03 - Independent Rumania

Both in the 1821 revolt against the Ottoman-appointed rulers as well as in the 1848 revolt against Russia, the revolutionaries appealed for the participation of the Jews and proclaimed their civic equality. Some Jews took part in the 1848 revolt, which was put down by the Russians. The peace treaty of Paris (1856), which concluded the Crimean War and granted the principalities a certain autonomy under Ottoman suzerainty, proclaimed inter alia that in the two Danubian principalities all the inhabitants, irrespective of religion, should enjoy religious and civil liberties (the right to own property and to trade) and might occupy political posts. Only those who had foreign citizenship were excluded from political rights. The leaders of the Moldavian and Walachian Jews addressed themselves both to the Rumanian authorities and to the great powers, asking for the abolition of the discriminations against them. However, the opposition of Russia and of the Rumanian political leaders hindered this. The two principalities united in 1859; Alexandru Ioan Cuza, who was a member of the 1848 revolutionaries' group and not anti-Semitic, became their sovereign. The number of Jews was then 130,000 (3% of the total population). In 1864 native Jews were granted suffrage in the local councils ("little naturalization"); but Jews who were foreign subjects still could not acquire landed property. Political rights were granted to non-Christians but only parliament could vote on the naturalization of individual Jews—but not a single Jew was naturalized.

In 1866 Alexandru Ioan Cuza was ousted by anti-liberal forces. A new sovereign, Carol of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, was elected and a new constitution adopted. Under the pressure of demonstrations organized by the police (during which the Choir Temple in Bucharest was demolished and the Jewish quarter plundered), the seventh article of the constitution, restricting citizenship to the Christian population, was adopted. Even the visit to Bucharest of Adolphe CrMmieux, president of the Alliance IsraMlite Universelle, who delivered a speech in the Rumanian parliament, had no effect. In the spring of 1867 the minister of interior, Ion Bratianu, started to expel Jews from the villages and banish noncitizens from the country. In the summer of the same year Sir Moses Montefiore arrived in Bucharest and demanded that Prince Carol put a stop to the persecutions. But these continued in spite of the promises given. Hundreds of families, harassed by humiliating regulations (e.g., a prohibition on building sukkot), were forced to leave the villages. Local officials regarded such persecution as an effective method of extorting bribes. Neither the repeated interventions of Great Britain and France nor the condemnatory resolutions in the parliaments of Holland and Germany had any effect. The Rumanian government reiterated that the Jewish problem was an internal one, and the great powers limited themselves to protests.

At the Congress of Berlin (1878), which finalized Rumanian independence, the great powers made the grant of civil rights to the Jews a condition of that independence in spite of opposition by the Rumanian and Russian delegates. The Rumanian representatives threatened the delegates of the Jewish world organizations, as well as the representatives of the Jews of Rumania, by hinting at a worsening of their situation. Indeed, after the Congress of Berlin other anti-Semitic measures were introduced, and there was incitement in the press and public demonstrations organized by the authorities on the Russian model, in order to prove to the great powers that the people were against Jewish emancipation. Their aim was also to create an anti-Semitic atmosphere on the eve of the session of parliament which was to decide on the modification of the article in the 1866 constitution concerning Jewish naturalization. Prince Carol, opening parliament, declared that the Jews had a harmful influence on economic life and especially on the peasants. After stormy debates parliament modified the article of the constitution which made citizenship conditional on Christianity, but stated that the naturalization of Jews would be carried out individually, by vote of both chambers of parliament. During the following 38 years 2,000 Jews in all were naturalized by this oppressive procedure; of those, 883 were voted in en bloc, having taken part in the 1877 war against Turkey.

This caused the great powers to refuse for a time to recognize independent Rumania. However, they finally followed the example of Germany, which took the first step after having received pecuniary compensation from the Rumanian government through the redemption of railway shares belonging to Silesian Junkers and members of the German imperial court—at six times their quoted value. The situation of the Jews continued to grow worse. Up to then they had been considered Rumanian subjects but now they were declared to be foreigners. The Rumanian government persuaded Austria and Germany to withdraw their citizenship from Jews living in Rumania. The Jews were forbidden to be lawyers, teachers, chemists, stockbrokers, or to sell commodities which were a government monopoly (tobacco, salt, alcohol). They were not accepted as railway officials, in state hospitals, or as officers. Jewish pupils were later expelled from the public schools (1893). Meanwhile political intimidation continued. In 1885 some of the Jewish leaders and journalists who had participated in the struggle for emancipation, among them Moses Gaster and Elias Schwarzfeld, were expelled from Rumania. Both major political parties in Rumania—the Liberals and the Conservatives—were anti-Semitic, with only slight differences. In 1910 the first specifically anti-Semitic party, the National Democratic Party, was founded, under the leadership of the university professors A. C. Cuza and Nicolae Iorga.

Source:
[N.Kr.]
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* Historia: Rumania