Jelena Đurović



Jelena Đurovic (also transliterated as Djurović; Serbian Cyrillic: Јелена Ђуровић; born 13 July 1973) is a Montenegrin journalist, writer and political activist of a Jewish-Montenegrin origin, based between Podgorica, Montenegro and Belgrade, Serbia. Jelena was a founder and Vice President of the Jewish Community of Montenegro. She was the closest associate of the president of the Jewish Community of Montenegro, late Jasha Alfandari. Alfandari and Đurović collaborated with major umbrella Jewish organisations until his sudden death on 12 July 2018. Currently, she is a Chairwoman of heterodox lobbying and think tank organisation OJC SEE - Organization for Jewish Cooperation in Southeastern Europe and a member of the Board of the Montenegrin national council in Belgrade, Serbia. As a journalist, she predominantly works as a film and TV critic.

Literary work
Jelena is a graduate of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Department of Theater and radio production. Her bachelor thesis, "Theatre in the shadow of the gallows" ("Pozornica u senci vešala") explored the programming policies of Belgrade theaters during the Slobodan Milošević era. During the 1999 NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, Jelena resided in Budapest, Hungary, where she started work on her novel Kingdom published in November 2003, excerpts from which were published in the book Voices from the faultline, A Balkan Anthology.

Her second novel, published in 2011, is February 30.

Journalism
In 1994 and 1995 she worked at one of Belgrade's most popular radio stations, Studio B, as author and editor of the weekly radio show "Time In". This show was sponsored by Soros Fund Yugoslavia. In October 2005 she started one of the first pop-culture/political blogs in Serbia "AgitPop" blog. Its motto is a citation from the letter written by Sigmund Freud to Albert Einstein in Vienna in September 1932: "Meanwhile we may rest on the assurance that whatever makes for cultural development is working also against war...". At the same time Jelena writes for several Serbian newspapers and magazines  and became a part of the editorial team of the first internet radio station in Serbia, "Novi Radio Beograd".

Since March 2012, radio show Agitpop was broadcast on the Serbian national radio station B92, until this radio station became Play Radio.

During COVID-19 pandemic, Jelena and Rabbi Uri Ayalon from Jerusalem started to collaborate on podcast about Jewish topics "A Rabbi and a Film Critic Walk into a Bar. . Show was first broadcast on Radio Melitz

Personal life
Đurović was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, to a Montenegrin father and a Jewish mother. Her mother, Svetlana Davidovac, has become known as a septuagenarian instagrammer, and gave advice to her age-group on staying safe during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her great-grandmother Serafina was sister of Lotika Zellermeier, who was the inspiration for a character in Ivo Andrić's novel The Bridge on the Drina.

Selected publications

 * 30. Februar (2011, Everest Media: ISBN 9788677560126)
 * Kingdom (2003)