History of the Jews in Moldova

The history of the Jews in Moldova reaches back several centuries. Bessarabian Jews have been living in the area for quite some time.

Bessarabian Jews

Main article: Bessarabian Jews

Early history

Torah scrolls presented by Jewish community of Kishinev to Nicholas II. 1914.

• 1889: There were 180,918 Jews of a total population of 1,628,867 in Bessarabia.
• 1897: The Jewish population had grown to 225,637 of a total of 1,936,392
• 1903: Kishinev in Russian Bessarabia (modern-day Chişinău) had a Jewish population of 50,000, or 46%, out of a total of approximately 110,000. While almost non-existent in the countryside, Jews had been present in all major towns since the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. Jewish life flourished with 16 Jewish schools and over 2,000 pupils in Chişinău alone.
• February 16, 1903: Kishinev pogrom.
• 1920: The Jewish population had grown to approx. 267,000.
• 1930: Romanian census registers 270,000 Jews

Kishinev pogrom

Main article: Kishinev pogrom

In 1903, a young Christian Russian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubossary, 37 km northeast of Kishinev. A Russian language anti-Semitic newspaper "Bessarabian" began to disseminate rumors about the murder being part of a Jewish ritual. Although the official investigation had determined the lack of any ritualism in the murder and eventually discovered that the boy had been killed by a relative (who was later found), the unrest caused by these and other rumors had resulted in a major pogrom during the Easter holidays. The pogrom lasted for three days, without the intervention of the police. Forty seven (some say 49) Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses destroyed.

Many of the younger Jews, including Mendel Portugali, made an effort to defend the community.

The Holocaust

See also: History of the Jews in Romania#The Holocaust

Jewish population per county in Greater Romania, according to the 1930 census

The majority (up to 2/3) of Jews from Bessarabia fled before the retreat of the Soviet troops. However, 110,033 people from Bessarabia and Bukovina (the later included at the time the counties of Cernăuţi, Storojineţ, Rădăuţi, Suceava, Câmpulung, and Dorohoi - approximately 100,000 Jews) - all except a small minority of the Jews that did not flee in 1941 - were deported to Transnistria (World War II), a region which was under Romanian military control during 1941-1944.

• 1941: The Einsatzkommandos, German mobile killing units drawn from the Nazi SS and commanded by Otto Ohlendorf entered Bessarabia. They were instrumental in the massacre of many Jews in Bessarabia, who did not flee in face of the German advancement.
• July 8, 1941: Ion Antonescu, Romania's ruler at the time, made a declaration in front of the Ministers' Council:

....With the risk of not being understood by some traditionalists which may be among you, I am in favour of the forced migration of the entire Jew element from Bessarabia and Bukovina, which must be thrown over the border. Also, I am in favor of the forced migration of the Ukrainian element, which does not belong here at this time. I don't care if we appear in history as barbarians. The Roman Empire has made a series of barbaric acts from a contemporary point of view and, still, was the greatest political settlement. There has never been a more suitable moment. If necessary, shoot with the machine gun.

The killing squads of Einsatzgruppe D, together with special non-military units attached to the German Wehrmacht and the Romanian army were involved in many massacres in Bessarabia (over 10,000 in a single month of war, in June-July 1941), while deporting other thousands to Transnistria.

In ghettos organized in several towns, as well as in camps (there was also a comparable number of Jews from Transnistria in those camps) many people died from starvation or bad sanitation, or were shot by special Nazi units right before the arrival of Soviet troops in 1944. The Romanian military administration of Transnistria kept very poor records of the people in the ghettos and camps. The only exact number found in Romanian sources is 59,392 died in the ghettos and camps from the moment those were open until mid-1943 This number includes all internees regardless of their origin, but does not include those that perished on the way to the camps, those that perished between mid-1943 and spring 1944, as well as those that perished in the immediate aftermath of the Romanian army's occupation of Transnistria (see for example the Odessa massacre).

Jews in the Moldavian SSR

After World War II, the number of Jews in Moldavian SSR increased significantly, peaking at 98,001 in 1970. During the 1970s and especially late 1980s, many of them emigrated to Israel. The last Soviet census of 1989 registered 65,672 Jews in the Soviet Republic.

Independent Moldova

During the events surrounding the independence of Moldova, the population of Jews declined sharply. At the end of 1993, there were an estimated 15,000 Jews in Republic of Moldova. During the same year, 2,173 Jews emigrated to Israel. There were two Jewish periodical publications, both published in Kishinev (Chişinău). The most widely circulated was наш голос Nash golos — אונדזער קול Undzer kol ("Our Voice"), in Yiddish and Russian.

The 2004 censuses in Moldova and Transnistria registered a total of 4,867 Jews in Moldova.

See also

• Bessarabian Jews

External links

• jewishmemory.md – History of the Jews in Moldova