Why It's Difficult To Estimate the Size of Moldova's Jewish Community
Sebastian Schulman, Translation Project Coordinator at the Yiddish Book Center, discusses the unique character of the Jewish Community in Moldova and the issues that are raised in trying to estimate its size.
To learn more about the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, visit:
Rethinking Kishinev: How a Riot Changed 20th Century Jewish History
Monday, January 6, 2014 | 7pm
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
YIVO-Bard Winter Program on Ashkenazi Civilization Keynote Address
Steven Zipperstein, Stanford University; Inaugural YIVO Jacob Kronhill Visiting Scholar in History
Kishinev's 1903 pogrom was the first event in Russian Jewish life to receive international attention. The riot, leaving 49 dead in an obscure border town, dominated the headlines of the western press for weeks, intruded on US-Russian relations, and impacted an astonishing array of institutions: the nascent Jewish army in Palestine, the NAACP, and most likely the first version of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.' Why did it have such impact, and why did it become a prism through which Russian Jewish history has been defined?
This program was part of the YIVO-Bard Winter Program on Ashkenazi Civilization, January 6-23, 2014.
Transmission and Transformation: Working with the Jewish Community in Moldova
Sebastian Schulman, Translation Project Coordinator at the Yiddish Book Center, describes his duties as a fellow with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Moldova and speaks to how his time there transformed his outlook on Yiddish culture and identity.
To learn more about the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project, visit:
History of the Jews in Moldova | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
History of the Jews in Moldova
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
You can upload your own Wikipedia articles through:
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
- Socrates
SUMMARY
=======
The history of the Jews in Moldova reaches back several centuries. Bessarabian Jews have been living in the area for some time. Today, the Jewish community living in Moldova number less than 4,000 according to one estimate while local estimates put the number at 15-20,000 Jews and their family members.
The Kishineff Massacre & Domestic Musical Practice in America
Drawing on the resources of the Heskes Collection of Yiddish American Sheet Music and the Historic Sheet Music Collection, Randall Goldberg explored the Jewish American musical responses to the Kishineff Pogrom of 1903 in Russia. With a detailed look at Herman Shapiro's Kishineff Massacre and other works, Goldberg's talk contextualizes American artistic contributions following this awful event, which served as a catalyst for Jewish activism in the 20th century. Presented in association with the American Musicological Society.
Speaker Biography: Randall Goldberg, Ph.D., is director of the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University.
For transcript and more information, visit
History of the Jews in Romania | Wikipedia audio article
This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
History of the Jews in Romania
Listening is a more natural way of learning, when compared to reading. Written
language only began at around 3200 BC, but spoken language has existed long ago.
Learning by listening is a great way to:
- increases imagination and understanding
- improves your listening skills
- improves your own spoken accent
- learn while on the move
- reduce eye strain
Now learn the vast amount of general knowledge available on Wikipedia through
audio (audio article). You could even learn subconsciously by playing the audio
while you are sleeping! If you are planning to listen a lot, you could try using
a bone conduction headphone, or a standard speaker instead of an earphone.
You can find other Wikipedia audio articles too at:
In case you don't find one that you were looking for, put a comment.
This video uses Google TTS en-US-Standard-D voice.
SUMMARY
=======
The history of the Jews in Romania concerns the Jews both of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is present-day Romanian territory. Minimal until the 18th century, the size of the Jewish population increased after around 1850, and more especially after the establishment of Greater Romania in the aftermath of World War I. A diverse community, albeit an overwhelmingly urban one, Jews were a target of religious persecution and racism in Romanian society – from the late-19th century debate over the Jewish Question and the Jewish residents' right to citizenship, to the genocide carried out in the lands of Romania as part of the Holocaust. The latter, coupled with successive waves of aliyah, has accounted for a dramatic decrease in the overall size of Romania's present-day Jewish community.
Today, the majority of Romanian Jews live in Israel, while modern-day Romania continues to host a modest Jewish population. In the 2011 census, 3,271 declared to be Jewish.
Jewish communities existed in Romanian territory in the 2nd century AD. During the reign of Peter the Lame (1574–1579) the Jews of Moldavia, mainly traders from Poland who were competing with locals, were taxed and ultimately expelled. The authorities decided in 1650 and 1741 required Jews to wear clothing evidencing their status and ethnicity. The first blood accusation in Moldavia (and, as such, in Romania) was made in 1710, when the Jews of Târgu Neamț were charged with having killed a Christian child for ritual purposes. An anti-Jewish riot occurred in Bucharest in the 1760s.
During the Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774 the Jews in the Danubian Principalities had to endure great hardships. Massacres and pillages were perpetrated in almost every town and village in the country. During the Greek War of Independence, which signalled the Wallachian uprising of 1821, Jews were victims of pogroms and persecutions. In the 1860s, there was another riot motivated by blood libel accusations.Antisemitism was officially enforced under the premierships of Ion Brătianu. During his first years in office (1875) Brătianu reinforced and applied old discrimination laws, insisting that Jews were not allowed to settle in the countryside (and relocating those that had done so), while declaring many Jewish urban inhabitants to be vagrants and expelling them from the country. The emigration of Romanian Jews on a larger scale commenced soon after 1878. By 1900 there were 250,000 Romanian Jews: 3.3% of the population, 14.6% of the city dwellers, 32% of the Moldavian urban population and 42% of Iași.Between the establishment of the National Legionary State and 1942, 80 anti-Jewish regulations were passed. Starting at the end of October, 1940, the Iron Guard began a massive antisemitic campaign, torturing and beating Jews and looting their shops (see Dorohoi Pogrom), culminating in the failed coup and a pogrom in Bucharest, in which 125 Jews were killed. Antonescu eventually stopped the violence and chaos created by the Iron Guard by brutally suppressing the rebellion, but continued the policy of oppression and massacre of Jews, and, to a lesser extent, of Roma. After Romania entered the war at the start of Operation Barbarossa atrocities against the Jews became common, starting with the Iași pogrom. According to the Wiesel Commission report released by the Romanian government in 2004, Romania murdered, in various forms, between 280,000 and 380,000 Jews in Romania and in the war zone of Bessarabia, Bukovina and in the Transnistria Governorate.