Creation Historian Corneliu Crăciun notes that the PCR attempt to dominate the Romanian Jewish community upon the end of World War II was part of an "aggressive and all-encompassing strategy" to extend control into all areas of society. In doing so, communists relied on political traditions (including the over-representation of Jews within its own ranks), as well on the monopolisation of
anti-fascist discourse by the
Soviet Union after the Holocaust: "Given the Jewish people's
suffering at the hands of fascism, it seemed that PCR members could do no wrong, and that their moral-political investment would turn a profit." In September 1944, some days after the
anti-fascist coup, the PCR contributed to the creation of a General Jewish Council. This initiative crumbled in October, when other Council representatives, rejecting the implication that "
all Jews are communists", refused to join
Petru Groza's
National Democratic Front. From September 1944, Labour Zionism was taken up in Romania by
Ihud, which immediately signed up to the National Democratic Front's platform and, internationally, acted as a section of
Mapai. In November, Romania's Labour Zionists formed a Union of the Working Land of Israel (
Brith Eretz Israel HaOvedet, BEIH)—federating Ihud,
Poale Zion,
Ahdut HaAvoda, as well as a former affiliate of
Hashomer Hatzair called Mishmar. The PCR had more success in
Northern Transylvania, which had been reattached to Romania during the
Budapest Offensive. At
Cluj, survivors of
extermination camps set up the Jewish Democratic Group (GDE), an association backed by communist agents. A Jewish People's Democratic Community (CPED), originally called Jewish Anti-hitlerite Group, was co-opted on the Northern Transylvanian Democratic Committee, which functioned as a quasi-government of the region. It was led by a communist cadre and Holocaust survivor,
Hillel Kohn, but failed to obey PCR commands by insisting for the restitution of assets confiscated during the Holocaust, as well as for the "protection of unhindered freedom of emigration". More to the south,
Arad hosted a Union of Democratic Jews, which, in October 1944, inaugurated a process to restore property confiscated under fascism. From
Bucharest, painter
M. H. Maxy and lawyer Iosif Șraier resumed the project to give pro-communist Jews a national representation. Șraier was a noted PCR middleman, having spent the interwar as a public defender for communist prisoners. The CDE effort was officially sanctioned by PCR Secretary
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej while visiting
Templul Coral on 25 April 1945, and advanced on 2 June, when Șraier negotiated with David "Dadu" Rosenkranz. The latter, a wartime humanitarian, had been active with the UER before moving into left-wing politics. The Committee was established with a constitutive session on 7 June 1945, though it was only truly active from 22 July. Its first Chairman was Maxy, From the beginning, it was a satellite organisation of the PCR: its first-ever meetings were attended by PCR envoy
Vasile Luca, supported by two Jewish party colleagues—Maxy and industrialist
Emil Calmanovici. According to historian
Idith Zertal, it functioned as "an impossible conglomerate of the Communists, the socialist Zionist groups, and leftist political parties, as well as
Yiddishist organizations. Its true, main purpose was to mobilize support for Groza's government within the Jewish community". Scholar Carol Iancu moreover argues that: "The Communists tried to control the communities by positioning their representatives in key positions, and finally by imposing their will. The Jewish Democratic Committee [...] was to put this policy into practice by both weakening (and later on suppressing) the two large pre-war Jewish organizations, the Jewish Party and the Union of Romanian Jews." Imitating communist organisational structures to the point of creating its own
Politburo, Maxy returned as the CDE's Chairman in 1946–1948. They served alongside writers
Ury Benador and
Emil Dorian, the latter leaving skeptical notes with insight into the CDE's role as an amorphous organisation serving PCR commands.
Expansion Local bodies were quickly integrated into the countrywide structure—on 25 March, the Cluj GDE became a CDE territorial office. In October, it was joined by other Northern Transylvanian organisations, with the CPED, gradually diminished in importance, Kohn remained in charge of the CDE provincial chapter (seconded by Sándor Neumann). His past had by then come under review, resulting in his expulsion from the PCR on grounds that he was a "
Hungarian nationalist"; he was allowed to maintain his CDE profile, but gradually withdrew from active politics. BEIH was absorbed as an autonomous section of the CDE, with 9 representatives in leadership; through it, the Committee exercised authority over the Romanian chapters of Ihud, Poale Zion, and Mishmar.
Theodor Loewenstein-Lavi of the Ihud joined the ranks of CDE activists. The CDE youth section, called Front of the Jewish Democratic Youth (FTDE), included Zionist factions within the BEIH, as well as all groups federated into the
HeHalutz:
Bnei Akiva,
Borochovia,
Dror,
Gordonia, and several more. Other figures continued to be active with the
Yidisher Kultur Farband (YIKUF) and with a breakaway faction of the UER—Rosenkranz was joined by leader
Moise Zelțer-Sărățeanu and his followers. Such affiliates were described as "
temporary allies" of the Groza regime. Maxy was also an instigator of attacks on Zissu, whom he described as a proxy for reactionary politics. Nastasă additionally argues that, once created, the Committee was able to assume a dominant position, forcing all other Jewish organisations to relate to it. As noted by Crăciun, the PCR had in practice a plurality of the 40 seats on the CDE leadership board, with 15 in all: 9 were PCR envoys or close allies, and 6 more came by way of Zelțer-Sărățeanu's movement. at
Sighetu Marmației, the executive board had 10 PCR members, ahead of
Aguda with 5; at
Oravița, there were 40 CDE members in town, of whom 19 were communists. The CDE was expected to administer Jewish community affairs, which included direct control over the apolitical
Federation of the Jewish Communities in Romania (FCER). At the first CDE meetings, Luca already indicated that the CDE was fundamentally
anti-Zionist, while also expressing his disapproval of Jews who voted for mainstream Romanian parties. In October 1945, Luca engaged in polemics with Chiriță, who stood accused of not endorsing
class conflict. According to Luca, "the Jewish worker fits in with the communist party especially", whereas capitalists, even those of Jewish extraction, endured as "great enemies of the Jewish people". In his replies, Chiriță insisted that Jews turned to illegal trading because the CDE could still not provide them with meaningful employment. After that moment, the Committee endorsed "re-stratification", a policy whereby Jewish workers and experts were reclaimed by the Romanian economy, usually by joining
cooperatives. This process was directed by the PCR, which injected a
producerist agenda into the platforms of subordinate Jewish organisations. Overall, it "took charge of orienting Jewish youth toward manual trades, and away from traditional liberal professions such as jurisprudence, medicine, or journalism." Committee man Dinu Hervian declared in February 1946 that the group had an instrumental reason for not overtly discouraging Zionism: "[Romanian] reactionaries are opposed to the emigration tendency as present among a large portion of our Jewish population. By attacking reactionaries and supporting the sentimental attachment that some Jews hold in respect to Zionism, we can also win over this mass of Zionists." The CDE was directly involved in efforts to curb the
illegal transit of Jews into
Mandatory Palestine. In May 1946, it nearly convinced Romanian Communist potentate
Ana Pauker to arrest in
Constanța's harbor the ship
Smirni, which was fitted to carry away Zionist emigrants. During those weeks, the
Siguranța began keeping files on all Zionist leaders, while
Romanian Police opened fire on Zionist protesters at
Iași. Directing its own relief efforts for the returning deportees to
Transnistria, the CDE also took charge of instilling in them left-wing ideals. In early 1946, the local section of
Caraș reported on having marginalised "reactionary and subversive elements" who had attempted to win refugees over to their cause. CDE branches in Northern Transylvania gave direct support to Jews seeking to reach Palestine by fleeing to the West, but also complained that such emigrations were chaotic and dangerous. From August 1946, the CDEs propaganda described Zionist camps for displaced persons as miserable, and journey to Palestine as not worth the risk. Instead, it gave positive reviews to life in the
Jewish Autonomous Oblast. In response to such calls, Groza insisted that "the Jews cannot ask for privileges just because they are Jews", disseminating rumors that most Jews were speculators, and asking for left-wingers among them to concentrate on combating their "outrageous lifestyle". and teacher Sava Dumitru. They made efforts to collect data about specific pogroms, including one in
Vișeu de Sus, However, Kohn's CPED, integrated as a CDE section in 1946, also championed reconciliation with the
Hungarian community. At a
MADOSZ rally in 1946, Kohn spoke of the special cultural connection between the two communities—as noted by historian Attila Gidó, his speech featured a relativisation of the
Holocaust in Hungary. CDE operative Otto Rappaport also spoke on the issue, but insisted that MADOSZ and other local Hungarians "openly and firmly judge the crimes of an era and generation." While advocating the liquidation of
Hungarian fascism, Rappaport contended: "Jewry does not identify and does not generalize the traitors of the Hungarian people with the Hungarian democrats. The Jewry equally hates the Hungarian and Romanian reaction". Despite Kohn's attempts at finding common ground, MADOSZ and the CDE were at odds over issues such as the return of Jewish property in
Bistrița County. (2002 photograph) Shunning the
Hebrew revival encouraged by Zionism, the CDE had as its central mouthpiece a Romanian-language weekly,
Unirea, first published in November 1945. Its name ("unity" or "unification") was selected to contradict Luca's notions of class conflict. At an early stage, the newspaper's general line was that Zionism was only justified in Western countries, as a reaction to antisemitism. It viewed itself as heir to "Jewry's democratic traditions", while also endorsing a "combat of the entire Romanian people for democracy, restoration, and prosperity." In practice, it circulated PCR propaganda, some of which was penned by
Sașa Pană, formerly an avant-garde author. From 1947, the CDE also put out a Yiddish literary review,
Yikuf Bletter, and, for a while in 1948, printed a Hungarian–Romanian bulletin. The Cluj newspaper
Egység, later known as
Új Út, was also published by the CDE. According to Zeev-Herșcovici, the CDE was only successful in promoting socialist Yiddishism through its network of schools, including obtaining a Yiddish state curriculum; the
Barașeum was maintained as a state theater, to promote
Yiddish drama. Yiddishist campaigns were partly supervised by Polia Barasch, who was an inspector for the
Ministry of Education, as well as serving as leader of the CDE Female Section. The CDE had as its stated objective the suppression of religious and cultural Judaism; Yiddish culture was tolerated as a brand of
Jewish secularism. As early as February 1946, CDE activists convened a meeting of 1,266
shochtim, instructing them to perform their duties with "democratic spirit", heeding the "revolutionary changes".
Orthodox Judaism was identified as a specific target in
Maramureș County, where rabbis clashed with CDE men over the distribution of aid obtained from
The Joint. These congregations were most active in resisting anti-Zionist propaganda as pressed through the synagogues.
Electoral campaigns Speaking for the UER's anti-communist mainstream,
Wilhelm Filderman described the Committee as a "conveyor belt" of the PCR. By June 1946, the CDE itself was openly acknowledging having been created as a "PCR initiative", further explaining itself as a Jewish "
united front" against antisemitism. Following negotiations headlined by Maxy, CDE cadres, and in particular Barasch's Female Section, were involved in the effort to re-register Jewish voters, whom they also instructed to vote for the BPD. CDE propaganda argued that electing BPD candidates was a sure way to extinguish the "slavery of yesteryear". Historian Petre Țurlea identifies both elected deputies as CDE candidates, rather than more generic Jewish representatives. In fact, Dascălu represented Mishmar. From December, he pressed government for a reparations bill in favour of Holocaust victims, while also expressing hopes that emigration to Palestine would carry on unhindered. Loyalty to the government program was again stated on 2 December 1946, codified into a joint statement by the CDE, MADOSZ, and left-wing organisations representing
Armenians,
Bulgarians, and
Greeks. By May 1947, the party was issuing new reprimands against Jews seeking to emigrate, instructing them to "integrate with the productive process and the effort to rebuild Romania". It also called on those who could not be persuaded to assimilate to only emigrate if and when they received permission from the Romanian state. A month after, the CDE in
Satu Mare asked for approval to run its own "reconstruction camp" in cooperation with the Zionists. During late 1947, the national CDE took over control over Jewish emigration, which included attempts to reeducate all applicants by presenting communist alternatives. As CDE leader in
Hunedoara County, Béla Ringler saluted the
United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, with its provisions for a Jewish State, implying that this was a result of Soviet intercession. According to Ringler, the Soviet Union was defended "the rights of peoples big and small, who has rescued the world and among them the Jewish people from complete annihilation under fascist domination". At this stage, the PCR was viewing immigration as a potential asset, since an indoctrinated
Romanian Jewish colony could bring Palestine, and subsequently
Israel, into the
Eastern bloc, ensuring that government was formed by the
Hebrew Communists. The secret plan was picked up on by the general public, and universally ridiculed: "A widely circulated anecdote had the emigrating Jews throwing their party cards overboard once the ship left [its] Romanian port". In late 1947, 800 CDE members in
Severin County addressed an open letter to the
Big Four, endorsing a ban on the
National Peasants' Party and the
National Liberal Party, claiming that both had perpetuated antisemitism. Political life was more heavily restricted from early 1948, with the imposition of a
Romanian communist state. In the
March 1948 elections the CDE ran as part of the
People's Democratic Front (FDP). The adherence to its platform was registered on 27 February, being signed by
Paul Iscovici, then-chairman of the CDE. Ihud was a proxy ally, sending representatives on the CDE Electoral Commission. Within the new legislature, the FDP had 405 of a total 414 seats; five of these went to the CDE. They were taken by Feldman, Leibovici-Șerban, Manolescu, Popper, and Marcel Fischler. Manolescu was to die without carrying through his term, in mid-to-late 1949. Groza's regime believed that it could seal Jewish support when, in early 1948, it issued a decree transferring Jewish heirless properties, confiscated during the Holocaust, to the FCER. The Committee maintained an international profile during its last years, with delegates attending the 1948
World Jewish Congress in
Montreux.
Mișu Benvenisti of the PER was also invited, sharing the stage with Feldman, Bacalu, and Leibovici-Șerban. The latter expressed Jewish Romanian sympathy toward
Israeli independence, supporting an alliance between the new state and the Soviet Union. Filderman was also present as a regular member of the audience, and looked on as Feldman made "great gestures of friendship" toward
Nahum Goldmann, who was thus convinced that collaboration could still exist between Jewish and Soviet groups. In its coverage of the
war in Palestine, the PCR press spoke of the "savage aggression by the Arab states against the Jewish people in Palestine", and alleged that it was being propped up by "
Anglo-American imperialism". By then, however, the Romanian communist leadership had switched their support to the
Arab Liberation Army. On 11 June 1948, exactly as Romania gave formal recognition to Israel, all Zionist organisations were ordered to shut down. On 16 June the organisation elected
Moses Rosen as the Chief Rabbi of Romania to replace
Alexandru Șafran. Șafran, who had defected the previous December, argued that the CDE was behind his ouster, since he had refused to sign a document calling for the execution of anti-communist leader
Iuliu Maniu. As he recalled, he left the country before he could be framed by the Committee leadership. Elsewhere, Șafran noted that his departure had been hastened by CDE envoy Sandu Lieblich, while another emissary had asked that he sign papers to show that he left willingly. Before the takeover, Popper published a piece which alleged that Șafran was an illegal defector. Upon taking over, Rosen was also awarded a seat on the CDE's presidium;
Labour Zionist schism As these events unfolded, the CDE carried out a census of runaway
Bukovina Jews living on Romanian territory, noting that most of them were using up Committee resources while preparing their escape to Israel. The CDE branch in
Lugoj, meanwhile, carried out an investigation and purge of "racketeers" (
speculanți) from party ranks, and become more appealing to proletarian Jews. In October 1948, the regime's official newspaper,
Scînteia, issued directions for CDE to circulate
Ilya Ehrenburg's critique of Israel among its members and sympathisers; this message pushed the CDE into open conflict with the Zionists, resulting in a series of street battles between the two camps. Before the end of the month, the Committee acquiesced to the formal designation of Zionism as a variety of fascism or "reactionary nationalism", and proceeded to exclude from its ranks all remaining Zionists (in practice, all non-communists). Over the following months, Mishmar withdrew from the CDE and created an international alliance with a new socialist group, the
Mapam; Dascălu became head of the local Mapam chapter. The CDE, and in particular the FTDE, made efforts to bring them back into the fold, referring to them as "our Mishmar friends". The Committee also showcased its contacts with the
Israeli Communist Party, inviting its Secretary
Eliyahu Gojansky on a tour of Romania in mid 1948. Also then, a
Siguranța informant reported that Jews were widely dissatisfied with the CDE, with a "rather significant current" describing it as purely adverse to Jewish interests. Its agents were looking into the activities of a CDE secretary, Ernst Fischer, whom they had exposed as a proxy for
Revisionist Zionism. In October, Luca and
Chivu Stoica reiterated that Zionism had been purged from the CDE, which was now destined to "attracting the Jewish masses" into the Workers' Party (PMR, as the PCR had been renamed after absorbing the PSDR). Following their intervention, PMR General Secretary
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej issued a final order to liquidate all remnants of Jewish nationalism. The resolution codifying this was drafted in December by a collective of authors, including Feldman, Ladislau Bányai,
Alexandru Moghioroș,
Leonte Răutu, and
Miron Constantinescu. It remained largely silent on whether Jews were still to be considered a distinct ethnic community, but explicitly included a mandate for the CDE to stamp out Zionism. Historian Ovidiu Bozgan notes that, upon the end of this meeting, the CDE emerged as the "privileged instrument" for dismantling the Zionist presence in Romania. A return to officially sanctioned anti-Zionist violence was made in November 1948, when Police raided the
Jewish National Fund, detaining its leader Leon Itzcar on charges of contraband; this campaign was fully endorsed by
Unirea, who referred to Zionists as "blackmarketeers" and "disrupters of the socialist economy". During December, as noted by French diplomat Philippe de Luze, the standoff produced "very violent incidents". including Mishmar, Ihud,
Bnei Akiva, and
HaOved HaTzioni. The latter two in particular mounted resistance, with publicised incidents which prompted communist authorities order a truce. At least seven offices had been returned to Zionist ownership by 6 December. In January 1949, Feldman took over as CDE Chairman, Within weeks, CDE leaders in
Constanța,
Galați and
Timișoara had been replaced, accused of having failed to respond in kind to the Zionist threat. Jewish community leader
Aurel Vainer, who was at the time a young Zionist, recalls that a late transport of "extremely pro-communist Jews" left Constanța during those weeks. According to Vainer, the ships had come for him and other non-communists, but were commandeered by the CDE and the authorities "took us back to our homes." De Luze similarly records rumors that a
Panamanian-flagged ship was transporting 2,500 communist Jews as would-be voters in the
Israeli legislative election. Also that month, the FTDE was disbanded, as the
Workers' Party Youth was established, signaling that the Jewish community "[had been] given over completely to the dominance of the government alone". Communist control through the CDE proxy was also highlighted by the rabbinical congress of July, during which
Ashkenazi and
Sephardi communities pledged themselves to supporting the Committee. However, the CDE stance had alienated Rabbi Rosen, who began working in secret against the regime; decades later, described the CDE as an
Yevsektsiya engaged in "terroriz[ing] the Jewish communities".
Against Israel The CDE was still a proponent of anti-Zionism following the consolidation of an independent Israel. By mid 1949, Mapam and all other socialist Zionist groups decided to cease official activities. Feldman warned his followers that this was a ruse, since "the enemies of the working class never give up their positions of their own free will." Throughout that year,
Unirea incited renewed campaigns against Zionist influence, and condemned any "slacking". It announced proudly that, as a result of its campaigning, "war-mongers who happen to be the bosses of Zionist nationalists" refrained from attending a ceremony honoring victims of the 1941 pogrom. Its issues included facsimiles of letters by distraught emigrants, who wrote back to report that Israel was an insecure and imperialistic nation, as well as a communique by
Borochovia, announcing that it had ceased supporting Zionist emigration. That message was communicated through the party branches, with activist Meier Froimovici declaring that "there is no longer a
Jewish Question in Romania", and equating the Zionist underground with human traffickers. This thesis was furthered by CDE activists designated as
lămuritori ("educators"), who drew comparisons between hasty emigration and wartime deportations to
Transnistria, in that they divided families.
Egység suggested to its readers that "anyone seeking to emigrate would be committing suicide", and that Zionism was a "twin brother of anti-Semitism". As noted by researcher Raphael Vago, this positioning reflected a convergence of two attitudes. Among the Jewish communists,
Ana Pauker pleaded with her colleagues to "
let my people go"; other PCR leaders, "backed by anti-Semites, were glad to get rid of the Jews and to inherit their jobs, apartments and belongings." At the time, a PMR resolution initiated by
Teohari Georgescu encouraged hostile Jews to leave. As Gheorghiu-Dej put it during the session, "we have no reason to keep in the bourgeoisie." While serving as
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Pauker never explicitly endorsed emigration and repeatedly snubbed
Reuven Rubin, the Israeli Ambassador. However, rumors and signals of support produced spontaneous rallies of Jews in front of the Israeli embassy in Bucharest, with the crowd "shout[ing] for emigration papers". Feldman decried the protest as a "provocation" by Israel. After self-analysis sessions organised by Constantinescu, the CDE concluded that Romanian Jews had misread the PMR's approval of selective emigration as an invitation; it promised to channel its efforts on depicting Israel as a capitalist country of "ever-increasing poverty and squalor". In July 1949,
Unirea put out an appeal to the workers, outlining reasons why they should not take in Zionist ideology. In October, CDE militants, including Feldman and Laurențiu Bercovici, gave speeches condemning
David Ben-Gurion, Israel's
Head of Government and noted Labour Zionist, for having moved away from Soviet influence. Feldman himself referred to the
Mapai as "
right-wing socialists". The message was expanded upon in
Isac Ludo's book,
Scrisoare domnului Ben Gurion ("Letter to Mr Ben Gurion"), published by the CDE in 1950. Ludo, who was reputedly blackmailed by the PCR over his Zionist past, decried Israel as obeying American interests. Vago describes the clash of vision between the CDE and the PMR as an "impossible situation", also noting that Pauker switched to backing the former, and recommending breaks on emigration. For a while in early 1950, the Committee readjusted its propaganda themes, claiming that as many as 80% of emigrants, including most Bukovinian Jews, "will not be a great loss". In such reports, settlers appeared as destitute and promiscuous gamblers. This stance was contradicted by a CDE communique of 25 March 1950. It decried the "very loose criteria" for emigration, complaining that Jewish workers were allowed to flee a people's democracy for a "capitalist country, with its unemployment and misery." In April 1950, as FCER secretary, Leibovici-Șerban issued a staunch warning accusing would-be emigrants of
parasitism, and advising them to seek employment in Romania. The CDE was at the time claiming that 18,000 Jews had been integrated professionally in 1949 alone, all as a result of its programs. An Israeli diplomat identified as Ghilade responded with an opinion piece in
Maariv, asserting that CDE "traitors", which he estimated as 20,000 individuals, were no match for the 300,000 Zionists still active in Romania. At that stage, the UER voted to dissolve itself, on the pretext that "racial hatred" no longer existed in communised Romania. In October,
Mordechai Oren, a member of the Mapam leadership in Israel, visited Feldman and attempted to obtain his support for the release of Zionist prisoners. Feldman declared himself against this move, noting that the Zionists had been charged with spying. By contrast, Rosen, Halevy and Leibovici-Șerban made efforts to obtain the release of Zionist rabbi
Eliezer Zusia Portugal, whom they depicted as a defender of democratic values. Finally, the CDE itself was targeted by communist purges, with six of its board members being pushed to resign, for "laxity", during a party conference in March 1950. The conference also designated 1950 as a year of combat against Zionism, announcing that it would investigate Jewish fiction writers for their toleration of nationalist themes. It also published a list of Zionist and
Bundistn writers whose work could no longer be read by Romanian Jews. Examples included
Isaac Mayer Dick,
H. Leivick, and
David Pinski; Romanian Yiddishists
Iacob Ashel Groper and
Wolf Tambur were castigated for not popularising communist tenets in their Holocaust-themed writings.
David Bergelson proved a more contentious case: while the Barașeum dropped his plays,
Leon Bertiș had his verse published in
Yikuf Bletter, but, as a staunch Zionist, could not be convinced to join the CDE. "Unmasking" sessions by provincial chapters led to the public humiliation of various Jewish notables, including industrialist Solomon Israel, retailer Ștefan Fekete, and Marc Ludovic, who was the CDE's own secretary in
Târgu Mureș. A similar investigation of Barașeum actors found more ideological flaws, including Zionism, but failed to name any perpetrators. Historian Corina L. Petrescu suggests that such apparent protection was extended to them because of cultural priorities: "[activists] had to strike a balance between [the troupe's] state-assigned role as poster child of the regime and its self-assigned task as torchbearer for high quality Yiddish culture." By 1950, the CDE took its "unmasking" sessions into factories, encouraging workers to shame those of their colleagues who had submitted emigration papers, and insisting for Zionists to be stripped of their wages. As noted by Kuller, the impact of such practices on the Jewish psyche was "null", especially since emigration continued to be tolerated to 1952. Vago reports that "the dull evening courses teaching Jews the elements of 'class struggle' and of the need to change Jewish class structure [are] remembered [collectively] with a bitterness about losing the small businesses". Academic Zoltán Tibori Szabó similarly notes that the CDE's propaganda campaign against Zionism "misfired and it only contributed to convincing more Jews they should get out as soon as possible." Northern Transylvanian cities also experienced the mass emigration of CDE members, including all the party hierarchy in
Năsăud.
Unirea was closed down in 1951 and
Yikuf Bletter in 1952; a new publication,
Viața Nouă was in print from 1951 to 1953. Between these dates, a full purge of the CDE had been carried out: "all energies were devoted to the frenzy of uncovering the 'internal enemy'." According to historian Stefano Bottoni, it marked "the first visible sign of a failed compromise, whose bases — namely, that party members were to drop their 'strong' Jewish identity, while the petty and middle bourgeoisie were to be economically ruined — had been proven as unacceptable for a majority of Jews in Romania."
Dissolution and aftermath '' issued for a Romanian Jewish emigrant to Israel, 1961 At the height of this realignment, Feldman redefined the CDE as primarily destined for turning Jews into admirers of the Soviet Union and supporters of its "
combat for peace". The PMR had by then shelved all plans of communising Israel, blaming their failure on Pauker, who was now sidelined and prosecuted. In February 1953, as the Soviet Union announced that it was prosecuting a Jewish conspiracy—the so-called "
Doctors' plot"—angry Zionists staged an attack on the Soviet embassy in
Tel Aviv.
Viața Nouă responded to these events by adhering to the Soviet narrative: "Honest Jews the world over are infuriated by these deeds of the Jewish bourgeois nationalists and imperialist aggressors, who seek to expand their range through Zionist organisations." The CDE voted to dissolve itself (but was in practice liquidated) on 16 March of that year, when it issued a final notice declaring that "all issues which confounded the Jewish population are presently resolved". A note by the Soviet diplomat N. P. Sulitsky suggests that the act was forced upon the Jewish community by Gheorghiu-Dej, who still regarded the CDE itself as a hub for "Jewish bourgeois nationalists". Pauker was arrested the same day as part of an investigation into the "
rootless cosmopolitan" affair, which later engulfed and threatened some of the CDE's former leaders. July 1953 witnessed the first wave of
show trials against the Zionist centres, extending, from 1954, to the PER leadership, and lasting to 1959. Arrested in the 1950 roundups, Ihud's Loewenstein-Lavi was sentenced to a 10-year term in jail, for sedition, but paroled in 1955. Prosecution was closely supervised by the PMR leadership, with Gheorghiu-Dej suggesting "two to three death sentences in each anti-Jewish trial". This radicalism was mitigated in practice by legal professionals, including the CDE's Dadu Rosenkranz, who obtained a reduction of penalties for the "
Prisoners of Zion" (Asirei Zion). From 1946, CDE co-founder Șraier had held a government position, serving as Deputy Minister at
Internal Affairs. At around the same time, Maxy was being investigated for his work at the Artists' Union. He had been accused of nepotism, incompetence, and lack of commitment to
socialist realism. Kohn, who had maintained contacts with disgraced MADOSZ leader
Gyárfás Kurkó after 1949, was protected from arrest by his friendship with Groza and Constantinescu. Feldman's 1955 interview in
Kol HaAm featured claims that the "
Marxist-Leninist spirit" had solved all of Romania's minority issues. Feldman rejected the need for a Yiddish press, since all Jews were supposedly literate in Romanian, while informing readers that education in Yiddish was continuing as before. In reality, the regime was clamping down on the use of Yiddish: though not as repressed as Zionist propaganda, various Yiddishist textbooks were placed under restricted use until the
end of communism in 1989. The communist authorities finally opted not to recognize Jews as a separate ethnicity, but as Romanians professing Judaism; the FCER was allowed to exist as a sole instrument through which the PMR controlled the community. From 1956, its magazine,
Revista Cultului Mozaic, partly fulfilled
Viața Nouăs role. The project involved Rosen and Bacalu, and was noted for removing all mention of Zionism in their commemoration of the Holocaust. The Federation was only given authority on religious matters—although, from 1964, its leader was an
ex-officio deputy in the
Great National Assembly. No Yiddish books were published in Romania in 1961, though Yiddish theaters continued to be active, and were reputedly flourishing; meanwhile, the anti-Zionist campaign had been toned down. The advent of
national communism during the late 1950s presented former CDE leaders with the option of rediscovering Zionism or complying with full assimilation. The former path was taken by
Emil Dorian with essays he was working on at the time of his death. During the early 1960s,
Revista Cultului Mozaic settled on a version of Jewish identitarianism which also promoted the notion of loyalty to the Romanian state. Rabbi Rosen continued to head the community, but also acted as a Zionist dissident. He had founded 19 illegal
Talmud Torahs at the height of repression, and, during the 1960s liberalisation, managed to obtain approval for the departure of many other Jews. and with Rosenkranz in 1961. Rosen took pride in noting that, by 1985, about 96% of Romanian Jews had settled in Israel. ==Notes==