After the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, JDC supported Croatian Jewry through a difficult period of transition. For Jews in the region caught up in war, JDC provided emergency relief that gradually subsided into regular peacetime welfare programming. At the same time, JDC helped the community - after nearly fifty years of assimilation - begin a return to its Jewish roots against the backdrop of a growing nationalistic movement in the country.

A new government committed to democratic reform has now brought optimism and hope, but elderly Holocaust survivors still face the challenges wrought by Croatia's move into a free market economy. Yet income from several restituted communal properties has given the Zagreb Jewish community the wherewithal to fund welfare services throughout the country and educational programming in Zagreb. JDC continues to gradually phase out of its funding of the Schwarz Old Age Home.

Today, the community is well on its way to financial self-sufficiency, but still depends upon JDC for training, outreach to outlying communities and ongoing investments in new programs to ensure a vibrant Jewish communal life and a fully autonomous future.

2005