The Jewish Community of Cluj Napoca

Emil Grunzweig (1947-1983), Israeli educator and peace activist, born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, son of Holocaust survivors. He immigrated to Israel in 1963, having spent his childhood years in Brazil and France, and settled in Haifa, and then in Kibbutz Magal. Grunzweig served in IDF as a paratrooper taking part in the Six-Day War (1967), the War of Attrition (1969-1970, Yom Kippur War (1973), and Lebanon War (1982).

Grunzweig's many educational activities at Maaleh Bessor high school in Kibbutz Magen included projects that dealt with negotiations on issues as the Israeli - Arab conflict, work relations, and relations between religion and the state. He was an active member of the Israeli peace movement Peace Now ("Shalom Akhshav"). Grunzweig was killed by a handgreande thrown at the participants of a demonstration organized by Peace Now in Jerusalem on February 10, 1983. His name became a symbol of the dangers of political violence in the Israeli society.

Reszo Rudolf Israel Kasztner (1906-1957), Zionist, born in Cluj, Romania (then part of Austria-Hungary). He worked for the Zionist daily Uj Kelet and was active in Zionist youth work. After Northern Transylvania was annexed to Hungary, he moved to Budapest in 1942 and became vice-chairman of the Hungarian Zionist Federation. He also joined the Relief and Rescue Committee which helped refugees from Slovakia and Poland. After the Nazis took over Hungary in 1944, Kasztner played a leading role in trying to save Jews and as a result of his negotiations a transport of 1,786 Jews was transferred to neutral Switzerland. After the War he settled in Eretz Israel, editing Hungarian newspapers. An individual accused him of collaborating with the Nazis and the case went to court, involving much publicity and controversy. The court found for the accuser. Kasztner appealed to the Supreme Court which cleared him but before then he had been shot and killed by an assassin influenced by the lower court's verdict.

Alexander Uriah Boscovitch (1907-1964) Composer.

Born in Cluj, he studied in Vienna and Paris and then returned to Cluj where he conducted the Cluj Opera and the Jewish community orchestra. He studied Jewish folk songs of the Carpathian Mountains region and arranged them in an orchestral suite. In 1938 he settled in Tel Aviv where he became a leading spokesman among the advocates of the formation of a new national school. He called his style 'Eastern Mediterranean'. His most important work in this framework was his Semitic Suite (1946). He taught in Tel Aviv and composed large-scale works as well as incidental music for the Habimah theater.

Imre Szabo (1882-1943), author, playwright and journalist, born in Nove Zamky, Slovakia (then Ersekujvar, part of Austria-Hungary). He began his career as a journalist writing for the German-language "Neues Politisches Volksblatt", and later worked for Hungarian and Jewish newspapers. After World War I, Szabo settled in Kolozsvar (then Hungary, now Cluj-Napoca, Romania), and devoted himself to literature.

He wrote plays, novels, and biographies, mainly on Jewish subjects, and was strongly influenced by the major Hungarian writers, notably Kalman Mikszath. Szabo also published translations of plays from Yiddish to Hungarian. His works include the story "A pozsonyi zsido utca" ("The Jews' Street in Pozsony", (Pressburg in German), 1938), a faithful picture of pre-World War I Jewish life; "Zsido komediasok" ("Jewish Comedians", 1925); and "Kelet Kapujaban" ("At the Gate of the East", 1937). "Uj zsidok" ("New Jews", 1937) contained biographies of Theodor Herzl and other modern Jewish leaders. Szabo also published a Hungarian version of Louis Golding's novel "Magnolia Street". Two later works were "Erdely zsidoi" ("The Jews of Transylvania", 1938) and "Roma es Judea" ("Rome and Judea"' 1943). Szabo also published reports of his journeys to Bessarabia, Moldova and the Middle East.

Moric Szilasi (1854-1905), philologist, born in Szilasbalhas, Hungary (then part of the Austrian Empire), he studied at Budapest and Leipzig, Germany. He taught philology at the Otvos College in Budapest, and in 1902 was named professor of Hungarian at the University of Kolozsvar (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania). He was the author of dictionaries of the Vogul and Cheremiss languages, as well as of many works on Finno-Ugric comparative linguistics.

Szilasi was a member of the Hungarian Academy of Science. His essays were published in professional journals, in the Budapesti Szemle, and the publications of the Academy. He also translated from Greek, Latin, English and German into Hungarian. Szilasi died in Kolozsvar (Cluj-Napoca).

Matyas Eisler (1865-1931), rabbi and scholar, born in Paty, county of Pest, Hungary (then in the Austrian Empire). Eisler studied at the rabbinical seminaries of Budapest and Berlin, Germany, and studied for a doctor's degree in philosophy at the University of Budapest. In 1890 he became teacher of Hebrew at the Israelitische Lehrbildungsanstalt (Training school for Jewish teachers) and subsequently at the University of Kolozsvar (now Cluj, in Romania). In 1891 he was ordained a rabbi at the rabbinical seminary of Budapest. He served as chief rabbi of Kolozsvar from 1891 until his death. Eisler was lecturer in Oriental sciences at the Academy of Sciences in Budapest.

Eisler's communal leadership won him the presidency of the Rabbinical Association of Transylvania. He was also a prime figure in the national committee, which in the years following World War I, extended aid to students who were obliged to enroll at universities outside Hungary because of anti-Semitism in the academic world.

His was particularly interested in the history of the Jews of Transylvania and Hebrew linguistics. In 1889 he published "A gyokbeli hangok interdialektikus valtozasai az aram nyelvekben" ("Interdialectical Changes of Root Sounds in the Aramaic Languages") and among his other works were "Az erdelyi zsidok multjabol" ("From the Past of the Jews of Transylvania", 1901). In 1914 he published a facsimile volume, "A tenger a biblia kolteszeteben", dealing with the sea as a subject in Biblical poetry. He wrote many essays and articles for the Pester Lloyd (Budapest), Allgemeine Zeitung des Judentums (Berlin), Egyenloseg, Uj Kelet and Magyar Zsido Lexikon (Budapest), and Erdelyi Muzeum (Kolozsvar).

Somlo Bodog (1873-1920), jurist and sociologist, born in Pozsony, Hungary (aka Pressburg, then part of Austria-Hungary, now Bratislava, Slovakia). He studied in the Universities of Kolozsvar, Hungary, (now Cluj Napoca, Romania), Leipzig and Heidelberg, Germany. He was lecturer in the University of Kolozsvar to which, after teaching in the Academy of Law at Nagyvarad, Hungary (now Oradea, Romania), he returned in 1905 as professor of the philosophy of law. From 1918 to 1919 he was professor in the University of Budapest. Bodog converted to Christianity.

He belonged to the circle of the eminent scholar Gyula Pikler. Starting from the analysis of law, which is a creation of society, both men delved into investigations concerning society itself. Pikler took the additional step toward physiological psychology in an effort to provide an even more positive basis for his thought. Somlo stopped at research on society and followed, or rather was in advance of the contemporary trend, by ascribing to the collectivity a predominant importance over the individual. He collaborated with Pikler on "Der Ursprung des Totemismus" (1900). He wrote books in Hungarian on the laws governing sociology, thus contributing towards making that field of research a science, and on state control and individualism (1903). He also published in German "Der Gueterverkehr in der Urgesellschaft" (1909) and "Zur Gruendung einer beschreibenden Sociologie" (1909). His posthumously published work (1921) dealt significantly with Niccolo Machiavelli, whose state philosophy was to dominate in the subsequent decades. During the First World War he wrote articles which sought to disprove the sociological arguments of the anti-Semitic author Peter Agoston.

Somlo served as vice-president of the Association of Social Studies in Budapest.

In 1920, he committed suicide in Cluj.

KOLOZSVARI, KOLOSZVARY

Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birth place, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

Koloszvar is the Hungarian name of the capital city of Transylvania (today in Romania), where Jews lived since the 16th century. The Romanian name of the city is Cluj and the German is Klausenburg.

Distinguished bearers of the Jewish family name Kolozsvary include the Hungarian draughtsman, Sandor Koloszvary (born 1896). The 20th century Hungarian graphic artist Sandor Kolozsvari was well-known for his posters.

Major Aron Lisiansky, Commander of the Engineering Unit, with his Commanders and the soldiers of the Russian Army.
Cluj, Romania 28.7.1945
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot,
courtesy of Irit Kogan, Israel)

Lisiansky Aron Ya Kovlievich

The Great Synagogue in Cluj, Romania,
inaugurated in 1887
It was partially destroyed by the Allied air raids in 1944, restored in 1970
Photo: Clara Spitzer, Bucharest
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot,
courtesy of Clara Spitzer)