Mass aliya from Rumania began about 25 years ago with the parent generation of today’s youth. The main reasons for aliya at that time were economic — the destruction of the middle class — and the reunification of families. Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Families had been divided by the war and by the aliya of close to 109,000 Jews in the period between 1948 and 1951, despite official attempts to discourage it. In the late 1950’s, when the antialiya campaign was discontinued, a “snowball effect” began to be created, he said.
With more and more Jews having relatives and/or friends settling or already living in Israel, aliya came to be a normal occurrence. An average of 1,200-1,500 go on aliya each year out of the estimated population of 25-26,000 Jews.
The result of this process is that 96 percent of the post-war Rumanian Jewish population of 400,000 has settled in Israel, a fact that Rosen regards with pride.
TWO FACTORS IN ZIONIST SUCCESS STORY
A great deal of the credit for this Zionist success story goes to Rosen and his vigorous, courageous, and imaginative leadership as Chief Rabbi and president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Socialist Republic of Rumania. Two factors stand out: his understanding of how to cultivate a relationship with the authorities that is mutually beneficial to the regime and the community, and his emphasis on Jewish education.
“If you want aliya,” he said, “you first need to have Jews.” And, he added, “we have no noshrim (dropouts, immigrants who leave for but don’t settle in Israel). They go to Israel because they want to go there, not because they want to leave here.”
After the Communists gained power in post-war Rumania, they organized a governmental body called the Democratic Jewish Committee (DJC), comprising Jewish Communists and the Zionist workers’ parties. Following the establishment of Israel in 1948, the Jewish Communists expelled the Zionists from the DJC and it became a Yevsektsia (in essence, Jewish section of the Communist Party).
The DJC, Rosen told JTA, took over and “terrorized the Jewish communities, seeking to stop aliya,” and conducting a strong campaign against it. The “bankruptcy” of this policy led to the Committee’s dissolution in the mid-1950’s.
It took a decade of struggle, Rosen continued, to create a “climate of mutual confidence” with the authorities. “I explained what Zionism is, and how it is no catastrophe if a few thousand Jews go — they can build socialism without them.”
IDENTIFICATION WITH ZION
Today, Rumanian Jews not only go on aliya, but they also “have the opportunity to express our identification with Zion freely,” he said. “Revista Cultului Mozaic,” the community’s 10,000-circulation 20-page semi-monthly publication (which has three pages in English and one page each in Yiddish and Hebrew), regularly runs news items about Israel interspersed among its articles about Jewish history, culture, and religion. A recent issue has a picture of the Western Wall.
The vigorous program of Jewish education began in the Stalinist era when Rosen founded 19 illegal Talmud Torahs with 40,000 pupils. Today, there are 24 schools with 600-700 children. “The small number of pupils today is a paradox,” said Rosen, “but it really points to our success,” because so many children grew up and left for Israel.
The Talmud Torah has classes on Jewish history, tradition and culture twice a week, and chorus or orchestra twice a week. Pupils may study the Hebrew language for Bar Mitzvah or aliya preparation, but Rosen believes it is more important to spend the school hours on conveying “the Jewish spirit, knowledge of history and tradition” rather than on language instruction.
In addition, there are Oneg Shabbat lectures for the youth on Jewish subjects. Five to 10 times a year, the communities outside Bucharest also hold lectures (a total of 82 by 30 speakers in 1983). The lectures are given by Jewish intellectuals “not one of whom would set foot in the community 20 years ago,” Rosen told JTA. He eventually attracted them to the communal seders; the Six-Day War was also an influence. Many are now actively involved.
‘THEY ARE NOW OURS’
When Jews began to leave Rumania en masse in the early 1960’s, the Jewish Communists, artists, and atheists remained behind. “Their children, educated in an anti-religious, anti-Zionist milieu, were far from Judaism,” said Rosen. He started giving lectures every Wednesday night, eventually attracting 500 people. “The children entered a Jewish milieu. We made Jews out of them. They are now ours,” he said.
Ninety percent of the youth go on aliya. A recent development affecting the youth has been the rise of Rumanian nationalism, Rosen said. “In Stalinist times, the youth was internationalist. Now they are interested in Rumania — in its history, literature, culture.
“This leaves the Jews feeling like a strange element in the country. Their original milieu is no longer present, and they remain up in the air.” Many youth, 90 percent of whom attend university, feel they can do better professionally in Israel, as well.
SPIRIT OF YIDDISHKEIT
The spirit of Yiddishkeit, the love of Jewish culture and of Israel on the part of the youth were movingly apparent at a farewell concert tendered the World Jewish Congress delegation at the conclusion of its visit to Bucharest.
Four groups presented musical numbers in the hall, which was standing-room-only. There was a choir of children — the youngest of whom seemed about four and barely out of the thumb-sucking stage — singing religious, folk and Yiddish songs. They were led by Dan Schlanger, a former actor in the State Yiddish Theatre, who is waiting to go on aliya with his wife, Dana Schlanger, who accompanied the chorus on the piano, and is the musical director of the Menora Band.
The band, a “religious pop orchestra” complete with electric guitars and percussion instruments, gave lively jazzed-up renditions of Israeli tunes and folk songs they had originally heard on recordings. The Zamir Orchestra, directed by octogenarian Victor Rothenberg, featured about a dozen youth and two older men, playing new compositions. These included variations on Jewish themes by Prof. Dumitru Bughici, whose son and daughter were playing first violin and piano, respectively.
Finally, the Shira Vezimra Chorus and Orchestra of 40 teens and post-teens sang a dozen songs — religious melodies, Israeli hits, Rumanian and Yiddish folk- songs. One of them was “Mein Shtetele Yas” (My Little Townlet Jassy), wherein Rumania’s second city was remembered as fondly as was Belz in the original lyrics.
PROBLEMS FACING THE ELDERLY
One of the consequences of the departure of so many young people is the large number of elderly who remain without relatives. Jewish men in Rumania have a life expectancy of 78; women, 81, according to Hersh Yancu, head of the community’s Polyclinic. The elderly, who constitute 60 percent of the community, are provided assistance if they need it, by the Federation’s Social Service department.
This assistance takes the form of cash grants, “meals on wheels,” medical care, clothing, day programs, and residence in old age homes. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee provides 80 percent ($4 million) of the social service budget, the Federation, 20 percent. (See JTA Bulletin, March 5, 1985.) These services “enable them to live in dignity and give them the feeling that they are not forgotten,” said Rosen.
The families of these old people are, however, far away (although some of the 60,000 Israeli tourists who visit Rumania each year are their children), and they are very lonely. When the WJC delegation visited the Amalia and Rabbi Moses Rosen Old Age Home and the Martin Balus Home, scores of old people surrounded them, wanting just to touch their arms and exchange a few warm words.
A feisty old man in his 90’s appeared at the delegation’s lunch and insisted on playing a violin solo. He followed them around the building later, again and again trying to continue his concert.
Another problem is that of religious divorce. Rabbi Yitzhak Meir Marilus, rabbi of the Great Synagogue (down to 150 worshippers from the prewar 1,000), told JTA that some “men run away to Israel, leave their wives behind and send the get (divorce document) in the mail.” He has to sort it all out.
FUTURE OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY
Rosen, who is 72, runs a tight ship. Will the community be able to continue as is after he retires to Israel, where he has a home in Tel Aviv and a chair at Bar-Ilan University? The answer, he said, could depend on whether world Jewry wants to help, by sending rabbis to serve in Rumania for periods of two to three years.
Rosen predicted that in 10 to 20 years, there will no longer be a Jewish community in Rumania. “But,” he said, “it will end in dignity — it will end with the respecting of Jews and the proclaiming of the love of Zion without shame.”
(Next: Budapest)
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
