Romania

The holdings regarding Romanian Jewry comprise material from all of the regions which belonged to Greater Romania between the two World Wars, i.e. the areas of the Old Kingdom (Moldavia and Muntenia) and those reincorporated into Romania after World War I: Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia. Original material: Most of the files relate to communities from the Old Kingdom and Transylvania, and a few to communities from Bukovina and Bessarabia. They relate to various aspects of community life, such as religious practice, education, finances, civil registration, social welfare and Jewish organizations, as well as relations with other communities and with the authorities. The earlier documents are in Hebrew or in the old Slavonic language, in later periods Romanian, German, Hungarian and Russian prevail. Files and documents from many communities, among them Alba Iulia, Bucureşti, Iasi, Piatra-Neamţ (18th-20th centuries); material relating to the period of World War II and its aftermath, to the anti-Semitic laws and deportations, as well as to the efforts of Holocaust survivors to rebuild their lives and the life of the Jewish community after 1945 (of particular interest are the files describing the first decade of the communist period, when the Jewish community was confronted with two approaches to survival: Communist-type assimilation or emigration); files from the papers of the head office in Paris of the Jewish Colonization Association (JCA) relating to Moldavia and Muntenia (19th and early 20th centuries) which provide important information about the Jewish schools and community life of communities for some of which little other information has survived. Microfilms and photocopies: Files from the Romanian Jewish Federation in Bucharest relating to individual Jewish communities and to the national organizations of Romanian Jewry (19th-20th centuries); files from the Alliance Israélite Universelle head office in Paris, relating to Alliance schools in Romania and the general situation of the Jews there (1861-1938); material of non-Jewish provenance from state and municipal archives in Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Austria, etc. such as files from the Foreign Ministries of Austria, Germany and Italy concerning the “Jewish problem”, containing information about Jews throughout Romania, about internal community life, as well as about anti-Semitic legislation in the Old Kingdom and later in Greater Romania (19th-20th centuries). Systematic reports about the Romanian legislation on Jews, sent to these European countries beginning with the 1860’s until World War I, explain the ideological and political background of inter-ethnical tensions in Romania. Read more