The Jewish Community of Botosani
Botoșani
Yiddish: באטאשאן, Botoshan
A city and the capital of Botosani County in the historical region of Moldavia, Romania.
21ST CENTURY
In 2003 the Jewish population of Botosani was 92.
HISTORY
Until the end of the 19th century Botosani had the second largest and most important Jewish community in Moldova. It is possible that the community was established during the 17th century; what is known is that there was a substantial community in Botosani by the early 18th century.
In 1745 merchants in Botosani, including Jews, were granted the right to own their own homes by the gospodar (prince). In 1799 Prince Alexander Ypsilanti bestowed upon the community a privilege granting it the status of an autonomous corporation (the document eventually made its way to the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem). The community grew, and by 1803 there were 350 families of Jewish taxpayers.
The community continued to grow during the 19th century, a result of Jewish immigration into the area. By the end of the century, in 1899, there were 16,817 Jews living in Botosani (51.8% of the total population). Through the century the community developed trade connections with Leipzig and Brody, and contributed significantly to the economic development of Botosani. In addition to trade, a growing number of Botosani’s Jews engaged in crafts. This aroused the opposition of the local Christian population, which demanded that the authorities prohibit Jews from these trades. Nonetheless, by 1899 more than 75% of the city’s merchants, and approximately 68% of its artisans, were Jewish.
Though the Jews of Botosani generally lived in peace, there were outbreaks of anti-Jewish violence. Anti-Jewish riots broke out in 1870; later, during the Romanian peasant revolt of 1907 antisemitism would once again flare up. There were also internal divisions within the community; when the Jewish communities of Romania were deprived of their official status at the beginning of the 1860s, sharp internal conflicts within the Botosani community led to its disintegration. Many of the community’s activities ceased, and a number of its organizations shut down.
In spite of the community’s struggles, a number of educational and cultural institutions and activities were started in Botosani during the mid-19th century. In 1866 the Hebrew writer and educator Hillel Kahana founded a secular Jewish school in Botosani, among the first in Romania. Despite opposition from Orthodox circles and several temporary closures, it existed until the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), and was supported in part by the Alliance Israelite Universelle school system. Teachers at the school included the Hebrew writers David Isaiah Slberbusch, Hirsch Lazar Teller, and Israel Teller. At the beginning of 1882 Silberbush and Teller published the first two issues of the Hebrew monthly “Ha-Or” in Botosani.
A number of Jews from Botosani served in the Romanian Army during the Second Balkan War (June 16-July 18, 1913) and World War I (1914-1918). The community was reorganized after the First World War. During the interwar period, community institutions included two elementary schools (one for boys and one for girls), and a vocational school for girls.
The Jewish community of Botosani numbered 11,840 in 1930 (36.6% of the total population).
WORLD WAR II (1939-1945)
During the reign of the Iron Guard (September 1940 - January 1941), the 10,900 Jews then-living in Botosani were the victims of economic repression and various other restrictions. Many were kidnapped by the Iron Guard, beaten up, and tortured. Jewish men in Botosani between the ages of 15 and 70 were conscripted for forced labor, even before the country’s forced labor law was enacted in December 1940. Ultimately, 8,000 Jews worked as forced laborers, half of whom were from outside the city.
In addition to the forced labor, Romanian authorities also deported 42 Jews to Transnistria whom they suspected of being communists. Most of them were killed shortly afterward by the SS and Romanian gendarmes. The total number of Botosani Jews deported to Transnistria eventually reached 148, with some accused of anti-government agitation or propagating emigration.
Meanwhile, the Jewish community worked to aid to the needy. After Poland was occupied by the Germans, the community took care of the many refugees who began arriving in the city. After Germany attacked the Soviet Union (June 1941) 11,000 Jews from villages and towns in the area were evacuated to Botosani; they too were helped by the local community. As a result of the influx of refugees, as well as the dismissal of Jewish children from public schools, the number of students attending elementary schools maintained by the community grew from 452 in 1940 to 1,050 in 1943. Two high schools were also established, attended by 350 pupils.
When the Soviet Army approached the city in April 1944, Botosani descended into complete anarchy, with deserters from the German and Romanian Army terrorizing the city’s inhabitants. The Jewish community then took over municipal functions, establishing a civilian guard, and ensuring that the government hospital and home for the aged continued to function. Delegates from the Jewish community handed over control of the city to the Soviet forces on April 7, after they entered the city. Jews were appointed to all public posts, but the Soviet commander warned them not to turn the city into a "Jewish republic.”
POSTWAR
After the war evacuees from the surrounding villages and those who returned from Transnistria settled in the city. Because of these returnees, Botosani's Jewish population rose to 19,550 in 1947.
Beginning in 1956, however, many of Botosani’s Jews immigrated, mostly to Israel. By 1969 there were 500 families and four synagogues remaining; the local shochet (kosher butcher) also served as the community's rabbi. In 1992 there were 200 Jews living n Botosani.
Alexandru Graur
(Personality)Alexandru Graur (1900–1988), linguist, born Alter Brauer in Botoşani, Romania. Graur studied at the Faculty of Letters of the University of Bucharest and then at École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, France, from 1924 to 1929, earning a Ph.D. from the Sorbonne with a study of Indo-european linguistics. He returned to Romania where he started his scientific research in the 1930s.
Graur was the founder and the principal of the "Liceul particular evreiesc" (Jewish Private High School) established in 1941, when Jewish students were forbidden to attend Romanian schools. In 1946 Grauer joined the staff of the University of Bucharest. His academic successes were recognized in 1955, when he was elected permanent member of the Romanian Academy. Grauer was the Dean of the Faculty of Letters at the University of Bucharest from 1954 to 1956, President of the Society of Classical Studies, from 1958 to 1988, and Director of the Editura Academiei ("The Academy Publishing House"), from 1958 to his death.
He published many papers and articles on classical philology and etymology that contributed to the field of linguistics, phonetics and grammar of the Romanic and Romanian languages. He also contributed regularly to Revista Cultului Mosaic, the periodical of the Jewish Communities of Romania .
Marcel Blecher
(Personality)Marcel Blecher (1909-1938), author, born in Botosani, Romania, but lived most of his life in Roman, Romania. He suffered from tuberculosis and was bedridden for the last ten years of his short life. His writing shows an obsession with death. Blecher wrote for various periodicals and his first book of poems appeared in 1934. His first novel was one of the pioneer surrealist works in Romanian literature. Many Jewish themes appear in his writings reflecting a middle-class Jewish family life. He wrote an autobiographical novel in a sanatorium in France where he was encased in a plaster cast. At the suggestion of Andre Gide, he began to translate it into French, but died before this was completed.
His works include Corp transparent (1934); Intamplari in irealitatea imediata (1936); Inimi cicatrizate (1937); Vizuina luminata (1971).
Jacob Psantir
(Personality)Jacob Psantir (1820-1902), historian, born in Botosani, Romania. He was orphaned as a child and apart from a few years in a Talmud Torah, received no formal education. He engaged in many occupations and for a time was even a singer in a gypsy band. During his travels throughout the Balkans, he was able to fill the gaps in his education. Wherever he went, he studied the history of the Jewish communities, investigating archives, examining gravestones and getting first-hand evidence. Psantir wrote two books about the history of Romanian Jewry as well as his memoirs. His researches became of particular importance after the Holocaust when many of the sources he had consulted were destroyed.
The comittee of "Or Ha'jim", Botosani, Romania, 1935
(Photos)sponsored the completion of the Jewish Old Age Home.
Botosani, Romania, 1935.
The Photo was taken on the occasion of the
inauguration of the Old Age Home.
Photo: Studio Julieta, Botosani.
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot,
courtsy of Dvid Bril, Ramat-Aviv)
Velvel Zbarzher
(Personality)Velvel Zbarzher (also Zbarjer) (born Benjamin Wolf Ehrenkranz) (1819-1883), poet, born in Zbarazh, Ukraine (than in Galicia, part of the Austrian Empire). He joined the Haskalah movement at an early age. He wrote songs and set them to melodies he composed. Most of them are satirical, criticizing the superstitions, the blind devotion of the Hassidim and the dishonesty displayed by some of the community leaders. These led to his denunciation and he fled to Romania, settling first in a small town near Botosani and later in Iasi. where he became a singer, performing in restaurants and wine cellars. He later toured a number of towns and cities, improvising songs in Yiddish and switching to Hebrew before Haskalah audiences. A selection of his songs was published in 1865. Many of them, including The Philosopher and The Rabbi on the Sea are still sung. During his later years he travelled to places in Galicia and to Vienna, returned to Romania and then moved to Istanbul. He died in Istanbul, Turkey (then Constantinople, Ottoman Empire).
Nilu Aronovici
(Personality)Nilu Aronovici (b. 1930), agronomist and community leader born in Botosani, Romania. He attended the Jewish high school in Iasi, Romania, and then the high school in Ploiesti, Romania. He graduated from the Faculty of Horticulture - the viticulture and vinification department - of the Agronomic Institute in Bucharest. He attended postgraduate specialization schools in Romania as well as in Hungary, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Israel. Aronovici served as the scientific secretary of the Research Institute for Viticulture and Vinification at Valea Calugareasca – Prahova, Romania. He is a founding member of Oficiul National al Viei si Vinului (O.N.V.V.) (“National Office of Vine and Wine”) in Romania. Aronovici is the author of numerous scientific papers published in periodicals and professional magazines.
After 1996, Aronovici served as President of the Department of Social and Medical Assistance of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania (FCER). He was awarded the “Gheorghe Ionescu-Șișești” Meritul Agricol Diploma in 2009.
Victor Rusu
(Personality)Victor Rusu (born Isac Cotiugaru) (1922–2011), journalist, editor and essayist, born in Botosani, Romania. He attended the commercial high school in Botosani and joined the Betar Zionist youth movement. During the Holocaust was recruited to forced labor during 1940-1944. He started his journalistic career at Clopotul, a local newspaper in Botosani. Later he joined the staff of Scanteia, the daily newspaper of the Romanian Communist Party. In mid-1950s he was dismissed from Scanteia and became chief editor of the publication of the Romanian Society for Friendship with the Soviet Union (ARLUS), later he was sacked from that position. At the request of Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen, Rusu became the editor of Revista cultului mosaic. He immigrated to Israel in 1978.
Rusu published several books of essays, including Alef-Bet (1976), Ițic şi lumea lui (“Ițic and His World”, 2000), Jurnal israelian (“Israeli daily”, 2001), Vedere din Bat-Yam (“A View from Bat-Yam”, 2001), Elefantul și evreii (“The Elephant and the Jews”, 2003), and Ultimii evrei (“The Last Jews”, 2004), ), Zile și nopți în Israel (“Days and Nights in Israel”, 2006), Balada Târgului Evreiesc (“Balade of the Shtetl”, 2008). Many of his books included depictions of Jewish towns from his native Moldavia. Rusu died in Israel.
Nicu Horodniceanu
(Personality)Nicu Horodniceanu (also known as Naftali Ironi) (b.1929), playwright, born in Botosani, Romania. He graduated from the Polytechnic Institute of Bucharest in 1951. Horodniceanu immigrated to Israel in 1972.
His works on theater theory include Hypotheses (1974), Is destiny a meaningless word? (1985), and Independent Dance (1989), written in collaboration with the choreographer Yaron Margolin.
Horodniceanu is a member of the Union of Israeli Writers and the Association of Israeli Writers of the Romanian Language.