There was a Jewish community by the mid-16th century. Zionist activity began at the turn of the 20thcentury, a time when most of the local Jews worked in commerce. From 1912 to 1918, the mayor was Jewish and the town council included Jews. During World WarI, Jews fled in advance of the Imperial Russian Army, and found their property destroyed when they returned. After the union of Bukovina with Romania, the new authorities revoked licenses for Jewish members of the free professions and removed Jewish officials from their posts. In 1930, there were 2,121 Jews or 14% of the town's population. In 1936, Baruch Hager of the Vizhnitz dynasty was named rabbi and opened a yeshiva. During the interwar period, there was activity by Zionist youth movements. On June20, 1941, just before Romania's entry into World WarII, the authorities of the Ion Antonescu regime forced the Jews of Siret to march to Dornești before transporting them to Craiova and Calafat and finally Transnistria ("see The Holocaust in Romania"). Soviet troops liberated 460 Siret Jews there in 1944; 400 of them subsequently left for Palestine.