[4] Bosnia, then a self-governing province of the Ottoman Empire, was one of the few territories in Europe that welcomed Jews after their expulsion from Spain.

[10] At least one Jewish house of worship from the Middle Ages has survived to provide physical evidence of the presence of Jews in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[10] Jews had been forced to leave Spain by 31 July 1492 by the Alhambra Decree; the day was further delayed to 2 August 1492, which coincided with Tisha B'Av.

Sephardi Jews fleeing Spain and Portugal were welcomed in – and found their way to – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Thrace and other areas of Europe under Ottoman control.

In the late Ottoman time, the Sarajevo-based Sephardi rabbi Judah Alkalai played a prominent role as a precursor of modern Zionism by advocating in favor of the restoration of the Jews to the Land of Israel.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878, and brought with them an injection of European capital, companies and methods.

In this period Moshe ben Rafael Attias achieved prominence as scholar of the Islamic faith and of medieval Persian literature.

The Independent State of Croatia was headed by the notoriously anti-Semitic Ustaše, and they wasted little time in persecuting non-Croats such as Serbs, Jews and Romani people.

"[16] In 1941, Ante Pavelić – leader of the Ustaše movement – declared that "the Jews will be liquidated in a very short time".

At Jasenovac alone, approximately one hundred thousand people were murdered (half of whom were Serbs), including 20,000 Jews.

Ernest Grin was one of the leading Yugoslav medical doctors and a member of the Bosnia and Herzegovina Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Emerik Blum, founder of Energoinvest, was Sarajevo's mayor from 1981 to 1983 and a member of the Organizational Committee of the 1984 Winter Olympics.

In the early 1990s, before the Yugoslav Wars, the Jewish population of Bosnia and Herzegovina was over 2,000,[5] and relations between Jews and their Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim neighbors were very good.

[31] Most Jews who had fled Sarajevo and Bosnia chose to remain in Israel after the wars had ended, though some returned[7] and others moved elsewhere, such as Robert Rothbart (born Boris Kajmaković).

[33] This has not prevented Bosnian Jews from achieving prominent positions: among them, Sven Alkalaj was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2007 to 2012.

In 2024, Jews and Muslims from Bosnia jointly observed International Holocaust Remembrance Day to facilitate dialogue and respect in response to the Israel-Hamas War.

During World War II, the manuscript was hidden from the Nazis by Dr. Jozo Petrovic,[35] the director of the city museum[36] and by Derviš Korkut, the chief librarian, who smuggled the Haggadah out to a Muslim cleric in a mountain village near Treskavica, where it was hidden in the mosque among Korans and other Islamic texts.

Afterwards, the manuscript was restored through a special campaign financed by the United Nations and the Bosnian Jewish community in 2001, and went on permanent display at the museum in December 2002.

The history of Jewish immigration to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Sarajevo began in 1492 after the Spanish Catholic state under Ferdinand and Isabella managed to break the power of the Muslim rulers in Spain.

For the remaining citizens of the Muslim and Jewish faiths, a time of discrimination and pressure to accept Christianity or leave has begun.

Till the Austro-Hungarian time, the Jewish population of Banja Luka was exclusively of Sephardi Jews, originating from Spain and Portugal.

Since 1878, Jews have given great impetus expansion of the capitalist economy and the spread of Western European ideas in Banja Luka.