Moldova's Modern Jewish Communities

Note: this article is the extract from the one published in .jewishvirtuallibrary.org on 2012

by Ariel Scheib

As of December 2012, the Jewish population of Moldova had dwindled to less than 4,000, with the majority residing in the capital city of Kishinev. Communities also exist in Beltsy, Tiraspol, Bender, Soroky, Rybnitsa, Orgei and up to 45 other small villages across Moldova. One-quarter to one-half of the community is elderly, and nearly 80 percent of Moldovan Jews report significant economic hardship. Elderly Jews receive pensions of only ten dollars per month, while Jewish teachers make fifty dollars a month.

The Jewish population of Moldova has decreased substantially since independence due to the high percentage of elderly Jews and high levels of immigration, predominately to Israel. Thousands of Transnistria’s estimated 12,000 Jews left after the outbreak of hostilities in 1991, most making aliyah; thousands more left Moldova proper at that time. Communal institutions continue to be centered in Chisinau.

The Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Moldova (AJOCM) is the primary umbrella for the Jewish community; it runs programs such as the Moldova-Israel Friendship Association, the Moldova-Israel Foreign Trade Association, the Jewish Museum, and the monthly Nash Golos (“Our Voice”) Jewish newspaper.

The Union of Jewish Organizations of Chisinau (SEVROK), an umbrella group in Chisinau, was created from the Moldovan Cultural Center. The Religious Jewish Community of Moldova also operates in the capital. Chisinau’s Jewish Community Center, an outgrowth of SEVROK, is housed in the Manger Children’s Jewish Library. The Center and the Library are both supported by The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). There are five other JCCs in Moldova – in Beltsy, Bendery, Rybnitza, and Soroki, and a combined JCC/Hesed in Tiraspol. A Hillel chapter is based in Chisinau.

The Organization of Ghetto Survivors, 250 members strong, is headed by Shaps Roif, a Moldovan Holocaust survivor. The organization works to obtain pensions and compensation for Moldovan survivors equal to those received by Holocaust survivors in other countries.

The following organizations have also been established in Moldova since 1992:

• Kishinev Jewish Library
• Organization of Jewish Veterans of World War II
• Organization of Former Refugees
• Women’s organization HAVA
• Society of Jewish Culture
• Association of Former Prisoners of Concentration Camps and Ghettos
• Federation of Jewish Religious Communities
• Educational University of Jewish Culture
• TV program Af der Yiddisher gas (“On the Jewish Street”)
• Radio program Yiddish lebn (“Jewish Life”)

Currently, reports say that only one rabbi serves in Moldova: Chabad emissary Rabbi Zalman Abelsky, who is both Chief Rabbi of Moldova and President of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Moldova. He has been in Chisinau since the early 1990s. Rabbi Moshe Budilovsky, who passed away in 2001, had been a second practicing rabbi, associated with Agudat Israel since his arrival in 1997.

Chabad Lubavitch maintains synagogues in Chisinau and Tiraspol and is active throughout Moldova. The movement runs one of the two Jewish day schools in Moldova – the 250-student Jewish School #15, a rabbinical school operated through the synagogue, and two pre-schools. In addition, Chabad runs several welfare and supplementary education programs and publishes a monthly newspaper, Istoky (“Roots”).

Agudath Israel operates the yeshiva high school, Torat Emet, where up to 200 boys and girls are separated into two programs. The Yeshiva is located in the same building as the once famous synagogue and yeshiva of the pre-World War II era that was headed by Rabbi Leib Yehuda Tsirelson. Rabbi Tsirelson was killed on the first day of Germany’s invasion by a bomb. The Torat Emet stands across from a large sports stadium in which Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

Jewish School #22, established in 1991, educates up to 300 students. This school was established by the Israeli government’s Lishkat Hakesher (Nativ) as part of its Maavar (Tsofia) program. World ORT established technology and media centers within the school in 2001. These Jewish schools are all funded in part by the Moldovan government and the Israeli Cultural Center. At least eight Jewish Sunday schools operate throughout Moldova – three in the capital, and one each in Bender, Soroky, Beltsy, Rybnitsa and Tiraspol.

The Israeli Embassy’s Israeli Cultural Center operates in Chisinau, and the Israeli Government and Moldovan Education Ministry jointly run a school to prepare children for aliyah. Jewish Agency For Israel also has a presence and runs Nesharim summer camps and winter seminars on Jewish history and tradition. Israel’s Open University, sponsored by JDC, is based in the capital, while Chisinau State University and the Academy of Sciences each have a Judaica department. More generally, Jewish programs are included in Moldovan university curricula, though a critical shortage of teachers and funding threatens these programs.

International organizations have provided significant aid to Moldovan Jewry. In addition to funding renovation of the Community Center, Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) has distributed medicine, clothing and educational materials to the community, and funds the Hesed Chana welfare center in Tiraspol and Hesed Yehuda in memory of Rabbi Leib Yehuda Tsirelson in Chisinau. The JDC helps nearly 2,500 elderly Jews in Chisinau alone. JDC works closely with The United Jewish Federation (UJF) of Pittsburgh and local leaders through the Spectrum Seminar, a strategic planning program for local and national community development. UJF Pittsburgh has worked with JDC on a number of welfare programs. In 2003, JDC launched a major program to feed low-income children under age 16. Work has begun on a JDC-sponsored Jewish Campus in Chisinau. This new community center will also house the JCC, a synagogue, Hesed, and a new Holocaust museum. JDC runs the Ofek Jewish book festival through Moldova’s JCCs.

Anti-Semitism

Moldova has a history of virulent anti-Semitism, including widespread local collaboration in the Holocaust. Although, the Jewish community of Moldova is beginning to flourish, many Moldovan Jews still experience anti-Semitism in their country; everything from vandalism to Holocaust denial. While today no policy of anti-Semitism exists at the state level, incidents do occur on a community level. In 1999, a Holocaust memorial in the capital was desecrated, and other incidents of street beatings and bigotry against Jews have occurred. During Passover in 2002, two teenagers destroyed almost 50 tombstones in a Jewish cemetery in Chisinau. The police arrested these teens but claimed that their crime was not anti-Semitic. The police later arrested several skinheads suspected of bombing a Tiraspol synagogue in April and June of 2002.

Local groups such as the Youth Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly have made efforts to protest such anti-Semitic incidents. In June 2003, a municipal radio station decided to suspend a controversial call-in show in which callers had expressed anti-Semitic views. On May 9, 2005, six gravestones were vandalized in a Jewish cemetery in Chisinau. Over the past few years, the synagogue in Tiraspol as well as dozens of gravestones in the Jewish cemetery in Tiraspol have been vandalized and attacked by anti-Semitic Russian nationalists.

Government relations with the Jewish community are reported to be normal. After construction in a Chisinau suburb revealed a mass grave from the Holocaust, the community alerted the government, which halted the construction and erected a memorial. A larger Holocaust memorial is prominently located near the national government offices in Chisinau. In April 2003, President Voronin unveiled a monument commemorating the Chisinau pogrom on its 100th anniversary. Voronin has condemned anti-Semitism in speeches to Jewish audiences.

Prospects for the restitution of communal property remain uncertain. Moldova has no general statute on restitution, and the Jewish community has achieved restitution of only two of the many communal properties seized during the Soviet period. In conjunction with the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, the Moldovan and U.S. governments have signed a Declaration of Cooperation to establish frameworks for the protection and preservation of cultural sites. In February 2002, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council signed an agreement with the Moldovan government, giving the Council free access to World War II-era government intelligence archives.

Tourist Sites & Contacts

The Jewish Cultural Center
4 Diorditsa Street
Phone: 011-373-22-224-814

Gleizer Sheel (The Glaziers Synagogue)
8 Chabad Lubavitch Street
Phone: 373-22-541-052
Fax: 373-22-226-131

The Ghetto Memorial
Jerusalem 3000 Street
Memorials take place every year here onYom Hashoah.

Yeshiva of Kishinev
Shutafa 5 277001
Kishinev
Phone: 264-238, 264-331

Kishinev Synagogue
Yakimovsky per. 8 277000
Phone: 221-215