The State Department said today that it has “expressed concern” to the Rumanian government “at high levels” about reports of increased anti-Semitism in that Communitst country.
Department spokesman Alan Romberg said that “these reports center on a book of poems published recently in Rumania, especially one poem in the collection which attacked Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen personally and Jews in general. The fact that such a poem was published in Rumania, the country in which the government controls the media, is of particular concern.”
Romberg was apparently referring to a book of poems published last December by Corneliu Valerian Tudor, who has a history of anti-Semitism. Rosen revealed what he called a “serious” anti-Semitic campaign in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in Zurich last week. He said that when he returned to Rumania, after a three-months visit to Israel, he found most of the 29,000 Jews in Rumania afraid and some panicky about the recent anti-Semitic publications.
Romberg noted today that “we have unconfirmed reports that the unsold copies of the book (of poems) have been recalled and that officials of the publishing house which published the book have been reprimanded.”
But he added, “nevertheless, we would regard any reoccurence of anti-Semitism in Rumania very seriously and have expressed our concern to the Rumanian government at high levels.” Romberg would not say how the concern was expressed but Lawrence Eagleburger, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, was recently in Bucharest.
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.
