History of the Jews in Romania

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The history of the Jews in Romania concerns the Ashkenazi both of

Jewish Question" and the Jewish residents' right to citizenship, to the genocide carried out in the lands of Romania as part of the Holocaust. The latter, coupled with successive waves of aliyah
, has accounted for a dramatic decrease in the overall size of Romania's present-day Jewish community.

During the reign of

Peter the Lame (1574–1579), the Jews of Moldavia, mainly traders from Poland who were competing with locals, were taxed and ultimately expelled.[5] The authorities decided in 1650 and 1741 that Jews had to wear clothing evidencing their status and ethnicity.[6] The first blood libel in Moldavia (and, as such, in Romania) was made in 1710, when the Jews of Târgu Neamț were charged with having killed a Christian child for ritual purposes.[7] An anti-Jewish riot occurred in Bucharest in the 1760s.[8]
During the
Russo-Turkish War, 1768–1774, the Jews in the Danubian Principalities had to endure great hardships. Massacres and pillages were perpetrated in almost every town and village in the country. During the Greek War of Independence, which signalled the Wallachian uprising of 1821, Jews were victims of pogroms and persecutions. In the 1860s, there was another riot motivated by blood libel accusations.[9]

Antisemitism was officially enforced under the

vagrants and expelling them from the country. The emigration[dubious – discuss] of Romanian Jews on a larger scale commenced soon after 1878. By 1900 there were 250,000 Romanian Jews: 3.3% of the population, 14.6% of the city dwellers, 32% of the Moldavian urban population and 42% of Iași.[10]

Between the establishment of the

Roma. After Romania entered the war at the start of Operation Barbarossa, atrocities against Jews became common, starting with the Iași pogrom. According to the Wiesel Commission report released by the Romanian government in 2004, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in Romania and the occupied Soviet territories under Romanian control, among them the Transnistria Governorate. An additional 135,000 Jews living under Hungarian control in Northern Transylvania were mostly deported to concentration camps and were murdered in the Holocaust, as did some 5,000 Romanian Jews in other countries.[12][13][14]

On the current territory of Romania, between 290,000 and 360,000 Romanian Jews survived World War II (355,972 persons, according to statistics from the end of the war).

communist regime in Romania, there was a mass emigration to Israel
, and in 1987, only 23,000 Jews lived in Romania.

Today, the majority of Romanian Jews live in Israel, while modern-day Romania continues to host a modest Jewish population. In the 2011 census, 3,271 people declared themselves to be Jewish.

Early history

Jewish communities on what would later become Romanian territory were attested as early as the 2nd century AD, at a time when the Roman Empire had established its rule over Dacia. Inscriptions and coins have been found in such places as Sarmizegetusa and Orșova.[citation needed]

The existence of the

King Louis I. In Transylvania, Hungarian Jews were recorded in Saxon citadels around 1492.[18]

Bogdan the Blind
(1504–1517), the son and successor of Stephen.

At this time both

Jacob Heraclides, a Greek Lutheran, who was lenient to his Jewish subjects; Lăpușneanu did not renew his persecutions after his return on the throne in 1564. The role of Ottoman and local Jews in financing various princes increased as Ottoman economic demands were mounting after 1550 (in the 1570s, the influential Jewish Duke of the Archipelago, Joseph Nasi, backed both Heraclides and Lăpușneanu to the throne); several violent incidents throughout the period were instigated by princes unable to repay their debts.[19]

During the first short reign of

Peter the Lame (1574–1579) the Jews of Moldavia, mainly traders from Poland who were competing with locals, were taxed and ultimately expelled.[5] In 1582, he succeeded in regaining his rule over the country with the help of the Jewish physician Benveniste, who was a friend of the influential Solomon Ashkenazi;[5]
the latter then exerted his influence with the Prince in favor of his coreligionists.

In Wallachia,

Aron Tiranul was placed on the throne of Moldavia; nevertheless, the new ruler persecuted and executed nineteen Jewish creditors in Iași, who were decapitated without process of law.[5] At around the same time, in Wallachia, the violent repression of creditors peaked under Michael the Brave, who, after killing Turkish creditors in Bucharest (1594), probably engaged in violence against Jews settled south of the Danube during his campaign in Rumelia (while maintaining good relations with Transylvanian Jews).[20]

Early Modern Age

In 1623, the Jews in

Prince Gabriel Bethlen, who aimed to attract entrepreneurs from Ottoman lands into his country; the grants were curtailed during following decades, when Jews were only allowed to settle in Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia).[21] Among the privileges granted was one allowing Jews to wear traditional dress; eventually, the authorities in Gyulafehérvár decided (in 1650 and 1741) to allow Jews to wear only clothing evidencing their status and ethnicity.[6]

The status of Jews who had converted to Eastern Orthodoxy was established in Wallachia by Matei Basarab's Pravila de la Govora and in Moldavia by Vasile Lupu's Carte românească de învățătură.[22] The latter ruler (1634–1653) treated the Jews with consideration until the appearance of the Cossacks (1648), who marched against the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and who, while crossing the region, killed many Jews; the violence led many Ashkenazi Jews from Poland took refuge in Moldavia and Wallachia, establishing small but stable communities.[23] Massacres and forced conversions by the Cossacks occurred in 1652, when the latter came to Iași on the occasion of the Vasile Lupu's daughter marriage to Timush, the son of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and during the rule of Gheorghe Ștefan.[24]

According to

dresscode. Thus, they were prohibited from wearing clothes of other color than black or violet, or to wear yellow or red boots.[25] Nevertheless, the Romanian scholar Andrei Oișteanu argued that such ethnic and religious social stigma was uncommon in Moldavia and Wallachia, as well as throughout the Eastern Orthodox areas of Europe.[26]

The first

Roman Catholics
of a Christian girl-servant to Jewish family was immediately blamed on Jews; every Jewish house was plundered, and two prominent Jews were hanged, before the real criminals were discovered by the authorities.

The Great Synagogue (Iași), built c. 1670

Under

Patriarch of Jerusalem.[8]

In 1726, in the Moldavian borough of

Porte for allegedly using his house to rape a number of kidnapped Jewish women; Mavrocordatos had his accuser hanged. This act aroused the anger of Mahmud I's kapucu in Moldavia, and the prince paid the penalty with the loss of his throne.[8]

Russo-Turkish Wars

Main article: History of the Russo-Turkish wars

During the

Army took part in pogroms
.

The community was also subject to persecutions by the locals. Jewish children were seized and forcibly baptized. Ritual-murder accusations became widespread, with one made at

Constantine Ypsilanti dismissed accusations of ritual murder as "the unfounded opinion" of "stupid people", and ordered that their condemnation be read in churches throughout Wallachia; the allegations no longer surfaced during the following period.[33]

During the

Jean Georges Caradja (1813).[28]

In

Hungarian Crown
. However, pressure placed on the community remained stringent for the following decades.

Early 19th century

Lithograph of a cosmopolitan fair in Iași (c. 1845); two Orthodox Jews are visible to the right
Bucharest Synagogue (restored after World War II
), originally built 1864–1866

By 1825, the Jewish population in Wallachia was estimated at between 5,000 and 10,000 people, almost all

Sephardi. Of these, the larger part resided in Bucharest (probably as many as 7,000 in 1839); and at around the same time, Moldavia was home to about 12,000 Jews.[34] In parallel, the Jewish population in Bukovina rose from 526 in 1774 to 11,600 in 1848.[35] In the early 19th century, Jews who sought refuge from Osman Pazvantoğlu's campaign in the Balkans established communities in Wallachian-ruled Oltenia.[30] In Moldavia, Scarlat Callimachi's Code (1817) allowed Jews to purchase urban property, but prevented them from settling in the countryside (while purchasing town property became increasingly difficult due to popular prejudice).[30]

During the

Prut River with assistance from Austrian diplomats.[33] Weakened by the clash between Ypsilantis and Tudor Vladimirescu, the Eterists were massacred by the Ottoman intervention armies, and during this episode, Jewish communities engaged in reprisals in Secu and Slatina.[33]

Following the 1829

Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria. By 1838, their number seems to have reached 80,000,[36] and over 195,000, or almost 12% of the country's population, in 1859 (with an additional 50,000 passing through to Wallachia between the two estimates).[37]

Despite initial interdictions under the

boyars, and leading in turn to an increase in economic pressures over those working the land or buying products[38] (usual prejudice against Jews accused tavern-keepers of encouraging alcoholism). At the same time, several Jews rose to prominence and high social status, with most families involved in Moldavian banking around the 1850s being of Jewish origin.[39] After 1832, following adoption of the Organic Statute, Jewish children were accepted in schools in the two Principalities only if they wore the same clothing as others. In Moldavia, the 1847 decree of Prince Mihail Sturdza compelled Jews to abandon the traditional dress code.[40]

Before the

political rights for all compatriots of different faiths".[41]

After the end of the

radical Iuliu Barasch. This process of gradual integration resulted in the creation of an informal Jewish Romanian identity, while conversion to Christianity, despite encouragement by the authorities,[30] remained confined to exceptional cases.[33]

Under Alexandru Ioan Cuza

State Jewish Theater in Bucharest
Brasov, Romania

From the beginning of the reign of Alexandru Ioan Cuza (1859–1866), the first ruler (Domnitor) of the united principalities, the Jews became a prominent factor in the politics of the country. This period was, however, inaugurated by another riot motivated by blood libel accusations, begun during Easter 1859 in Galați.[9]

Regulations on clothing were confirmed inside Moldavia by two orders of Mihail Kogălniceanu, Minister of Internal Affairs (issues in 1859 and 1860 respectively).[40] Following adoption of the 1859 regulation, soldiers and civilians would walk the streets of Iași and some other Moldavian towns, assaulting Jews, using scissors to shred their clothing, but also to cut their beards or their sidelocks; drastic measures applied by the Army Headquarters put a stop to such turmoil.[40]

In 1864, Prince Cuza, owing to difficulties between his government and the general assembly, dissolved the latter and decided to submit a draft of a constitution granting

Austrian florins (the standard gold coins; about US$
90,000 at the exchange rate of the time) from the two groups. The Armenians discussed the matter with the Jews, but they were not able to come to a satisfactory agreement in the matter.

While Cuza was pressing in his demands, the Jewish community debated the method of assessment. The rich Jews, for unclear reasons, refused to advance the money, and the middle class argued that the sum would not lead to tangible enough results; Religious Jews insisted that such rights would only interfere with the exercise of their religion. Cuza, on being informed that the Jews hesitated to pay their share, inserted in his draft of a constitution a clause excluding from the right of suffrage all who did not profess Christianity.

1860s and 1870s

Romanian Jew holding a petition and a goose for bribery
.

On December 4, 1864, Jews in Romania were barred from practicing law. When Charles von Hohenzollern succeeded Cuza in 1866 as

Bucharest Synagogue was desecrated and demolished (it was rebuilt in the same year, then restored in 1932 and 1945). Many Jews were beaten, maimed, and robbed. As a result, Article 6 was withdrawn and Article 7 was added to the 1866 Constitution
; it read that "only such aliens as are of the Christian faith may obtain citizenship".

For the following decades, the issue of Jewish rights occupied the forefront of the

Fracțiunea liberă și independentă (later blended into the National Liberal Party, PNL) and the Bucharest group formed around Cezar Bolliac.[44] Their discourse saw Jews as non-assimilated and perpetually foreign – this claim was, however, challenged by some contemporary sources,[45]
and by the eventual acceptance of all immigrants other than Jews.

Antisemitism was carried into the PNL's mainstream, and was officially enforced under the

Conservative Party
, although including Junimea's leaders, did not do much to improve the Jews' condition – mainly due to PNL opposition.

Nonetheless, during this same era, Romania was the cradle of

Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 Romania was the home of Yiddish theatre. While its center of gravity would move first to Russia, then London, then New York City, both Bucharest and Iași would continue to figure prominently in its history over the next century.[46]

Treaty of Berlin and aftermath

Greek pie-maker and his Jewish client in Bucharest
, c. 1880

When Brătianu resumed leadership, Romania faced the emerging conflict in the

Treaty of Berlin (1878), which stipulated (Article 44) that the non-Christians in Romania (including both Jews and Muslims in the newly acquired region of Northern Dobruja) should receive full citizenship. After a prolonged debate at home and diplomatic negotiations abroad, the Romanian government ultimately agreed (1879) to abrogate Article 7 of its constitution. This was, however, reformulated to make procedures very difficult: "the naturalization of aliens not under foreign protection should in every individual case be decided by Parliament" (the action involved, among others, a ten-year term before the applicant was given an evaluation).[47]
The gesture was doubled by a show of compliance – 883 Jews, participants in the war, were naturalized in a body by a vote of both chambers.

Fifty-seven persons voted upon as individuals were naturalized in 1880; 6, in 1881; 2, in 1882; 2, in 1883; and 18, from 1886 to 1900; in all, 85 Jews in twenty-one years, 27 of whom in the meantime died; c. 4,000 people had obtained citizenship by 1912.[48] Various laws were passed until the pursuit of virtually all careers was made dependent on the possession of political rights, which only Romanians could exercise; more than 40% of Jewish working men, including manual labourers, were forced into unemployment by such legislation. Similar laws were passed in regard to Jews exercising liberal professions.[49]

In 1893, a piece of legislation was voted to deprive Jewish children of the right to be educated in the

tuition fees[need quotation to verify]. In 1898, it was passed into law that Jews were to be excluded from secondary schools and the universities. Another notable measure was the expulsion of vocal Jewish activists as "objectionable aliens" (under the provisions of an 1881 law), including those of Moses Gaster and Elias Schwarzfeld.[50]

The courts exacted the oath more judaico in its most offensive form – it was only abolished in 1904, following criticism in the French press. In 1892, when the United States addressed a note to the signatory powers of the Berlin treaty on the matter, it was attacked by the Romanian press. The Lascăr Catargiu government was, however, concerned – the issue was debated among ministers, and, as a result, the Romanian government issued pamphlets in French, reiterating its accusations against the Jews and maintaining that persecutions were deserved and came as retribution for the community's alleged exploitation of the rural population.

20th century–present

Before and after World War I

Jewish Encyclopedia wrote in 1905, shortly before the pogrom, "It is admitted that at least 70 per cent would leave the country at any time if the necessary traveling expenses were furnished". There are no official statistics of emigration; but it is safe to place the minimum number of Jewish emigrants from 1898 to 1904 at 70,000. By 1900 there were 250,000 Romanian Jews: 3.3% of the population, 14.6% of the city dwellers, 32% of the Moldavian urban population and 42% of Iași.[10]

Land issues and Jewish presence among

left-wing of the political spectrum, in currents originating in Poporanism – which favoured the claim that peasants were being systematically exploited by Jews.[54]

far right students in Iași;[55] the land reform carried out by the Ion I. C. Brătianu
cabinet also settled problems connected with land tenancy.

During the interwar period, thousands of Jewish refugees from the

USSR migrated to Romania.[56][57][58]

Political representation for the Jewish community in the inter-war period was divided between the Jewish Party and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania[59] (the latter was re-established after 1989). During the same period, a division in ritual became apparent between Reform Jews in Transylvania and usually Orthodox ones in the rest of the country[60] (while Bessarabia was the most open to Zionism and especially the socialist Labor Zionism).

Jewish population per county in Greater Romania, according to the Wiesel Commission report, pp. 81, which counted 728,115 Jews by ethnicity and 756,930 Jews by religion

The popularity of anti-Jewish messages was, nevertheless, on the rise, and merged itself with the appeal of

Gândirism). The idea of a Jewish quota in higher education became highly popular among Romanian students and teachers.[61] According to Andrei Oișteanu's analysis, a relevant number of right-wing intellectuals refused to adopt overt anti-Semitism, which was ill-reputed through its association with A. C. Cuza's violent discourse; nevertheless, a few years later, such cautions were cast aside, and anti-Semitism became displayed as "spiritual health".[62]

The first motion to exclude Jews from professional associations came on May 16, 1937, when the Confederation of the Associations of Professional Intellectuals (Confederația Asociațiilor de Profesioniști Intelectuali din România) voted to exclude all Jewish members from its affiliated bodies, calling for the state to withdraw their licenses and reassess their citizenship.[63] Although illegal, the measure was popular and it was commented that, in its case, legality had been supplanted by a "heroic decision".[63] According to Oișteanu, the initiative had a direct influence on antisemitic regulations passed during the following year.[63]

The threat posed by the Iron Guard, the emergence of

philo-Semite,[64] adopt racial discrimination as the norm. In the recent election, over 25% of the electorate had voted for explicitly antisemitic groups (either the Goga-Cuza alliance (9%) or the Iron Guard's political mouthpiece, TPT(16.5%)), and as a result, Carol was forced to let one of the two into his cabinet- he instantly chose the Goga-Cuza alliance over the rabid fascism of the Iron Guard (according to modern historian of the Balkans, Misha Glenny, he also thought that this would "take the sting out of the Guard's tail").[citation needed] On January 21, 1938, Carol's executive (led by Cuza and Octavian Goga) passed a law aimed at reviewing criteria for citizenship (after it cast allegations that previous cabinets had allowed Ukrainian Jews to obtain it illegally),[48] and requiring all Jews who had received citizenship in 1918–1919 to reapply for it (while providing a very short term in which this could be achieved – 20 days);[65]

However, Carol II himself was highly hostile to antisemitism [citation needed]. His lover, Elena Lupescu, was Jewish [citation needed], as were a number of his friends in government [who?], and he soon reverted to his original policies (that is, fiercely opposing the antisemites and fascists), but with a newly violent sting. On February 12, 1938, he used the rising violence between political groups as context to seize absolute power (a move which was tacitly supported by the liberals who had come to view him as a lesser evil in comparison to Codreanu's fascist movement). As an authentic Romanian nationalist [dubious – discuss] (albeit, one who had a view of a Westernized, forcefully industrialized Romania at the expense of the peasants whom he viewed with disdain; making him completely the antithesis of the views of Codreanu [dubious – discuss]), Carol was determined that Romania should not fall into the near-absolute economic and political control that many of its neighbors already had, and moved to theatrical resistance against Nazi ideology. [citation needed]

The King then arrested the entire leadership of the Iron Guard, on the grounds that they were in the pay of the Nazis, and began using the same accusation against various political opponents, both to solidify his absolute control of the country as well as negatively stigmatize Germany. In November, the fourteen most important fascist leaders (the first of which being Codreanu) were "rinsed" in acid.[66]

However, Carol's policy was doomed by the reluctance of France and Britain to fight wars with the totalitarian powers of Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union attacked Romania and declared the annexation of Bukovina and Bessarabia (which was to be renamed Moldova), and when Carol turned to the only possible hope – that is, assistance from the former "eternal foe", Nazi Germany – he was angrily rejected by

Hitler personally, who did not have to try hard to remember how Carol had previously humiliated the cause of his ideology. Carol was forced to acknowledge the annexation, leading directly to his overthrow in a coup led by Ion Antonescu.[citation needed
]

In 1940, the Ion Gigurtu cabinet adopted Romania's equivalent to the Nuremberg Laws, forbidding Jewish-Christian intermarriage, and defining Jews after racial criteria (a person was Jewish if he or she had a Jewish grandparent on one side of the family).[67]

Politics

The Holocaust

Main article: The Holocaust in Romania

Romania allied itself with Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1944. Under the dictatorship of Ion Antonescu, 380,000–400,000 Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in Romanian-controlled areas such as Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria.[14]

The Iron Guard

Victims of the Iași pogrom
Memorial for the Jewish martyrs of Fălticeni

Between the establishment of the

Roma
.

Antonescu's régime

Main article: Ion Antonescu § Antonescu and the Holocaust

After Romania entered the war at the start of Operation Barbarossa atrocities against the Jews became common, starting with the Iași pogrom – on June 27, 1941, Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu telephoned Col. Constantin Lupu, commander of the Iași garrison, telling him formally to "cleanse Iași of its Jewish population", though plans for the pogrom had been laid even earlier – 13,266 Jews, according to Romanian authorities, were killed in July 1941.

In July–August 1941, the

Cernăuți). A similar measure imposed by the national government lasted only five days (between September 3 and September 8, 1941), before being annulled on Antonescu's order.[68] However, on local initiative, the badge was still worn especially in the towns of Moldavia, Bessarabia and Bukovina (Bacău, Iași, Câmpulung, Botoșani, Cernăuți, etc.).[69]

In 1941, following the advancing

concentration camps set up in the Transnistria Governorate. In 1941–1942, the total number of deportees from Bessarabia, Bukovina, Dorohoi and the Regat totaled between 154,449 and 170,737 people.[13]

Victims of Iași Pogrom Monument

Further killings perpetrated by Antonescu's death squads (documents prove his direct orders[

Odessa (see Odessa massacre), Bogdanovka, Akmechetka, Pechora
in 1941 and 1942.

Antonescu's government also made plans for mass deportations of the Romanian Jews community from the rest of the country (the Regat and southern Transylvania), numbering 292,149 people (according to a May 1942 census), to Transnistria region, or, in collaboration with the German government, to the Belzec extermination camp, but these had never been carried out.[13]

The change in policy toward the Jews began in October 1942, and by March–April 1943, Antonescu permanently stopped all deportations despite German pressure,[70] as he began to seek peace with the Allies, although at the same time he levied heavy taxes and forced labor on the remaining Jewish communities. Also, sometimes with the encouragement of Antonescu's regime, thirteen boats left Romania for the British Mandate of Palestine during the war, carrying 13,000 Jews (two of these ships were sunk by the Soviets (see Struma disaster), and the effort was discontinued after German pressure was applied).

Discussions regarding the repatriation of deported Jews followed, and in January 1943, the leader of the Romanian-Jewish community Wilhelm Filderman began talks with the Romanian government in order to start repatriating Romanian Jews deported to Transnistria. On November 15, 1943, an official report of the Romanian government indicated that 49,927 Romanian Jews were alive in Transnistria (of which 6,425 were originally from the Regat). In December 1943, partial repatriation began, and in March 1944, Antonescu government ordered general repatriation for all Romanian Jews deportees from Transnistria. Between December 20, 1943, and March 30, 1944, almost 11,000 people (including orphans) were repatriated from different camps and ghettos in Transnistria. However, the decision came too late to organize the repatriation of the last large number of deportees, and the fate of tens of thousands of deportees remaining in Transnistria became unknown.[13]

Results

Historical and political situations have determined the destinies of the Romanian Jews in different ways, depending on the regions in which they were living, and proximity to the front being the most important variable.[13] The total number of deaths is not certain, but even the lowest respectable estimates run to about 250,000 Jews (plus 25,000 deported Romani, of which approximately 11,000 were murdered).[13]

According to the Wiesel Commission report released by the Romanian government in 2004, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews were murdered or died in various forms on Romanian soil, in the war zones of Bessarabia, Bukovina, and in the occupied Soviet territories under Romanian's control (Transnistria Governorate).[12][13]

At least 15,000 Jews from the Regat were murdered in the Iași pogrom and as a result of other anti-Jewish measures. Half of the estimated 270,000 to 320,000 Jews living in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and the former Dorohoi County in Romania were murdered or died between June 1941 and November 1943. Between 45,000 and 60,000 Jews were killed in Bessarabia and Bukovina by Romanian and German troops in 1941. Between 104,522 and 120,810 deported Romanian Jews died as a result of the expulsions to Transnistria. After a wave of random initial killings, Jews in Moldavia were subject to pogroms, while those in Bessarabia, Bukovina and Dorohoi were concentrated into ghettos from which they were deported to concentration camps in the Transnistria Governorate, including camps built and run by Romanians. Romanian soldiers and gendarmes also worked with the German Einsatzkommando, the Ukrainian militia, and the SS squads of local Ukrainian Germans to massacre Jews in conquered territories east of the Romania's 1940 border. In Transnistria, between 115,000 and 180,000 indigenous Ukrainian Jews were murdered, especially in Odessa and the counties of Golta and Berezovka.[13]

At the same time, 135,000 Jews living under Hungarian control in Northern Transylvania were deported to and died in concentration and extermination camps. In addition, 5,000 Romanian Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in other countries.[13]

A majority of the Romanian Jews living within the 1940 borders did survive the war. The change in the Romanian government policy during 1942–1943 led to the survival of at least 290,000 Romanian Jews (although they were subject to a wide range of harsh conditions, including

allies of Nazi Germany, [responsible] for the deaths of more Jews than any country other than Germany itself".[13]

During the postwar period, the history of the Holocaust was distorted or simply ignored by East European communist regimes. The

Holocaust Day in 2004.[72] In memory of the victims of the Holocaust and particularly to reflecting on Romania's role in the Holocaust, the Romanian government decided to make October 9 the National Day of Commemorating the Holocaust
.

Holocaust denial in Romania

Main article: Holocaust denial

Decades after the Holocaust, especially during the Communist era in Romania, educating and learning about the Holocaust was considered taboo. Textbooks did mention the Holocaust in passing, but it failed to acknowledge the role of the Romanian government in the systematic murder of the Jewish and Romani people. Holocaust denial is still prevalent in Romanian society.[73]

During the Communist era from 1945 to 1989, the government influenced every part of society, including history education. When World War Two was mentioned, textbooks said that Romania was fighting against Hitler, and when the textbooks mentioned that Romania collaborated with the Nazis, it says that Romania actually lost their national independence and was occupied by Germany not that they willingly helped the Nazis and supported them. When the textbooks mentioned the killings of the Jewish people, which was not common during the time since any mention of the Holocaust was ignored and omitted, they were glossed, diminished, or distorted. When the Holocaust was mentioned, it was painted as just another broader casualty of the War in short passing and hid any responsibility of the nation while mentioning Romania's exceptional standing in Europe. Instead, the textbooks painted the Communists as the main victim of the Nazis.[74]

Holocaust education took a long time to be implemented in post-Communist Romania. Democratization in Romania started in December 1989, but it took 10 years, until 1999, for Holocaust education to be raised as an issue and for a law to pass. Although Holocaust education was accepted in 1999, it took months for the government to solidify their curriculum to show the atrocities of the Holocaust and their role in it.[75]

As of 2021, Romania has made strides to rid itself from the past of Holocaust denial. It has joined the International Holocaust Remembrance alliance in 2004, and took over chairmanship in 2016, as well as constantly organizing and sponsoring events surrounding Holocaust education.[76] In 2021, the first sentence over Holocaust denial was made in the country. The accused was Vasile Zărnescu, a former Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI) member who published several articles and a book against the veracity of the Holocaust.[77]

Post-War

See also: Romanian Jews in Israel

According to the

Howard M. Sachar estimated that 360,000 Romanian Jews were still alive at the end of World War II. According to statistics from the end of the war, 355,972 Romanian Jews lived on the territory of Romania.[15]

Mass emigration to Israel ensued (see Bricha and Aliyah). According to Sachar, for the first two post-war years, tens of thousands of Romanian Jews left for Mandatory Palestine; the Romanian government did not try to stop them, especially due to its desire to reduce its historically suspect and now impoverished Jewish minority. Afterwards, Jewish emigration began to encounter obstacles. In 1948, the year of Israeli independence, Zionism came under renewed suspicion, and the government began a campaign of liquidation against Zionist funds and training farms. However, emigration was not completely banned; Romanian Foreign Minister Ana Pauker, herself a Jew with a father and brother in Israel, negotiated an agreement with Israeli ambassador Reuven Rubin, who himself was a Romanian Jewish immigrant to Israel, under which the Romanian government would allow 4,000 Jews a month to emigrate to Israel; this decision was at least partially influenced by a large Jewish Agency bribe to the Romanian government. This agreement applied mainly to ruined businessmen and other economically "redundant" Jews. Around this time, Israel also secured another agreement with the Romanian government, under which Romania issued 100,000 exit visas for Jews and Israel supplied Romania with oil drills and pipes to aid the struggling Romanian oil industry.[78] By December 1951, about 115,000 Romanian Jews had emigrated to Israel.[79]

During the period of transition towards a

war crimes. On April 22, 1946, Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej attended a meeting of Jewish organizations and called for the creation of a new body, the Jewish Democratic Committee, which was in reality a section of the Romanian Communist Party PCR.[81]

After the proclamation of the

Danube-Black Sea Canal project also involved allegations of Zionism (notably aimed at Aurel Rozei-Rozenberg, who was eventually executed).[84]

During the Cold War, Romania was the only communist country not to break its diplomatic relations with Israel.[85] Throughout the period of Communist rule, Romania allowed limited numbers of Jews to emigrate to Israel, in exchange for much-needed Israeli economic aid. By 1965, Israel was funding agricultural and industrial projects throughout Romania, and in exchange, Romania allowed a trickle of Jewish emigration to Israel.

When Nicolae Ceaușescu came to power in 1965, he initially ended the trade in deference to the Eastern bloc's Arab allies. However, Romania was the only Warsaw Pact nation not to break diplomatic relations with Israel after the Six-Day War of 1967,[85] and by 1969, Ceaușescu decided to exchange Jews for cash from Israel. He wanted economic independence from the Soviet Union, which was content to keep Romania a backwater and as nothing more than a supplier of raw materials, but to fund economic projects, he needed hard cash. As a result, from then until the Ceaușescu regime fell in 1989, about 1,500 Jews a year were granted exit visas to Israel in exchange for a payment of cash for every Jew allowed to leave, in addition to other Israeli aid. The exact payments were determined by the age, education, profession, employment, and family status of the emigrant. Israel paid a minimum of $2,000 per head for every emigrant, and paid prices in the range of $25,000 for doctors or scientists. In addition to these payments, Israel also secured loans for Romania and paid off the interest itself, and supplied the Romanian Army with military equipment.[78][86]

Jews in Romania (2002 census)

As a result of aliyah, the Romanian-Jewish community was gradually depleted. By 1987, just 23,000 Jews were left in Romania, half of whom were over 65 years old.[87] Romanian Jews became in the 1980s Israel's second largest ethnic community, outnumbered only by the Moroccans.[85]

Nevertheless, Romania still has a small Jewish community with some active synagogues, and the oldest uninterrupted Yiddish-language theater in the world.[88] With the fall of communism in Romania, Jewish cultural, social, and religious life has been undergoing a revival. Acts of antisemitism, such destruction of cemetery gravestones, continue to take place, but they are very rare.[89] In 2016, the Romanian Jewish population was estimated as ranging between 9,300 and 17,000.[90] There are also 3,000 Israeli-born people living in Romania.[91] In Romania there is also a small number of Jewish immigrants from the other parts of the world.[92] Every year, tens of Romanian Jewish families from Israel return to their native country.[93]

Satmar also has plans to build a community in Romania. In 2021, a synagogue was inaugurated in Sighetu Marmației;[98] a hotel, a kosher restaurant and a Jewish school are under construction in Sighetu Marmației, all of them under Aaron Teitelbaum's organization.[99]

As of 2021, there is also a project to build a

rabbinical seminary in Oradea.[100]

The Federation of the Jewish Communities in Romania Party has one seat in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Romanian Parliament.

After the

Republic of Moldova.[101]

Historical population

The historical Jewish population in Romania can be seen below.

The 1930 census was the only one to cover Greater Romania. Censuses in 1948, 1956, 1966, 1977, 1992, 2002 and 2011 covered Romania's present-day territory.[102] All but the 1948 census, which asked about mother tongue, had a question on ethnicity. Moldavia and Wallachia each held a census in 1859. The Romanian Old Kingdom (Regat) conducted statistical estimates in 1884, 1889 and 1894, and held censuses in 1899 and 1912. Ion Antonescu's regime also held two: a general one in April 1941, and one for those with "Jewish blood" in May 1942.

Year Population Territory (Historical regions)
1866 134,168
Romanian United Principalities (Moldavia, Wallachia, Southern Bessarabia
)
1887 300,000 Romanian Old Kingdom (Regat) (Moldavia, Wallachia, Northern Dobruja)
1899 256,588 Romanian Old Kingdom
1930 728,115 Kingdom of Romania (Greater Romania) (Moldavia, Wallachia, Dobruja, Transylvania, Bukovina, Bessarabia)
1941 356,237 Kingdom of Romania (Moldavia, Wallachia, Northern Dobruja, Southern Transylvania, Southern Bukovina)
1956 146,264 Socialist Republic of Romania (Moldavia, Wallachia, Northern Dobruja, Transylvania, Southern Bukovina)
1966 42,888 Socialist Republic of Romania
1977 24,667 Socialist Republic of Romania
1992 8,955 Romania
2002 5,785 Romania
2011 3,271 Romania
Notes: Census in 1930 with the regions acquired in 1918–1920; census in 1941 without the territories lost in 1940;[103] censuses in 1956,[104] 1966, 1977, 1992, 2002 and 2011 covered Romania's present-day territory
Source: Demographic history of Romania

YIVO provides somewhat different population figures for Romania's Jewish population, specifically 400,000 in 1945, 280,000 in 1951, 200,000 in 1960, 70,000 in 1970, 33,000 in 1980, 17,000 in 1990, and 11,000 in 2000.[105]

Hasidic dynasties originating in today's Romania

Main article:
List of Hasidic dynasties

Major groups

Other groups

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-02-09. Retrieved 2019-01-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  2. ^ "Comunitatea evreilor din România s-a împuţinat teribil, însă aceştia 'sunt mai ales exemple de moralitate'". Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  3. ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-08-12. Retrieved 2019-01-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ^ "PM Sharon Meets Romanian PM". Prime Minister's Office.
  5. ^ a b c d Rezachevici, September 1995, p. 61
  6. ^ a b Oișteanu (1998), p. 239
  7. ^ a b Oișteanu (2003), p. 2; Rezachevici, October 1995, p. 66
  8. ^ a b c Cernovodeanu, p. 27
  9. ^ a b Oișteanu (2003), p. 2
  10. ^ a b A History of the Balkans 1804–1945, p. 129
  11. ^ a b Veiga, p. 301
  12. ^ a b Ilie Fugaru, Romania clears doubts about Holocaust past, UPI, November 11, 2004
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania (2012-01-28). "Executive Summary: Historical Findings and Recommendations" (PDF). Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania. Yad Vashem (The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority). Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  14. ^ a b "Murder of the Jews of Romania". www.yadvashem.org. Archived from the original on 2022-02-06. Retrieved 2022-02-23.
  15. ^ a b Alexandru Florin-Platon. "O necesară restituţie biografică (Carol Iancu, Alexandru Şafran: o viaţă de luptă, o rază de lumină)". Revista Contrafort. Retrieved 2019-01-28.
  16. ^ a b c Rezachevici, September 1995, p. 60
  17. ^ Djuvara, p. 179; Giurescu, p. 271
  18. ^ Rezachevici, September 1995, p. 59
  19. ^ Rezachevici, September 1995, pp. 60–61
  20. ^ Rezachevici, September 1995, pp. 61–62
  21. ^ Rezachevici, October 1995, pp. 61–62, 64–65
  22. ^ Rezachevici, October 1995, p. 62
  23. ^ Rezachevici, October 1995, pp. 62–63
  24. ^ Rezachevici, October 1995, p. 63
  25. ^ Del Chiaro; Oișteanu (1998), pp. 239–240
  26. ^ Oișteanu (1998), pp. 242–244
  27. ^ Cernovodeanu, p. 25; Giurescu, p. 271
  28. ^ a b Cernovodeanu, p. 25
  29. ^ Rezachevici, October 1995, p. 66
  30. ^ a b c d Cernovodeanu, p. 26
  31. ^ Oișteanu (1998), pp. 211–212
  32. ^ Cernovodeanu, p. 27; Oișteanu (2003), p. 3
  33. ^ a b c d Cernovodeanu, p. 28
  34. ^ Djuvara, p. 179; Giurescu, p. 272
  35. ^ Hitchins, pp. 226–227
  36. ^ Cernovodeanu, p. 28; Djuvara, pp. 179–180
  37. ^ Ornea, p. 387
  38. ^ Djuvara, pp. 180–182
  39. ^ Djuvara, p. 182
  40. ^ a b c Oișteanu (1998), p. 241
  41. ^ Islaz Proclamation, art. 21
  42. ^ Ornea, p. 389; Veiga, pp. 58–59
  43. ^ Panu, pp. 223–233
  44. ^ Ornea, p. 389; Panu, p. 224
  45. ^ For example, Panu (p. 226) stated that "the issue of [the Jews'] assimilation or the mere possibility of their assimilation were never mentioned [by antisemites], being considered an impossible occurrence altogether [...]"; in the 1890s, Caragiale evidenced the paradox in his editorial Trădarea românismului! Triumful străinismului!! Consumatum est!!!, mimicking the tone of Liberals in opposition to the Petre P. Carp government: "Yesterday, February 5, '93, yesterday, fateful and cursed day! was voted that anti-social, anti-economical, anti-patriotic, anti-national, anti-Romanian law, that law through which poverty-stricken Jews may no longer be prevented from training in certain careers!"
  46. ISBN 973-98272-2-5. passim; see the article on the author
    for further publication information.
  47. ^ Ornea, p. 390; Veiga, p. 60
  48. ^ a b c Ornea, p. 391
  49. ^ Ornea, p. 396; Veiga, pp. 58–59
  50. ^ Ornea, p. 396
  51. ^ Veiga, pp. 24–25
  52. ^ Veiga, p. 56
  53. ^ Ornea, p. 395
  54. ^ The Jewish-Romanian Marxist Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea criticised Poporanist claims in his work on the 1907 revolt, Neoiobăgia ("Neo-Serfdom"), arguing that, as favorite victims of prejudice (and most likely to be retaliated against), Jews were least likely to exploit: "[The Jewish tenant's] position is inferior to that of the exploited, for he is not a boyar, a gentleman, but a Yid, as well as to the administration, whose subordinate bodies he may well be able to satisfy, but whose upper bodies remain hostile towards him. His position is also rendered difficult by the antisemitic trend, strong as it gets, and by the hostile public opinion, and by the press, overwhelmingly antisemitic, but mostly by the régime itself – which, while awarding him all the advantages of neo-serfdom on one hand, uses, on the other, his position as a Yid to make of him a distraction and a scapegoat for the régime's sins."
  55. ^ Veiga, pp. 62–64
  56. ^ "Refugiaţi, emigranţi din URSS către România interbelică".
  57. ^ "Cum a gestionat România criza refugiaţilor din perioada interbelică. 100.000 de evrei, ruşi şi ucraineni s-au refugiat aici la începutul anilor '20". 29 September 2015.
  58. ^ "Refugiaţii evrei, din Ucraina sovietică în Basarabia română".
  59. ^ Veiga, p. 61
  60. ^ Veiga, pp. 61–62
  61. ^ Ornea, pp. 396–397
  62. ^ Oișteanu (1998), pp. 252–253; Nichifor Crainic declared in 1931 "We were not, are not and will not be anti-Semites"; nevertheless, only two years later, in 1933, he wrote "The new spirit is healthy because is anti-Semitic, anti-Semitic in doctrine and anti-Semitic in practice". Barbu Theodorescu, the secretary and bibliographer of historian Nicolae Iorga, wrote in 1938: "Romanian anti-Semitism is 100 years old. To fight against the Jew is to walk the straight line of the Romanian nation's normal development. Anti-Semitism animated the heart of the Romanian intellectual elite. Anti-Semitism is the most vital problem of Romanian prosperity." (Oișteanu (1998), p. 253)
  63. ^ a b c Oișteanu (1998), p. 254
  64. ^ Ornea, p. 397; Veiga, p. 246, 264
  65. ^ Royal Decree, 1938, art. 6
  66. ^ Glenny, Misha. The Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers 1804–1999. pp. 455–457
  67. ^ Decree, 1940; Ornea, pp. 391–393
  68. ^ Oișteanu (1998), pp. 230–231; Andrei Oișteanu suggested Wilhelm Filderman, the Jewish community's president, influenced Antonescu's decision
  69. ^ Oișteanu (1998), p. 231
  70. ^ Chapter 11 – Solidarity and Rescue, Wiesel Commission – "Final Report of the International Commission on the Holocaust in Romania" [1]
  71. ^ "Romania sparks Holocaust row". BBC News. June 17, 2003. Retrieved May 22, 2010.
  72. ^ "Romania holds first Holocaust Day". BBC News. 12 October 2004. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
  73. ^ Valeria Chelaru: Tradition, Nationalism and Holocaust Memory: Reassessing Antisemitism in Post-Communist Romania, pp. 81–82
  74. ^ Roland Clark: New models, new questions: historiographical approaches to the Romanian Holocaust, pp. 304–305
  75. ^ Ana Bărbulescu. (2015) Discovering the Holocaust in our past: competing memories in post-communist Romanian textbooks. Holocaust Studies 21:3, pp. 139–156.
  76. ^ “Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research in Romania." IHRA, 1 Jan. 1970, 2015. .
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  79. ^ Sachar, Howard M.:Israel and Europe: An Appraisal in History
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  82. ^ Gordon, p. 300
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  88. ^ "The Jewish Community of Bucharest". Beit Hatfutsot Open Databases Project. The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot.
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  92. ^ a b "What It's Like to Be a Rabbi in Romania – Celebrating 20 years of Chabad, where Judaism was decimated by Nazis and Communists – Chabad.org".
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  94. ^ "New Shluchim to Romania". 23 December 2014.
  95. ^ "About Us". Bereshit.
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References

External links

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