The Great Synagogue, built in 1670, and believed to be t…

Modern Romania was formed by the union of the principalities of Moldavia and Walachia in the 1860s; prior to that, the region had been under Ottoman control, but somewhat autonomous. The country was enlarged following World War I when, with the collapse of the Habsburg Empire and defeat of Russia, the provinces of Bucovina, Transylvania, Banat, and Bessarabia were awarded to it. Bessarabia, retaken by the Soviet Union in World War II, is now largely coextensive with the Republic of Moldova.

As a result of Ottoman domination, the region had a significant population of Sephardim, in contrast to the rest of Eastern Europe. When Transylvania was under Ottoman rule in the mid-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many Jews settled in Alba Iulia, the only town where Jewish residence was permitted. Sephardic Jews are also credited with introducing glass manufacture in southern Transylvania near Făgăraş by the late seventeenth century. In the early twentieth century, the Sephardic community was concentrated particularly in the capital, Bucharest, as well as in the town of Craiova and the Black Sea port city of Constanţa.

In Moldavia, Jews were concentrated in the capital city, Iaşi (Jassy). Its Great Synagogue (pictured above), built in 1670, is considered to be the oldest extant synagogue building in Romania. Many Jews from neighboring Ukraine settled there after the pogrom known as gzeyres takh vetat; the well-known Jewish chronicler of that event, Natan Note Hannover, lived there in the 1660s. Iaşi is perhaps best known as the location, in 1876, of the first performance of Yiddish theater. The productions were the creation of Avrom Goldfadn, who had moved to Iaşi only that year. Well-known religious leaders include members of the Taubes family as well as Iacob Isac Niemirower, who later became chief rabbi of Romania, and Josef Şafran, whose brother Alexandru played a leading role in efforts to save Romanian Jews during the Holocaust. Although born in Hârlău, the writer and journalist Horia Carp settled in Iaşi; the physician, writer, and Zionist activist Karpel Lippe lived there as well.

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