History of the Jews in Moldova

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The history of the Jews in Moldova reaches back several centuries. Bessarabian Jews have been living in the area for quite some time. Today the Jewish community living in Moldova numbers 15,000, while at least 75,492 Moldovan Jews have immigrated to Israel since 1989.

Bessarabian Jews[edit]

Early history[edit]

Torah scrolls presented by Jewish community of Chișinău to Nicholas II in 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[1]
  • 1903: Chișinău (Kishinev) in Russian Bessarabia 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 Chișinău alone.
  • 16 February 1903: Kishinev pogrom.
  • 1920: The Jewish population had grown to approx. 267,000.
  • 1930: Romanian census registers 270,000 Jews[2]

Kishinev pogrom[edit]

Main article: Kishinev pogrom

In 1903, a young Christian Russian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubăsari (Dubossary), 37 km northeast of Chișinău. A Russian language antisemitic 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.[3]

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

The Holocaust[edit]

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

The majority (up to two-thirds) 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 the Transnistria Governorate, a region which was under Romanian military control during 1941–44.

  • 1941: The Einsatzkommandos, German mobile killing units drawn from the Nazi-Schutzstaffel (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:

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[5] 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).

The Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic[edit]

After World War II, the number of Jews in Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic increased significantly, peaking at 98,001 in 1970.[6] 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.[7]

Independent Moldova[edit]

The Jewish community in Moldova is associated with Jewish Educational Center - Hafetz Haim.

The Jewish Educational Center has built a Ashkenazi and a Sephardic synagogue with a Beit Midrash and is currently running most of the Jewish activists in Moldova.

There is also a Chabad synagogue in Chisinau which is associated with extreme messianist groups.

There is a Holocaust memorial in Chișinău and a memorial to the victims of the pogrom in the early 20th century.

As a result of increasing antisemitism, The Jewish community has refrained from publishing the addresses of the Jewish community center, Synagogues and educational centers.

As of 2014, there are an estimated 15,000 Jews in Moldova, and over 10,000 in Chișinău. At the same time, there are some 75,492 Moldovan Jews living in Israel.

However, antisemitism is still commonplace; several churches and political organisations still refer to anti-semitic rhetoric. In addition, far right and neo-Nazi groups are active in the country. Because religion was heavily restricted in Soviet times it is likely that there are many more people of Jewish heritage in Moldova than practice the religion, but many simply may not know about it.

See also[edit]


  1. ^ Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г. Распределение населения по родному языку, губерниям и областям. Бессарабская губерния. (Russian)
  2. ^ Populaţia pe Neamuri (in Romanian). Institutul Central de Statistică. pp. XXIV. Retrieved 2008-07-20. 
  3. ^ Judge, Edward H. (1995). Easter in Kishinev: Anatomy of a Pogrom. NYU Press. pp. 42–47. ISBN 0814742238. 
  4. ^ Quote from "The Stenograms of the Ministers' Council, Ion Antonescu's Government", vol. IV, July–September 1941 period, Bucharest, year 2000, page 57 (Stenogramele şedinţelor Consiliului de Miniştri, Guvernarea Ion Antonescu, vol. IV, perioada iulie-septembrie 1941, Bucureşti, anul 2000, pagina 57.
  5. ^ Maresal Ion Antonescu. (Romanian)
  6. ^ Всесоюзная перепись населения 1970 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР (Russian)
  7. ^ Всесоюзная перепись населения 1989 года. Национальный состав населения по республикам СССР. (Russian)

External links[edit]