13 - Population

The characterizing factor of the demography of Rumanian Jewry during this period was the constant decrease in the community's size. The only source on the size of the Rumanian Jewish community at the end of World War II is a registration (the results of which were published in 1947) that was carried out on the initiative of the World Jewish Congress. According to the registration, there were 428,312 Jews in Rumania at the time. This number was the balance after the losses caused by the Holocaust, the annexation of Bessarabia and North Bukovina by the U.S.S.R., and the migration to Palestine during the war. The professional composition of the community at that time (1945) was as follows: 49,000 artisans, 35,000 employees, 34,000 merchants and industrialists, and 9,500 in the free professions. Ten years later the Jewish population had been reduced to about a third. According to the census taken on Feb. 21, 1956, there were 144,236 Jews in Rumania, of whom 34,263 spoke Yiddish. But these figures are probably lower than the true numbers, as it is known that in the above-mentioned census members of minority groups were not allowed to identify freely with their national group and the government encouraged them to declare their membership in the Rumanian nation. The drastic reduction in the size of the Rumanian Jewish community was largely a result of mass emigration, especially during the years 1944–47. The means of emigration were dictated by the conditions of the war and its aftermath. At the end of the war thousands of Jews, terrified by the Holocaust, fled Rumania through its western border, which was still open, and reached the West by their own means. In addition to this spontaneous migration, 14 refugee boats left Rumanian ports carrying 24,000 "illegal" immigrants to Palestine. A portion of Rumanian Jewry, including thousands who left Rumania of their own volition immediately after the war, was also among those who boarded refugee boats to Palestine in other European ports. From the establishment of the State of Israel (1948) until the end of the 1960s, over 200,000 Rumanian Jews settled in the new state. In addition, it should be noted that not all the Jews who emigrated from Rumania went to Israel; about 80,000 others were scattered throughout other countries. At the end of the 1960s the Rumanian Jewish community numbered no more than 100,000.

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