Also:
Moldavia; Romania (rep.); Romania
RUMANIA (Rum. Romania), republic
in N.E. Balkan peninsula, S.E. Europe. The territory
of present-day Rumania was known as Dacia in antiquity;
Jewish tombstones dating from early times have been
found there. The Jews may have come as merchants or
in other capacities with the Roman legions which garrisoned
the country from 101 C.E. Early missionary activity
in Dacia may have been due to the existence of Jewish
groups there. Later the Khazars dominated parts of
Dacia for a short time. The region was close enough
to Byzantium for some contact with its Jewry to be
assumed. Another wave of Jewish immigrants spread
through Walachia (a Rumanian principality founded
around 1290) after they had been expelled from Hungary
in 1367. In the 16th century some refugees from the
Spanish expulsion came to Walachia from the Balkan
peninsula. A few served as physicians and even diplomats
at the court of the sovereigns of Walachia. Since
it was on the trade routes between Poland-Lithuania
and the Ottoman Empire many Jewish merchants traveled
through Moldavia, the second Rumanian principality
(in the northeast), founded in the middle of the 14th
century. Some settled there and were favorably received
by the rulers of this underpopulated principality.
At the beginning of the 16th century there were Jewish
communities in several Moldavian towns, such as Jassy,
Botosani, Suceava, and Siret. More intensive waves
of Jewish immigration resulted from the Chmielnicki
massacres (164849). From the beginning of the
18th century the Moldavian rulers granted special
charters to attract Jews. While still in Poland they
were told about the advantages offered (exemption
from taxes, ground for prayer houses, ritual baths,
and cemeteries). They were invited either to reestablish
war-ravaged towns (1761, Suceava) or to enlarge others
(1796, Focsani). The newcomers were encouraged by
the landowners to found commercial centers, the so-called
burgs. Among the privileges offered was the right
to be represented on the local council. In some cases
they undertook to attract other Jews from over the
borders. When two counties of Moldavia were annexed
by their neighbors (Bukovina by Austria in 1775 and
Bessarabia by Russia in 1812), the Jews from these
countries preferred to move to Rumanian Moldavia,
where they were not harassed by the authorities and
had both family and business connections. Jewish merchants
exported leather, cattle, and corn. Many of the Jews
were craftsmen, such as furriers, tailors, bootmakers,
tinsmiths, and watchmakers.
From an early date one of the main
components of anti-Jewish hatred in Rumania was commercial
competition. In 1579 the sovereign of Moldavia, Petru
Schiopul (Peter the Lame), ordered the banishment
of the Jews on the grounds that they were ruining
the merchants. In the Danube harbors it was the Greek
and Bulgarian merchants who incited riots against
the Jews, especially during Easter. Anti-Jewish excesses
which occurred in the neighboring countries often
extended to Rumania. In 1652 and 1653 Cossacks invaded
Rumania, murdering a great number of Jews in Jassy.
Greek Orthodox Christianity also preached intolerance
toward Jews and shaped the first codes of law: the
Church laws of Moldavia and Walachia in 1640. Both
proclaimed the Jews as heretics and forbade all relations
with them. With the exception of physicians, Jews
were not accepted as witnesses in trials. In the codes
of 1746 and 1780 the Jews are scarcely mentioned.
On the other hand, the first books of anti-Jewish
incitement of a religious character appeared around
this time: the "Golden Order" (Jassy, 1771)
and "A Challenge to Jews" (Jassy, 1803).
For the early history of the other regions which later
made up Rumania see Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transylvania.
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Emerging Rumania
Trouble for the Jews began in 1821,
with the first stirrings of Rumanian independence
and unity. In the course of the rebellion against
the Turks, Greek volunteers crossed Moldavia on their
way to the Danube, plundering and slaying Jews as
they went (in Jassy, Herta, (now Gertsa), Odobesti,
Vaslui, Roman, etc.). Between 1819 and 1834 Moldavia
and Walachia were occupied by Russia, which gave them
a unifying constitution (the so-called Organic Law).
From 1835 to 1856 the two principalities were protectorates
of Russia, through whose influence anti-Semitism increased.
From then on the prevailing attitude was that the
Jews exploited the Christian population in order to
enrich themselves and so their immigration must be
stopped. On the Russian model, Jews were forbidden
to settle in villages, to lease lands, and to establish
factories in towns. Citizenship was denied to Jews.
The corrupt Rumanian administrators used this legislation
to add to their income by persecuting the Jews. The
completions of the Organic Law promulgated in 1839
and 1843 included special measures directed against
the Jews. Its new provisions conferred on the authorities
the right to determine which Jews were useful to the
country, the others being declared vagrants and expelled.
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Communal Institutions
In 1719 a hakham bashi, Bezalel
Cohen, was first appointed for Walachia and Moldavia
by the suzerain, the sultan. He resided in Jassy and
he had a representative for Walachia in Bucharest.
The hakham bashi's function was hereditary
and included the right of collecting taxes on religious
ceremonies and contributions from every head of a
familycomprising 30,000 taxpayers altogether
in the two principalities in 1803as well as
conferring exemption from taxes and tolls. Yet his
prestige was slight, and learned rabbis were considered
by the Jews as their real spiritual leaders. The growing
Russian and Galician element in the Rumanian Jewish
population at the beginning of the 19th century opposed
the hakham bashi, since such an institution
was unknown to them and many of them were followers
of Hasidism and led by zaddikim. As they were
foreign subjects they asked their consuls to intercede,
and in 1819 the prince of Moldavia decided that the
hakham bashi should have jurisdiction only
over "native" Jews. Because of permanent
strife among the diverse groups of Jews and their
complaints to the authorities, the latter decided
in 1834 on the abolition of the hakham bashi
system. Under this system there was also a Jews' Guild,
one of 32 guilds set up according to nationality (Armenians,
Greeks, etc.) or profession, which took care of tax
collection proportionately to the number of persons
organized in it. For the Jews the guild was really
the legal body of the community. The collective tax
was paid from the tax on kasher meat, the expenses
of the institutions (talmud torah, hekdesh,
cemetery) being covered by the remainder.
The center of the guild was in Jassy
and its head was named staroste ("senior";
Heb. rosh medinah). In Bucharest this function
was carried out by the representative of the hakham
bashi. When the hakham bashi system was
abolished (1834), the Jews' Guild disappeared as well;
the result was the disintegration of the Jewish communities.
The collective tax, formerly fixed by the guild, was
now imposed by the government. The functions of the
community devolved on the various prayer houses and
the artisans' guilds and sometimes on the hevra
kaddisha or the Jewish hospital (in Jassy).
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Independent Rumania
Both in the 1821 revolt against the
Ottoman-appointed rulers as well as in the 1848 revolt
against Russia, the revolutionaries appealed for the
participation of the Jews and proclaimed their civic
equality. Some Jews took part in the 1848 revolt,
which was put down by the Russians. The peace treaty
of Paris (1856), which concluded the Crimean War and
granted the principalities a certain autonomy under
Ottoman suzerainty, proclaimed inter alia that in
the two Danubian principalities all the inhabitants,
irrespective of religion, should enjoy religious and
civil liberties (the right to own property and to
trade) and might occupy political posts. Only those
who had foreign citizenship were excluded from political
rights. The leaders of the Moldavian and Walachian
Jews addressed themselves both to the Rumanian authorities
and to the great powers, asking for the abolition
of the discriminations against them. However, the
opposition of Russia and of the Rumanian political
leaders hindered this. The two principalities united
in 1859; Alexandru Ioan Cuza, who was a member of
the 1848 revolutionaries' group and not anti-Semitic,
became their sovereign. The number of Jews was then
130,000 (3% of the total population). In 1864 native
Jews were granted suffrage in the local councils ("little
naturalization"); but Jews who were foreign subjects
still could not acquire landed property. Political
rights were granted to non-Christians but only parliament
could vote on the naturalization of individual Jewsbut
not a single Jew was naturalized.
In 1866 Alexandru Ioan Cuza was ousted
by anti-liberal forces. A new sovereign, Carol of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was elected and a new constitution
adopted. Under the pressure of demonstrations organized
by the police (during which the Choir Temple in Bucharest
was demolished and the Jewish quarter plundered),
the seventh article of the constitution, restricting
citizenship to the Christian population, was adopted.
Even the visit to Bucharest of Adolphe Crémieux,
president of the Alliance Israëlite Universelle,
who delivered a speech in the Rumanian parliament,
had no effect. In the spring of 1867 the minister
of interior, Ion Bratianu, started to expel Jews from
the villages and banish noncitizens from the country.
In the summer of the same year Sir Moses Montefiore
arrived in Bucharest and demanded that Prince Carol
put a stop to the persecutions. But these continued
in spite of the promises given. Hundreds of families,
harassed by humiliating regulations (e.g., a prohibition
on building sukkot), were forced to leave the
villages. Local officials regarded such persecution
as an effective method of extorting bribes. Neither
the repeated interventions of Great Britain and France
nor the condemnatory resolutions in the parliaments
of Holland and Germany had any effect. The Rumanian
government reiterated that the Jewish problem was
an internal one, and the great powers limited themselves
to protests.
At
the Congress of Berlin (1878), which finalized Rumanian
independence, the great powers made the grant of civil
rights to the Jews a condition of that independence
in spite of opposition by the Rumanian and Russian
delegates. The Rumanian representatives threatened
the delegates of the Jewish world organizations, as
well as the representatives of the Jews of Rumania,
by hinting at a worsening of their situation. Indeed,
after the Congress of Berlin other anti-Semitic measures
were introduced, and there was incitement in the press
and public demonstrations organized by the authorities
on the Russian model, in order to prove to the great
powers that the people were against Jewish emancipation.
Their aim was also to create an anti-Semitic atmosphere
on the eve of the session of parliament which was
to decide on the modification of the article in the
1866 constitution concerning Jewish naturalization.
Prince Carol, opening parliament, declared that the
Jews had a harmful influence on economic life and
especially on the peasants. After stormy debates parliament
modified the article of the constitution which made
citizenship conditional on Christianity, but stated
that the naturalization of Jews would be carried out
individually, by vote of both chambers of parliament.
During the following 38 years 2,000 Jews in all were
naturalized by this oppressive procedure; of those,
883 were voted in en bloc, having taken part in the
1877 war against Turkey.
This caused the great powers to refuse
for a time to recognize independent Rumania. However,
they finally followed the example of Germany, which
took the first step after having received pecuniary
compensation from the Rumanian government through
the redemption of railway shares belonging to Silesian
Junkers and members of the German imperial courtat
six times their quoted value. The situation of the
Jews continued to grow worse. Up to then they had
been considered Rumanian subjects but now they were
declared to be foreigners. The Rumanian government
persuaded Austria and Germany to withdraw their citizenship
from Jews living in Rumania. The Jews were forbidden
to be lawyers, teachers, chemists, stockbrokers, or
to sell commodities which were a government monopoly
(tobacco, salt, alcohol). They were not accepted as
railway officials, in state hospitals, or as officers.
Jewish pupils were later expelled from the public
schools (1893). Meanwhile political intimidation continued.
In 1885 some of the Jewish leaders and journalists
who had participated in the struggle for emancipation,
among them Moses Gaster and Elias Schwarzfeld, were
expelled from Rumania. Both major political parties
in Rumaniathe Liberals and the Conservativeswere
anti-Semitic, with only slight differences. In 1910
the first specifically anti-Semitic party, the National
Democratic Party, was founded, under the leadership
of the university professors A. C. Cuza and Nicolae
Iorga.
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Internal Organization
The first general Jewish representative
body, after the dissolution of the Jews' Guild and
the internal strife in the communities, was the Brotherhood
of Zion society, the forerunner of the B'nai B'rith,
created in 1872 under the influence of Benjamin Franklin
Peixotto, the first American diplomat in Rumania.
He thus succeeded in shaping a cadre of leaders for
the Jewish institutions, but did not see any solution
for the masses but emigration. For that purpose he
initiated a conference of world Jewish organizations
which convened in Brussels (Oct. 2930, 1872).
Under the influence of assimilationist circles, emigrationconsidered
to be unpatrioticwas rejected as a solution
of the Jewish problem. The conference suggested to
the Jews of Rumania that they should fight to acquire
political equality. After some years, however, a mass
movement started for emigration to Erez Israel.
The political organization founded
in 1890, under the name The General Association of
Native Israelites, tended to assimilation and strident
patriotism, claiming citizenship only for those Jews
who had served in the army. Under pressure by a group
of Jewish socialists it extended its demands, claiming
political rights for all Jews born in the country.
In 1897 anti-Semitic students attacked members of
the congress of the association and caused riots in
Bucharest. The association ceased its activity, and
an attempt at reorganization in 1903 failed. Under
the pressure of increasing persecution accompanied
by an internal economic crisis, in 1900 a mass emigration
of Jews began; they traveled on foot as far as Hamburg
and from there went to the United States, Canada,
and Great Britain. Up to World War I about 70,000
Jews left Rumania. From 266,652 (4.5% of the total
population) in 1899 the Jewish population declined
to 239,967 (3.3%) in 1912. The 1907 revolt of the
peasants, who at first vented their wrath on the Jews,
also contributed to this tendency to emigrate; Jewish
houses and shops were pillaged in many villages and
cities of Moldavia, 2,280 families being affected.
At the same time the persecution of the Jews increased.
Their expulsion from the villages assumed such proportions
that in some counties of Moldavia (Dorohoi, Jassy,
Bacau) none remained except veterans of the 1877 war.
In 1910 the political organization
called the Union of Native Jews (U.E.P.) was founded
to combat anti-Jewish measures and to achieve emancipation;
it existed up to 1948. Its first head was Adolphe
Stern, former secretary of B. F. Peixotto. The U.E.P.
tended to assimilation. It operated by intercession
with politicians, through mass petitions to parliament,
and by printed propaganda against anti-Semitism. In
a single case it was successful through direct intercession
with King Carol I, who held up the passage of a bill
discriminating against Jewish craftsmen (1912).
At the end of the 19th century there
began the organization of Jewish communities, together
with the creation of a Jewish school system as a result
of the expulsion of Jews from the public schools (1893).
The impoverishment of the Jewish population also created
a need for social assistance which could not be provided
by the various existing associations. To achieve the
legalization of the communities, several congresses
of their representatives were organized (April 1896
in Galati, 1902 in Jassy, and 1905 in Focsani), but
they could not agree on the proper nature of a community.
Some claimed that it should have an exclusively religious
character; others wanted a lay organization dealing
only with social welfare, hospitals, and schools.
The different Jewish institutions (synagogues, religious
associations, hospitals) endeavored to preserve their
autonomy. There was a struggle for the tax on meat,
too, each demanding this income for itself. At the
same time assimilationist groups of students and intellectuals
launched a drive against the community, which they
defined as an isolationist instrument; in this move
they were joined by anti-Semites who called the community
a "state within a state," a Jewish conspiracy
aiming to establish supremacy over the Rumanians.
Some proposed putting the communities under the Ministry
of the Interior. An attempt in 1897 to introduce into
parliament a bill on the Jewish communities, its purpose
being defined by the proposer as "to defend the
Jewish population against its ignorant religious fanatics,"
failed because of the opposition of the liberal government
of the day. Later the principle of autonomy prevailed
at Jewish community congresses, owing to the influence
of the Zionists, especially Rabbis J. [Jacob] Nacht
and J. Niemirover. Protests were lodged against the
interference
of the local authorities (mayors,
chief commissioners of police, etc.) as well as against
the oath more judaico. The principle of autonomy
finally triumphed, owing to the young Zionists who
penetrated the local communities, especially in the
country.
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The Struggle for Naturalization
Following World War I Rumania enlarged
her territory with the provinces of Bukovina, Bessarabia,
and Transylvania. In each of these the Jews were already
citizens, either of long standing like those who had
lived in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or more recent
like those from Bessarabia who achieved equality only
in 1917. Indeed, the naturalization of the Jews of
Rumania was under way in accordance with the separate
peace treaty concluded with Germany in the spring
of 1918. In August 1918 the Rumanian parliament passed
an act concerning naturalization with many very complicated
procedures, the latter being, moreover, sabotaged
when they had to be applied by the local authorities.
After the defeat of Germany, Prime Minister Ionel
BrGtianu realized that at the peace conference the
naturalization of the Jews would be brought up again,
so he tried to resolve the problem in good time by
issuing a decree of naturalization on Dec. 28, 1918,
proclaiming individual naturalization on the lines
adopted after the Congress of Berlin. The decision
had to be made by the law courts instead of parliament,
on the basis of certain certificates which were very
difficult to obtain. Though threatened by the government
the Jewish leaders rejected the law, and, following
their warning, the Jewish population abstained from
putting in applications to the court. Their demand
was for citizenship to be granted en bloc by one procedureafter
a declaration by every candidate at his municipality
that he was born in the country and held no foreign
citizenship the municipality would have to make out
the certificate of citizenship.
Although the Rumanian government
continued to assert that the Jewish problem was an
internal one, of national sovereignty, when the delegation
led by Ionel BrGtianu appeared at the peace conference
in Paris (May 1919) Georges Clemenceau reminded him
that after the Congress of Berlin Rumania had not
implemented the provisions concerning the political
rights of the Jews. This time the great powers decided
to include guarantees in the peace treaty. A Jewish
delegation from Rumania, composed of U.E.P. and Zionist
representatives, arrived in Paris. They joined the
Jewish delegations participating in the peace conference
and claimed that the peace treaty should lay down
the kind of obligatory laws concerning naturalization
which Rumania should pass. To prevent the conference's
imposition of naturalization of Jews, Ionel BrGtianu
wired to Bucharest the text of a law (promulgated
as a decree on May 22, 1919), according to which citizenship
could now be obtained by a declaration of intent in
writing to the law court, the latter being obliged
to make out a certificate of confirmation which conferred
the exercise of political rights. Those who did not
possess foreign citizenship, those who satisfied the
requirements of the enlistment law, and those who
had served in the war were declared citizens, together
with their families.
The peace conference did not, however,
fail to include in the treaty the obligation of Rumania
to legislate the political emancipation of the Jews,
which no other measure should abrogate. BrGtianu resigned
in protest, and only after an ultimatum sent by the
peace conference did the new Rumanian government led
by Alexandru Vaida-Voevod sign the peace treaty. In
Bukovina 40,000 Jews were threatened with remaining
stateless, on the pretext of their being refugees
who had only recently entered the country. A professor
of the faculty of law at Jassy published a study in
1921 asserting that this naturalization was anti-constitutional.
In 1923 there began a new struggle for the enactment
of naturalization in the new constitution. Adolphe
Stern, the president of the U.E.P., was elected as
a deputy to parliament and had to fight the law proposed
by the BrGtianu government which in effect canceled
most of the naturalizations already acquired. After
hard bargaining, not without renewed threats on the
part of the government, the naturalization of the
Jews was introduced into the constitution on March
29, 1923, thus also confirming the naturalization
of those from the newly annexed territories who would
otherwise have been threatened with expulsion. Nevertheless,
as nearly always in Rumania, there was a great difference
between the laws and the way in which they were implemented.
In a regulation published two months after the passing
of the constitution, many procedural restrictions
on the Jews living in the new provinces were introduced.
In practice, the civil service, the magistracy, university
chairs, and officers' corps remained closed to Jews.
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Increasing Anti-Semitism
Growing social and political tensions
in Rumania in the 1920s and '30s led to a constant
increase in anti-Semitism and in the violence which
accompanied it. Anti-Semitic excesses and demonstrations
expressed both popular and student anti-Semitism and
cruelty; they also served to divert social unrest
to the Jews and show Western public opinon that intervention
on their behalf was bound to miscarry. In December
1922 Christian students at the four universities proclaimed
numerus clausus as their program; riots followed at
the universities and against the Jewish population.
As was later revealed in parliament, the student movements
were organized and financed by the Ministry of the
Interior. The leader of the student movements was
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, the secretary of the League
of National Christian Defense which was headed by
A. C. Cuza. The students formed terrorist groups on
the Fascist and Nazi models and committed several
murders. In 1926 the Jewish student Falic was murdered
at Chernovtsy. The assassin was acquitted. In 1927
Codreanu broke away from A. C. Cuza and founded the
Archangel Michael League, which in 1929 became the
Iron Guard, a paramilitary organization with an extreme
anti-Semitic program.
On Dec. 9, 1927 the students of Codreanu's
League carried out a pogrom in Oradea Mare (Transylvania),
where they were holding a congress, for which they
received a subsidy from the ministry of the interior:
they were conveyed there in special trains put at
their disposal free of charge by the government. Five
synagogues were wrecked and the Torah scrolls burned
in the public squares. After that the riots spread
all over the country: in Cluj eight prayer houses
were plundered, and on their way home the participants
in the congress continued their excesses against the
Jews in the cities of Huedin, Targu-Ocna, and Jassy.
At the end of 1933 the liberal prime minister Duca,
one of the opponents of King Carol's dictatorial tendencies,
dissolved the Iron Guard and after three weeks was
assassinated by its men at the king's instigation.
The guard was reformed under the slogan, "Everything
for the Country." Codreanu's ties with the Nazis
in Germany dated from that time. Carol II later aided
other political bodies with an anti-Semitic program
in an attempt to curb the Iron Guard. From 1935 Vaida-Voevod
led the Rumanian Front, and made use in his speeches
of such slogans as the blood libel, the parasitism
of the Jews, their defrauding the country, their international
solidarity, and the Judaization of the press and national
literature.
After Hitler came to power in Germany
(1933), the large Rumanian parties also adopted anti-Semitic
programs. In 1935 the National Peasants' Party (which
united with Cuza's party to form the National Christian
Party) announced that its program included "the
Rumanization of the staff of firms and the protection
of national labor through preference for [our] ethnic
element"that is to say, the removal of
Jews from private firms. Gheorghe BrGtianu, leading
a dissident liberal party, demanded "nationalization
of the cities, proportional representation in public
and private posts, in schools and universities, and
revocation of Jewish citizenship." In July 1934
the "Law for Employment of Rumanian Workers in
[Private] Firms" was enacted, and in fact established
a numerus clausus. The Ministry of Industry and Trade
sent all firms special questionnaires which included
a clause on "ethnic origin." In 1935 the
board of Christian Lawyers' Association, founded that
year by members of the bar from Ilfov (Bucharest)
gave an impetus to anti-Semitic professional associations.
The movement spread all over the country. Its program
was the numerus nullus, i.e., revoking the
licenses of Jewish lawyers who were already members
of the bar and not accepting new registrations. At
the universities students of the Iron Guard forcibly
prevented their Jewish colleagues from attending lectures
and the academic authorities supported the numerus
clausus program, introducing entrance examinations;
in 193536 this led to a perceptible decrease
in the number of Jewish students, in certain faculties
reaching the numerus nullus. In other professional
corporations no Jews were elected to the board; they
were prevented by force from participating in the
elections. The great Rumanian banks began to reject
requests for credits from Jewish banks as well as
from Jewish industrial and commercial firms, and the
Jewish enterprises were burdened by heavy taxes, imposed
with the aim of ruining them. Jewish firms were not
granted import quotas for raw materials and goods.
Meanwhile Germany financed a series of publications
and newspapers aimed at fastening an alliance between
the two countries and removing Jews from all branches
of the professions and the economy. Many a Jewish
merchant and industrialist was compelled to sell his
firm at a loss when it became unprofitable under these
oppressive measures.
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Jewish Political Life
Despite the attempts of the older
assimilationist and established Jewish groups, the
inclination of Rumanian Jewrythanks largely
to the trends among Jews of the newly annexed provinces
and to the impact of Zionismwas toward a clear-cut
Jewish stance in politics. In 1919 the Union of Rumanian
Jews, led by W. Filderman, recommended that the Jews
vote for those Rumanian parties which would be favorable
to them. As none of the parties formulated an attitude
toward the Jewish problem the Union decided that the
Jews should withhold their votes. In the 1920 elections
the Union joined the Zionists to form a list which
conducted its election campaign under the symbol of
the menorah. As the elections were rigged,
not a single candidate succeeded in entering parliament.
The Union managed to send Adolphe Stern to parliament
in 1922 through joining with the Peasants' Party.
From 1923 the Zionists pressed for a policy of a national
minority status for the Jews. Their proposal was not
accepted by the Union.
In 1926 the first National Jewish
deputies and senators were elected from Bukovina,
Transylvania, and Bessarabia. As a consequence of
these successes the National Jewish Club, in which
representatives of the Zionist parties also participated,
was founded in Bucharest. Such clubs were established
in all the cities of the Old Kingdom. In 1928 four
National Jewish deputies were returned to parliament
(two from Transylvania, one from Bukovina, and one
from Bessarabia). They formed a Jewish parliamentary
club. In 1930 the Jewish Party (Partidul Evreesc)
was established in the Old Kingdom and on May 4, 1931,
it held its general congress. Adolphe Stern joined
this party. In the elections to parliament, a month
later, the Jewish Party gained five seats, and in
the 1932 elections it again obtained five. The situation
of the Jewish parliamentarians was far from easy,
because they were not only interrupted during their
speeches but were often physically attacked by the
deputies of the anti-Semitic parties. After 1933 there
were no more Jewish members of parliament, except
for J. Niemirover, who in his capacity of chief rabbi
was officially a senator.
The undefined legal status of the
Jewish communities in Rumania tempted local authorities
to meddle more and more in their affairs. A rabbi
from Bucharest, Hayyim Schor, proclaimed himself chief
rabbi. He demanded recognition of a separate Orthodox
community everywhere in Rumania, and was willing to
be satisfied with the status of a private association
for the Jewish community, thus abandoning the demand
for its recognition as a public body. The Union and
the Zionists opposed him. On May 19, 1921, the congress
of Jews from the Old Kingdom met in Bucharest and
elected J. Niemirover as chief rabbi. In 1922 Jewish
representatives demanded that two communities be recognized:
the Ashkenazi and the Sephardi (and for Transylvania
an Orthodox community too, as was traditional there).
Only in 1928 did parliament pass the Law of Religions
applying the provisions of the constitution, which
recognized Judaism as one of the eight historical
religions and the community as a juridical person
in public law. On the basis of this law all the property
of the religious institutions was transferred to the
ownership of the communities. In January 1929 the
minister of religions limited the application of this
law, instructing that communities become juridical
persons only after the approval of their statutes
by the ministry; he also permitted communities of
"diverse rites," and not only the Ashkenazi
or Sephardi, and in Transylvania the Orthodox type,
thus accepting the program of Rabbi Schor. Mayors
and police commissioners thought that this gave them
a legal cover to dissolve the elected boards of the
communities and to appoint others to their liking,
although the Ministry of Religions issued a circular
prohibiting interference by local authorities. Only
in 1932 did the communities gain general recognition
as juridical persons in public law.
The certificates of Jewish schools
were not recognized and their pupils had to pass state
examinations, paying a fee (which was a charge on
community budgets as they covered this fee for the
poor) until 1925, when the certificates of Jewish
schools were recognized if the language of tuition
was Rumanian. (Although Rumania had signed the Minorities
Treaty in Paris, it had never implemented it.) All
Jewish schools were maintained by the communities;
in Bessarabia, Tarbut maintained Hebrew schools. The
ministry of education contributed only a token subvention.
The Jews of annexed Transylvania used the Hungarian
language in the Zionist press, even under Rumanian
rule, those of Bukovina German, while in Bessarabia
the language of the Jewish press was Yiddish. Each
province kept its traditions, autonomous structure,
and cultural life, within the framework of the all-Rumanian
Federation of Jewish Communities. Culturally, the
deeply rooted Jewish life of Bessarabia, with its
Hebrew teachers, writers, and journalists, had a great
influence, especially in the Old Kingdom.
In 1924 there were 796,056 Jews in
enlarged Rumania (5% of the total population): 230,000
in the Old Kingdom, 238,000 in Bessarabia, 128,056
in Bukovina, and 200,000 in Transylvania. In 1930
their number was 756,930 (4.2% of the total population):
263,192 in the Old Kingdom, 206,958 in Bessarabia,
92,988 in Bukovina, and 193,000 in Transylvania.
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Social Structure
The Jewish population of Old Rumania
was for the most part an urban one. According to the
1899 census, 79.73% of the Jews lived in cities, forming
32.10% of the whole urban population of the country.
Only 20.27% lived in villages, forming 1.1% of the
whole rural population. This phenomenon was a result
of the ban on Jews dwelling in a rural area. In the
Moldavia province, where the Jews were most heavily
concentrated, they formed a majority in several towns.
In Falticeni they were 57% of the total population;
in Dorohoi, 53.6%; in Botosani, 51.8%; in Jassy, 50.8%.
In several smaller towns of that region their proportion
was greater: in Gertsa, 66.2%; in Mihaileni, 65.6%;
in Harlau, 59.6%; in Panciu, 52.4%. The Rumanian population
was 84.06% farmers, the Jews constituting the middle
class. According to 1904 statistics, 21.1% of the
total number of merchants were Jews, but in some cities
of Moldavia they were a definite majority, such as
in Jassy, 75.3%; Botosani, 75.2%; Dorohoi, 72.9%;
Tecuci, 65.9%, etc. Jews represented 20.07% of all
artisans, and in several branches they were a majority:
81.3% of engravers, 76% of tinsmiths; 75.9% of watchmakers;
74.6% of bookbinders; 64.9% of hatmakers; 64.3% of
upholsterers, etc. Industry was not advanced in Rumania
before World War I. There were 625 industrial firms
altogether, 19.5% of them owned by Jews. Jews were
5.3% of the officials and workers in these industrial
enterprises. In several branches of industry there
were Jewish factory owners: 52.8% of the glass industry;
32.4% of the wood and furniture industry; 32.4% of
the clothing industry; 26.5% of the textile industry.
Of the liberal professions only medicine was permitted
to Jews. They constituted 38% of the total number
of doctors. The occupational distribution of the Jews
was as follows; agriculture, 2.5%; industry and crafts,
42.5%; trade and banking, 37.9%; liberal professions,
3.2%; various occupations, 13.7%.
There are no detailed statistics
of the period between the two world wars. The provinces
of Bessarabia, Transylvania, and Bukovina were annexed
to Old Rumania, increasing the Jewish population threefold.
In every province their occupational structure was
different as the result of historical development.
In the two annexed provinces, Transylvania and Bukovina,
the Jews had enjoyed civil rights from the days of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and were also represented
in the liberal professions. On the other hand, their
situation in Bessarabia in czarist times was worse
than in Old Rumaniaa fact which also influenced
their occupational structure. The few known figures
refer to Greater Rumania, with all the annexed territories.
The only census taken in Bessarabia was in 1930, and
according to those figures the occupational distribution
of the Jewish population was as follows: industry
and crafts, 24.8%; trade and banking, 51.5%; liberal
professions, 2.9%; miscellaneous, 8.2%. It should
be noted that Jewish bankers (such as the bank of
"Marmorosh-Blank") invested money in the
developing industry of Greater Rumania. Some industrial
enterprises, comprising several factories such as
the sugar, metal, and textile works, etc., were owned
by Jews. In the late 1930s, under the influence of
the spread of the Nazi movement to Rumania, the whole
occupational structure of the Jews collapsed because
of persecution on the economic level, which preceded
political persecution and murder.
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Cultural Life
Since most Rumanian Jews were of
Polish or Russian extraction, their religious and
cultural traditions were similar to those of the Jews
of Eastern Europe. Their rabbis and teachers, as well
as their religious trends, came from there. Hasidism
was particularly widespread in the Moldavia province,
which borders on Galicia and Russia and where hasidic
centers were established at the "courts"
of the zaddikim of the Ruzhin dynasty in the
towns of Stefanesti, Buhusi, Adjud, and Focsani. The
spoken language of the Jewish population was Yiddish;
Rumanian became more widely used among them only in
the second half of the 19th century, at the time when
the first Rumanian universities were established (Jassy
in 1860 and Bucharest in 1864). In that period, too,
the development of modern Rumanian literature began.
In the middle of the century Julius Barasch, of Galician
origin, brought Mendelssohnian haskalah to
Rumanian Jewry. In 1857 he published the first newspaper
in Rumanian and FrenchIsraelitul RomDnwhose
function was to fight for equal civil rights for Rumanian
Jewry. In 1854 another two newspapersTimpul
(Di Tsayt; Bucharest) and Gazeta Roma
(Jassy)appeared in Rumanian and Yiddish, but
all three papers ceased publication before the end
of a year. Other such attempts met the same fate.
Only in 1879 did the weekly Fraternitatea begin
to appear, lasting until 1885, when it ceased publication
upon the expulsion from Rumania of its chief editors,
Isaac Auerbach and E. Schwarzfeld, for their stand
against persecutions. This paper, which represented
the assimilationist trend, was opposed to the incipient
pre-Zionist movement which sponsored the establishment
of the colonies of Zikhron Ya'akov and Rosh Pinnah
in Erez Israel. Then two papers in Rumanian also appeared,
supporting aliyah: ApGrGtorul, which was published
in Bucharest from 1881 to 1884 with E. S. Gold as
editor, and the weekly Stindardul, which was
published in Focsani from 1882 to 1883. The Yiddish
paper Ha-Yo'ez which appeared in Bucharest
from 1874 to 1896 also supported aliyah. Eleazar
Rokeah, an emissary from Erez Israel, published as
special organs of the pre-Zionist movement the Hebrew
paper Emek Yizre'el in Jassy (1882), and the
Yiddish Di Hofnung in Piatra-Neamt (1882),
and Der Emigrant in Galati (1882). Of the Jewish
press in Rumania the weekly Egalitatea, edited
by M. Schwarzfeld, survived for half a century. The
weekly Curierul Israelit, edited by M. Schweig,
began to appear in 1906 and continued up to 1948,
becoming the mouthpiece of the Uniunea Evreilor RomDni
("Union of Rumanian Jews") after World War
I. In the time of Herzl several Zionist papers appeared
in Rumania but did not last long. In 1913 the monthly
Hatikva in Rumanian was issued in Galati under
the editorship of L. Gold who gathered round him the
outstanding Jewish authors in Rumanian. Apart from
original articles they also published translations
of a high literary standard from modern Hebrew poetry
and classical Yiddish literature. After World War
I, from 1919 to 1923, there was published in Bucharest
a daily newspaper in Rumanian with a Zionist national
tendency, MDntuirea edited by A. L. Zissu with
Abraham Feller as chief editor. This paper stood for
the idea of a Jewish political party and sharply attacked
the tendencies of assimilationist circles. The weekly
Renasterea NoastrG (192342, 194448),
edited by Samuel I. Stern, continued in this direction
subsequently. The Zionist Federation published the
weekly Ctiri din Lumea EvreeascG, edited by
I. Ludo and later by Theoder Loewenstein. Between
the two world wars the Zionist students' association
published the monthly Hasmonaea. The number
of Jewish journalists grew between the two wars, some
of them even becoming chief editors of the great democratic
papers. They included Constantin Graur, B. Branisteanu,
Em. Fagure, G. Milian (Bucharest); A. Hefter (Jassy),
and S. Schaferman-PGstoresu (BrGila). After they had
acquired a knowledge of Rumanian, several Jewish scholars
at the end of the 19th century became distinguished
in the field of philology and folklore: Lazar SGineanu
(SainMan), compiler of the first practical dictionary
of Rumanian (1896); M. Gaster, who did research on
early Rumanian folklore; Heinrich Tiktin, author of
a scientific grammar of Rumanian in two volumes (189394).
This tradition continued down to later times. I. A.
Candrea also compiled a Rumanian dictionary (1931),
as did J. Byk and A. L. Graur after World War II.
A number of these scholars also devoted time to research
on the history of Rumanian Jewry. The pioneer in this
field was the historian J. Psantir, whose two Yiddish
volumes contained Hebrew headings: Divrei ha-Yamim
le-Arzot Rumanyah (Jassy, 1871) and Korot ha-Yehudim
be-Rumanyah (Lemberg, 1877). A society for research
into the history of Rumanian Jewry was established
in 1886 and named for Julius Barasch. Among its active
members were J. Psantir, M. Gaster, Lazar CGineanu,
Elias Schwarzfeld, M. Schwarzfeld, and others. In
the three publications of their bulletin they published
source material, memoirs, and bibliographical notes,
as well as some combined research and monographs of
Jewish communities. Although the society ceased activities
after four years the scholars continued their researches.
Part of their works appeared in the 19 volumes of
the annual Anuarul pentru IsraeliTi and in
a weekly published by M. Schwarzfeld. Between the
two world wars Meir A. Halevy published several monographs
on the history of the Jews of Rumania. The Templul
Coral ("Choir Synagogue") then erected in
Bucharest a museum, library, and archives for the
history of Rumanian Jewry. In some bulletins of these
institutions and in the annual Sinai (192632),
edited by Meir A. Halevy, there also appeared researches
on the history of Rumanian Jewry.
top
Holocaust Period
German penetration into the Rumanian
economy increased as the Nazis moved eastward with
the Anschluss of Austria (1938), the annexation
of Czechoslovakia (1939), and the occupation of western
Poland at the outbreak of World War II. A considerable
number of Rumanian politicians agreed to serve German
interests in exchange for directorships in German-Rumanian
enterprises, and German trade agreements with Rumania
always demanded the removal of Jews in the branch
involved. In this way, Jews were expelled from wood
commerce and industry.
In the summer of 1940 Rumania succumbed
to Germanpressure and transferred Bessarabia and part
of Bukovina to the Soviet Union, northern Transylvania
to Hungary, and southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria (the
territory that remained being called Old Rumania).
When the Rumanian army retreated from these areas,
its soldiers murdered many Jews, particularly in northern
Bukovina and Moldavia; they also threw Jewish travelers,
both civilian and military, from moving trains. On
June 30, 1940, 52 Jews were murdered in Dorohoi by
a retreating Rumanian regiment. Hoping to ensure its
borders after the concessions, Rumania, which had
not been invaded by the German army, became a satellite
of Nazi Germany. The first result of this move was
the cancellation of Rumanian citizenship for Jews,
a measure taken by the government, which included
members of the Iron Guard, under German pressure in
August 1940. On September 6, when King Carol abdicated,
Ion Antonescu, who had been minister of defense in
the Goga government, came to power. His government
included ministers from the ranks of the Iron Guard,
and Rumania was declared a Nationalist-Legionary State
(the members of the Iron Guard styled themselves "legionnaires").
The "legionary police" was organized on
Nazi lines with the help of the S.S. and the S.D.
There followed a period of anti-Semitic terrorism
that lasted for five months. It began with the confiscation
of Jewish-owned shops, together with the posting of
signs marked "Jewish shop" and picketing
by the green-shirted "legionary police."
The reign of terror reached its height when Jewish
industrial and commercial enterprises were handed
over to the members of the "Legion" under
pressure from the Iron Guard. The owners of the enterprises
were arrested and tortured by the "legionary
police" until they agreed to sign certificates
of transfer. Bands of "legionnaires" entered
Jewish homes and "confiscated" any sums
of money they found. This resulted in a mortal blow
to the Rumanian economy and chaos that frightened
even the German diplomats. Antonescu tried on several
occasions to arrest the wave of terrorism, during
which a number of Rumanian statesmen opposed to the
Iron Guard were killed.
On Jan. 21, 1941, the Iron Guard
revolted against Antonescu and attempted to seize
power and carry out its anti-Semitic program in full.
While part of the "Legion" was fighting
the Rumanian army for control of government offices
and strategic points in the city, the rest carried
out a pogrom on Bucharest Jews, aided by local hooligans.
Jewish homes were looted, shops burned, and many synagogues
desecrated, including two that were razed to the ground
(the Great Sephardi Synagogue and the old bet ha-midrash).
Some of the leaders of the Bucharest community were
imprisoned in the community council building, worshipers
were ejected from synagogues, the Palestine Office
of the Zionist Organization was attacked and its director
murdered, and wealthy Bucharest Jews were arrested,
according to a previously prepared list. Those arrested
were taken to centers of the Iron Guard movement:
some were then taken into the forests near Bucharest
and shot; others were murdered and their bodies hung
on meat hooks in the municipal slaughterhouse, bearing
the legend "kosher meat." The pogrom claimed
120 Jewish lives. There were no acts of violence in
the provinces because the army was in firm control
and fully supported Antonescu. This was also Hitler's
reason for supporting Antonescu. Rumania held an important
role in the war contemplated against the Soviet Union,
not only as a supply and jumping-off base, but as
an active partner in the invasion of the country.
A period of relative calm followed
the Bucharest pogrom and permitted Rumanian Jews to
gather strength after the shock of the violence. Antonescu,
however, was thereafter under constant German pressure,
for when their revolt failed, members of the Iron
Guard found refuge in Germany, where they constituted
a permanent threat to his position, as he now lacked
his own party to serve as a counterbalance. In January
1941 Manfred von Killinger, a veteran Nazi known for
his anti-Semitic activities, was appointed German
ambassador to Rumania. In April he was joined by Gustav
Richter, an adviser on Jewish affairs who was attached
to Adolf Eichmann's department. Richter's special
task was to bring Rumanian anti-Jewish legislation
into line with its counterpart in Germany.
top
During the War
On June 22, 1941, when war broke
out with the Soviet Union, the Rumanian and German
armies were scattered along the banks of the Prut
River in order to penetrate into Bukovina and Bessarabia.
As this branch of the front became active only on
July 3, the Rumanian and German soldiers occupied
themselves with slaughtering the Jewish population
of Jassy on June 29, 1941. When the soldiers finally
went into action, they were joined by units of Einsatzgruppe
D, under the command of Otto Ohlendorf. Their
combined advance through Bessarabia, Bukovina, and
the Dorohoi district was accompanied by massacres
of the local Jewish population. At the beginning of
August 1941 the Rumanians began to send deportees
from Bukovina and Bessarabia over the Dniester River
into a German-occupied area of the U.S.S.R. (later
to be known as Transnistria). The Germans refused
to accept the deportees, shooting some and returning
the rest. Some of these Jews drowned in the river
and others were shot by the Rumanian gendarmerie on
the western bank; of the 25,000 persons who crossed
the Dniester near Sampol, only 16,500 were returned
by the Germans. Some of these survivors were killed
by the Rumanians, and some died of weakness and starvation
on the way to camps in Bukovina and Bessarabia. Half
of the 320,000 Jews living in Bessarabia, Bukovina,
and the Dorohoi district (which was in Old Rumania)
were murdered during the first few months of Rumania's
involvement in the war, i.e., up to Sept. 1, 1941.
After this period the Jews were concentrated
in ghettos (if they lived in cities), in special camps
(if they lived in the countryside, or townlets such
as Secureni, Yedintsy, Vertyuzhani, etc.). German
killing squads or Rumanian gendarmes, copying the
Germans, habitually entered the ghettos and camps,
removing Jews and murdering them. Jews living in villages
and townlets in Old Rumania (Moldavia, Walachia, and
southern Transylvania) were concentrated into the
nearest large town. The Jews of northern Moldavia,
which bordered on the battle area, were sent to the
west of Rumania: men under 60 were sent to the Targu-Jiu
camp and the women, children, and aged were sent to
towns where the local Jewish population was ordered
to care for the deportees (who owned nothing more
than the clothing on their backs). The homes and property
of these deportees were looted by the local population
immediately after they were deported.
On Sept. 16, 1941, those in camps
in Bessarabia began to be deported to the region between
the Dniester and the Bug rivers called Transnistria,
from which the Germans had withdrawn, handing control
over to the Rumanians under the Tighina agreement
(Aug. 30, 1941). The deportations included 118,847
Jews from Bessarabia, Bukovina, and the Dorohoi district.
At the intervention of the Union of Jewish Communities
in Rumania, an order was given to stop the deportations
on October 14; they continued however until November
15, leaving all the Jews of Bessarabia and Bukovina
(with the exception of 20,000 from Chernovtsy) and
2,316 of the 14,847 Jews from the Dorehoi district
concentrated in Transnistria. In two months of deportations
22,000 Jews died: some because they could walk no
further, some from disease, but the majority were
murdered by the gendarmerie that accompanied them
on their journey. All the money and valuables were
confiscated by representatives of the Rumanian National
Bank. The Jews then remaining in Old Rumania and in
southern Transylvania were compelled into forced labor
and were subjected to various special taxes. The prohibition
against Jews working in certain professions and the
"Rumanization of the economy" continued
and caused the worsening of the economic situation
of the Jewish population.
According to the statistical table
on the potential victims of the "Final Solution"
introduced at the Wannsee Conference, 342,000 Rumanian
Jews were destined for this end. The German embassy
in Bucharest conducted an intensive propaganda campaign
through its journal, Bukarester Tageblatt,
which announced "an overall European solution
to the Jewish problem" and the deportation of
Jews from Rumania. On July 22, 1942, Richter obtained
Vice-Premier Mihai Antonescu's agreement to begin
the deportation of Jews to Poland in September. However,
as a result of the efforts of the clandestine Jewish
leadership and the pressure exerted by diplomats from
neutral countries, as well as by the papal nuncio,
A. Cassulo, Ion Antonescu canceled the agreement.
He could afford a measure of independence, since Hitler
was then seeking the mobilization of additional divisions
of the Rumanian army against the Soviet Union. Nevertheless,
Eichmann's Bucharest office, working through the local
authorities, succeeded in contriving the deportation
of 7,000 Jews from Chernovtsy and Dorohoi and groups
from other parts of Rumania to Transnistria because
they were "suspected of Communism" (they
were of Bessarabian origin and had asked to return
to the Soviet Union in 1940), had "broken forced-labor
laws," etc.
At the beginning of December 1942
the Rumanian government informed the Jewish leadership
of a change in its policy toward Jews. It would henceforth
permit Jews deported to Transnistria to emigrate to
Palestine. Defeat at Stalingrad (where the Rumanians
had lost 18 divisions) was already anticipated. In
194243 the Rumanian government began tentatively
to consider signing a separate peace treaty with the
Allies. Although the plan for large-scale emigration
failed because of German opposition and lack of facilities,
both small and large boats left Rumania carrying "illegal"
immigrants to Palestine, some of whom were refugees
from Bukovina, Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia. Between
1939 and August 1944 (when Rumania withdrew from the
war) 13 boats left Rumania, carrying 13,000 refugees,
and even this limited activity was about to cease,
as a result of German pressure exerted through diplomatic
missions in Rumania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Two of
the boats sank: the Struma (on Feb. 23, 1944
with 769 passengers) and the Mefkure (on Aug.
5, 1944 with 394 passengers).
Despite German efforts, the Rumanian
government refused to deport its Jews to the "east."
At the beginning of 1943, however, there was a return
to the traditional economic pressures against the
Jews in order to reduce the Jewish population. This
was achieved by forbidding Jews to work in the civilian
economy and through the most severe measure of all,
forced labor (from which the wealthy managed to obtain
an exemption by paying a considerable sum). In addition,
various taxes were imposed on the Jewish population
in the form of cash, clothing, shoes, or hospital
equipment. These measures, particularly the taxes
to be remitted in cashof which the largest was
a levy of 4 billion lei (about $27,000,000) imposed
in March 1943severely pressed Rumanian Jewry.
The tax collection was made by the "Jewish center."
W. Filderman, chairman of the Council of the Union
of Jewish Communities, who opposed the tax and proved
that it could never be paid, was deported to Transnistria
for two months.
At the end of 1943, as the Red Army
drew nearer to Rumania, the local Jewish leadership
succeeded in obtaining the gradual return of those
deported to Transnistria. The Germans tried several
times to stop the return and even succeeded in bringing
about the arrest of the leadership of the clandestine
Zionist pioneering movements in January and February
1944; however, these leaders were released through
the intervention of the International Red Cross and
the Swiss ambassador in Bucharest, who contended that
they were indispensable for organizing the emigration
of those returning from Transnistria and refugees
who had found temporary shelter in Rumania. In March
1944 contacts were made in Ankara between Ira Hirschmann,
representative of the U.S. War Refugee Board, and
the Rumanian ambassador, A. Cretzianu, at which Hirschmann
demanded the return of all those deported to Transnistria
and the cessation of the persecution of Jews. At the
time, the Red Army was defeating the Germans in Transnistria,
and there was a danger that the retreating Germans
might slaughter the remaining Jews. Salvation came
at the last moment, when Antonescu warned the Germans
to avoid killing Jews while retreating. Concurrently,
negotiations over Rumania's withdrawal from the war
were being held in Cairo and Stockholm, and thus Antonescu
was eager to show goodwill toward the Jews for the
sake of his own future. In the spring Soviet forces
also conquered part of Old Rumania (Moldavia), and
they made an all-out attack on August 20. On August
23 King Michael arrested Antonescu and his chief ministers
and declared a cease-fire. The Germans could no longer
control Rumania, for they were dependent on the support
of the Rumanian army, which had been withdrawn. Eichmann,
who had been sent to western Rumania to organize the
liquidation of Jews in the region, did not reach Rumania.
Fifty-seven percent of the Jewish
population under Rumanian rule during the war (including
the Jews of Bessarabia and northern Bukovina) survived
the Holocaust. The following statistics give the death
toll. Out of a prewar Jewish population of 607,790,
264,900 (43%) were murdered. Of this number, 166,597
perished during the first period of the war, 151,513
from Bessarabia and Bukovina and 15,064 from part
of Old Rumania. The rest died during the deportations
to Transnistria or in the camps and ghettos of this
region: some were murdered; others died in epidemics,
of famine, or of exposure. In areas from which Jews
were not deported, 78.2% of the Jewish population
were left without a livelihood as a result of the
discrimina tory measures up to 1942, the date at which
statistics were last calculated. The demographic effect
was that the ratio of births to deaths fell to 34.1%
in 1942 from the 1934 figures of 116.5%.
top
Jewish Resistance
PREPARATORY STEPS
As soon as Hitler assumed power in
Germany (1933), Jewish leaders in Bucharest, mostly
Zionists, decided not to remain passive. In November
the congress of the Jewish Party in Rumania decided
to join the anti-Nazi boycott movement, disregarding
the protest raised by the Rumanian press and anti-Semitic
groups, but the Union of the Rumanian Jews (U.E.R.)
did not participate in the campaign. The necessity
for a united political, as well as economic, struggle
soon became obvious. On Jan. 29, 1936, the Central
Council of Jews in Rumania, composed of representatives
of both Jewish trendsthe U.E.R. and the Jewish
Partywas established for "the defense of
all Jewish rights and liberties against the organizations
and newspapers that openly proclaimed the introduction
of the racial regime." At the end of the year
the Council succeeded in averting a bill proposed
in the parliament by the anti-Semitic circles suggesting
that citizenship be revoked from the Jews. During
the same period the Rumanian government attempted
to suppress the state subvention for Jewish religious
needs, as well as the exemption from taxes accorded
to Jewish community institutions. The Council could
not obtain the maintenance of the subvention, and
it was finally reduced to one-sixth of its allotment.
When Goga's anti-Semitic government
came to power, the Council began a struggle against
it, gaining support and attention outside Rumania.
Filderman, president of the Council, left at once
for Paris, where he mobilized the world Jewish organizations
with headquarters in France and England and informed
local political circles and the League of Nations
of events in Rumania. At the same time the Jews in
Rumania began an expanded economic boycott, refraining
from commercial transactions, withdrawing their deposits
from the banks, and delaying tax payments. The outcome
was "large-scale paralysis of the economic life,"
as the German minister of foreign affairs stated in
his circular of March 9, 1938. Thus the dismissal
of the Goga government after only 40 days was motivated
not only by external pressure, but by the effects
of the Jewish economic boycott.
THE UNION OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITIES
Following the downfall of the Goga
government, King Carol's royal dictatorship abolished
all the political parties in Rumania, including the
Jewish Party and the Union of Rumanian Jews. The single
body of the Jews in Rumania was the Union of the Jewish
Communities, whose board was composed of the leaders
of both Jewish currents. The Union assumed the task
of fighting against the increasing number of anti-Jewish
measures promulgated by the Rumanian authorities under
pressure from local anti-Semitic circles and the German
government. In some cases its interventions were successful;
for example, it achieved the nullification of the
prohibition against collecting contributions to Zionist
funds, and, as a result of its protests, the restrictions
against the Jewish physicians and the Jewish industrial
schools were abrogated. In the summer of 1940, after
Rumania ceded Bukovina and Bessarabia to the Soviet
Union, the Rumanian police tried to eject Jewish refugees
from those two provinces. The Union's board succeeded
in moving the Ministry of the Interior to annul the
measure. When the interdiction of ritual slaughter
was decreed, the board obtained an authorization for
ritual slaughtering of poultry. The cancellation of
the prohibition against Jews peddling in certain cities
was also achieved. When the anti-Semitic newspapers
incited against the leaders of the Union, the police
began to search their homes.
Ion Antonescu's government, with
the participation of the Iron Guard, closed several
synagogues (those with less than 400 worshipers in
cities and 200 in villages) and transferred the property
to Christian churches. The disposition was canceled
after three days, however, as a result of an audience
between the Union's president, Filderman, and Antonescu;
simultaneously the minister of religion, who ordered
the measure, was forced to resign. These acts took
place during the first period of the new regime, dominated
by the Iron Guard, when trespasses were committed
against the Jews daily. The Union's board constantly
informed Antonescu and the diverse ministries of these
acts, pointing out their illegality and arbitrariness.
The argument that constantly recurred in the memoranda
presented by the Union's board was that the confiscation
of Jewish shops and industrial companies caused the
disorganization of the country's economic life. Antonescu
used the information provided by the board to support
his stand against the trespasses. The Iron Guard responded
with a terror campaign against the Jewish leaders;
some were arrested and tortured by the "legionary
police," others were murdered during the revolt
against Antonescu.
The Zionist leadership negotiated
with Antonescu about organizing the emigration of
Rumanian Jews. The minister of finance proposed that
the emigration be financed by Rumanian assets, which
had been frozen in the United States, because Rumania
had joined the Axis. The transaction had to be accomplished
through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
(JDC), whose representative in Rumania was also the
president of the Union. In every city the Jewish community
had to register those who wanted to emigrate and were
able to pay the amount demanded by the government.
The Union's board utilized this agreement as a leverage
for achieving certain concessions, especially after
Rumania joined Germany in the war against the Soviet
Union (June 1941). For example, when the evacuation
of Jews from villages and towns began, the Union secured
the government's agreement not to send these Jews
to concentration camps (as had previously been ordered),
but rather to lodge them in the big cities, where
they were to be cared for by the local Jewish communities.
Another achievement (on Aug. 14, 1941) was the liberation
of the rabbis, leaders of communities, and teachers
employed in Jewish schools, who had been arrested
after the outbreak of war with the U.S.S.R., from
the Targu-Jiu concentration camp. The Union raised
the argument that the plans concerning the release
of the Rumanian properties in the United States were
dependent upon those local leaders. On Aug. 2, 1941,
the board achieved the cancellation of the order that
Jews wear the yellow badge and other measures, including
the creation of ghettos in the cities and mobilizing
women for forced labor, in which Jewish men were already
engaged. Richter insisted on the reintroduction of
repressive measures, and on September 3 the order
to wear the yellow badge was reendorsed. This time,
in addition to intervention by the Union's leaders,
Chief Rabbi Alexander Safran went into action. He
appealed to the head of the Christian Orthodox Church,
Patriarch Nicodem, and on September 8 Antonescu annulled
the order. Nevertheless, the yellow badge was maintained
in a number of Moldavian cities, as well as in Chernovtsy
(Cernauti), the capital of Bukovina, where the German
influence was strong.
During this period, when Rumania
suffered great losses on the front and Germany called
for an increase in Rumanian participation, the Union's
board employed the argument that Rumania, being an
ally of the Third Reich, and thus a sovereign state,
did not have to accept anti-Jewish laws that were
applied only to German satellite countries. Hungary
and Italy, allies that did not apply such measures
at that time, were presented as examples. It is known
from von Killinger's reports that Antonescu raised
these objections in his dealings with the Nazi government.
After Jews began to be deported from
Bessarabia and Bukovina to Transnistria, the board
delegated Chief Rabbi Safran to intervene with the
queen mother, Patriarch Nicodem, and the archbishop
of Bukovina and induce them to intercede with Antonescu
to halt the deportations and permit aid to those who
had already been transported over the Dniester. Until
a decision could be achieved through their intervention,
and against the opposition of von Killinger, the 17,000
Jews who remained in Chernovtsy were not deported.
However, the steps taken, with permission to provide
assistance to those who had already been deported
to Transnistria were sabotaged by difficulties raised
by lower authorities. The Union also endeavored to
gain the support of the U.S. ambassador, who interceded
with the Rumanian government. Nevertheless, when the
ambassadors of Brazil, Switzerland, and Portugal proposed
to the U.S. ambassador the initiation of an international
protest against the Rumanian anti-Jewish excesses,
the latter reported to Washington that he did not
possess enough exact information. Later on, however,
in another report (Nov. 4, 1941), he described in
detail the massacres committed in Bessarabia and in
Bukovina and the cruelties that were committed during
the deportations to Transnistria. The description
was based on the information received from the Union.
(It was only at the end of 1941 that Rumania broke
off relations with the United States, under German
pressure.) The anti-Semitic pressfinanced and
inspired by the German embassyincluding the
German-language Bukarester Tageblatt, then
intensified the incitement againt the Jewish leaders
and their constant interventions against anti-Jewish
measures.
THE UNDERGROUND JEWISH COUNCIL
At the end of 1941 the Union of the
Communities was dissolved under pressure from Richter,
and the Centrala evreilor (Central Board of the Jews)
was set up at his suggestion in January 1942. Its
leaders were appointed by Radu Lecca, who was responsible
for Jewish affairs in the Rumanian government, but
they were actually subordinate to Richter. Nearly
all of the new leaders were unknown to the Jewish
public, with the exception of A. Willman, who shortly
before his appointment had published a number of pamphlets
proposing a kind of neo-territorialist plan to be
accomplished with the aid of Nazi Germany. From the
outset, the Jewish population expressed its distrust
of the new organ. The former leaders of the Jewish
institutions formed a clandestine Jewish Council with
Chief Rabbi Alexander Safran as its president. The
Council leaders handed memoranda personally to, or
interceded individually with, Antonescu or his ministers,
who went on to deal with them because the government
did not trust the Central Board either.
In the spring of 1942 changes were
made in the framework of the Central Board. Willman
and some of his followers were removed and replaced
by others appointed from among the leadership of the
Zionist movement and the Union of the Rumanian Jews
(U.E.R.). Thus the Central Board was prevented from
taking any harmful initiatives against the Jewish
population. In the summer the Zionist Organization
was dissolved at the request of the Germans, and this
was a sign that the Germans disagreed with the Rumanian
policy, which aided Jewish emigration. On July 22
when Richter obtained Mihai Antonescu's assent to
the deportation of the Jews to the extermination camps
in Poland, the clandestine Jewish Council immediately
learned of the details of the deportation program
and used personal contacts to achieve the repeal of
the agreement. Safran invited the archbishop of Transylvania,
Nicholas Balan, to Bucharest, since the transports
were to be initiated from there; the queen mother
was also convinced by Safran to intercede, together
with the archbishop, with Ion Antonescu. Others were
also requested to intercede on behalf of the Jews,
such as the papal nuncio, Andreas Cassulo; the Swiss
ambassador, RenM de Weck; and even Antonescu's personal
physician.
Danger was overcome for the present,
but not for long, as Eichmann persevered in demanding
the deportation of Rumanian Jews. In October 1942
the deportation order, under pressure from Eichmann,
was issued again, this time to begin from Transylvania.
The Council immediately went into action: the most
important figure to intercede was Safran with the
papal nuncio, who applied to the Rumanian minister
of foreign affairs to cancel the deportation order.
The nuncio's efforts were supported by the Swedish
and Turkish ambassadors, and by the delegates of the
International Red Cross. At the same time the Jewish
Council achieved the annulment of the order to deport
to Transnistria 12,000 Jews accused of having committed
crimes or breaches of discipline.
THE STRUGGLE TO REPATRIATE DEPORTED
JEWS
After overcoming the danger of deportation
to the extermination camps in Poland, the Jewish Council
began to request the return of those who had survived
the deportations to Transnistria. The dealings with
the Rumanian government began in November 1942 over
the question of a ransom to be paid by Zionist groups
outside Rumania. Eichmann's unceasing interventions
prevented a clear-cut decision until, on April 23,
Antonescuunder German pressureissued the
order that not a single deportee should return. The
Jewish leaders then initiated the struggle for a "step
by step" resolution to the problem, asserting
that a series of categories had been deported arbitrarily,
without previous investigation. The Rumanian government
ordered a detailed registration of categories. At
the beginning of 1943 an official commission was appointed
to classify the deportees. In July Antonescu authorized
the return of certain cases (aged persons, widows,
World War I invalids, former officers of the Rumanian
army, etc.). Implementation of the order, however,
encountered difficulties raised by the governor of
Transnistria, who was under the influence of German
advisers. Only at the beginning of December did the
deportees begin to return, according to categories:
yet it was a struggle against time, as meanwhile the
front had reached Transnistria.
The Jewish Council took advantage
of the opportunity offered by the conflicts between
the Rumanians and the Germans, which became more and
more stressed, especially after the Nazis discovered
the peace feelers sent out by the Rumanians to the
Allies. The Rumanian government now felt that alleviating
the condition of the Jews and protecting them from
the Germans would create more favorable conditions
for Rumania upon the conclusion of the peace treaty.
From the beginning of 1944 the clandestine Zionist
Executive dealt separately with Antonescu on the question
of emigration. Its efforts had an influence on the
general situation, as the Rumanian authorities made
the return of the deportees conditional upon their
immediate emigration.
THE COMMITTEE OF ASSISTANCE
Whole strata of Rumanian Jewry were
pauperized because of the anti-Jewish economic measures.
The former committee of the JDC continued its activity
clandestinely under the control of the Union of the
Jewish Communities and afterward of the Jewish Council.
In October 1943 it was officially recognized within
the framework of the "Jewish Central Board"
as the Autonomous Committee of Assistance. Assistance
was thus provided to the Jews evacuated from towns
and villages who could not be maintained by the local
communities. The most important accomplishment, however,
was the aid in the form of money, medicines, utensils
for craftsmen, coal, oil heaters, window glass, clothing,
etc. transmitted to Transnistria. In order to cover
the budget, money and clothing were collected in the
regions not affected by deportations. These means,
however, were far from adequate. Only owing to the
important amounts acquired from the JDC, the Jewish
Agency, and other world Jewish organizations was the
Autonomous Committee of Assistance able to continue
its activity.
In addition to all the official difficulties
raised by the Rumanian central authorities (the compulsory
transfer of money through the National Bank at an
unfavorable exchange rate, and the obligation of paying
customs for the objects sent), the transports were
frequently plundered on the way or confiscated by
the local authorities in Transnistria. The assistance,
however, was in itself an element of resistance. The
mere fact that the deportees knew that they had not
been abandoned, at least by their fellow Jews, contributed
to the maintenance of their morale. The aid in its
various forms saved thousands of lives. Through clandestine
correspondence, carried by non-Jewish messengers,
reports were received concerning the situation of
the refugees. This means of providing information
was insufficient, however, and the Autonomous Committee
of Assistance therefore wanted to review the situation
directly on the spot.
As early as January 1942 authorization
was obtained from the Ministry of the Interior for
a delegation of the committee to go to Transnistria;
nevertheless, due to the opposition of the governor
of Transnistria, the representatives could not get
there until Dec. 31, 1942. The governor received them
in audience at Odessa and tried to intimidate them
by means of threat, telling them that their behavior
would determine whether or not they would return to
Rumania. He gave them permission to visit only three
of the camps in which deported Jews were concentrated.
The delegates of the committee responded by requesting
a regional conference with representatives of all
the camps. During the railway journey to Mogilev,
the delegates visited the Zhmerinka camp and received
information about the surrounding camps. Upon their
arrival at Mogilev (Jan. 89, 1943), a regional
conference took place with the participation of about
70 delegates. Before the conference opened, the prefect
and the commander of the gendarmes warned the delegates
not to complain about their situation, adding the
threat that complaints might endanger the further
receipt of aid. However, the delegates clandestinely
submitted a written report concerning the real situation
to the representatives of the committee. From Mogilev
the delegation left for Balta, where it did not receive
a license for a regional conference, but each delegate
from the ghettos or camps of the area was authorized
to report individually about the situation. Back in
Bucharest, after this two-week tour in Transnistria,
the delegates presented their report, which was also
sent to Jewish organizations abroad.
In December 1943 representatives
of the Autonomous Committee of Assistance again left
for Transnistria to organize the return of the deportees,
taking with them wagons of clothing. One group of
representatives left for the north, to Mogilev and
its surroundings; another for the south, to Tiraspol.
The central administration of Transnistria did not
display any goodwill, but the local authorities provided
wagons for the transport. On Feb. 15, 1944, two delegations
started out to aid the return of the orphans. On March
17, 1944, another two delegations set out for Transnistria,
but they could not reach their destination as the
area had already become a front area, the northern
part occupied by the Red Army.
The delegates installed themselves
in Tighina (Bessarabia), whence they made contact
with Tiraspol on the eastern bank of the Dniester
River and succeeded in saving almost all those concentrated
there. The Germans still had the time to organize
a last massacre, murdering 1,000 Jews who were in
detention in the Tiraspol jail. When Transnistria
and Bessarabia were reconquered by the Soviets, the
deportees who followed the armies were the last to
succeed in returning to Rumania, for afterward, at
the end of June 1944, the Soviets closed the frontier.
It was reopened only in May 1945 for a last group
of 7,000 deportees, after prolonged dealings in Bucharest
between the Jewish leaders and General Vinogradov,
the head of the Soviet armistice commission.
[Theodor Lavi]
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Contemporary Period Through
the 1960's
When Rumania broke with Nazi Germany
and entered the war on the side of the Allies (Aug.
23, 1944), Rumanian Jewry had been considerably decreased
as a result of the Holocaust and it was about to decrease
even further through emigration. The struggle for
Jewish independence in Palestine influenced Rumanian
Jews, and the goal of aliyah, which had been
deep-seated in the community in the past, became a
powerful force. The decisive factor in the life of
Rumanian Jews after World War II, however, was the
political regime in Rumania, which exercised its authority
over the community life of Rumanian Jewry, determined
the structure of its organization, and limited its
aspirations. Government control was prevalent during
the first periodfrom Aug. 23, 1944 until the
abolition of the monarchy (Dec. 30, 1947)and
even more so in succeeding periods, through all the
internal changes that altered the regime in Rumania.
For a few years after the abolition
of the monarchy, Rumania closely followed the line
dictated from Moscow. This situation continued until
the end of the 1950s, when the first signs of an independent
Rumanian policy began to appear. Until 1965 the pattern
of this policy gradually solidified, and from then,
with the personal changes after the death of President
Gheorghiu-Dej, Rumania entered with a full independent
policy. All the changes in government and policy also
left their mark on Jewish community life. The situation
of Rumanian Jewry always had a special character.
Even in the days of complete dependence on Moscow,
when the tools and institutions of national Jewish
identity were destroyed and expression of Jewish aspirations
was repressed, Rumanian Jewry was not compelled to
be as alienated from its national and religious identity
as were the Jews of the Soviet Union. At the end of
the 1960s the Jewish community in Rumania found itself
in an intermediate position. Its activities displayed
indications of free community life as well as the
limitations imposed by the government. Variations
in the government's policy also reflected the connection
between the status of Rumanian Jewry and the official
attitude of Rumania toward Israel. This mutual influence
was expressed in all the areas of Jewish life and
especially through the central issue of the right
to leave the country and settle in Israel.
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Population
The characterizing factor of the
demography of Rumanian Jewry during this period was
the constant decrease in the community's size. The
only source on the size of the Rumanian Jewish community
at the end of World War II is a registration (the
results of which were published in 1947) that was
carried out on the initiative of the World Jewish
Congress. According to the registration, there were
428,312 Jews in Rumania at the time. This number was
the balance after the losses caused by the Holocaust,
the annexation of Bessarabia and North Bukovina by
the U.S.S.R., and the migration to Palestine during
the war. The professional composition of the community
at that time (1945) was as follows: 49,000 artisans,
35,000 employees, 34,000 merchants and industrialists,
and 9,500 in the free professions. Ten years later
the Jewish population had been reduced to about a
third. According to the census taken on Feb. 21, 1956,
there were 144,236 Jews in Rumania, of whom 34,263
spoke Yiddish. But these figures are probably lower
than the true numbers, as it is known that in the
above-mentioned census members of minority groups
were not allowed to identify freely with their national
group and the government encouraged them to declare
their membership in the Rumanian nation. The drastic
reduction in the size of the Rumanian Jewish community
was largely a result of mass emigration, especially
during the years 194447. The means of emigration
were dictated by the conditions of the war and its
aftermath. At the end of the war thousands of Jews,
terrified by the Holocaust, fled Rumania through its
western border, which was still open, and reached
the West by their own means. In addition to this spontaneous
migration, 14 refugee boats left Rumanian ports carrying
24,000 "illegal" immigrants to Palestine.
A portion of Rumanian Jewry, including thousands who
left Rumania of their own volition immediately after
the war, was also among those who boarded refugee
boats to Palestine in other European ports. From the
establishment of the State of Israel (1948) until
the end of the 1960s, over 200,000 Rumanian Jews settled
in the new state. In addition, it should be noted
that not all the Jews who emigrated from Rumania went
to Israel; about 80,000 others were scattered throughout
other countries. At the end of the 1960s the Rumanian
Jewish community numbered no more than 100,000.
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The Liquidation of Jewish
Organizations
On Aug. 23, 1944, when Rumania joined
the Allies, the Zionist movement came up from underground
to operate legally and openly through all its currents
and institutions. The same was true of the Jewish
Party, which was reorganized as the representative
body of Rumanian Jewry and headed by the Zionist leader
A. L. Zissu. In 1945 an extension of the Communist
Party was established among the Jewish population
under the name the Jewish Democratic Committee (Comitetul
Democrat Evreesc). For about four years the Zionist
movement maintained regular activities in the fields
of organization, education, training farms, and Zionist
funds, as well as through international ties. In 1948
there were 100,000 members in the movement and 4,000
in He-Halutz, with 95 branches and 12 training farms.
The Zionist Organization in Rumania participated in
the world Zionist Congress in Basle in 1946. A general
representation of Rumanian Jewry (including delegates
from the Jewish Democratic Committee) was present
at the Montreux conference (1948) of the World Jewish
Congress. These were the last regular contacts of
Rumanian Jewry with Jewish organizations abroad; afterward
the ties were severed for an extended period.
The more the Communist Party strengthened
its power, the more Zionist activity in Rumania turned
from "permitted" to "tolerated,"
until it was finally outlawed completely. The instrument
of this process was the Jewish Democratic Committee,
which never succeeded in striking roots among the
Jewish population, in spite of the support it received
from the authorities. The cue to abolish Zionist activities
was given in the decision of the central committee
of the Communist Party on June 1011, 1948, in
the midst of Israel's War of Independence. The decision
stated that "the party must take a stand on every
question concerning the Jews of Rumania and fight
vigorously against reactionary nationalist Jewish
currents." As early as the summer of 1948 the
liquidation of Zionist training farms was begun, and
the process was completed in the spring of 1949. In
November 1948 the activities of the Zionist funds
were forbidden. On Nov. 29, 1948, a violent attack
on the branch of the Zionist Organization in Bucharest
was organized by the Jewish Communists. On Dec. 12,
1948, the party decision was again publicized, including
a clear denunciation of Zionism, "which, in all
its manifestations, is a reactionary nationalist movement
of the Jewish bourgeoisie, supported by American imperialism,
that attempts to isolate the masses of Jewish workers
from the people among whom they live." This statement
was published in the wake of a bitter press campaign
against Zionism during November and December 1948.
The persecution of the Zionist movement
was also expressed by the imprisonment of shelihim
from Erez Israel. On Dec. 23, 1948, a general consultation
of Zionists was held and resulted in the decision
to dissolve "voluntarily" the Zionist organizations.
Following this decision, the Zionist parties began
to halt their activities, with the exception of Mapam,
the youth movements, and He-Halutz. The World Jewish
Congress also ceased to operate in Rumania. Those
organizations that did not close down at the time
continued to operate formally until the spring of
the following year. On March 3, 1949, however, the
Ministry of Interior issued an order to liquidate
all remnants of the Zionist movement, including youth
movements and training farms. With this order the
Jewish community in Rumania was given over completely
to the dominance of the government aloneat first
by means of the Jewish Democratic Committee, until
it too was gradually dissolved. In April 1949 the
youth movement of the Jewish Democratic Committee
was disbanded just as the Communist Party Youth (UTM)
was organized, and the committee itself was disbanded
in March 1953, together with all other national minorities'
organizations in Rumania. In 194950 the activity
of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
in Rumania was discontinued by order of the government.
The hostile attitude toward the Zionist movement was
also expressed in Rumania's attitude toward Israel,
which gradually hardened and led to the frequent imprisonment
of previously active Zionists. There were ups and
downs, however, especially in the area of propaganda,
until the situation in general began to improve at
the beginning of 1967.
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Community Life
With the liquidation of the Zionist
Movement and the dissolution of the Jewish Democratic
Committee, the religious communities (kehillot)
were the only organized bodies left in Rumanian Jewry.
The legal foundations for their activities were laid
down even before other Jewish frameworks were destroyed.
In 1945 the "Regulations on Nationalities"
were passed and declared the formal equality of members
of all national minority groups before the law. Regulations
of the activities of the recognized religions, including
Judaism, were set down in the Aug. 4, 1948 order of
the presidium of the Grand National Assembly (which
also served as the presidency of the state). The regulations
of the Federation of Communities of the Mosaic Religion,
which were approved by the Assembly's presidium on
June 1, 1949, were based upon this order. The Federation's
scope of activity was limited to the area of religious
worship alone. In the first years of the Communist
regime and its complete dependence upon Moscow, Jewish
Communists infiltrated into the Federation, but afterward
their participation in Jewish religious bodies decreased,
although it did not cease altogether. The Federation
of Communities was responsible for maintaining synagogues
and cemeteries and supplying religious objects, unleavened
bread for Passover, kosher food, and the like. It
was not authorized to deal in matters of Jewish education,
however, although it did have the right (according
to a decision of the department of religions on Nov.
13, 1948) to set up seminaries for training rabbis,
and for a few years it maintained a yeshivah in Arad
(Transylvania). According to the registration of 1960,
there were 153 communities throughout Rumania that
maintained 841 synagogues and battei midrash
(56 of which were no longer in use), 67 ritual baths,
86 slaughterhouses, and one factory for unleavened
bread (in Cluj). From 1956 the Federation also published
a tri-language biweekly (in Rumanian, Yiddish, and
Hebrew) entitled Revista Cultului Mozaic Din R.P.R.
("Journal of (Rumanian) Religious Jewry").
From 1964 the chief rabbi officiated as the chairman
of the Federation and was also a member of the National
Assembly. Thus the Federation became the general Jewish
representative in the country.
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Education
With the renewal of Jewish life after
the war, Jewish education also began to operate again.
In 1946 the total number of Jewish schools was 190
with 41,000 students. In 1948 five yeshivot, 50 talmud
torah schools, 10 Bet Jacob schools, one elementary
school of Tarbut, five dormitories for students, 14
dormitories for apprentices, the agricultural training
institute (Cultura AgricolD), three vocational schools
in Bucharest, and three vocational schools in provincial
cities (Hu\i, Sibiu, Radauti) were supported by the
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. A substantial
number of educational institutions were maintained
by the various Jewish communities without outside
support. The network of Jewish education was destroyed
in the autumn of 1948, when all schools in Rumania
were nationalized. At that time a small number of
schools in which the language of instruction was Yiddish
were established (in Bucharest and in Jassy) and remained
open until the 1960/61 school year. After the nationalization
Jewish education remained in the hands of melammedim,
whose activities were tolerated by the authorities.
In 1960 there were 54 talmud torah schools,
in addition to the yeshivah that was established in
Arad in 1956. By the end of the 1960s the number of
educational institutions had very considerably decreased.
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Culture
At the beginning of the period under
discussion, the language of Jewish writers and poets,
including those who wrote about Jewish subjects, was
Rumanian. During the first years after World War II
the Jewish press was fairly large. The most important
newspaper was MDntuirea, which began to reappear
after Rumania joined the Allies and continued to be
published until the Zionist movement ceased to exist.
In 1945 the press of the Jewish Democratic Committee
began to appear, and its major newspaper was Unirea,
in Bucharest, which lasted until 1953. As long as
Zionist activity was permitted, the Zionist publishing
house Bikkurim and the He-Halutz publishing house,
as well as the Yavneh Company for the distribution
of books on Jewish history and Hebrew literature continued
to operate. In Jewish contributions to Rumanian literature,
art, and music, the influence of the memories of the
Jewish milieu was sometimes felt. The writers and
poets A. Toma, Maria Banus, Veronica Porumbacu, Barbu
Lazareanu, and others belonged to this group. Among
the writers who wrote in Yiddish were Jacob Groper,
Alfred Margul Sperber, and Ludovic Brukstein. The
most outstanding Jewish artists were Josif Iser, M.
H. Maxy, and Jules Perachim. Well-known Jewish musicians
were Matei Socor, Alfred Mendelsohn, and Max Eisikovits.
The only Jewish cultural institution was the Jewish
theater in Bucharest. It was established as a state
institution in 1948. The Jewish theater in Jassy,
which was established at the same time, closed down
in 1968. During the 20 years of its existence, the
theater produced 107 plays including works by Abraham
Goldfaden, Shalom Aleichem, MoliIre, Gogol, Yiddish
playwrights, and others. In 1968 the Bucharest Jewish
theater performed on tour in Israel.
Israel-Rumania
Relations to the End of the 1960's
Israel-Rumania Relations. In September
1948 the first Israel representative to Rumania, the
artist Reuven Rubin, arrived in Bucharest, but neither
he nor his successors succeeded in substantially developing
the relations between the two countries for a number
of years. Until 1965 the relations were regular but
cool, especially because of the attitude of the Soviet
Union toward Israel, which was strictly followed by
Rumanian foreign policy. Every so often the relations
between the two countries were shaken by crises that
were felt on the level of diplomatic representation
(the extended absence of a minister at the head of
the mission) or were expressed by the expulsion of
Israel diplomats. Cultural ties were not developed
during the period, and trade also remained static
at a modest level (in the climax year, the mutual
trade balance between Israel and Rumania reached $4.5
million). These relations improved considerably, however,
as Rumania grew more independent of the U.S.S.R. in
international affairs. From February 1966 a Rumanian
minister again headed the Rumanian mission in Israel.
In March 1967 a high-level Rumanian economic delegation
visited Israel for the first time, and afterward an
Israel economic delegation, headed by the finance
minister, went to Bucharest; full trade agreements
were signed. In 1968 the trade balance between the
two countries reached $20,000,000, and subsequently
trade increased. Cultural relations also expanded
(Israel musicians, choirs, etc. visited Rumania and
the countries exchanged art exhibitions), as did tourism
from each country to the other. The Six-Day War (1967)
served as a decisive test in the relations between
Israel and Rumania. On June 10, 1967, a consultation
of all East European nations, including Yugoslavia,
was held in Moscow and resulted in a denunciation
of Israels "aggression." The participating
states also decided to sever diplomatic relations
with the State of Israel. Rumania, however, refused
to sign the denunciation and also refused to carry
out the conference's decisions. She did not sever
diplomatic relations with Israel and refrained from
taking part in the anti-Israel Soviet propaganda campaign.
Rumania repeatedly expressed her stand that the Arab-Israel
dispute must be settled by political means, taking
into consideration the just rights of both sides.
In August 1969 Rumania and Israel elevated their diplomatic
missions to the rank of embassies.
[Eliezer Palmor]
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Contemporary Period 19701981
The official census published in
June 1977 gave the Jewish population as only 25,600;
despite the fact that according to the statistics
given by the Federation of Jewish Communities, which
based itself on a registry of those in need of the
community's services, the number was approximately
45,000, and its files did not include those Jews who
have no connection with the communities. If these
Jews are included, it would bring the total Jewish
population to approximately 70,000. The Jewish community
of Rumania is an aging one; 25.51% of all Jews in
Rumania belong to the age category 4160 and
46.2% to the age category 6080. The majority
of the Jews of Rumania are professionals.
The institutions of the community,
both local and central, have continued to function.
The Federation of Jewish Communities, on which all
the communities throughout Rumania are represented,
is recognized by the authorities and headed by Chief
Rabbi Dr. Moshe Rosen who was a member of the Rumanian
Parliament. Ktav Ha'eth, a bi-weekly publication
of the Federation, continued to appear in Rumanian,
Hebrew, and Yiddish.
Rumania continued to be the only
country within the Soviet sphere of influence whose
Jewish community maintains contact with international
Jewish organizations and with communities outside
Rumania; close ties existed with the World Jewish
Congress, the Joint Distribution Committee and others,
as well as with Jewish communities throughout the
world. Representatives of Rumanian Jewry participated
in the conference of the European branch of the World
Jewish Congress which took place in Madrid (Dec. 46,
1976), and a delegation of the Federation of Communities,
headed by Rabbi Rosen, participated in the Synagogue
Federation Conference held in Jerusalem in February
1978. The Jewish State Theater in Bucharest, which
has no connection with the community, continued to
produce plays in Yiddish despite the dwindling of
the potential audience. Several books in Yiddish have
also been published.
In an earthquake which struck Bucharest
on May 4, 1977, the Choral and Malbim synagogues were
damaged. During his official visit to Rumania on Aug.
1, 1977, Prime Minister Menahem Begin participated
in the Sabbath services in the Choral Synagogue and
addressed the large congregation.
RELIGION AND CULTURE
Synagogues throughout the country
(about 150) continued to function. In addition to
the Chief Rabbi, there were two other rabbis, Rabbi
Yitzhak Meir Marilus in Bucharest and Dr. Ernest Neumann
in Timisoara. Kosher meat was provided by ritual slaughterers
who visit the various communities weekly.
In the latter part of December 1977
the Museum for the History of the Jews in Rumania
was opened in Bucharest. In August 1977 the centenary
of the founding of the Jewish theater in Rumania was
celebrated by a gala performance at which Tevye
der Milchiger by Shalom Aleichem, The Dybbuk
by An-ski, and Lessing's Nathan the Wise were
presented.
In September 1981 Rumania was the
site of the convention of the European Rabbinical
Conference, marking the first time a major Jewish
gathering has been held in an East European country
since World War II. The chief rabbis of England, France,
Italy, and Holland were among the participants.
The 25th anniversary of the publication
of Revista Cultului Mozaic was celebrated in
September 1981. The state publishing house has published
a bibliographical work on the Jewish press in Rumania,
Yiddishe Presse in Roomenie by Wolf Tambor.
STUDIES
AND NEW DISCOVERIES ON THE HISTORY OF THE JEWS OF
RUMANIA
Research in the history of the Jews
of Rumania has been undertaken by a group of Jewish
historians. Their activities centered among the Federation
of Communities' biweekly and deal especially with
the role of the Jews in Rumanian history. They also
conduct research in municipal archives and the Jewish
archives of the Federation.
Archaeological excavations conducted
in Rumania have revealed Jewish inscriptions dating
from the Roman occupation of Dacia (275101 B.C.E.),
and 16 inscriptions are in honor of Deus Aeternus,
and one in honor of Adonai Aeternus.
More information has been revealed
on the communities of Suceava, Sulita, Adjud, and
Bivolari. The historian Itic Svart-Kara from Jassy
published an article on the rabbis and scholars of
Moldavis, and the pinkas of the hatmakers'
guild from 1797 was published. A more positive approach
to the suffering of the Jews under the pro-Hitler
regime is evident. A volume by Maria Arsene appeared
in 1972 dealing with the Struma, the "illegal"
immigrant boat, which sank or was sunk in the Black
Sea in 1942. In contrast to previous policy, which
was similar to that of the Soviets, who did not identify
the victims as Jews but as "innocent citizens",
Rumanian historians also began to study the Holocaust.
In 1970 there was published a book
on the Iron Guard by Mihai Fatu and Ion Spalatelu,
who quote the anti-Jewish plans of some of the anti-Semitic
parties, including the Iron Guard, but they emphasize
that these plans were ostensibly only directed against
the Jews, whereas in fact they were directed against
"democracy" and the"workers".
In a book by William Marin and Gheorge Vancea, which
deals with the anti-Fascist movement and its struggle
in the Barat region, the authors emphasize that the
anti-Semitic regime and factions blamed the Jews for
all of Rumania's problems. They also enumerate all
those who fought racial persecution at the time of
Antonescu.
CULTURAL TIES
Most of the cultural ties between
the two countries are conducted outside the framework
of the Cultural Cooperation Program signed by representatives
of the two countries in May 1974. On June 5, 1977
a department of Rumanian history was inaugurated in
Tel Aviv University.
Several stories by Ephraim Kishon
have been translated into Rumanian and a collection
of them was published in December 1977 under the title
In Cautarea Pasilor Pierduti ("In Search
of Lost Steps").
The number of Israeli students studying
in Rumania, mostly medical students, is about 300.
RELATIONS WITH ISRAEL
Political relations between Israel
and Rumania were strengthened with statesmen exchanging
visits, and particularly visits by Israelis. Rumania
has consistently campaigned for a political settlement
of the Near East conflict, for the implementation
of the November 1967 Security Council resolution,
and for a solution that will guarantee the territorial
integrity and independence of all states in the region
and lead to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from
territories occupied after the Six-Day War. Rumania
has also underscored the need to solve the problem
of the Palestinian Arabs in conformity with their
national interests. The fact that the Rumanian government
has adopted a policy quite different from that of
the U.S.S.R. and the other East European governments
and has not branded Israel as an "aggressor"
has permitted Rumania and Israel to maintain normal
relations.
In August 1977 Prime Minister Begin
paid an official visit to Rumania. He held wide-ranging
talks with his counterpart Manea Manescu, with Foreign
Minister Macovescu, and held two lengthy political
talks with the President of Rumania, Nicolae Caeausescu.
The Begin-Caeausescu meeting played an important role
in the decision of the president of Egypt to visit
Jerusalem in November 1977, and Rumania was the only
East European country which expressed open support
for the Israeli-Egyptian peace initiative. Two unscheduled
meetings were held between the Rumanian President
and Moshe Dayan, Israeli foreign minister, in April
1978. Economic and trade agreements and an agreement
for technical and agricultural cooperation have been
signed by both countries.
The latter agreement, which was renewed
in February 1977 during the visit to Israel by Rumania's
Vice-Minister of Agriculture Nicolae Glavan, is designed
particularly to train experts in various agriculture-related
fields or to supplement their knowledge.
In 1980 Israeli exports to Rumania
amounted to $35 million, while Israel imported from
Rumania goods worth $48.5 million.
top
19831992
GENERAL
In the decade 19831992 the
central development in Romanian life and especially
in the life of the ever-dwindling Jewish community
was the overthrow of the Communist regime and the
attempts at introducing democracy into the country
along Western lines. The change of rule did not bring
in its wake any real changes in the life of the few
Jews left in the country.
Over the past decade Jewish life
throughout Romania continued to revolve around the
synagogues and the kasher restaurants, operated
by the Federation of Romanian Jewish Communities and
funded by the Joint Distribution Committee. The dominating
figure in Jewish life has continued to be, Chief Rabbi
Moses Rosen, now in his eighties.
DEMOGRAPHY AND ALIYAH
Since the establishment of the State
of Israel some 300,000 Romanian Jews have emigrated
there. The more the number of Jews in Romania shrinks,
the more difficult it is to obtain reliable current
Jewish population figures. The Federation of Communities,
whose numbers are used by the Joint, estimate that
there is a total of 15,000 Jews, 8,000 of whom are
in Bucharest, the capital. Timisoara (in Transylvania)
and Jassy each has a community of some 900 people;
all the others are scattered among a Romanian populace
of 22 million people. The official 1992 government
yearbook, citing statistical data from a kind of census,
states that there are 9,000 Jews. It may be that not
all Jews were counted or admitted to being Jewish,
particularly those in mixed marriages.
After the death in 1986 of Rabbi
I. M. Marilus, the dayyan of Bucharest, only
two rabbis remained in Romania: Chief Rabbi Dr. Rosen,
who is also the president of the Federation of Communities,
and Dr. Ernest Neuman of Timisoara. The aging of the
leadership as well as the emigration of a few of the
leaders to Israel has thinned out their ranks, and
Rabbi Rosen had to fill some positions with people
who in the past were active in the communist regime
and even in the Ministry of Religion, whose function
was to oppress religions rather than encourage them.
ANTI-SEMITISM AND ZIONISM
In 1992, as part of his effort to
reinforce religious leadership, Rabbi Rosen recruited
Rabbi Dr. Asher (Georg) Ehrenfeld, a former Israeli
army chaplain, to serve as the chief rabbi's deputy
and assistant in Bucharest. Ehrenfeld spent about
a year in Romania substituting for Rabbi Rosen during
his long absences from the country.
The remnants of the Romanian Jewish
community welcomed the overthrow of Ceasescu and the
community journal published a special issue expressing
joy at the change. In the new spirit of freedom Rabbi
Rosen was the object of personal attacks by anti-Semitic
groups, which accused him of close cooperation with
the communist regime. Two anti-Semitic newspapers
waged this campaign, which the chief rabbi saw as
an attack on the entire community. Romania Mare
("Great Romania") and Europa, are
weeklies publishing virulent anti-Semitic material,
aiming their barbs personally at Rabbi Rosen. In 1992
Paul Everac, director of public television, published
a book which also contained anti-Semitic material.
He claimed, among other things, that the Jews of Romania
control everything and that they number more than
30,000 (over double the real figure). Complaints lodged
by Rabbi Rosen were rejected on the grounds that they
were not of public interest. Rabbi Rosen managed to
secure the dismissal of the anti-Semitic attorney
general, Cherecheanu.
Some observers have felt that the
chief rabbi has exaggerated his cries against anti-Semitism;
there have been no physical attacks on Jews, aside
from an attempted break-in and robbery at the Ploesti
synagogue in June 1992 in which windows were broken
and a parokhet torn (police in the district
claimed that churches in the area had been similarly
broken into), and incitement against Jews has not
gone beyond the bounds accepted under Ceasescu. They
claim that the outcry by Rabbi Rosen has itself fanned
the flame of anti-Semitism. Some saw this as the reason
for Rabbi Ehrenfeld's leaving his post at the end
of a year, while others were convinced that the authorities
hinted that he was non grata because of his
originating in Oradea; he speaks fluent Hungarian
and previously served as the rabbi of Debrecen, Hungary.
Considering the ethnic tension between Hungary and
Romania, this is a likely reason.
There is no Zionism in Romania in
the commonly accepted meaning. In the early 1990 attempts
were made to organize a branch of the Maccabi sport
organization and after the overthrow of Ceasescu,
a Romania-Israel Friendship League was established,
led by the writer Victor Berlianu. The Jewish Agency
emissary in Romania, Tova Ben-Nun, deals with arrangements
for aliyah; there are no Zionist youth organizations
and Romania is the only country in Eastern Europeat
least in the past few yearswhich sends no representative
to participate in the International Bible Contest
for Jewish Youth, held on Independence Day in Jerusalem.
THE PRESIDENT IN THE GREAT SYNAGOGUE
In order to quash the harsh complaints
about active anti-Semitism, President Iliescu has
invested effort, internally and externally, to placate
Chief Rabbi Rosen. In 1993 he took the rabbi with
him to the opening of the Holocaust Museum in Washington,
D.C., and before that participated in a memorial service
for Holocaust victims held in the Bucharest Choral
Synagogue, where Iliescu spoke and condemned anti-Semitism.
This seemed to put a stop to the
decline in the status of the chief rabbi, who for
many over the past 40 yearsand to a certain
extent correctlysymbolized Romanian Jewry. However,
the rabbi's repeated efforts to exploit his international
connections in order to insure for Romania a most-favored-nation
standing from the U.S. for foreign trade have led
nowhere.
THE JOINT'S REARGUARD ACTION
Upon the emigration to Israel of
Rabbi Wasserman of Dorhoi, the home for the aged and
the kasher restaurant there were closed. Otherwise,
all the institutions, restaurants, and homes for the
aged are still in operation10 restaurants and
4 homes (2 in Bucharest, and 2 smaller ones in Arad
and Timisoara). Needy Jews receive packages of food
and clothing. All this activity is financed by the
JDC, fighting a rearguard action to maintain the few
remaining Romanian Jews. The situation of the elderly
has worsened considerably as their pension's value
has eroded to nothing because of inflation, and without
the Joint's help they would be starving. The Joint
did curtail its budget for Romania with the decline
in Jewish population but still finances the ritual
slaughterers (three remain), and is prepared to pay
the salary for a rabbi if Rabbi Rosen finds a replacement
for Rabbi Ehrenfeld. The biweekly paper Revista,
edited by Chaim Riemer, still appears in four
languages. A selection of sermons by Rabbi Rosen has
appeared and work is progressing on a book of testimonies
which will document the Holocaust of Romanian Jewry.
In an attempt to bring a fresh spirit
to the leadership of the communities, Osias Lazar
was appointed head of the Bucharest community, while
elderly Theodore (Tuvia) Blumenfeld continues to serve
as the general secretary of the Federation of Communities.
The federation is actually directed by Rabbi Rosen's
adviser and confidant, Julian Sorin. Sorin was previously
a senior official in the communist Ministry of Religions.
Since Ceasescu's overthrow, a few
communities in the provincesand especially in
Transylvaniahave tried "to declare independence";
to establish links with other countries and mainly
with emigrMs from those communities now living in
Israel, and even to sell property, without the Federation's
approval, an act that was unthinkable during the centralized
communist regime. This has created tension between
the communities and the chief rabbi, with repercussions
even reaching Israel.
Jewish education is almost non-existent.
A third of the Jews, whose very number is indeterminate,
are involved in mixed marriages, and the majority
of the community consists of elderly people whose
children and grandchildren live in Israel. Choirs
and talmudei Torah outside of Bucharest are
dwindling along with the Jewish population. Bucharest
has been able to maintain its successful choir and
a Talmud Torah which dozens of children attend
on Sundays.
Romania lost its special status regarding
relations with Israel, since it is no longer the only
Eastern bloc country to have diplomatic relations
with the Jewish state. Relations continued to be normal
and friendly, with efforts at increasing bilateral
trade for which Romania does not have much to offer.
Israeli tourism to Romania dropped off.
[Naftali Kraus]
top
The Mid-1990's
The death of Rabbi Moses Rosen in
May 1994 significantly affected the remaining Jews
of Romania. The passing at age 83 of the man who for
over 40 years had served as chief rabbi and head of
the federation of Romanian Jewish communities signified
the end of an era which included the collapse of the
Communist regime in the country.
NEW CHIEF RABBI
The feeling of stagnation which followed
the death of the Rabbi Rosen prompted the representatives
in Romania of the AJDC, which essentially administers
to Jewish life there, to find a new chief rabbi quickly.
Among the five candidates, all from Israel, they chose
in May 1995 the Romanian-born professor Yehezkel Marek,
a lecturer in literature at Bar-Ilan University who
had never served in the rabbinate, by a vote of 52
votes by members of the Jewish Federation to 4 votes
given to others. Rabbi Dr. Marek, whose rabbinic education
was gained at the Harry Fischel Institute in Jerusalem,
energetically assumed the role of chief rabbi and
as the High Holidays approached in his first year
in office visited the Jewish communities of Moldova
and Transylvania, lecturing daily in two different
communities and calling for closer connections with
the synagogue and closing his speech with the blowing
of the shofar. Rabbi Marek also turned to the
Israel Ministry of Religious Affairs asking for individuals
to assist with Jewish educationwhich is non-existentand
also train adults to function as gabbaim, to
conduct prayer services, chant the weekly Torah portion,
and so on.
COMMUNITY LIFE
Rabbi Rosens death also put
an end to the concentrated centrality of the Federation
of communities and allowed for greater freedom to
the individual communities. The Federation was no
longer headed by the rabbi but by Prof. Nicolae Cajal;
Theodor Blumenfeld was the secretary general, and
Julian Sorin, the vice secretary general and prime
mover who together with the Joint representative,
Dr. Tsvi Feiner, are trying to fill the gap left by
the rabbis demise. The head of the Bucharest
community, the largest in Romania, was Osias Lazar,
and the Israel Alex Mivan was in charge of economic
affairs (estates) for the Federation.
One of the most difficult issues
is the number of Jews remaining in Romania. In 1995
it became known in Israel that the Jewish Agency had
been askedand refusedto bring 3,000 elderly
Romanian Jews, those living in Jewish old age homes,
to Israel. At the same time it was noted that besides
those older people, there were still some 4,000 Jews
in the country. A census taken after the fall of Ceasescu
indicated that 9,000 remained, while the Federation
and Joint speak of 14,000. It seems that 7,0009,000
Jews live in Bucharest and that the countrywide total
is about 12,000, most of them members of mixed marriages.
A few dozen requests for conversion are received every
year, but Rabbi Marek's reply has been that hedoes
not do conversions as yet. Even though the total
number of Jews is small, emigration to Israel continues.
ANTI-SEMITISM AND THE JEWISH
COMMUNITY
Despite the declining number of Jews
the communities run smoothly and without assistance
from the Federation, whose central place has been
taken under the prevailing circumstances by the Joint.
In addition to the Bucharest community, there are
organized communities in the Transylvania region in
Cluj, Oradea, Arad, Timisoaraand in eastern
Romania in Piatre-Neamt, Botosani, Jassy, Braila,
Galati, Constanta, Ploesti, Brasov, Sighet, Satu-Mare,
and a number of small communities. Ten kasher canteens
are still operated by the communities and kasher
meat is provided by three ritual slaughterers.
The community biweekly was recently
revamped and changed its names to Jewish Existence.
Yiddish is no longer used, and the papers now appears
in Romanian, English, and one page in Hebrew, for
a total of 12 pages presenting information on the
Jewish world with emphasis on Jewish culture and many
quotations from Israel newspapers translated into
Romanian. The editor is Doral Dorian, while the veteran
editor, Hayyim Riemer, who emigrated to Israel some
years ago and then returned to Romania as an emissary
of the Joint, was appointed Honorary Director
and writes the Hebrew page.
In recent years anti-Semitism in
Romania has been on a back burner, mainly in intellectual
circles and is not accompanied by violent acts. Its
most prominent spokesman is Todor Wadim, editor of
the daily newspaper Romania Mare. The newspaper
and the political party of the same name incite against
the Jews, against Israel, and also against the democratic
forces in post-Ceasescu Romania. Horia Iliescu tries
to block any rising anti-Semitism, especially when
considering Americas decision regarding the
granting of economic concessions as a most favored
nation. The Jewish communitys attitude , as
expressed by Cajal, differs from that held in the
past by Rabbi Rosen. Cajal does not declare a general,
vocal war on anti-Semitism, but focuses on providing
information to convince the Romanians of the great
contribution the Jews made to the Romanian people
and to the country. It may be that by the time the
efficacy of this approach will be proven, there will
be no Jews left in Romania.
ISRAEL-ROMANIA RELATIONS
Israel-Romania relations over the
past few years have proceeded on a fairly even keel.
Many Romanian laborers work in Israel, while Israeli
students, particularly of medicine, study in Romania.
Some 400 Romanians emigrate annually to Israel, the
majority of them partners in mixed marriage.
[N.Kr.]
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