resources on monastir today

Featured experts

Click here to contact Dan Oryan, Israeli Ambassador to North Macedonia

Click here to contact Dr. Rachel Shelly Levy-Drummer (Israel), Director of Macedonia Initiatives NGO 

Click here to contact Maria Geras Dochevska (N. Macedonia), Director of ARHAM NGO 

Click here to contact Maja Susha (N. Macedonia), Macedonia Holocaust Education Expert 

Click here to contact Zoran Gjorgiev, Jewish Family Records Researcher

the monastir Project

An international music and diplomacy initiative to preserve stories and songs of Monastirli Jews.

This project, led by Sarah Aroeste, brings together dozens of musicians, volunteers, historians, and diplomats to celebrate the vibrant Balkan Jewish community that once was. Learn more about the progress of the initiative here.

The project depends on support from people like you! To make a tax-deductible donation today, please click below. 

donate now

The Bitola Cemetery Project

An international initiative to preserve the Jewish cemetery in Bitola.

This project, overseen by ARHAM in Macedonia and Macedonian Initiatives in Israel (see contact information for directors, above) works to educate and uncover, clean and document the oldest Jewish cemetery in the Balkans - active from 1497 to 1943. 

Please contact Shelly Levy-Drummer if you have made a donation. 

donate now

Connecting with Each other

There are many people who have expressed interest in connecting over their shared family names and histories. While this is not a site for moderating a formal group, I invite you to click below to add your name to a Google Doc if you would like to interact with one another. 

FB Groups to Join

While there are many Facebook groups, these two below, in particular, have dedicated participants who are researching Sephardic names, family trees, and histories related to Monastir. We encourage you to join.

Monastir-Bitola, Macedonia

Monastir 1943

Further Reading

There are many wonderful books and articles to suggest, but this is a recommended place to begin:

Jewish Community of Monastir: A community in flux (The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum) 

Monastir Without Jews: Recollections of a Jewish Partisan in Macedonia by Jamila Andjela Kolonomos

Last Century of a Sephardic Community: The Jews of Monastir, 1839-1943 by Mark Cohen

Feeling the Love in Macedonia by Sarah Aroeste (Tablet Magazine)

Keeping The Memory of the Holocaust Alive in Macedonia (by United Macedonian Diaspora)

bitola Jewish tour guide app

Monastirli "Masadecu" Tutorial

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