Romanian Jews Without A Home

I'm in the process of reading an excellent book, A Secret Gift, by Ted Gup, for my Monday book club. The book is about Sam Stone, a very successful owner of men's clothing stores in Canton, Ohio during the depression. He wanted to share his success with those less fortunate, and gave money anonymously to many poor citizens of Canton during 1933. His roots, however, were in Dorohoi, Romania, a fact that he hid from family and friends alike. The book referenced the plight of the Jews from Romania, which I knew nothing about, but was so interested that I researched this little known pocket of anti-Semitism. I always think of Hitler's Germany when I think of anti-Semitism, but the Romanians were way ahead of Hitler. As early as 1880, the Romanian

government began passing laws that marked them as "foreigners" and "aliens," and ostracized them from the community. In the late 1880's Hungary began tightening an economic noose around its Jews. Laws were passed that barred Jews from working as peddlers or shop owners, and made it illegal for them to sell flour, sugar or other staples. In 1898, new laws were passed that placed a quota on the number of "aliens"-Jews- allowed to attend schools. In addition, Jews could not vote or obtain licenses. Agriculatural and economic reversals turned their Gentile neighbors against them. Jews became targets and scapegoats of the state. In 1900 things continued to deteriorate. Jews could not own land, they were barred from living in rural areas, and were subject to a quota that required that two Romanians be hired for every "unprotected alien," (a thinly veiled reference to Jews). Jews faced homelessness, hunger and depression. They were entitled to none of the civil rights accorded those considered true Romanians. Because of this treatment by the Romanian government, Romanian Jews were facing extinction. The U.S. Secretary of State John Hay described the plight of these Jews this way: "by the cumulative effect of successive restrictions, the Jews of Romania have become reduced to a state of wretched misery. Shut out from nearly every avenue of self-support which is open to the poor of other lands, and ground down by poverty as the natural result of their discriminatory treatment, they are rendered incapable of lifting themselves from the enforced degradation they endure." The Jews that fled Romania became known as fusgeyers, or "foot-walkers." They wandered around Europe aimlessly looking for a country that would accept them. Many of them finally ended up in America, thanks in great part to the work of John Hay, but they were often looked down upon, even by other Jews. Jews have been persecuted for thousands of years, but this was something I had not heard of before. Exact statistics are difficult to come by, but around 400,000 Jews left Romania during the years 1880-1903. At one time Jews were 5% of the Romanian population. Today, about 6,000 Jews remain in Romania, mostly in urban areas. Another sad chapter in the history of the Jewish people.