ALBALA, DAVID

ALBALA, DAVID (1886–1942), Jewish and Zionist leader in Serbia and Yugoslavia. Albala was born in Belgrade, studied medicine at the University of Vienna, and practiced in Belgrade. In 1903 he founded Gideon, the first Zionist youth association in Belgrade. In 1917 he served on the Serbian delegation to the U.S. that attempted to gain support for the country, which had been conquered by the armies of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. While in the U.S. he advocated enlistment of Jews into the jewish legion , and obtained an official letter of sympathy and support for the political aims of Zionism from the Serbian foreign minister in the U.S. (Dec. 27, 1917). After World War I he was a leading figure of Yugoslav Jewry and its Zionist movement. In 1935 he visited Palestine and established a forest in memory of King Alexander of Yugoslavia. At the outbreak of World War II he was sent to Washington on behalf of the Yugoslav government. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: AJYB, 44 (1942/43), 348; Davar (Aug. 7, 1941); N.M. Gelber, Haẓharat Balfour ve-Toledoteha (1939), 302; N. Agmon (Bistritski; ed.), Megillat ha-Adamah, 2 (1951), 231–2. (Getzel Kressel)