Read the historical background on Baja's Jewry.
After the Turks were expelled, the city was quickly inhabited by Germans and Serbs, and the first Jewish families appeared. According to the first data (1736) of the National Archive, six Jewish families, a total of 34 people lived in Baja in the early 18th century.
The Jewish population were craftsmen, farmers and traders, and served at the customs barriers around the city, which was not a popular position for others due to the 24-hour service. However, they had not been given full citizenship rights until the late 19th century. The Jewish community was nicely growing in numbers and their significance in the community also increased as shown by these figures: by the second half of the 19th century (1880) 13% of the population was Jewish.