Trudy Gold
Romania 1900-1940
Trudy Gold - Romania: 1900-1940
- [Trudy] If you remember, last time I stopped at the Congress of Berlin because if you remember, the great powers would not ratify remaining independence unless they improved the rights of Jews. And you will recall that Adolphe Cremieux and Sir Moses Montefiore both made visits to the country. And what was interesting was that Disraeli, his first visit when he went to, when he returned to England, was to Sir Moses Montefiore. The other point, which sets rather a dangerous precedent, Wilhelm Marr that same year wrote his notorious pamphlet, “The Victory of Judaism over Germanism.” And in that pamphlet, he actually said… He’s important because he’s the man who coined the phrase anti-Semitism, making it to be a racial, not a religious term. And it was he who said that the Semite Disraeli holds in his pocket the key to war and peace in the Orient. So ironically, the fact that Jewish philanthropists and politicians were interfering to try and alleviate the pride of Jews in Romania, in a way rebounded on them. And for a while, the Congress did refuse to ratify Romanian independence. But then pragmatically, it was a business of Germany being able to buy shares in Romanian railways. And in the end, it all came to nothing. Can we see the next slide, please? There you see him, Benjamin Disraeli, who is the prime minister of Great Britain and much of the world at this time. And then the next slide, I wanted to show you an absolutely beautiful synagogue in Romania. Because don’t forget, there’s a large Jewish population. And could we then go on? Because I want to talk about some of the interesting people who left. Because what happens in Romania from the 1870s onwards, because of this upswing in anti-Jewish feeling, you’re going to see a lot of Romanian Jews, just as Jews from Eastern Europe were leaving. And remember, the Czarist Empire took in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine.
So basically, when Jews came from Eastern Europe, they came from those particular countries, but they also came from Romania. And between the 1870s and 1914, something like 120,000 Romanian Jews got out. The bulk of them went to America, some came to England, but a sizable minority went to Palestine. Under the first Aliyah, there was a big Hibbat Zion movement in Romania. Despite everything I’ve told you about anti-Semitism, it’s important to remember there’s still an interesting, vibrant Jewish life with every manifestation of Judaism, Hasidic, traditional Orthodox. And we’re going to see the development of the Haskalah. And also the Yiddish Theatre, Goldfaden comes from Romania. There are Jewish newspapers. So despite all the tribulations, they’re still living a very, very dynamic life. Now, I want… Obviously, I’ve had to make choices. Out of that huge immigration, who am I going to talk about? And I’ve chosen a few characters who I just happened to find terribly, terribly interesting. And of course, there are so many others that I could talk about. And Wendy’s always saying, you need the personalities. Now, this man, Moses Gaster was an incredible personality. He was born in Bucharest, of course, the capital of Romania. He was born into an Austrian Jewish family who’d settled in Wallachia at the beginning of the 19th century. He was the eldest son of a man called Abraham Gaster, who was the Dutch consul in Bucharest. He came from a relatively wealthy family. He was the grandson of Asriel Gaster, who was a prominent merchant.
And his mother, Pnina Rubinstein, came from a great rabbinic dynasty. So he has yichus, as they say. On one side, there’s money. On the other side, there is great learning. Very, very smart. He did his PhD at Leipzig. Yes, you see, despite the anti-Jewish prejudice and despite the problems for Jews in Romania, what is happening to the wealthy stratum of Jews is they’re being educated in Europe. So he does his PhD in Leipzig, then he goes to the Jewish, to the yeshiva in Breslau, very, very important yeshiva. That’s where he achieves his rabbinic diploma. He’s a rabbi. His history of the Romanian, he’s also… Can we go back to the other picture, if you don’t mind, Judy, we’ve slipped. No, to Gaster. Thank you. He was also fascinated by languages. And remember, Romania is only really beginning to come together as a national identity. If you remember what I said last week, how the importance of creating a language in Roman characters rather than in Cyrillic alphabet, very much wanting to become part of modern Europe. Now, Moses Gaster, who was very much part of the Jewish world, he was also at the, he was at the University of Bucharest, only quite recently established. And he became a lecturer and professor in Romanian language and literature. Despite the problems for really talented people, there was always the way in. He then becomes the inspector-general of schools in Romania. And he was a member of the counselling body of examining teachers.
Because one of the things the government was trying to do, and I talked about this last time, was to raise the level of education in Romania. And it’s fascinating that one of the most important figures in this is, of course, a Jew. Now, something else about him, he’s a central figure in Hibbat Zion, and he played a central and important role in the establishment of Zikhron Ya'akov, which I’m going to talk about in a moment, because Zikhron Ya'akov was a colony in Palestine that was made up entirely of Romanian immigrants. Bearing in mind the majority of those Romanians who left for Palestine were Hibbat Zion, and later on, Hashomer Hatzair, very left wing socialist. So what happens is that Bratianu, the Bratianu government is tightening up, and he is expelled from Lithuania for being a member of a society that they felt was unconscionable in terms of how they wanted Romania to be. So he goes to England, and poor man, all he could get is a lectureship at Oxford in Slavonic literature. Ironically, a few years later, the Romanians cancel his expulsion. They confer on him a medal and they invite him to return. He declined. And in 1893, he actually took up British citizenship. He became a naturalised Brit in 1895. But he’s still fascinated by the home, the land he was born in. And at the request of the Romanian government, he wrote a report for them on the British system of education. They are playing around with modernising their country. We’ve already discussed some of the problems Romania faced. It was a deeply peasant society with a land owning class and not enough of a middle class to take on the wheels of the economy.
And what they want to do is to improve. So he actually sets up this new system, which becomes the basis of Romanian education. And what happens to him in England, he becomes the hakham of Bevis Marks Synagogue. And he presided over their bicentenary celebrations, the great Sephardi Synagogue in London. He was also the principal of Lady Judith Montefiore College in Ramsgate. I referred to Sir Moses last time. And he was very interested in the very valuable collection of essays of the Montefiores. Something else he was interested in, a member of the Folklore, Biblical Asiatic societies. He gave many papers. He is the only rabbi in history to become president of the Folklore Society. And in 1925, he became one of the six honorary members of YIVO. I’ve mentioned YIVO to you, of course. That, of course, was in Lithuania, in Wilna, YIVO, that incredible collection of Jewish documents, which thankfully was later transferred to New York. Now, along with him, and I really think I probably should do a session on the honorary board, because who was on the board along with him, Simon Dubnow, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Edward Sapir, and Chaim Zhitlowsky, about one of the most extraordinary boards you could have ever had. In his spare time, he made a special study at the Samaritans. He went to their headquarters in Nablus. He is involved in worldwide Jewish affairs. He is a Zionist. He becomes a close friend of Theodor Herzl.
And he was the vice president of the First Zionist Congress in Basel. He was also close, he was also close to Nordal. And he lived, for those of you who are in England, in London, his residence, 193 Maida Vale, was the main venue for talks between the Zionists and the foreign office in 1917. And the first draught of the “Balfour Declaration” was actually written in his home in February, 1917, 123 Maida Vale. It still exists. And it was in the presence of Chaim Weizmann, remember, he’s in London, Sokolow and Baron Rothschild. So this is at… Sykes was also there, Herbert Samuel. They were constant visitors. His house was the place where things happened. He had other visitors. Churchill came to see him. Lennon came to see him. And later on when he returned, when he finally came to England, Sigmund Freud came to see him. And then that was when Sigmund was very, very ill. But then by then, so was Gaster. So this extraordinary Romanian Jew, who is very attached to learning in his own country, but is absolutely central to Jewish affairs. His main work, which he gave 10 years of his life, was actually a collection of Romanian literary passages and a glossary covering the period from the dawn of Romanian literature to 1830. He is the main archivist of Romanian literature. He also wrote textbooks for the Romanian Jewish community, a Romanian translation of the “Siddur.” Now he married, he married a woman called Lucy Friedlander. He had two sons by her, Jacob and Theodor. Jacob was actually a, he becomes a communist.
He’s a communist lawyer and a politician. He formed a law practise, but he also taught at LSE. His other son, Theodor, was named for Theodor Herzl. Remember, Theodor Herzl dies in 1904. He did classics. And in 1939, went to America to do his PhD at Columbia. And he became a lecturer in Semitic civilization at NYU. Now, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Rome, a Fulbright lecturer in Melbourne, and he was one of the translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls. And also, he updated Frazer’s “Golden Bough.” And evidently, Gaster’s son knew 32 languages. I’ve got Romanian friends who say if you live in Romania, you have to know quite a few languages. But 32 languages? But anyway, the next person I want to introduce you to, unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of him, Elias Schwarzfeld. Because important that you understand the contribution these characters are making, not just to their own, their country of birth. Can I call it their own country? He was expelled. But also to the society of that country in the Jewish world. Now Elias Schwarzfeld was born in Iasi. And may I thank my friend Andrew Popper for helping me with Romanian pronunciations? His father was a writer, a poet, had a huge library. He participated in establishing “Defender’s Voice,” a review for the Jews in 1874 to really put the Jewish case. And he published his first Jewish novel.
He studied medicine at the University of Bucharest, and later he abandoned it, came to Brussels to study law. He edited a Yiddish Jewish paper in Bucharest, and then a weekly, first, a daily, and then a weekly. He wanted to advance the cause of Jewish emancipation in Romania. And his first pamphlet was actually occasioned by the visit of Cremieux to, which I’ve already mentioned, but it’s going to be talked about in much more depth by Lynn Julius. Now, because he’s going too far, he’s expelled the same time as Moses Gaster. So what happens to him? He moves to France, he becomes, he’s appointed by baron de Hirsch. Of course, baron de Hirsch, one of the wealthiest men in the world, known as Turkenhirsch because he built all the railways of the Turkish empire. He becomes the secretary of his charities. And when Hirsch founded the Jewish Colonisation Association, he became its Secretary General. And after Hirsch died, his fortune was distributed by his wife Clara. And when she died… And so he acted as her secretary. And after she died, he worked on the distribution of charities. He also continued his efforts on behalf of the Romanian co-religionists. Now, can we have a look at the next slide, please? Can you go on, and then come back to Schechter? Benjamin Fondane, now Fondane was his nephew, and he praised him as the only true historian of Romanian Jews.
And Benjamin Fondane, another fascinating man. He was a Romanian and a French poet. He was an existentialist philosophy. He was very much part of the French scene in the ‘20s and '30s. He also was noted for work in cinema and in theatre. He was really one of the central figures in Paris. He participated in Romanian culture, he participated in Jewish culture, and he was really an existentialist philosopher. He was an essayist. He was fascinated by Charles Baudelaire. He became, in the end, a film critic and a screenwriter for Paramount. Don’t forget that all the American companies were in Europe looking for talent. Tragically he’s back in, he is betrayed. He’s in France in the war, he’s betrayed, and he is deported to Auschwitz where he is murdered. Now, before we get on to Schechter, someone else who I want to introduce you to. Again, I couldn’t find a picture. His name is Benjamin Franklin Peixotto, and he came from a Sephardi family to Holland, then Curacao. And about 1807, the family settled in New York. And as he was from a wealthy family, he’s also involved in politics, and he became an American Consul, and he was also a grand master of B'nai B'rith. He had a huge social conscience, this wealthy Sephardi Jew living in America. He established an orphan asylum. He founded libraries in Cleveland. In New York, he worked at a law practise. But he was always trying to dispense charity, not just to Jews, but to the non-Jewish world. And in 1870, at the height of the persecution of Romanian Jews, president Grant appoints him Consul General to Romania.
You see, this was on one level a good thing. On the other level, it was a bad thing. The fact that Disraeli was seen to interfere, the fact that Montefiore was seen to interfere, the fact that America was seen to interfere, on one level, it didn’t work in favour of them. So he was in Romania for six years between 1870 and 1876. He worked to help his people. He also helped establish a Society of Zion similar to B'nai B'rith. And his reports on the situation of the Jews also led to an important meeting at Mansion House in London, saying how bad it was in Romania, which led to Shaftesbury sending a message of sympathy. So he was very much at the centre of important philanthropists throughout Europe. He had huge charisma. He returned to America in 1876, and he became involved, and this will interest the Americans, in the creation of the Union of American Hebrew congregations. He was later the American consul in Leon. And then he founded “Menorah,” a monthly New York Jewish paper. He was trustee of the Hebrew Technical Institute. He had many, many strings to his bow. And he married Hannah Strauss and he had nine children. And all those children did interesting things. But actually before we come onto Schechter, I think I really need to mention to you Zikhron Ya'akov, because it was after all founded by, it was founded by Romanian Jews.
And of course, I’m only going to give you a brief analysis because it’s an area that obviously later on, I’m going to go into in much more depth. And you’ll understand why in a minute. Zikhron Ya'akov was founded December, 1882, and it’s very much at the will, of course, of Gaster. A hundred Jewish pioneers, members of Hibbat Zion, officially, they’d become a group in 1884 at a conference in Kattowitz, which was held by a man called Leon Pinsker. Now I’m sure you all know about Pinsker. He was a Russian Jew, who in the reign of Alexander II, had believed Russia was going to open up. Of course, after the assassination of Alexander II and all the appalling pogroms that broke out, he changed his mind. And he’s the man who wrote that pamphlet, “Auto-Emancipation.” And he said these very chilling words, “Antisemitism…” He called it Judeophobia. He said, “Judeophobia is a psychic aberration. It is a 2,000-year-old disease. It is incurable.” And he said, “The only hope for the Jews were to stop being ghosts upon the face of the world.” And he said that those of you who are going to England and America are fooling themselves. So anyway, this young group, very much inspired by him and Gaster, they go to Zikhron Ya'akov, which is founded with… They buy land. Baron de Rothschild, Edmond de Rothschild becomes the patron. He also, of course, is the patron of Rishon LeZion and Rosh Pinna. And in 1885, the first winery in Israel, a bottling factory was actually set up in Zikhron Ya'akov. And for a while, the only Jewish hospital north of Jaffa was located there. And just for your interest, in 1910, Ben Gurion worked there for a while.
But it really came to fame because of the Nili spy ring. And I’m just going to mention that to you because again, these are Romanian Jews. Nili, Netzah Yisrael Lo Yeshaker, the Eternal One of Israel will not lie. And it was founded by a sister and two brothers, Sarah, Aaron and Alex Aaronsohn, and Rivka and her fiance, Avshalom Feinberg. Now Aaron Aaronsohn is perhaps the… What they’re going to do in the first World War is to spy for the British. More about that another time. They came from Romania. They were brought to Palestine at six by their parents who were amongst the founders of Zikhron Ya'akov. And in fact, they were the first car owners in Palestine. And young Aaron Aaronsohn also bought himself a bicycle from France. He was very, very bright. He was sponsored by Edmond de Rothschild to study agriculture in France. And he worked. What he does, he is fascinated by the flora and fauna of Palestine. He botanically mapped Palestine and its surroundings. He goes to Mount Hermon. He discovers wild wheat in its historic setting, and what he discovered, what he believed to be the mother of wheat. That made him world famous. He was able to establish a research station in Atlit. And he built up a huge collection of geographical and botanical samples and established his own library.
Before the first World War, he was the scientific consultant to the local area ruler, man called Djemal Pasha. He was one of the triumvirate that ruled the Ottoman Empire in World War I. Unfortunately, he was also one of the triumvirate that was responsible for the Armenian genocide. And the other point is that because this man had worked for them during World War I, he is incredibly useful to the British because he knows every little, every little stick and stone in the region. And he was recommended to General Allenby, and the plan to attack through Beersheva, which was his idea, and partially the idea of another man called Joseph Trumpeldor. More about him another time. So basically they were terribly instrumental in Jewish history. Again, people from Romania. So let’s go on now to Solomon Schechter, and then I’ll go back to general history. What a wonderful face that man was, that man has. I love it. He’s born in Focsani in Romania, in Moldova. His father was a shochet. He came from a Chabad Hasidic family. Yeshiva at 10 years old. Evidently he could read Hebrew when he was three and mastered Chumash by five. These illui the community throws up from time to time. He studied in the yeshiva of Lemberg. In his twenties, he goes to Vienna where he studied with a modern Talmudic scholar, Meir Friedmann. Now, he didn’t find his Hasidic background intellectually. And he’s a Chabad Hassid, remember, Chochmah, Binah, Daat. He didn’t find it satisfying enough. And in 1879 he went to study in Berlin, and also he’s studying at the Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Judentums, which is a modern kind of Judaism.
He never is a reform, but it’s a modernization of Judaism. And he also studies at the University of Berlin. You see, if you had huge brain, it wasn’t a bar to Western universities. Now, he doesn’t go back to Romania. He goes to London as a tutor in Rabbinics. He becomes a great Rabbinics scholar for traditional Judaism. He works for Claude Montefiore, who later on actually created liberal Judaism in London. He becomes a reader in Rabbinics at Cambridge University. You can just see him with that face striding the corridors of Cambridge. And then something, something gave him international fame. Now. And it’s the story of the Cairo Geniza. What does the Cairo Geniza mean? Geniza actually means the hidden hiding place. The Cairo Geniza was located in the Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, Old Cairo. It had been built in 1882. And the first time people realised there was some idea of something special was there, a German poet appears to be the first man to mention it back in 1773, where he talks in his book “Israelites on Mount Horeb.” But he never actually examined it because there’s a superstition that you mustn’t touch it, it would lead to disaster. And then a scribe from the Ashkenazi community in Jerusalem visited, but was turned away. Various pages were stolen, various pages were sold. But then Albert Harkavy bought some, took that to Russia. He was a Cairoite. He was interested in what they had to say about the Cairoites. And then two adventurous Jewish women. Not Jewish women, I beg your pardon, English women. Actually, they were Scottish. Now I must be very careful. But they were those intrepid women who went there and they realised that this was very important. And they came back and they reported it to Solomon Schechter. And he recognised them, as they were incredibly important. The extracts were from the “Book of Wisdom” and “Ben Sira,” which, of course, becomes part of the Christian cannon in “Ecclesiastes.”
Now, as a result of that, he got the money together and he’d led an expedition to Cairo where he came up with 100,000 pages of huge importance in both biblical and Talmudic study. Give detailed pictures of the economic and social life of Jews in that period, 10th to 13th century in Egypt. And it shows the incredible part that Jews played in the economy of Egypt at that period, and also the very good relations they had with Arabs. Plus, they found more than 200 poems by Yehudah Halevi, also papers of Maimonides, 30 works authored by him. Before that, there was only a few lines ever found. Now Solomon Schechter, whilst he was in London, he teamed up with Israel Zangwill. They all lived in the same area around Kilburn, funnily enough. Israel Zangwill, of course, was the person that Theodor Herzl came to see in 1896 with letters from Nordal. And it was Zangwill who introduced Herzl to Asher Myers, who was also part of the little crowd of Kilburn wanderers. What they were trying to do, they were trying to raise Jewish scholarship in England. In the end they all realised nothing was going to… And certainly, Zangwill goes off to write in America. And Schechter in 1902, he’s invited to become president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, and he managed to attract… Look, this is a genius of a man. He attracts a lot of outstanding scholars. It becomes recognised as a huge centre of learning. And in 1913, again, for our American viewers, he was instrumental in founding the United Synagogue of America, which becomes the umbrella for conservative Jewry. He was very much a traditionalist, but he believed that there could be changes to modern Judaism, but not introduced arbitrarily or deliberately. He was very much against reform.
So basically, what have I done? I’ve given you a thumbnail sketch of a very interesting group of people who were among a huge number of Jews who left. They left because of persecution. They left, some left for ideological reasons to Palestine. But the majority of them, of course, went to America, and they entered every trade and profession possible. And ironically, isn’t it, that much of the great grain power that could have enriched Romania goes overseas. And I think it’s one of the great stories of the Jews, is it not, that they leave a country and what happens? They manage to find, many of them find other places in which they can enrich the countries in which they live, but also enrich their own people. So now let’s have a look at some Romanian history. And thank you, Judy, for getting everything together for me again, as ever. Here you see a map for Romania in 1918. So already a large number of Jews have left. But what happens to Romania? After the Peace Conference, of course, Romania is on the side of the Allies, and the Peace Conference, the Peace of Paris brings about greater Romania. It’s an enlarged state. And as a result of that, large numbers of Jews are now going to become part of, are going to become part of Romania. Because if you have a look at the enlarged Romania, as opposed to old Romania, you have Jewish communities in Bessarabia, in Dobruja. Have a look at also Bukovina. These are areas and now… Old Romania has more or less doubled in size. Now in World War I, 882 Jewish soldiers died defending Romania. 825 of them were decorated. Now, what was also insisted at the Peace of Paris is that Romanian constitution emancipated every group in Romania. And if you remember, Romania is mainly an orthodox country, and it’s now the Romanian Orthodox Church that has been established in the end of the 19th century, with its liturgy in the Roman language, no longer in the Cyrillic alphabet.
And so 80% is Orthodox. There are Catholics, particularly now that part of it has come away from Hungary. So you’ve got areas now where you’ve got a Catholic Hungarian population. You also, of course, have a small Protestant population. And you have an about… In the newly created Romania, because you’ve taken in so many Jews from places like Bessarabia, the Jewish population is going to make up nearly 5% of the population of Romania. So this is the new state. It’s enlarged. And on one level, one could say that the Romanians have achieved what they wanted. Can we see the next slide please, Judy? This is the proclamation. This is the proclamation of the 28th of August, 1916. Romanians, the war for which the last two years has been in the circling our frontiers, has shaken the ancient foundations of Europe. It has bought the day which has been awaited for centuries. It is the day of the union of all branches of our nation, a Romanian union on both slopes of the Carpathians. You see one of the problems, Romania has been reconstituted as a modern state and enlarged state. And yet, nationalism is so… Nationalism is going to become more and more intense. Now, what were the politics like of the time? Well, Jews are now emancipated. But going back into Romanian parliament in Romanian history, one of the problems is that in a country where nationalism had been fought for hard, but very insecure, the Jews who are the non-Christian minority… And of course, this is something we’ll be talking about a lot when I talk about Germany. One of the problems was that, yes, if you take the view that every society needs a scapegoat, think about the Orthodox church, think about the kind of image of the Jew at Easter. I mentioned to you blood libels.
I’ve mentioned to you the kind of hostility the Jews have faced. So there are always going to be groups that use the Jew as the scapegoat. And unfortunately in Romania, certainly before World War I, it was both the liberals and the conservatives. But now in 1923, they’ve been forced to emancipate. But let’s go back and have a look at some of the major figures. And if we could go now to Cezar Bolliac. Now, he was a former revolutionary of 1848. This is a speech he made in 1869 in the chamber. “When one speaks of Catholics, Protestant or Orthodox, we are speaking of Christian people who have received their teaching from the same source, the Gospel. When one speaks of the Jew, it is of the people who do not believe in Christ, who consequently do not have the same religion we have. So it’s impossible to talk about the Jews without implying their religion because when you ask them what they do, this or that, they always answer that their religion requires it. Thus, in this sense, one cannot say that the Jewish question is not a religious question.” You see, what was the Jewish question in Romania? Is it a religious question, or later on it’s going to become a question of race? One of the tragedies of the Jew, I think, looking back on history… And it’s been fascinating for me because obviously, as we’ve gone from country to country, I’ve been teaching and studying for 40 years, I’ve had to go into a lot more depth in all sorts of interesting places. And what it reinforces to me is this, unfortunately, this notion which is really the foundation myth of Christianity, the deicide. So it takes an awful lot to overcome that, particularly when a society is fractured.
Now, and we also know that the prime minister in the 1860s, 1870s, he chose to use due hatred to appeal to the middle classes because of competition. In fact, if you actually have a look at the figures of Jewish participation in the economy, something like by 19, just after the first World War, something like 51% of the commerce and trade in the extended Romania was in Jewish hands. And that’s in commerce. And in industry and trade, it’s something like 34%. So they are overrepresented in a society where you have an educated elite now. You also have, as I said, a land owning class, many of whom are relatively favourable to the Jews, by the way. And you have a peasantry. And it’s the Jew as the middle man. And now you’re trying to create an emerging middle class, which is going to see itself in direct competition to these aliens. This is from Bogdan Hasdeu, who is the professor of statistics at the University of Iasi. “The Jews have a tendency to earn without work, and they hate every other nation.” This is Professor Carol Iancu, “Economic competition and the spirit of narrow-minded exclusiveness, which transformed the Christian bourgeoisie into the most persistent enemy of the Jew and their emancipation.” Now this is actually a very interesting analysis. Now, a parliamentary deputy. Can we see his face? Can we see the next one please? No, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that. Go back. Sorry Jude. I’ll talk about him later.
This is Stefan Ionescu. I’m going to come back to him. “Realise that our strength is not against your religion, but against your desire to manipulate the middle class of our society.” And Ionescu, who I’m going to show you a picture of in a minute, later on, he said, “There is no such thing as Romanian Jews. The term Romanian Jew is an insult hurled at our nation. Whatever the Jew is, a Jew he will remain. The growth of this element has always proven so dangerous for all countries that no people has hesitated the most energetic steps and often the most crude to get rid of them.” Now. This is the kind of rhetoric before the first World war. And now you have in 1924, you now have a Jewish population of nearly 800,000, as I said, 5% of the population. To give you the figures, there are 230,000 in the Regat, the Old Kingdom, 238,000 in Bessarabia, about 128,000 in Bukovina, and 200,000 in Transylvania. I can remember when I travelled, particularly through Transylvania, to villages and towns, which before the war, could been upward of 50% Jewish. And it was fascinating because they were in such beautiful settings. And yet even today, the peasants were going around in horse and cart. And I tried to imagine what it must have been like to live side by side. It’s one of the backdrops. Post 1924, by the way, was also the growth of Zionism in Romania. And that’s an important development. Now, there was… Jews did have political representation in parliament. There was a Jewish party, the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania. And as I said, you have every aspect of Jewish life represented in the various places. And I now want to turn to a fascinating man, a man called Julius Barasch. Now this is before the war, of course.
Now he, again, even in Romania, he’s going to try and modernise the Jewish community. Again, he was one of those Jews from a wealthy family. He becomes a scientist, he’s a writer. And he believed that the Jews needed to be regenerated. He was a very, he was a traveller. He becomes very, he becomes very famous. He writes about his travels. He goes to see Jewish communities all over the world, the East, the West, Britain, Germany, France. And he becomes professor of natural sciences at the University of Bucharest. And also, he’s a very, very clever man. Believe it or not, he becomes professor at the military school and he becomes the city physician for Bucharest. He worked on all sorts of… 'Cause think about a society that’s trying to develop. He develops, works on hygiene, on forestry, botany. Think of the, think of the great forest of Romania. It’s no wonder so many Jews were in the timber business. Also, zoology. He edited and was the main contributor to a scientific journal, which was the first in Romania. And for five years he was the chief collaborator. And at his own expense, he founded the first children’s hospital in Bucharest for the children of the poor. And he served gratuitously as its chief physician. He was a really good man. And he believed that one of the problems of the image of the Jew in Romania was because they needed to be improved. Now, verbessern, this was something that was very much thought about in Germany, you will recall, this whole notion of Jewish self-improvement.
And also, there were too many cliques, too many Jews fighting each other. So what he does is he opens a school, a modern school, particularly for children of German and Austrian descent, because he believes these are the people, they are the children of the Haskalah. And of course, that led to Jews living who’d lived in the Old Kingdom, opening one for themselves. So basically he’s trying to raise the level of the Jews. And in this education, it’s not just a Jewish education they’re going to get. He wants them to study sciences. He wants them to study mathematics and literature. Again, the old question, what may a Jew study? In 1854, he published an essay on the Jews of Romania, and also a pamphlet in which he lambasted the chief rabbi who had… The chief rabbi, why? Because the chief rabbi of Romania, a man called Israel, had actually converted to Christianity. And he said, “This is not the way to do it.” He found that terrible. He wanted to modernise the Jews. He didn’t want to make them into Christians. He was one of the founders of “Israelitul-Roman,” the first Jewish newspaper in Wallachia. And he founded the first Jewish literary circle. And he worked. His dream was the emancipation of the Jews. When he died, his death was considered a national, absolute national tragedy. So against the backdrop of the rise of antisemitism, it’s important you know that there are Jews who are contributing out of all proportion to Romanian society, either from the Hazkalah or people like Gaster, improving Romanian literature. And yet, you’ve got this whole level of hatred.
And now can we turn to the next slide, please, Judy? Now here you have King Carol II of Romania. He was the first of the Hohenzollerns to actually be born in Romania, and he was the first… Remember, they were a German family, and he had been… His uncle, his great-uncle had been actually elected King of Romania. And he was the first to speak Romanian as his native language. And he was the first to be raised in the Orthodox faith. He had quite a controversial life, including a marriage that nobody approved of. He travelled the world. He lived a quite a dissolute life. And then he married Princess Helen of Greece and Denmark, the daughter of Constantine of Greece. They married in 1921. I’m going to talk about Princess Helen, who later became Queen Helen, in my next session with you, because she was an incredible woman who was righteous amongst the nations. And we have a very special treat for you because her granddaughter is actually going to address, she’s actually going to address us on the subject of her grandmother. So he marries the beautiful and incredibly wonderful princess Helen. And he had one son, prince Michael, who was also turned out to be a bit of a hero. Because you’re going to find that in those terrible years of Antonescu’s regime, 1940 to 1944, it’s going to be the Romanian crown that is going to do so much to help the Jews in the old Kingdom. So basically, this is the man who married a wonderful princess, but didn’t give up his mistresses.
And also, he had a scandalous affair with a woman called Elena Lupescu, and that led to him… He actually… It became so bad that he renounced the succession in 1925, and he left the country, and his son Michael inherited the throne. But then we’re going to see that there’s… He was five years old when he inherited the throne. There’s going to be an ineffective regency under king Carol’s younger brother. And he comes back in 1930 and again becomes king. Although officially, he’d been excluded from kingship by his own father. But he comes in, and later on, he is going to be the man who establishes a royal dictatorship. And we’re going to be talking about that next session because we’re going to have to discuss why on earth did he go for a dictatorship. So can we, can we turn to… Yes, there you see Magda Lupescu. Fascinating woman. She was actually Jewish. Her mother was an Austrian born Jew who’d converted to Roman Catholicism. Her father had been born Jewish, but also converted to orthodoxy. He married her. She was married in 1919, an officer of the Royal Romanian army. Several affairs. They were the wild things. She first met Carol in 1923. They later married, and it didn’t end to their death. And she’s going to be responsible for much of the corruption around court circles. Evidently some said she was incredibly beautiful. Others said that she was in fact exactly the opposite.
Now, yes, a little more time. Can we turn on, please? 'Cause what I’m trying to… I’m just showing you a picture of Queen Mother Helen of Romania, but we will be spending much more time on her next week. And as I said, we’ve got this amazing interview. Or rather, I should say not an interview, an address. Can we go on, please? And there you see King Michael of Romania, who in the end turned out to be an incredibly good friend to the Jews. Okay, more about him next time. Now here we come to Alexander Cuza. And now we’re going to come into the really right wing politics of post World War I Romania. He was born in Iasi. Studied, again, very well educated. Education, on one level we can revel in it, but never forget that it’s no bar to bad behaviour. He studied in Dresden, Saxony, then he did law in Berlin and Paris, doctorates in law and in political sciences. In his early years, he was active in socialist circles. Came from a very good background. He’s elected at the chamber of deputies, but gradually he moves towards, not only conservatism, but violent antisemitism. He was fascinated by a man called Arthur Gobineau. Arthur Gobineau, who wrote books on race theory, he’s a Frenchman. And this is really the beginnings of the notion that the world is dividing up into separate races. What happens is the ideas of Darwin were perverted and applied to the various, they’re taken from, they’re taken from the animal kingdom, applied to groups. And in Gobineau’s book “The Inequality of the Races,” he proves that certain races by blood are best able to rule. Now this is what Cuza said, “Jews, biologically a different race, poisoning Romania by their sheer existence.” And what he did, he’s the man responsible for merging the anti Judaism of the Orthodox church with modern pseudo-scientific anti-Semitism.
He said, “Conversion can never work. Total expulsion is the only solution.” This is a recurring theme. Jews were collectively working to ruin a Christian nation. It’s almost a genetic code with the Jews to despoil other people. And his main aim was to remove Jews from public life. He claimed Jews were encouraging peasants to drink too much to ensure that they had a captive market. And this man in 1901 becomes a professor at the University of Iasi. In 1922 he founded the National Christian Union and used the swastika. Can we go onto the next slide, please? This is what he said, “The swastika is linked to the cult of the Sun. It is the distinctive sign of the Aryan race. It is our national emblem. The cross is the emblem of our faith, as it is with all Christian peoples. It is only together that the swastika and the cross display our entire body and soul. We are Aryans and we are Christians.” He opposed the “Minority Treaties,” which granted the Jews citizenship, because he believed they were almost a disease in Romania. At one stage he was close to someone else I’m going to be talking about, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. But he breaks with him because Codreanu wanted, because he didn’t want to use violence. Now in 1936, Cuza becomes a member of the Romanian Academy. And in 1937 he becomes minister of state, with Goga as Prime Minister. But in 1938, he is dismissed by King Carol. Now let’s come on to Codreanu. There you see, that is a copy of Arthur de Gobineau’s book, which had an incredible impact. Let’s just have a look at Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. Yeah. 1899 to 1938. He’s the man who is the founder and leader of the infamous Iron Guard.
And its other name, the Legion of Arch, the Legion of Archangel Michael, known as the Legionary Movement, the Legion of the Archangel Michael. It’s imbued with Orthodox Christianity. He’s inspired by Orthodox Christianity. He’s a very charismatic figure. Look at those eyes. They refer to him as… The Iron Guard refer to him as Captain. And until his death, he’s going to have absolute authority over them. He began his career post World War I, anti-communist. You’ve got to remember. And this is something I haven’t, I apologise, I haven’t really emphasised this enough. The Soviet Union, think about it, the old Czarist empire is destroyed. The Soviet Union is communist. Now, I can scream until I’m blue in the face. The majority of Jews were never communists. But the problem was never forget that Trotsky led the Red Army. Trotsky might have said till he was blue in the face that he had nothing to do with his Jewishness, but it didn’t matter. To these characters, Judeo Bolshevism, communism is a Jewish disease. And he works a lot with Cuza at the beginning. They break because Codreanu wants to use violence and Cuza wants to use the pen. Now, together they co-found the National-Christian Defence League. And what he does when he breaks with Cuza, he founds a succession of far right groups.
They rally around him, and also he attracts more, particularly as we get into… After the Wall Street crash, we get into the terrible Depression of the '30s. He attracts a growing section of the intelligentsia and also the peasant population. They incite pogrom. Several times, they’re actually outlawed by the government. They carry out political assassinations on anyone they don’t like. What he advocated by 1937 is a military and political alliance with the Nazis. Now in 1938, this is when King Carol actually blocks him. And what he does is he forms, he blocks Codreanu, and he is arrested with 13 other members of his group, and he is actually executed. And he’s going to be succeeded by a man called Horia Sima. And by 1940 the National Legionary State, proclaimed by the Iron, which was proclaimed by the Iron Guard is his killing is going to be the basis for violent reprisals. So what I’ve done today is to give you a bit more of a background. I’m going to pull it all together on Thursday because on Tuesday in the history slot, professor David Peimer is going to talk about because I think, night, it needs a lot more delving into. And so I’m going to stop there because I think we have questions. So let’s have a look.
Q&A and Comments:
It’s from Adrian. Trudy, my good…. Hello Adrian. My close friend Ilan was born in Romania. His parents somehow survived the war, but their health suffered and they both passed away young. Ilan, and only child, came to Israel as part of the Youth Aliyah Movement to kibbutzim. He served in the IDF an officer. Yes, after… I should have mentioned. Well, I will mention. In 1948, thousands, something like 170,000 Romanians came to Israel. “Ben Sirach,” thank you, Victoria, is known as “Ecclesiastes,” the wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach. Thank you.
This is from Judy. My father, my father, 1924 to 2017, was a survivor born in Beclean in 1924.
Q: Where was Bessarabia this time?
A: I showed you the map, Natasha. After the first World War, it is now part of Romania. But the problem is there’s going to be the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August, 1939, and some of Romania is going to be given back, taken by the Soviets, and some taken by the Hungarians. And that’s one of the reasons that Antonescu’s government is going to side with the Nazis. They want their land back. Do you remember what Disraeli said about the Balkans? They’re almost impossible to understand. It’s the geography.
Gitlin, “And a bunch went to South Africa. My maternal grandmother, whose surname was Solomon, they immigrated from Falticeni to Durban. Another part of the family went to New York.” Yes, I should have mentioned South Africa, Canada, the bolt to America.
Q: Were there different languages in Romania at the time?
A: There were different dialects, I believe. I’m going to check that out for you, rather than give you misinformation. The other group that aroused an awful lot of hostility were, of course, the Roma.
This is Dennis. “You mentioned Gaster’s connection to Freud. It’s intriguing they have identical dates.” Yes, isn’t it? And you know Dennis, I really think I want to do a session on the board of YIVO because it’s unbelievable.
This is from Lana. “I was librarian at Radlett Reform Synagogue and found a handmade leather book containing letters in English, Hebrew and Romanian addressed in praise of Rabbi Gaster, which had been presented to him. They’d been handed in after a probate health sale. I made contact with a Sephardi archivist and gave it to Lauderdale Road Synagogue for them to treasure.” Oh, that’s wonderful. I just… Iona. Theodor Herzl Gaster taught at Barnard College, Columbia University, and ended his career at Dropsie in Philadelphia. I thought he was at NYU. Thank you.
Karen, “My paternal grandfather was from Falticeni, and our name is Solomon.” He left in 1913. I wonder if I’m related to Gitlin, whose family went to South Africa.“ Can you contact each other please? This is what is so amazing about, about Lockdown.
Iona Japu’s grandfather Pesa ran the Zikhron Ya'akov winery for the baron. Oh, that’s incredible, Iona. That’s incredible.
Clive. This is Clive. "Our family began to leave Dorohoi,” I hope I pronounce that, “After 1896 when baron de Hirsch sponsored a meeting of Jewish leaders in Paris to encourage immigration from Europe to escape the pogroms, with family members immigrating to Philadelphia and London.”
Oh, this is from Marjorie Kravitz. I just don’t believe some of this. My maternal… I do believe it, but it’s just, it’s extraordinary. My maternal great-grandfather Nahum Wolitzer was a rabbi in Focsani and Schechter’s first teacher. Yeah, love it.
Tatiana, “There’s a Solomon Schechter Academy in Montreal dedicated Jewish scholarship and learning. For reasons I don’t understand, his daughter, my grandmother’s birth registration is in 1883, list her as student of Austria.” That I don’t understand.
Q: What was the rate of Jewish conversion to Christianity in Romania?
A: Depends what period you’re talking about. I’ll come back to you on that.
Yes, Sheila, thank you for correcting me. I meant Ecclesiastes. Yes, of course. Yes.
This is from Shelly. “Great book on Schechter and the Cairo Genizer,” 'Sacred Trash’ by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole.“ Adina Hoffman’s a great writer. One of my favourite subjects of a completely different sort is Ben Hecht, and she wrote a brilliant biography of him.
Nicholas Springer. Hi, Nicholas. "Spies of Jerusalem” tells the Aaronsohn story. Yeah, it’s an incredible story, the story of the Aaronsohns, and how important they were in Palestine. Yes, Myra, the Solomon Schechter School is in the New York area. In Skokie, Illinois as well, in Montreal.
Ah, this is Judy. The two sisters referred to in connection with Schechter were Scott’s Presbyterians, allowed by their father to be very well educated. They knew many languages including Aramaic. They found a lot of documents at St. Catherine’s monastery in the Sinai. The book is “Sisters of Sinai” by Janet Soskice. Thank you, Judy. You know, you must be the most knowledgeable audience possible. It’s a question now of sharing knowledge. I love those kind of women, those adventurous women of the 1930 20th century. They went out there with their education and they were brave and extraordinary.
Rose, “The sad thing I feel about Solomon Schechter’s conservative movement, it is dying. And even if they say it is present, it’s actually reform, which is very different to original conservative Judaism.”
Ah, this is from Geeta. “My grandfather, Haim Sugerman, left Romania for Manchester, made a fortune, took his family to an outlying settlement in Palestine, Bayt Dajan, and became an exemplar. How do you make a small fortune in Israel? Answer, you take a big fortune with you. All his descendants of those who left with him are still there. We had a reunion in Rafah a few years ago of 240 Sugermans.” Oh, I love it. That’s lovely, Geeta.
Yes, Rita’s also mentioning the book of “Sisters of Sinai.” Yes, I must get hold of that. Vivian, “For David Harris London speaking. Of Solomon Schechter, you can visit the documents of the Geniza at the University in Cambridge. It’s a fascinating trip. Original letters from my Maimonides, for example, there’s a great book about the Geniza. Yes, by Adina Hoffman. Yes.”
Q: When did Jews arrive in Romania?
A: I talked about that last time. They actually came with the Romans.
Please ask Trudy to speak more slowly. I thought I was. Oh dear, I’ll try. Thank you.
Q: What is the fitna impact of the Kishinev pogrom on Romanian Jewish history? Did it not draw Western focus on anti sem?
A: Well, Kishinev isn’t far from the Romanian border. And you’ve got a point about Kishinev. It had a huge impact on the Jews because it was, not only was it a border town, it was stirred up by a newspaper owner who had written an addition of the protocols of the elder design. And even worse than that, the mob went on the rampage for two days, and it was a garrison’s town. There were 18,000 troops stationed there. And it kind of, it was a big, it was a wake up call. And Kishinev became incredibly famous because it was near the telegraph and a lot of news got out. And of course, for those of you who are interested in Zionist history, never forget the Bialik poem, “The City of Slaughter.”
Q: Any thoughts on the books “Memoirs of an Anti-Semite” by Gregor von Rezzori?
A: God, I haven’t read it for a long time. I’ll look at it again. Magda Lupescu. Lupesco or Lupescu?
This is from Lynn, “My paternal,” on Rodney, “My paternal grandfather, John Henry Mueller was born in Bucharest, we think. He moved to Lourenco Marques in Portuguese East Africa in the early 1900s. He married by grandmother, who’d family had come to England to South Africa, and then family moved to Lourenco in 1910. He was a money lender and opened the first bank. He died of a burst appendix at the age of 43, leaving my grandmother with four young children. His grave is in the Jewish cemetery in Lourenco Marquez, has four corner pillars, joined with a chain, portraying quite a prominent person. We are starting to think that his name might have been adopted.
Q: Do you have any suggestions how we could find out? The family ultimately ended up in South Africa.”
A: May I suggest… There are genealogists on our chat. May I suggest… I know that Arlene Beer is. We’ve had a lecture Jewish genealogy. May I suggest you get in touch with the Jewish Genealogical Society? Because they are so adept and in fact, Saul Israel is South African. He’s very involved with it. And I would really suggest you get in touch with them. They’d be able to help you.
Q: Who executed Codreanu?
A: The police, probably on the orders of the king.
Lillian, “My sister was in Balti, part of Moldova. She filmed and happened to be at the 40th anniversary of the city. The book published for the occasion barely mentioned the Jewish community. Just a tiny picture. Very rustified area. No identity.”
Judith, “My parents were in Bucharest during the Legionnaires push and escaped because the troops had the wrong address of my father. All family was then, so my family would’ve been killed.” Yeah, ugh. The Legionnaires were absolutely appalling. Thank you for the… Murid, if you apply to Judy, she can have a copy of it sent to you. Julius Barasch, he died young, but he had a medical condition. Yes, an Israeli friend told me that Israel actually paid Romania to retrieve Jewish Romanian orphans. Yes, the Romanians made an awful lot of money out of selling Jews. Freud was of Lithuanian Romanian background, Tatiana, before moving to Bohemia, and then Vienna. Large group of Jewish youth were in Trupeldorf camp in Romania. Many left for Argentina. Yeah.
Sorry, Judith. Thank you, Judith. They didn’t have dialects, they had different pronunciation. Thank you. You mentioned King Carol was elected. No, I didn’t, he was appointed. Sorry, the parliament took him on, but he… The King Carol I spoke about, it was his ancestor who was taken on.
Q: Trudy, was there something singly unique in the nature of Jewish culture values that would’ve distinguished us as a group if we hadn’t already labelled ourself Jewish?
A: Yeah, if you think about it, Jennifer. I want to park that question ‘cause it’s a big one, but it’s an important question.
Q: Is it possible to visit the Geniza in Cambridge. You think it’s worth organising an okay trip this summer?
A: If somebody wants to do it, why not?
Yes, this is from David. Avshalom Feinberg was on the run from the Turks on his way to Egypt to meet with the British and hid in our store hut in Gedera. I don’t believe it. Oh my goodness. This is priceless, you’re giving me, the information today. Please repeat the author of your first quote on the note of Judeophobia. Leon Pinsker.
Ah, this is Stuart. Great documentary movie, “From Cairo to the Cloud: The World of the Cairo Geniza.” Thank you. Natasha. Both my parents’ cousins were born in Kishinev. My father was in… My father was in my grandmother’s belly during the first pogrom.
Ay ay ay. Somebody else, Lee’s asking about Jack Hughes. Everybody is talking about Jack Hughes. Evidently it’s a brilliant documentary, and I will be talking to my colleagues ‘cause there are lots of interesting Jewish films. When the website is up, we’re going to explore the possibility of having film. I can’t say any more than that 'cause, of course, there’s copyright. There’s all sorts of issues, but it might be a possibility. I mean, we worked it with Rex’s film. We had no copyright problem. And I know there are one or two other films that filmmakers have offered to show. But one of the problems we have is that we do programmes two or three months in advance. So it’s quite complicated.
And this is Millie. “Very interested about Jewish Genealogists Society. My new husband, since September,” mazal tov, “is a renowned genealogist and was the initiator and founder member. If I get the question, he may be able to help. Can that be sent on, do you think? Please have this listener get in touch with me by email.” Thank you very much.
This is from Diane. “My maternal and paternal family is immigrated from Bacau and Bucharest, then in the late 1800s and early 1900s, to New York and San Francisco. My maternal grandfather, Sam Berger, was trained as a wood carver in the court of King Carol II. Sam Berger became a prominent wood carver, colleague of architect Julian Morgan, Herstlecastle, et cetera,” wow, “As well as for the archdiocese. He did at least 13 of their churches, as well as the massive organ screen of Grace Cathedral. Google Sam Berger.” Oh, that’s an incredible story.
This is Erena. “For those living in New York, tomorrow at seven o'clock, the Romanian Cultural Institute, there’s a programme or movie, 'Once Upon a Time in Bucovina,’ with family of survivors and the transports, the Romanian Holocaust.”
This is from Vivian, from David Harris, again. I organised a visit to the Cambridge Geniza for members of our show. So yes, it’s possible to visit. Well worth it. Well, maybe some of you could get together and organise it.
Anyway, I’m coming on again in three quarters of an hour with the wonderful Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. So you need to go and have some coffee. Thank you all very much.