The history of the Jews in Bessarabia, a historical region in Eastern Europe, dates back hundreds of years.
Early history
Jews are mentioned from very early on in the Principality of Moldavia, but they did not represent a significant number. Their main activity in the Principality of Moldavia was commerce, but they could not compete with Greek and Armenian merchants, who possessed extensive trade networks and experience in Levantine commerce.
On several occasions, when Jewish merchants established monopolies in parts of northern Moldavia, Moldavian rulers expelled some of them to Galicia and Podolia. One such example occurred during the reign of Petru Șchiopul (1583–1591), when commercial privileges were granted to the English merchants led by William Harborne.Ion Nistor, Istoria Basarabiei, Cernăuți, 1923, reprinted Chișinău, Cartea Moldovenească, 1991, pp. 201-02
In the 18th century, more Jews started to settle in Moldova. Some of them leased the Dniester crossings, replacing local Moldavian and Greek administrators, until the pârcălab (governor) of Soroca demanded their expulsion.
Others traded in distilled spirits (horilka), initially imported from the territories of present-day Ukraine, and later built local velnițe (pre-industrial distilleries) on boyar estates. The Jewish population increased significantly during the Russo-Turkish War (1806–1812), as wartime conditions facilitated movement across the Podolia–Moldavia border.
When the war ended in 1812, Bessarabia (the eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia between the Prut and Dniester rivers) was annexed by the Russian Empire. A cemetery was established in the early 19th century.
Governorate of Bessarabia (1812–1917)
Status The 1818 Statutory Law (Așezământul) of the Governorate of Bessarabia mentions Jews as a separate state (social class), which was further divided into merchants, tradesmen, and land-workers. Unlike the other states, Jews were not allowed to own agricultural land, with the exception of "empty lots only from the property of the state, for cultivation and for building factories". Jews were allowed to keep and control the sale of spirits on government and private manors, to hold "mills, velnițas, breweries, and similar holdings", but were explicitly disallowed to "rule over Christians". During the 1817 census, there were 3,826 Jewish families in Bessarabia (estimated at 19,000 people, or 4.2% of the total population).
Rural colonies Over the next generations, the Jewish population of Bessarabia grew significantly. Unlike most of the rest of the Russian Empire, in Bessarabia, Jews were allowed to settle in fairs and cities. Tsar Nicholas I issued an ukaz (decree) that allowed Jews to settle in Bessarabia "in a higher number", giving settled Jews two years free of taxation. At the same time, Jews from Podolia and Kherson Governorates were given five years free of taxation if they crossed the Dniester and settle in Bessarabia.Ion Nistor, pp. 208–10
As a result, the merchant activity was not enough to sustain all Jews, which led the Tsarist authorities to create 17 Jewish agricultural colonies:
In Soroca County Dumbrăveni (now part of Vădeni commune) Brăciova (Bricevo, now Briceva, part of Târnova commune in Dondușeni district) Mărculești (Starăuca/Starovka, for some period) Vârtojani (Vertiujeni, Șteap for some period) Lublin (later Nemirovka, now Nimereuca) Căprești Zgurița Maramonovca
In Orhei County Șibca (now Șipca) Nicolaevca-Blagodați (now Neculăieuca) Teleneștii Noi
In Chișinău County Grătiești and Hulboaca under joint administration (both now part of Grătești commune within Rîșcani sector of Chișinău)
In Bălți County Alexăndreni (now part of Alexăndreni Commune in Sîngerei District) Valea lui Vlad (now part of Dumbrăvița Commune in Sîngerei District)
In Hotin County Lomacința (now in Dniester Raion, Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine)
In Tighina County Romanăuți (Romanovca) (now within city limits of Basarabeasca) 10,589 Jews were settled in these villages, forming 1,082 households. This plan was borrowed from the ideas of Emperor Joseph II of Austria in regard to Bukovina Jews, but it became impractical as there Jews preferred to leave Bukovina than to settle in villages. The impression that Jews would not stay in the rural areas was proved wrong by the Russian Tzar, as his colonization at first seemed a success. However, after several years, Jews in these rural colonies preferred merchant activities with cattle, leather, wool, tobacco, while their agricultural land was mostly rented out to Christian peasants. After more years, many of these Jews moved to fairs and sold their land to Moldavians. During the 1856 census, there were 78,751 Jews in Bessarabia (about 8% of the total population of 990,000).
Late 19th and early 20th centuries
1889: There were 180,918 Jews of a total population of 1,628,867 in Bessarabia, or 11.11% 1897: The Jewish population had grown to 225,637 of a total of 1,936,392, or 11.65% 1903: Chișinău (then known as Kishinev), in Russian Bessarabia had a Jewish population of 50,000, or 46%, out of a total of approximately 110,000. Jewish life flourished with 16 Jewish schools and over 2,000 pupils in Chișinău alone.
Kishinev pogrom
There were two massacres in Kishinev (modern Chișinău) in 1903 and 1905 known as the Kishinev pogroms.
In 1903, a Christian Ukrainian boy, Mikhail Ribalenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubăsari, about northeast of Chișinău; the town is on the left bank of the river Dniester and was not a part of Bessarabia. Although it was clear that the boy had been killed by a relative (who was later found), the government called it a ritual murder plot by the Jews. The mobs were incited by Pavel Krushevan, the editor of the Russian language anti-Semitic newspaper Bessarabian and the vice-governor Ustrugov. The newspaper regularly accused the Jewish community of numerous crimes, and on multiple occasions published headlines such as "Death to the Jews!" and "Crusade Against the Hated Race!" They used the age-old calumny against the Jews (that the boy had been killed to use his blood in preparation of matzo).
Viacheslav Plehve, the Minister of Interior, supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters. However, 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. Despite a world outcry, only two men were sentenced to seven and five years and 22 were sentenced for one or two years. This pogrom is considered the first state-inspired action against Jews in the 20th century and was instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave to the West and to Palestine. Many of the younger Jews, including Mendel Portugali, made an effort to defend the community.
1917–1940 Moldavian Democratic Republic
In the Sfatul Țării, Bessarabian Jews were represented by: Isac Gherman, 60 years old, lawyer from Chișinău Eugen Kenigschatz, 58, lawyer, Chișinău Samuel Lichtmann, 60, civil servant Moise Slutski, 62, physician, Chișinău Gutman Landau, 40, civil servant Mendel Steinberg
The former four abstained from vote for the Union of Bessarabia with Romania on , while the latter two were absent.
Greater Romania
1920: The Jewish population had grown to approx. 267,000. 1930: Romanian census registers 270,000 Jews
The Holocaust
Many people was deported to Siberia from the region following the Soviet takeover, including a disproportionate number of Jews.See Dov Levin, The Lesser of Two Evils: Eastern European Jewry Under Soviet Rule, 1939-1941 (Philadelphia and Jerusalem, The Jewish Publication Society, 5755/1995), p. 265-266. According to the authoritative 1995 estimate of Dov Levin, the top expert in the history of the Jews in the territories occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939-1940, with which Jean Ancel concurred in 1998, the number of Bukovinian Jews who were deported to Soviet Asia in June 1941 was 5,000, together with 10,000 from Bessarabia; about half of those deported from Bessarabia survived and returned to Bessarabia according to a source mentioned by Jean Ancel (Matathias Carp), the specialist on the Holocaust in Romania and Transnistria, but this has not been confirmed by other sources.See Jean Ancel, Transnistria (Bucuresti: Atlas, 1998), vol. 3 (in Romanian), p. 301 on how half of the Bessarabian Jewish deportees survived and later returned to Bessarabia. (1–2): 61, 63-65. According to Dr. Avigdor Schachan, who wrote a book about the Transnistrian ghettos, and was himself brought up in the Bessarabian part of the present-day Chernivtsi Oblast of Ukraine, about 2,000 northern Bukovinian and 4,000 Bessarabian Jews were deported to the Soviet east.Avigdor Shachan, Burning Ice: The Ghettos of Transnistria, (Boulder, Colorado, Eastern European Monographs, Distributed by Columbia University Press, 1996),:p. 28, 30. The total number of people considered for deportation from Soviet Moldova to Siberia in June 1941 was 31,699, while 8,374 had been designed from the Chernivtsi oblast of Ukraine and 3,767 from the Izmail oblast of Ukraine (southern Bessarabia); the total was 43,840.Nikolai Bougai, The Deportation of Peoples in the Soviet Union (New York: Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 1996), p. 153. According to Nikolai Bougai, only 22,643 individuals had been deported from Soviet Moldova by September 1941.Bougai, p. 153. The number of inhabitants of the Chernivtsi Oblast who were deported to Siberia and Kazakhstan was 7,720 (2,279 families).Ungureanu, Constantin (2021). "Represiunile din regiunea Cernăuți în perioada iunie 1940 – iunie 1941". Revista de Istorie a Moldovei (1–2): 60. According to some sources, most of the deportees of June 1941 from the Chernivtsi oblast, who were of many ethnicities, did not return from the Soviet east.See, for example, Ion Popescu and Constantin Ungureanu, Romanii din Ucraina - intre trecut si viitor, vol. 1 (Romanii din Regiunea Cernauti), Cernauti, 2005, p. 160. However, the fragmentary, locality-by-locality, evidence indicates that most of the deportees from 1941 survived.Ungureanu, Constantin (2021). "Represiunile din regiunea Cernăuți în perioada iunie 1940 – iunie 1941". Revista de Istorie a Moldovei (1–2): 63-65. In his 2011 book on the Holocaust in Romania, Ancel noted that "thousands" of Chernivtsi Jews were deported to Siberia.Jean Ancel, The History of the Holocaust in Romania (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press and Jerusalem, Yad Vashem, 2011), p. 271.
In 1941, the Einsatzkommandos, German mobile killing units drawn from the Nazi 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 advance. On 8 July 1941, Mihai Antonescu, deputy prime minister and Romania's ruler at the time, made a declaration in front of the Ministers' Council:
… With the risk of not being understood by some traditionalists which may be among you, I am in favour of the forced migration of the entire Jew element from Bessarabia and Bukovina, which must be thrown over the border. Also, I am in favor of the forced migration of the Ukrainian element, which does not belong here at this time. I don't care if we appear in history as barbarians. The Roman Empire has made a series of barbaric acts from a contemporary point of view and, still, was the greatest political settlement. There has never been a more suitable moment. If necessary, shoot with the machine gun. (This quote can be found in "The Stenograms of the Ministers' Council, Ion Antonescu's Government", vol. IV, July–September 1941 period, Bucharest, year 2000, page 57) (Stenogramele ședințelor Consiliului de Miniștri, Guvernarea Ion Antonescu, vol. IV, perioada iulie-septembrie 1941, București, anul 2000, pagina 57).