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The emigration of Jews from Romania refers to the historic migration (aliyah) of Romanian Jews to the Land or State of Israel.
| Part of a series on |
| Aliyah |
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| |
| Concepts |
| Pre-Modern Aliyah |
| Aliyah in modern times |
| Absorption |
| Organizations |
| Related topics |
The emigration of Jews from Romania refers to the historic migration (aliyah) of Romanian Jews to the Land or State of Israel.
The aliyah (immigration of the Jewish diaspora to the so-called "Land of Israel") of Jews from Romania has been recorded since the 18th century, when the Chief Rabbi of Bukovina emigrated to the city of Safed. Later, in the 19th century, representatives of several Jewish organizations that had been established earlier in Romania held in the city of Focșani the first Zionist (of Zionism, a Jewish movement that advocated for a Jewish state in the Middle East) conference in history in December 1881. After the conference, many Jews emigrated in caravans to modern-day Israel, establishing various settlements such as Rosh Pinna and Zikhron Ya'akov once they arrived. Romanian Jews from Bârlad and Moinești constituted an important part of the so-called First Aliyah in 1882. [1]
During the interwar period and the early times of the Second World War, in Romania, many Jews were able to emigrate without restrictions as the Romanian governments of the time wanted to reduce the country's Jewish population. [1] By this time, Romania's Jewish population was remarkably sizeable, about 756,930 people in 1930. These constituted large percentages of the population in some regions, such as Western Moldavia (6.5%), Bessarabia (7.2%, with many still speaking Yiddish), Transylvania (10%) and Bukovina (10.8%). [2] In 1940, when the National Legionary State was established, many Jews asked the state to support their emigration, which was accepted. Subsequently, Ion Antonescu, ruler of Romania, issued a draft order to establish a government directorate for the subject of Jewish emigration, which could never be carried out due to the Legionnaires' rebellion of 1941. [1]
Despite this, during the war, many Jews were killed in Romania during the Holocaust. In 1941, the Jewish population was reduced to just 375,422 people, this number being of 295,084 in 1942 and of 355,972 in 1945 (after some territorial changes). An estimated 270,000 Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in Romania, not counting the ones that died during the Romanian administration of Transnistria or the 135,000 killed in Hungary in Northern Transylvania (which is now part of Romania). [2] After the war, around 300,000 Jews in Romania remained, making it the country the largest with a Jewish population in the region. Many of the survivors decided to emigrate after seeing that a communist regime would be established in Romania. [1]
After 1945, a global emigration of Jews to modern-day Israel began. Romania was seen by various Jewish political figures as an important source of Jews, so many of them visited the country to discuss the issue. By 1947, Romania's Jewish population was estimated to be 457,000, an increase due to Jewish survivors of German, Hungarian and Romanian Transnistrian camps, as well as the arrival of refugees from Northern Bukovina, Bessarabia (lands that Romania lost after the war) and Poland and natural population growth. Of these, some 40,000 Romanian Jews emigrated to Israel in 1947. The next year, the State of Israel was formed, and Romania recognized it on 11 June 1948 under the initiative of Ana Pauker. For the rest of the century, Romania would be the only communist state that maintained uninterrupted relations with Israel. [1]
According to the Jewish Agency, in 1949, 118,939 Romanian Jews had emigrated to Israel since the war ended. During the following years would begin the nationalization of the industrial sector, leaving around 140,000 Jews without any source of income, which increased the desire for aliyah among them. The period between 1952 and 1957 was the most restrictive towards the Jews in Romania, as the leaders of the Zionist movement in the country were imprisoned. This is probably because Jewish emigration started to affect the Romanian economy. Nevertheless, the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) began to pressure the Jews to make aliyah during this period, most likely due to the secret intention of reducing the national Jewish population. [1]
During the following periods, between 1958 and 1966, aliyah started to be performed again by Jews, with an average of 14,000 Jews leaving the country per year. During 1967 and 1968, this number dropped to 550, increasing to 3,000 between 1969 and 1974 and dropping again to 1,500 between 1975 and 1989 (year in which the communism ended in the country). Between 1991 and 1994, the average number of Jews leaving Romania was 500. [1]
Romanian Jews were, under their own will, were "sold" or "exchanged" to Israel in the 1950s with the help of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee for about 8,000 lei (about 420 dollars). The price of these Jews usually varied according to their "worth". This practice continued at a slower pace from 1965 under Nicolae Ceaușescu, a Romanian communist leader. During the 1950s, West Germany had been also paying Romania an amount of money in exchange for some Germans of Romania, and, just like the Jews (both of which were regarded as "co-nationals"), their price was "calculated". Ceaușescu, happy with these policies, even declared that "oil, Germans, and Jews are our most important export commodities". [3]
Israeli government paid to allow Romanian Jews to emigrate, and around 235,000 people made aliyah under this conditions. [4] When Romania was under control of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej, he received 10 million dollars per year, and only he had the access to the money transferred to the secret account. Israel also bought Romanian goods and invested into Romania's economy. After his death, Ceauşescu practically sold the Jews to Israel, and received between 4,000 and 6,000 $ per person. [5] Israel could have transferred nearly 60 million dollars for the aliyah. [6] Another estimation is higher - according to Radu Ioanid, "Ceausescu sold 40,577 Jews to Israel for $112,498,800, at a price of $2,500 and later at $3,300 per head." [7]
Due to the Jewish emigration from Romania and the efforts to reduce their number, the country's Jewish population has been greatly reduced. In the 2011 census, less than 4,000 persons declared to be Jewish. However, in the 2010s, an estimated of 8,000 remained in the country (with some 3,000 in Bucharest), [8] [9] although the highest estimates spoke of about 12,000. There have been some cases of Romanian Jewish families returning from Israel to Romania in the hope that with the country's accession to the European Union and NATO, the situation would have improved. [9] Nowadays, antisemitism in Romania is still present and, just like in many other European countries, it has undergone an increase in recent years. [10]
Ion Antonescu was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II. Having been responsible for facilitating the Holocaust in Romania, he was tried for war crimes and executed in 1946.
The Kingdom of Romania, under the rule of King Carol II, was initially a neutral country in World War II. However, Fascist political forces, especially the Iron Guard, rose in popularity and power, urging an alliance with Nazi Germany and its allies. As the military fortunes of Romania's two main guarantors of territorial integrity—France and Britain—crumbled in the Fall of France, the government of Romania turned to Germany in hopes of a similar guarantee, unaware that Germany, in the supplementary protocol to the 1939 Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, had already granted its blessing to Soviet claims on Romanian territory.
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine region, which is today chiefly represented by the State of Israel. Traditionally described as "the act of going up", moving to the Land of Israel or "making aliyah" is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism. The opposite action—emigration by Jews from the Land of Israel—is referred to in the Hebrew language as yerida. The Law of Return that was passed by the Israeli parliament in 1950 gives all diaspora Jews, as well as their children and grandchildren, the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship on the basis of connecting to their Jewish identity.
Moses Rosen was Chief Rabbi of Romanian Jewry between 1948–1994 and president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania between 1964 and 1994. He led the community through the entire Communist era in Romania and continued in that role after the restoration of democracy following the Romanian Revolution of 1989. In 1957, he became a deputy in the Romanian parliament, a position he held through the Communist regime, and after 1989, in the democratic parliament. In the 1980s, the Romanian authorities allowed him to receive Israeli nationality and he was elected president of the Council of the Jewish Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv.
The history of the Jews in Bessarabia, a historical region in Eastern Europe, dates back hundreds of years.
The Iași pogrom was a series of pogroms launched by governmental forces under Marshal Ion Antonescu in the Romanian city of Iași against its Jewish community, which lasted from 29 June to 6 July 1941. According to Romanian authorities, over 13,266 people, or one third of the Jewish population, were massacred in the pogrom itself or in its aftermath, and many were deported. It was one of the worst pogroms during World War II.
The Transnistria Governorate was a Romanian-administered territory between the Dniester and Southern Bug, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa. A Romanian civilian administration governed the territory from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944. A brief military administration followed, during which the Romanians withdrew from the region by late March 1944. German control became official on 1 April 1944.
The history of the Jews in Romania concerns the Jews both of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is present-day Romanian territory. Minimal until the 18th century, the size of the Jewish population increased after around 1850, and more especially after the establishment of Greater Romania in the aftermath of World War I. A diverse community, albeit an overwhelmingly urban one, Jews were a target of religious persecution and racism in Romanian society from the late-19th century debate over the "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.
The history of the Jews in Moldova reaches back to the 1st century BCE, when Roman Jews lived in the cities of the province of Lower Moesia. Bessarabian Jews have been living in the area for some time. Between the 4th-7th centuries CE, Moldova was part of an important trading route between Asia and Europe, and bordered the Khazar Khaganate, where Judaism was the state religion. Prior to the Second World War, violent antisemitic movements across the Bessarabian region badly affected the region's Jewish population. In the 1930s and '40s, under the Romanian governments of Octavian Goga and Ion Antonescu, government-directed pogroms and mass deportations led to the concentration and extermination of Jewish citizens followed, leading to the extermination of between 45,000-60,000 Jews across Bessarabia. The total number of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews who perished in territories under Romanian administration is between 280,000 and 380,000.
Between 21 and 23 January 1941, a rebellion of the Iron Guard paramilitary organization, whose members were known as Legionnaires, occurred in Bucharest, Romania. As their privileges were being gradually removed by the Conducător Ion Antonescu, the Legionnaires revolted. During the rebellion and subsequent pogrom, the Iron Guard killed 125 Jews, and 30 soldiers died in the confrontation with the rebels. Following this, the Iron Guard movement was banned and 9,000 of its members were imprisoned.
The Soviet occupation of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina took place from 28 June to 3 July 1940, as a result of an ultimatum by the Soviet Union to Romania on 26 June 1940, that threatened the use of force. Those regions, with a total area of 50,762 km2 (19,599 sq mi) and a population of 3,776,309 inhabitants, were incorporated into the Soviet Union. On October 26, 1940, six Romanian islands on the Chilia branch of the Danube, with an area of 23.75 km2 (9.17 sq mi), were also occupied by the Soviet Army.
On 1 July 1940, in the town of Dorohoi in Romania, Romanian military units carried out a pogrom against the local Jews, during which, according to an official Romanian report, 53 Jews were murdered, and dozens injured. According to the town's Jews, the number of fatalities was between 165 and 200. These acts were committed before Romania entered World War II, before it became Germany's ally, and before the German military entered the country.
The Holocaust in Romania was the development of the Holocaust in the Kingdom of Romania. 380,000–400,000 Jews were murdered in Romanian-controlled areas, including Bessarabia, Bukovina and Transnistria. Romania ranks first among Holocaust perpetrator countries other than Nazi Germany.
Radu D. Lecca was a Romanian spy, journalist, civil servant and convicted war criminal. A World War I veteran who served a prison term for espionage in France during the early 1930s, he was a noted supporter of antisemitic concepts and, after 1933, an agent of influence for Nazi Germany. While becoming a double agent for Romania's Special Intelligence Service (SSI), Lecca was involved in fascist politics, gained in importance during World War II and the successive dictatorships, and eventually grew close to Conducător Ion Antonescu.
Nimereuca is a commune in Soroca District, Moldova. It is composed of two villages, Cerlina and Nimereuca.
Antisemitism in Romania manifested in the country's legislation during its early times following Romania's foundation as a modern state in the mid-19th century. Antisemitism increased considerably in Romania in the late-1930s and the 1940s, culminating with The Holocaust in Romania.
Pechora was a concentration camp operated by Romania during World War II in the village of Pechora, now in Ukraine. The concentration camp was established on the gated grounds of what had once been a private estate of the Polish noble Potocki family on the banks of the Southern Bug river, which had been converted into a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients after the Russian revolution.
The Bukovina Governorate was an administrative unit of Romania during World War II.
The Jews in Bukovina have been an integral part of their community. Under Austria-Hungary, there was tolerance of Jews and inter-ethnic cooperation.
The Bessarabia Governorate was an administrative unit of Romania during World War II.