Les Juifs de Bucarest

Bucharest, the capital of Romania, was home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Balkans, composed of an older Sephardic nucleus and a substantial Ashkenazi population that arrived mainly in the nineteenth century. Very active in commerce, crafts, the press, and cultural life, it had numerous synagogues, schools, and institutions, and was the scene of struggles for emancipation, long denied. During the Second World War, under the Antonescu regime, Jews suffered persecution, spoliation, and a pogrom in Bucharest, even though the interior of the country was not subjected to systematic deportation. Under the communist regime, a large part of the community emigrated to Israel, sometimes through agreements negotiated between the State of Israel and the Romanian government.

Sources & resources

• The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe ↗
• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan