Behind the Headlines Ties Between Rumanians and Jews in West Expected to Become Closer

Dr. Immanuel Jakobovits, Britain’s Chief Rabbi, says he expects ties between the Rumanian community and Jews in the West to become closer. He and Rumanian Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen had discussed the possibility of organizing exchange visits by choirs, orchestras and other Jewish groups between their two countries.

The proposals were made during a seven-day visit to Rumania by Jakobovits and his wife as guests of Rosen. Clearly deeply moved by his visit Jakobovits told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he and his wife had a rapturous welcome. As well as visiting Bucharest, they had toured six communities in Moldavia and two in Transylvania. The small shtetls of Moldavia, he said, reminded him of the world of “Fiddler on the Roof.”

He was struck by the contrast between the vibrancy and continuity of Jewish life in Rumania and the desolation he had encountered in the Soviet Union last year, even though Rumania’s Jews were only a fraction of the 800,000 who lived there before World War II.

At Yassy, where there are now only 1000 Jews out of 90,000 before the war, they had been welcomed at a packed synagogue, where the youth choir, in blue and white uniforms, had sung Hebrew and Yiddish songs. There was a similar “intensely Jewish” spirit at the communal hall in Bucharest at a Saturday night concert, where the Jewish youth orchestra performed.

OPERATION OF ESSENTIAL SERVICES

Jakobovits was particularly impressed by the way in which the community’s essential services operated-the 17 clinics run by Jewish doctors; the 12 ritual slaughterers; the newspaper, printed in Rumanian, Hebrew and Yiddish; the daily synagogue services in even the smallest communities; and the provision of clothing from special ware-houses.

He also noted how, unlike the Soviet Union, Rumania had diplomatic relations with Israel and the close ties which Rumania’s Jews enjoyed with the Jewish State.

At Yassy, he had visited the mass grave of 12,000 Jews. At Ordea in Transylvania, there were now only 900 Jews with an average age of 64 out of a pre-war population of 30,000. No less than 25,000 had been slaughtered in the concentration camps. “But my overwhelming impression was of the indestructibility of the Jewish spirit,” the Chief Rabbi added.

He also paid tribute to the leadership of Rosen, who is the secular as well as spiritual head of the community, and the generosity of the Joint Distribution Committee in the United States which, he said, provided a budget of $3 million a year.