here - Simon Geissbühler

Simon Geissbühler
Rediscovering Yiddishland in Romania:
Bucecea, Mihăileni, Vadul-Rashkov, Carei
Paper presented at the Yiddish(er)Velt Festival 2010, Bucharest, Romania, September 3, 2010
Introduction
Es wet die sun mehr in ihr oifsteig iber klejn a schtetele
in Lite un in Pojln nit trefn schojn a jid.
Jizchak Katzenelson
This sentence from the powerful and profoundly sad Yiddish poem of Jizchak Katzenelson
(1886-1944), who was killed in Auschwitz, contains a strong presentiment:1 Jewish Eastern
Europe would be completely destroyed. The sun would go up over the shtetlech of Lithuania
and Poland, and not a single Jew would survive. Indeed, Yiddishland has ceased to exist more
than 60 years ago. There were approximately 13 million Yiddish speakers in Eastern Europe
before World War II.2 Today, only a tiny minority of the very few Jews left in Eastern Europe
still speaks Yiddish.
The Last Traces
Is there something left of Yiddishland? Not much, unfortunately. Traveling through what was
once Yiddishland, one is overwhelmed by a sense of tragic absence and a profound sadness.
Eastern Europe is somehow “empty” – emptiness meaning the absence of Jews. But there are
traces of Yiddishland, the language (now mainly spoken in New York and in Israel), the
literature and the music. However, there is a thin line between traditional Jewish/Yiddish music
and some newer variations that also have their value, but which have no longer much to do
with the music played and sung in Yiddishland before World War II. Not everything that is declared to be Yiddish today is really Yiddish, some of it is kitsch and virtually Yiddish. 3
Finally, the Jewish cemeteries and the synagogues are often the sole testimonies of what once
was. They are powerful memorials to a civilization that was wiped out in the Holocaust and
fragments of a shattered world. A journey to the last traces of Yiddishland reveals the cultural
and religious importance of the Jewish heritage. In the following, I will document four
examples of former shtetlech in Romanian Yiddishland: Bucecea and Mihăileni in Romanian
Moldavia, Vadul-Rashkov (or: Vadul-Raşcov) in Bessarabia (today’s Republic of Moldova)
and Carei in Northern Transylvania.
1
Katzenelson, Jizchak (1943/44). Dos lied vunem ojsgehargetn jidischn volk (edited by Wolf Biermann and
transcripted by Arno Lustiger). Köln, p. 160.
2
Katz, Dovid (2008). Language: Yiddish, YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe,
www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Language/Yiddish [accessed on August 24, 2010].
3
Gruber, Ruth Ellen (2009). Beyond Virtually Jewish: New Authenticities and Real Imaginary
Spaces in Europe, Jewish Quarterly Review 99(4): 487-504.
2
Yiddishland in Romania: A Definition
Ben-Cion Pinchuk called the unique habitat of millions of Jews between the Baltic Sea and the
Black Sea until the Holocaust Shtetlland.4 Yehuda Bauer defined the shtetl as follows: “[A]
shtetl was a township with 1,000 to 15,000 Jews, who formed at least a third of the total
population, and their life was regulated by the Jewish calendar and by customs derived from a
traditional interpretation of the Jewish religion.”5 As the following map shows, today’s
Moldavia, Bukovina and Republic of Moldova had indeed a high density of Jewish population.
In this region, many shtetlech existed that fulfill Yehuda Bauer’s definition.
Illustration 1: Density of Jewish Population in 1900
Source: Magocsi, Paul Robert (2002). Historical Atlas of Central Europe. Seattle, p. 108.
When we talk about the Jews of Moldavia and Bessarabia and, to a certain degree, also
Bukovina and parts of Northern Transylvania, it is clear that many of them shared such similarities as language – Yiddish –;6 the “traditional type of Jewish settlement (shtetl)”7 with its
specific traditional lifestyles that “culturally, linguistically, and physically set them apart from
surrounding peoples”;8 and close social, family, religious (Hasidism) and economic relations
4
Pinchuk, Ben-Cion (2005). The East European Shtetl and its Place in Jewish History, Revue des Etudes juives
164(1/2): 187-212.
5
Bauer, Yehuda (2009). The Death of the Shtetl. New Haven/London, p. 3.
6
Mendelsohn, Ezra (1987). The Jews of East Central Europe between the World Wars. Bloomington, p. 174, p.
182, passim.
7
Vago, Raphael (1994). Romanian Jewry During the Interwar Period, in Braham, Randolph L. (ed.). The Tragedy
of Romanian Jewry. New York, pp. 29-56, here p. 33.
8
Tartakovsky, Dmitry (2009). Parallel Ruptures: Jews of Bessarabia and Transnistria between Romanian
Nationalism and Soviet Communism, 1918-1940. Urbana, Illinois (PhD dissertation), p. 1.
3
encompassing borders. Indeed, Bessarabian and Moldavian Jews, for example, had intensive
contacts throughout the 19th and early 20th century. It is safe to say that a Hasidic, Yiddishspeaking Jew who owned a small shop in Romanian Dorohoi in 1900 had more in common
with a Hasidic, Yiddish-speaking Jew who worked as a small merchant in Russian Empire
Bălţi than with his Sephardic, Romanian-speaking compatriot in Craiova.
In 1930, the great majority of Jews in Bessarabia and Moldavia, but also in Bukovina (a special
case due to the strong influence of the German language) and Transylvania (where Hungarian
often was an important language in the Jewish communities, too) indicated Yiddish as their
first language.9 It must also be noted that most Jews in these regions “were bilingual or even
trilingual.”10 These parts of pre-war Romania therefore clearly belonged to what can be called
Yiddishland, and there is a close link between Yiddishland in Romania and Shtetlland in
Romania.
Bucecea
Bucecea is a backwater town founded in the 1820s some kilometers from Botoşani. Until the
Holocaust, most of the villagers were Jews. The influence of Hasidism was dominant in
Bucecea in the 19th century.11 In 1900, almost 1,300 Jews lived in Bucecea, representing more
than 70 percent of the population of the village. In 1937, the local community had five
synagogues and prayer houses, a school with two teachers, a kindergarten, and a ritual bath.12
Illustration 2: The Jewish Cemetery of Bucecea
Source: Picture by the author.
The Jewish cemetery of Bucecea rests on a slope right at the entrance to the town. Many headstones are in poor condition. On the gravestones, one finds a wide repertoire of typical
symbols. Bucecea is a classic example of a former shtetl that has lost its Jewish character with
the Holocaust and the emigration of the remaining handful of Jews. The current residents of
Bucecea do not seem to take notice of the cemetery anymore; for them it is simply a relic of the
past, something that is dead in every way.
Mihăileni
Mihăileni is a slightly shabby-looking village on the lower banks of the river Siret. Mihăileni
was founded at the end of the 18th century. The 1831 census “reported 747 Jews and 72
Christians; and that of 1859 showed 2,472 Jews and 1,812 Christians. The Jewish population
9
Mendelsohn 1987: 179, 182.
Vago 1994: 35.
11
Solomovici, Teşu (2007). Istoria evreilor din România. 2000 de ani de existenţă. Volumul I. Bucureşti, p. 102.
12
http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/pinkas_romania/rom1_00039.html [accessed on August 29, 2010].
10
4
reached its maximum in 1886, when there were 2,855 Jews as compared with 1,075
Christians.”13 The number of Jews then steadily declined to around 1,500 in 1930.
Zisu Lebel described Jewish Mihăileni in his touching, but in my view overly nostalgic
memoirs “My Dear Shtetl Mihaileni.”14 In 1930, there were nine places of worship in
Mihăileni, including a large wooden synagogue that was destroyed in a fire in 1934. With regard to the language spoken by Mihăileni’s Jews, Lebel writes: “Of course, among them, the
Jews used to speak Yiddish, but all of them knew Romanian, even if many of them used to
speak it with mistakes and a characteristic accent. Yiddish was prevalent in Mihaileni, and
there were quite a number of non Jews who spoke Yiddish very well.”
In early November of 1941, the Jews were transported from Mihăileni to Transnistria. Today,
there are no Jews living in Mihăileni. The last Jew of Mihăileni apparently passed away in
1998.15 Nothing even remotely Jewish is left in Mihăileni except for the Jewish cemetery.
Illustration 3: The Jewish Cemetery of Mihăileni
Source: Picture by the author.
Vadul-Rashkov
There is only scarce information about Jewish Vadul-Raşcov. Vadul-Rashkov was “a typical
Bessarabian shtetl”16 with a majority Jewish population. According to some accounts, the first
Jews settled in Vadul-Rashkov at the beginning of the 19th century. Before World War II,
Vadul-Rashkov had one church and seven synagogues. In 1930, there were nearly 2,000 Jews
living here. Almost all Jews in Bessarabia spoke Yiddish as their first language.17 VadulRaşcov seems to have been the location of a Hasidic court. The Yiddish writer Ikhil Shraibman
was born here. He was “one of a handful of Yiddish fabulists who survived Stalin”. Aged 93,
he died in 2005 in Chişinau, “obscure and underappreciated.”18 Shraibman created the literary
Vadul-Raşcov, a poor Jewish shtetl, “unlucky in everything”, and a powerful “symbolic landscape.”19
I was unable to find any definite information about Vadul-Rashkov during the Holocaust. But
it is certain that a few Jews survived and settled again in Vadul-Raşcov. However, there are no
Jews left in the village today. The Jewish cemetery is one of the most impressive you can find
13
Schwarzfeld, E. (1901-1906). Mihaileni, in The Jewish Encyclopedia. New York, pp. 585-586.
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Mihaileni/mihaileni.html#TOC [accessed on August 30, 2010].
15
Iancu, Carol (2008). Mihăileni: http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org [accessed on June 5, 2010].
16
Katz, Elena M. (2008). The Literary Development of Yekhiel Shraybman: A Jewish Writer in Soviet Clothing,
East European Jewish Affairs 38(3): 281-301, here p. 281.
17
Mendelsohn 1987; Vago 1994.
18
Kachka, Boris (2006). Stalin Grads, New York Books (January 8, 2006); Berger, Zackary Sholem (2005).
Yiddish Writer Ikhil Shraibman, 93, Forward.com (December 23, 2005).
19
Katz 2005: 282f.
14
5
in Eastern Europe. It is incredible that it is neither on the list of the International Jewish
Cemetery Project nor on the one of Lo Tishkach.20
Illustration 4: The Jewish Cemetery of Vadul-Rashkov
Source: Picture by the author.
Carei
Carei is a town in Northern Transylvania. It has a long and proud Jewish history, too. Jewish
settlement is first recorded at the beginning of the 18th century. Hasidism was strong in Carei.
Two large synagogues were built in 1870 and 1901. The famous founder of the movement of
the Satmar Hasidim, Yoel Teitelbaum (1887-1979), served as rabbi of Carei from 1926 to
1934. The Jewish population numbered 2,394 in 1930 (out of 16,042).21 Carei was, therefore,
not a typical shtetl when we follow Yehuda Bauer’s definition. However, through the strong
Hasidic presence Carei was indeed a center of Romanian/Hungarian Judaism in the late 19th
and early 20th century. Yiddish was widly spoken in Carei’s Jewish community. Jewish and
Yiddish Carei was destroyed in 1944 together with the huge majority of Northern
Transylvanian Jewry.22
Illustration 5: Carei Synagogue
Source: Picture by the author.
20
Lo Tishkach (ed.). European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative: www.lo-tishkach.org/en/; IAJGS (ed.). International
Jewish Cemetery Project: http://www.iajgs.org/cemetery/.
21
http://www.krularebbe.com/hisrtory_of_jewish_carei_krula [accessed on August 30, 2010].
22
Geissbühler, Simon (2010). Spuren, die vergehen. Auf der Suche nach dem jüdischen Sathmar/Satu Mare.
Berlin.
6
Conclusion
Like in other regions of Eastern Europe, the picture of Yiddishland in Moldavia, Bessarabia
and Northern Transylvania is one of death and extinction.23 The preservation of what small
evidence of the Jewish presence in these parts of Romania and the Republic of Moldova is left
must be the highest priority. Not everything is lost yet; there are still wonderful, magical places
of Jewish heritage. These synagogues and Jewish cemeteries form together with the Yiddish
language, the literature and the music the last traces of Yiddishland. We do not need to build
new, costly, architecturally sophisticated memorials. The memorials are already there: the
Jewish cemeteries and the synagogues. They are powerful and real.
23
Webber, Jonathan (2009). Rediscovering Traces of Memory. The Jewish Heritage of Polish Galicia. Oxford, p.
29.