 The Jewish communities of the Balkans remained small until the late 15th century, when Jews fleeing the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions found refuge in the Ottoman-ruled areas, including Serbia.The community flourished and reached a peak of 33,000 before World War II (of which almost 90% were living in Belgrade and Vojvodina).About two-thirds of Serbian Jews perished in the Holocaust, having been particularly targeted as Hitler sought to punish both ethnic Serbs and Jews for German defeat in World War I.