun.

The essential value of this chronicle is twofold. Firstly, it gives detailed description of the life of Jewish community in Zemun between the two world wars, activities of the community, all social and cultural activities, family life, and persecutions and suffering of Jews in the Second World War ending with the rebuilding of Yugoslavia after the war. Secondly, this chronicle contains valuable documents, such as numerous photographs, documents of different nature, lists of pre-war members, lists of victims of Nazism, as well as lists of Zemun Jews from the first year after the war (1945). Besides the published material, the author has also used archival documentation kept at the Jewish history museum in Belgrade, as well as the recollections of the surviving Zemun residents who are now living all over the world. This combination of history and memoirs makes the real value of this Zemun ’chronicle’, which presents the best tribute the author could have paid to his hometown.”

Simha Kabiljo—Šutić, reviewer

The book was published in 2002 by Zemun Jewish community in 500 copies, ISBN 86-903319-0-5.

The next publishing project started by the Jewish Community in Zemun was the publishing of the book ''Gallery Under the Open Sky''. The author of this book of humoresques, Milan Fogel, gave the complete proceeds from the book to the Jewish Community in Zemun. This was his contribution to our efforts to collect the necessary funds for the repurchasing of the Synagogye.

The book was published in 2002, in 500 copies,
ISBN 86 – 903319 – 0 – 5,COBISS-ID 101736716

You can order ''Gallery Under the Open Sky'' by our e-mail jozemun@Eunet.yu , or on the phone number +381 11 195 626, with the secretary of our community. All the proceeds from the book will go towards the fund set up for repurchasing the Synagogye in Zemun.

It soon turned out that it was a good choice to publish Milan Fogel’s first book. In 2002, Milan Fogel took part in 46th competition organised by the Federation of Jewish Communities in Yugoslavia. For his new book of collected humoresques he was unanimously awarded the first prize in the category of literary work. The following year, we set about publishing the award-winning book, with the title “The Return to the Response”.

The book was published in 2003, in 500 copies, ISBN 86-903319-2-1, COBISS.SR-ID 106498572

At the 46th SJOJ literary awards ceremony, one of the jury members and a writer, Filip David, said:

“This literary group is always the most difficult category to be judged. One of the reasons is because it is the most prolific one, and, also, because our judgment in this category tends to be, after all, partial. When we discuss memoirs and scientific papers, there is always some criterion, which we have to follow, and which helps us to decide. In this category, however, it is more the question of personal attitude towards the contents of the work, so the criteria can differ. Fortunately, this time the awards were decided on unanimously...I would now say a few words about the award-winning literary works. The excerpt you have just heard comes from the collection of short stories “Next Year in Jerusalem” (the book was entered for the competition under this name, and was later published as “The Return to the Response”). This collection contains some thirty short stories, mainly humorous and reminiscent of Ephraim Kishon. They deal with the problems of an immigrant who comes to Israel and has to face the bureaucracy and different mentality. He also meets new people and comes across old acquaintances. Overall, the stories are pretty much unified and deal with original topics. We didn’t have literary works like this one so far, and this was definitely one of the reasons why we have awarded this book the first prize.”

With the permission from the author, we publish several stories from the award-winning book in Serbian and English. Incidentally, the author professes to write in a non-existent Serbo-Croatian language. When we asked him to tell us the reason why he didn’t choose one or the other language, he simply replied:I don’t mind writing in a dead language, as long as I am still alive”.

ANY KIND OF JOB
ARI AND JUVAL
NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM
TRAVELING TO SPACE

BELEŠKA O PISCU

Milan Fogel je rođen 1947. godine u Subotici. Godinu dana kasnije njegovi roditelji su dobili premestaj u Novi Sad gde je Milan započeo školovanje.
Milanovi roditelji su ponovo dobili premeštaj, ovog puta u Beograd. Po prelasku u Beograd Milan je završio osnovnu školu, maturirao je u VIII beogradskoj gimnaziji i diplomirao na Ekonomskom fakultetu.
Kao gimnazijalac je pokazivao sklonost za pisanje, o čemu su njegovi profesori jezika imali ekstremno različito mišljenje. U toku četvrogodišnjeg školovanja je imao tri profesora srpsko-hrvatskog jezika, a njihove ocene su se kretale od one najniže do najviše.

Prvi put se Milanu ukazala prilika da se oproba u književno-novinarskom poslu za vreme odsluženja vojnog roka u Beloj Crkvi. Pokrenuo je Bilten koji je pored veoma serioznih članaka sadržavao i humorističku rubriku. Njegovi aforizmi na vojničke teme podjednako su zabavljali starešine i njegove drugove vojnike.

Nakon odsluženja vojnog roka, zaposlen u struci, Milan je duže vreme zapostavio pisanje.

Kada se sa porodicom preselio u Izrael, nova sredina bila je novi izazov za njegove potisnute spisateljske mogućnosti. Zapažajući detalje iz života njegovih novih sugrađana napisao je prvu zbirku humoreski pod naslovom "Galerija pod vedrim nebom". Kompletno izdanje prve knjige Milan je poklonio Jevrejskoj opštini Zemun, uzevši na taj način učešće u dobrotvornoj akciji sakupljanja sredstava za otkup zemunske sinagoge.
U potrazi za ličnom afirmacijom Milan je učestvovao sa novom zbirkom humoreski na 46. književnom konkursu Saveza jevrejskih opština Jugoslavije. Žiri je jednoglasno doneo odluku da se prva nagrada dodeli njegovoj zbirci koja se objavljuje pod naslovom "Povratak u odgovor".

Milan Fogel je aktivan u Udruženju useljenika iz bivše Jugoslavije u Izraelu (Hitahdut Oley ex-Yu); trenutno se nalazi na funkciji predsednika Komisije za kulturu.