President Reuven Rivlin met with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade on Thursday, in what was the first ever visit by an Israeli president to the Balkan state.
The presidents vowed to improve bilateral ties between the two countries and boost economic cooperation, including through the abolishment of double taxation.
Rivlin hailed relations between the Jewish and Serbian nations, which both suffered under the Nazis during World War II.
Speaking at a news conference following his meeting with Vucic, Rivlin said both the Serbs and the Jews "faced and still struggle with the need to protect our independence."
Rivlin praised Serbia for passing a law in 2016 that allows for the restitution of unclaimed and heirless Jewish property seized during the Holocaust to the local Jewish community. He said the bill should serve as a model for other countries.
Almost two thirds of the 33,000 Jews that lived in what was then-Yugoslavia were killed or deported to death camps by Nazi German troops, who were assisted in their efforts by the quisling regime in Belgrade.
Rivlin told reporters that "everything that happened during World War II should not and cannot be forgotten."
Only 1,185 Jews live in Serbia today.
The now-defunct communist Yugoslavia severed all diplomatic relations with Israel following the 1967 Six-Day War in line with its then pro-Arab policies.
In 1992, following the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, Belgrade renewed relations with Israel but continued to maintain ties with Palestinian authorities. Israel does not recognize the independence of Kosovo, a predominantly Albanian southern province that declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
While in Serbia, Rivlin will name a street in Belgrade's Zemun neighborhood after Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl.
Herzl's paternal grandparents lived and died in Zemun, which until 1918 had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
