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The Legionaries and the Jewish Community of Târgu Neamt Geographical coordinatesThe town of Târgu Neamt lies in the central-eastern part of Romania. It is situated at 365 m altitude, where the 47° 21` north latitude intersects the 26° 21` east longitude.From the geographical viewpoint, the town is located in the Neamt depression (Ozana-Topolita), on the middle course of the river Neamt. From an administrative standpoint, Târgu Neamt is included in the county of Neamt and, according to the 2002 census, it has 21,630 inhabitants, most of them Christian Orthodox. On the city plan, one can distinguish two main traffic axes: north-east to south-west, crossing the city as part of the national road (DN) 15C, and west to east, connecting the mountain area (DN 15B) to the Bistrita Valley, and to the European Road E85, which it meets at Cristesti.
Internal contextThe Jewish community emerged in the city of Târgu Neamt in the second half of the 18th century, when, according to Nicolae Iorga, “the town had started to decline”. It was about at that time that Jews started settling down here: “a few Jews settled, close to each other, on the lands of the Monastery of Neamt, between 1764 and 1766”. They got a long term lease of a land downtown from the Neamt Monastery. In 1772, in Târgu Neamt there were “28 Jews and Serbs”. According to the first census organized in Moldova under Russian occupation, two years later in Neamt there were “12 tax paying Jews – Iancu Negru, Iancu Rosu, Leiba Friptul, Isac, Izrail, Herscu cel Batrân, Aron cel Tânar, Carpu, Leiba sin Herscu, Lupu sin Cerbul, Eni, Isac Dascal”.At the beginning of the 19th century, in 1815, a document issued by the Court of Neamt mentions the existence of the Great Synagogue in Târgu Neamt. The Jewish population increased over time. In 1828, official documents recorded the presence of 72 Jewish foreign subjects. In 1832, of the town’s 2688 inhabitants, 642 were Jews, that is, 24.52%. Of these, 149 were men, 181 women, 135 sons and 177 daughters. In spite of the devastating epidemics that broke out in the early 19th century, in 1835-1836, the city of Târgu Neamt registered a birth surplus of 31 persons. The immigration of a big number of Jews in late 18th and early 19th century brought about many changes in the relations between locals and Jews. To the local craftsmen and tradesmen, the Jews, who were skilled in these occupations, and proved to have quite a special capacity to adapt, were a feared source of competition. Still, despite the locals’ opposition, the Jews joined different craft guilds or set up their own crafts, gradually managing to dominate the main branches of commerce. The great number of petitions filed by the Christian tradesmen and craftsmen in most of the country’s cities testifies to their discontent with the Jewish competition. In 1845, out of the 1411 inhabitants of Târgu Neamt, 427 were Jews. Of the total number of Jews, 241 were tradesmen, 113 were craftsmen, 23 worked in other professions, 1 had no occupation, 2 were old, and 17 were widows. In 1851, the percentage of Jews significantly increased as compared to the Romanian population, reaching 47.77%. In mid 19th century, as far as commerce was concerned, locals worked in 24 branches, while Jews in 41. The Jews dominated the commerce with alcohol and retail trade, and were the only usurers. Some of them were bankers or agents. In 1845, the number of tradesmen largely exceeded that of craftsmen. The situation was the same in 1859, when the tradesmen and the craftsmen amounted to 71-90% of the total population. Besides being craftsmen and tradesmen, an important number of Jews held domestic jobs in the boyars’ houses. In the 19th century, in cities, the rich and even the middle class households needed a big number of servants. Apart from those who were caring for the housekeeping proper, there were many servants caring for outbuilding – barns, stores, sheds, carriages or barouches. In the urban areas of Moldova, the number of Jewish servants included 3,023 men and 2,629 women. The Jewish female servants represented 46.52% of the total amount of housemaids. The female domesticity was a source of social dynamics in the case of the young girls leaving their villages and coming to towns, having thus room and board ensured and hoping to get, over time, other occupations, and becoming, temporarily or permanently, townspeople. In 1872, the Ministry of Domestic Affairs asked for a record to be drawn on the 761 Jewish families, counting 3,654 souls, who had settled in Târgu Neamt. After numerous addresses, having no sufficient conclusive proofs, the officials of the town-hall answered to the ministry that out of “561 householders, only 69 were born in the town, the rest of 492 having arrived after 1830. As for the ones under foreign protection (200 householders), none of them was born in the town”. At the end of the 19th century, that is in 1899, in the town there were 3,593 Jews. A statistics of 1927 shows that Târgu Neamt had a population of 10,124 inhabitants, out of which 2,773 were Jews, 7,170 Romanians and 181 of other nationalities. The Jews had 9 synagogues in town. Three years later, in Târgu Neamt there were 2,507 Jews, and 716 Jewish households. In 1930, the number of Jews was unchanged, 2,507, out of a total population of 9,475 inhabitants. In 1941, statistics showed that the number of Jews had reached 2,538, out of a total population of 10,209 inhabitants. The statistics of 1942 did not reveal important changes, the number of Jews having decreased to 2,505, while in 1947 it increased up to 2,900. According to Moshe Idel, at the end of the 1940s-1950s, the Jewish community represented 50% of the total population. The Jews’ emigration to Israel, in the immediate aftermath of the war, reduced the percentage to 35-40%, in the first decades of communist regime. Today, the number of Jews in Târgu Neamt is small. On the 1st of January 1993, the city counted about 30-40 Jews, out of 22,396 inhabitants.
The Legionaries and the Jewish Community of Târgu NeamtThe Jewish community of Târgu Neamt did not experience the afflictions of the Holocaust directly and on a large scale. The Jews in the city were not subjected to mass killings or deported in great number.On the other hand, there were many anti-Semitic incidents. On the 20th of November 1940, the Jewish chemist Leon Stern, a reserve lieutenant colonel, and president of the Jewish Community, was arrested and tortured by the legionary police until he signed a contract whereby he sold the community buildings to doctor Silviu Craciunas. Stern was beaten, whipped and hit in the head with a hair clipper. The selling papers were authenticated by the tribunal of the district of Târgu Neamt on the 21st of November, by Minutes no. 828 and 829/940, stipulating the values of Lei 16,000 and 20,000 respectively for the buildings, whose real value was Lei 4-500,000. But even the stipulated price was never paid. Moreover, Leon Stern was forced to pay advocate Emil Anton a fee of lei 5,000 for the “deal”, and lei 500 for the “haircut”. Bernard Froim, former bank manager, was also arrested by the legionary police on the 20th of November 1940. He was beaten and tortured until the next day, when he was forced to pay the sum of Lei 300,000. As he did not have this money, Froim had to sell a building, his property, to the same doctor Silviu Craciunas, the papers stipulating a value of Lei 40,000 instead of its real worth, of Lei 250,000. Doctor Herman Morgenstern was beaten and forced to pay to the Mayor the sum of Lei 150,000. Morgenstern was constrained to sign a letter whereby he confirmed that he had willingly donated an important sum of money to the Legionary Aid. Avram Goldenberg, merchant, was arrested, beaten and tortured until he paid Lei 300,000. He actually paid Lei 120,000 and signed a letter confirming that he would pay the remaining Lei 180,000 within 15 days. Witness to these transactions was captain Bostan from the Mountain Corps. Cerbu Solomon, insurance agent, ill in bed, was menaced with a weapon until he surrendered Lei 100,000, the amount deposited on the premises of the “Dacia Româna” insurance Society, whose representative in Târgu Neamt he was. David Herscovici, merchant, was constrained, after having been tortured, to pay Lei 50,000. This was also the fate of Buium Avram and lawyer Comanester, who were forced to pay Lei 20,000 and Lei 50,000 respectively. Moise Leib Bercovici, who was brought to the Legionary Police station, was asked to pay the amount of Lei 50,000, of which Lei 40,000 to the Police chief, Dumitri Adamescu. David Mendelovici was beaten until he lost consciousness. When he came to his senses, he was forced to sign a Lei 100,000 bond. He could only pay Lei 30,000. H. Gottfried shared a similar fate, being forced to sign a Lei 200,000 bond, which he actually paid in full. Iosif Greif was asked to pay Lei 200,000. He only paid Lei 50,000, to legionnaires Dumitru Adamescu and Rachieru. Other Jews who were forced to pay important sums of money to the legionary police were: Iancu A. Iancu – Lei 50,000, Beniamin Sapunaru – Lei 50,000, Solomon Bevinler – Lei 25,000, Surica Gross – Lei 20,000, Cecilia Zelicovici – Lei 10,000 and Sally Ghersin – Lei 5,000. In July 1942, the forestry engineer Gheorghe Cojoc, who lived near the town of Târgu Neamt, struck a deal with the authorities of Piatra Neamt, which gave him 50 Jews to work in the woods around Târgu Neamt. He thus saved them from being deported to Transnistria.
Famous figures of Târgu NeamtThe Jewish school of Târgu Neamt gave the world important cultural personalities. Among them, we can mention doctor Fleischen, Michael Zvi Nehorai and Moshe Idel.Fleischen became a medical doctor in Munich, in 1843. Back home, in 1850, he held the position of first physician of the Târgu Neamt Hospital. Ten years later, Fleischen was appointed surgeon of the city of Iasi. In 1879, he became vice-president of the Committee for Hygiene and Sanitation in Iasi. Due to his special merits in the field of medicine, doctor Fleischen was decorated with the Chevalier of the “Steaua Romaniei” Order. Michael Zvi Nehorai was born in Târgu Neamt in 1933. In 1942 he was deported with his family to Transnistria, where he lost his father and brother. Michael Zvi Nehorai was then adopted by a Jew from Kfar Horne, Israel. There, he graduated the Faculty of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Today, Michael Zvi Nehorai is a doctor in philosophy, rabbi and professor at the Bar Ilan University, as well as the author of several essays and books.
Moshe IdelMoshe Idel was born in 1947 in Târgu Neamt. He spent his childhood and adolescence there. As he himself confesses, his life evolved, from the very beginning, in circles: “When I was little, my circle was as little; after that, it grew bigger and bigger. The immediate circle was my family”. In his early childhood, Idel lived in two neighboring houses, that of the family, of his father and mother, and that of his grandparents and aunts. This was the first important circle in his life, until the age of three and a half, when part of the family left for Israel. It was at that time that he began his religious education, in the local Heder (Jewish schools where young children studied Hebrew and the Torah). Symbolically, the emigration of some dear, familiar characters, meant for Moshe Idel the end of “home” childhood and entrance into another circle, that of study: “And I went out into a larger circle, to study: beyond the street boundary, let’s say, not too large, and yet a different place, with different people, including little children, like me. A numerous and, say, more austere group, even in terms of rhetoric: they did not all pamper me, like before. I was, for the first time, alone. At 3 and a few months I started to study.” The group who studyed Hebrew with him counted 25-30 children. He remembers that “everything was focused on study”, formation without socialization. As for the Romanian language, Moshe Idel learnt it in primary school, which also marked another important circle in his life. From the school where he was studying – the same school where Ion Creanga himself had studied – Moshe Idel admired Eminescu’s poplars and Veronica Micle’s house. Once the Heder Jewish school had been closed, his father hired a teacher for him to continue his study of Hebrew.An important role in Moshe Idel’s childhood was played by books: “I was devouring whole collections, not one or two volumes. As a result, the town became too small, while the world around was growing bigger and bigger. And this feeling was a constant, more and more acute, as it emerged from books, especially from Balzac, more than from all the others, because he gave, as we say today, in Clifford Geertz’ words, a thick description of his world”. Through books, Moshe Idel confesses, he discovered the world and the desire to know more than the native town could give him: “two forces started to act in me, completely different but in a certain balance: on the one hand, the feeling that the town’s world started to diminish, on the other hand, the feeling that there was a huge world out there, continuously growing”. The fragile balance between the two worlds, the real and the imaginary one, offered by his readings, was fractured around the age of 14, when “I suddenly had the strong feeling that I lived in a prison”. That is: “This new feeling had nothing to do with an ideology, with the communists, with some specific fear, with anything. It was like an existential anguish. Yes, I do not think I was older than 14 when it became much clearer to me than before that I was in a place where I did not want to be”. This adolescence revelation was not related to his ethnic origin or to some overt anti-Semitism, but to the consciousness that he did not belong to that space, but to Israel, the place where his relatives had gone to: “I knew that because we were Jews we had to leave, although not necessarily to flee from something. This was like a constant value. But I never took it to heart, everything seemed somehow natural.” He only had the feeling of belonging to a minority in the adolescence, when, participating in different school competitions, he could not be awarded prizes because he was a Jew on the emigration lists: “for instance, in Bacau, at one of those school competitions, a teacher told me directly: «If you had not been on the list, you would have taken the award»”. Moshe Idel explained the injustice to himself by translating it into a game rule: if he stayed to Romania he would get the award, if he left for Israel he would not. Just like his fellows, Idel was enrolled in the “pioneer” organization and the “communist youth” and was often given as a negative example in front of the class because of his repeated absences from the so-called voluntary work: “Communist representatives would come and take me in front of the class: «You were not there and there, etc». It was both dangerous and embarrassing. And all these because I wanted to read freely”. The passion for reading made Moshe Idel read all the books in the town, cooperative, and then High school Library. The impressive number of volumes he read was completed by the books he bought with the money earned by singing at weddings. Moshe Idel tells that he thus came to read the Dead Sea Scrolls, which aroused his special interest for Judaism. But he refused to go and study the Talmud in the synagogues, together with the orthodox Jews. His explanation was simple, as he preferred to study freely, unconditionally: “The condition to be received in the study group was to wear the yarmulke all the time, not only at the synagogue. So, although I wanted to learn, I was not welcome, because I did not accept their conditions. I wanted to study freely, unconditionally”. Later on, in Israel, Moshe Idel found out that in Târgu Neamt, at that time, had actually reached a high level in the study of Judaism: “I can hardly imagine that scholarly effervescence. And, as I said, I had never heard of such things, and it was a small town, how could such things be kept secret!” Talking about the Holocaust, Moshe Idel states that it did not directly affect the Jewish population of Târgu Neamt: “The Holocaust did not destroy much in Târgu Neamt”. The Jewish community here was affected by the so-called “population displacements” due to the anti-Semitic persecutions and the Jewish emigration of the 1950s: “If the Jewish population in town slowly disappeared, it was firstly because of the “displacement” and secondly because of the secularization and installation of communism. This was a process, and it did not have only one reason”. The emigration process, however, was rapid and radical, “in 15 years, the traditional Jewish world of Târgu Neamt perished almost completely”. As far as he was concerned, in 1963, at the age of 16, Moshe Idel immigrated to Israel. Today, he is professor of Judaic Thought, and head of the Department of Judaic Thought, at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute. Moshe Idel is doctor of Philosophy, specialized in the Kabbalah, Doctor Honoris Causa of the University of Haifa, Cluj and Bucharest. He worked as a visiting professor and research fellow at universities and institutions all over the world, including Yale, Harvard and Princeton in the USA and Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. Among his contributions published in specialized magazines we could mention Kabbalah: New Perspectives, Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic and Messianic Mystics. In 1999, Moshe Idel received the Israel Prize for excellence in Jewish philosophy, for his contribution in the research of the Kabbalah, and in 2003 he received the Koret Award for Jewish philosophy for his book Absorbing Perfections. Moshe Idel is member of the American Academy for Judaic studies, and director of the Institute of Advanced Studies Judaica-Hartman, Jerusalem.
Bibliography- ***, Raport final [Final Report], Iasi, Polirom, 2005- ***, Populatia evreiasca în cifre. Memento statistic [Jewish Population in Figures. Statistic Memento], Bucuresti, 1945 - ***, Asezarile evreilor din România. Memento statistic [Jewish Settlements in Romania. Statistic Memento], Bucuresti, 1947 - Matatias Carp, Cartea Neagra. Fapte si documente. Suferintele evreilor din România 1940-1944 [The Black Book. Facts and Documents. Sufferance of Jews in Romania, 1940-1944], Bucuresti, 1946 - Gabriel Davidescu, Traian Onofrei, Orasul Târgu Neamt si împrejurimile [The City of Târgu Neamt and its Surroundings], Bacau, Egal, 1998 - Dr. I. M. Dinescu, Fiii neamului de la 1895 la 1915. Statistica sociala pe întelesul tuturor [Sons of the Country, from 1895 to 1915. Social Statistic for Everyone], Iasi, 1920 - Profira C. Groholschi, Târgu Neamt. Monografie [Monograph], 1950 - Stela Maries, Supusii din Moldova în perioada 1781-1862 [The Subjects of Moldova in 1781-1862], Iasi, Editura Universitatea “Al. I. Cuza”, 1985 - Ecaterina Negruti, Structura demografica a oraselor si târgurilor din Moldova 1800-1859 [Demographic Structure of Cities and Towns in Moldova, 1800-1859], Iasi, Editura Fundatia Academica “A.D. Xenopol”,1997 - Jehiel Michael Sorer, La raspântie de veacuri. Evreii în 1900-1901 [Two Centuries at the Crossroads. The Jews in 1900-1901], Bucuresti, 2004 - Ceea ce ne uneste. Istorii, biografii, idei [That Which Unites Us. Histories, Biographies, Ideas], Sorin Antohi in dialogue with Moshe Idel, Iasi, Polirom, 2006
Art of Targu Neamt
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