The history of the Jews in Moldova reaches back several centuries. Bessarabian Jews have been living in the area for some time. Today, the Jewish community living in Moldova number less than 4,000 according to one estimate while local estimates put the number at 15–20,000 Jews and their family members.
Bessarabian Jews
Early history
1889: There were 180,918 Jews of a total population of 1,628,867 in Bessarabia
1897: The Jewish population had grown to 225,637 of a total of 1,936,392
1903: Chișinău in Russian Bessarabia had a Jewish population of 50,000, or 46%, out of a total of approximately 110,000. While almost non-existent in the countryside, Jews had been present in all major towns since the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th. Jewish life flourished with 16 Jewish schools and over 2,000 pupils in Chișinău alone.
In 1903, a young Christian Russian boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubăsari, 37 km northeast of Chișinău. A Russian languageantisemitic newspaper "Bessarabian" began to disseminate rumors about the murder being part of a Jewish ritual. Although the official investigation had determined the lack of any ritualism in the murder and eventually discovered that the boy had been killed by a relative, the unrest caused by these and other rumors had resulted in a major pogrom during the Easter holidays. The pogrom lasted for three days, without the intervention of the police. Forty seven Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses destroyed. Many of the younger Jews, including Mendel Portugali, made an effort to defend the community. There was outcry from prominent Russian writersLeo Tolstoy and Maksim Gorky, as well as protests from Jews and non-Jews in Europe and the United States. Haim Nachman Bialik wrote about the pogrom in his poem, "The City of Slaughter", and Vladimir Korolenko in his book, House No. 13.
The Holocaust
Up to two-thirds of Bessarabian Jews fled before the retreat of the Soviet troops. 110,033 people from Bessarabia and Bukovina - all except a small minority of the Jews that did not flee in 1941 - were deported to the Transnistria Governorate, a region which was under Romanian military control during 1941–44.
1941: The Einsatzkommandos, Germanmobile killing units drawn from the Nazi-Schutzstaffel and commanded by Otto Ohlendorf entered Bessarabia. They were instrumental in the massacre of many Jews in Bessarabia, who did not flee in face of the German advancement.
July 8, 1941: Ion Antonescu, Romania's ruler at the time, made a declaration in front of the Ministers' Council:
The killing squads of Einsatzgruppe D, together with special non-military units attached to the German Wehrmacht and the Romanian army were involved in many massacres in Bessarabia, while deporting other thousands to Transnistria. In Nazi ghettos organized in several towns, as well as in Nazi concentration camps many people died from starvation or bad sanitation, or were shot by special Nazi units right before the arrival of Soviet troops in 1944. The Romanian military administration of Transnistria kept very poor records of the people in the ghettos and camps. The only exact number found in Romanian sources is 59,392 died in the ghettos and camps from the moment those were open until mid-1943 This number includes all internees regardless of their origin, but does not include those that perished on the way to the camps, those that perished between mid-1943 and spring 1944, as well as those that perished in the immediate aftermath of the Romanian army's occupation of Transnistria.
As of 2014, there are an estimated 15,000 Jews in Moldova, including over 10,000 in Chișinău alone. At the same time, there are 75,492 Moldovan Jews living in Israel. However, antisemitism is still commonplace; several churches and political organisations still refer to antisemitic rhetoric. In addition, far right and neo-Nazi groups are active in the country. Because religion was heavily restricted in Soviet times, it is likely that there are many more people of ethnic Jewish heritage in Moldova than those who practice the religion, but many simply may not know about it.
