ADA

ADA, townlet in Vojvodina, Serbia, until 1920 in (Austro-) Hungary. Jews came there from German-speaking areas; they also spoke Yiddish and later Hungarian. They were allowed to settle in the late 17th century in order to repopulate the southern provinces devastated during the Turkish wars, but were forbidden to use Hebrew or Yiddish in official documents, testaments, and pinkasim. The first rabbis were Aaron Acker (d. 1837) and Jacob Heilprin. During the 1848–49 troubles, when Serbia sent volunteers to help the Slav populations in Hungary, a Serbian troop occupied Ada and took 60 Jews – including Rabbi Heilprin – to Senta where they were all murdered. Ada remained one of the dozen or so Orthodox communities along the Thissa River following the split between the Neologist majority and Orthodox minority in 1868/69. They maintained talmud torah schools and formed an Association of Orthodox Communities that worked in close cooperation with the Neologist Federation of Jewish Communties in Belgrade. The synagogue was built in 1896. In 1925 there were 452 Jews in Ada, but many left for bigger towns. During World War II Ada was occupied by Hungary and a concentration camp was established there. Of its 350 Jews in 1940, only 59 remained after the war, when the community was temporarily reestablished. Most subsequently left for Israel. (Zvi Loker (2nd ed.)