Located anywhere else in the world, the Jewish Municipal Library on Avenue Renashterii would be a special place. But situated here in the capital of Moldova, it is extraordinary.
Three years after its independence from the Soviet Union, this former republic is only beginning to restore its economy after a bitter civil war.
Yet its Jewish library boasts thousands of books in Romanian, Yiddish, Hebrew and Russian, a children’s collection, a small theater, audio and video resources, a welfare office, a Jewish museum and 11 professionally trained librarians.
The library’s cozy, beckoning presence is a testament to the creativity and diligence of one woman. It also reflects a turnaround of attitudes in a region with a brutal history of anti-Semitism.
Dominated alternately by Romania and Russia, Moldova was once a place where Jew-baiting publications flourished. It was also the site of treacherous pogroms in 1903 and 1905.
During World War II, an estimated 53,000 Jews were killed in the Kishinev area. Anti-Semitic repression continued under Soviet rule, when all but one of the city’s synagogues were closed, the Bar Mitzvah ceremony was forbidden and the old Jewish cemetery destroyed.
But then everything changed: perestroika, the breakup of the Soviet Union, independence for Moldova and war with the breakaway republic of Transdnester.
The new Moldovan government, led by President Mircea Snegur, speaks of market reform, but what makes his government unique is its policy to fund institutions for Moldova’s many ethnic minorities, including 68,000 Jews in a country of 4.3 million.
“The Jews have been the most active” among the country’s minority populations, said Victor Grebenscicov, an adviser to the president on ethnic affairs.
HELPED BY PRESIDENT. GOVERNMENT MEASURES
The Jewish community has been helped by a presidential decree supporting the Jewish Cultural Society, as well as by other governmental measures that helped establish a Judaica department in the Moldovan State University and led to the opening of government-backed Jewish day schools. Even the street where the city’s sole synagogue stands has been renamed Chabad Lubavitch Street.
Why has the Snegur-led government been so supportive of these communal initiatives? Government officials say that recognition of the national rights of Moldovans calls for the establishment of equal rights for other minorities as well. Cynical observers suggest this is a ploy to put Moldova on the map and win foreign investment.
Whatever the reason, the Jewish community is in the midst of a renaissance, even while emigration surges.
“It’s a very interesting phenomenon,” observed Simeon Shoichet, a leader of the Jewish Cultural Society. “The more that Jews leave for other countries, the more active the Jews in Moldova become, and the more Jews emerge to say they are Jewish.” This phenomenon is exemplified by the Jewish library and the efforts of Anna Batsmanova.
Batsmanova, director of Kishinev’s Jewish library, grew up in an environment where Pesach was the only reminder of Jewish heritage. She trained as a librarian, became the head of a municipal children’s library and had a family.
In 1988, she joined the Jewish Cultural Society because “I have Jewish roots and blood.”
Soon, the energetic librarian decided to move the children’s books in her library to a larger library that would become the first in a new network of government libraries for the country’s ethnic minorities. But how would she acquire books in a cash-poor country?
Undaunted, she placed ads in the local Jewish media — and the books poured in. Paradoxically, the Jewish exodus helped. As families left, they unloaded their books at the library.
The library officially opened on Feb. 4, 1991 and has been growing ever since, with crucial financial aid provided from the Kishinev office of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
REMEMBERING YIDDISH AFTER ALL THESE YEARS
As it expanded, the library has been the recipient of several honors. In 1993, it was named the best library in the country by the Municipal Library Association, and it was recently chosen as a model library during a conference on Jewish libraries in the former Soviet Union.
For visitors, the library is a place to meet people, find a book or the answer to a question.
On a recent rainy day, Zoya Michaelova, 50, came for information about moving to Germany after rejecting Israel because of the climate.
“I get information about Israel, social affairs. It’s very important,” she said.
Another visitor, Ida Bruchis, 71, said, “Someone told me about the library, and when I heard about it, I came right away. Now I read books in Yiddish by Sholem Aleichem with great pleasure. And I thought I forgot the language!”
Bruchis then asked about the working hours of the local welfare office. With a pension of about $10, she depends on aid for food and rent.
Her situation is not unique.
Although the average salary is only about $21 per month, the Moldovan Economic Ministry recently determined that average monthly household expenses were about $65.
The librarians at the Jewish Municipal Library earn about $17 a month. Asked how she manages on such a sum, Batsmanova shrugs as if to say she cannot figure it out. Others suggest that aid from relatives abroad is essential for Moldova’s Jews.
Dreams of life in Israel tug at the hearts of nearly every Jewish family here.
Many young people predict there is no future for Kishinev’s Jewish community.
“We can’t say how long we will exist in the future,” said Batsmanova. “But as long as the process goes on, we will be here. The majority of our readers consider this to be their home.”
The Kishinev Jewish Library is interested in chronicling the lives of Moldovan Jews now living in the United States and Israel. To contact the library, write to: Jewish Municipal Library, 4 Avenue Renashterii, Kishinev 277005, Moldova.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
