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ROME — The reaction of Yugoslav Jews to last week's dramatic downfall of Slobodan Milosevic could be read in the jubilant subject headings of e-mails they sent to friends.

"Victory," said one, after opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica was inaugurated Saturday as president. "We are free," said another.

But as Yugoslavia's Jews — numbering roughly 3,000 — looked forward to an end of Serbia's isolation and economic hardship, they stressed that the fate of their community was closely linked to the fate of Yugoslavia as a whole. They, along with outside Jewish observers, warned that the depth of Yugoslavia's crisis meant that recovery would be a long, hard process.

"I am not sure everything is behind us," said Mira Poljakovic, of the Jewish community in Subotica, in northern Serbia.

At a Jewish function this weekend, she said, "all the faces were smiling and full of hope that all will turn to the better — and that means it will be better for the Jewish community, too."

Brane Popovic, a former president of the Belgrade Jewish community and a longtime opponent of the Milosevic regime, agreed.

"There will be a definite improvement of life for Jews, but in the same way and along the way as it will happen to the others," he said.

"We all hope that democracy — meaning 'no oppression' — has come."

He noted that while Kostunica is known as a Serbian nationalist, he has broadened his language to be more inclusive when speaking about the people of Serbia.

He and others predicted that Kostunica would treat Jews equally as other citizens and noted that one of Kostunica's leading aides, Zarko Korac, is from a Jewish family.

Popovic took active part in the demonstrations last week that culminated in Kostunica's inauguration.

"I was in the streets," he said. "Of course I was, how could I miss the finale when for years I trod the streets with thousands of others, all the time hoping that this day will come.

"We are really free, for the first time in the life of most of us," said Popovic, 53, adding, "It will still take some time for the feeling to sink completely in on us."

From the beginning of the Yugoslav crisis more than a decade ago, Yugoslav Jews were caught somewhere in the middle.

The close-knit Jewish community in the former Yugoslav Federation was divided when Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia broke away and became independent during a series of bloody wars.

Fearing manipulation, the Jewish Federation in rump Yugoslavia took a deliberate position not to rock the boat — it refrained from official political positions.

Popovic, in fact, came under fire from others in the community when he attempted to take an open Jewish position against Milosevic almost four years ago, when student-led demonstrations swept across Belgrade.

In the wake of the ouster of Milosevic, several Jewish leaders have sharply criticized the official Jewish position. One Jewish leader described it as "falsely neutral."

In Subotica, long a center of the opposition, Poljakovic said that Jews nonetheless went from the synagogue to demonstrate in favor of Kostunica after Rosh Hashanah services.

"Now the whole town knows that Subotica Jews are not cowards and that they, too, want to overthrow this regime and have democracy introduced in our country," Poljakovic told the London Jewish Chronicle at the time.

Rabbi Andrew Baker, European affairs director of the American Jewish Committee, thinks cohesion among Jews of the region is imminent.

"It will certainly be easier for these former Yugoslav Jewish communities to come together again," he said.

About 1,500 Yugoslav Jews live in Belgrade. The others live in seven much smaller scattered communities.

"Their own future has been difficult to predict, since the communities themselves were already small, but the economic boycotts, physical isolation and the departure of young people were making a viable Jewish community life even more difficult," Baker added.

However, many predict the economic hardships are sure to continue as winter sets in.

"Even with the change of government and the prospective lifting of sanctions, the situation will not change any time soon," said Yechiel Bar-Chaim, the director for Yugoslavia of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.

Next week two experts from Israel will conduct in Belgrade a three-week seminar in entrepreneurship and small business development.

Jews in neighboring countries — like the governments in those countries — are closely watching developments in Yugoslavia.

"I think that now the circle is closed," said Jakob Finci, a Jewish community leader in Sarajevo. "It was [Milosevic] who started everything in Belgrade, and now the war in the Balkans is finally over," he said, adding, "Cooperation with the international community…is essential."

For more JTA stories, go to http://www.jta.org