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20 Friday, December 30, 1977 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
FRANK PAUL
The Vanishing Shtetls and Jews of Romania
and His ORCHESTRA
"Music and entertainment at
its Best for Your Guests"
DOROHOI, Romania—
Emigration has reduced the
Jewish population of Ro-
mania. perhaps the last
557-7986
JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER
OF METROPOLITAN DETROIT
GROUP SERVICES DEPARTMENT
The 1978 summer programs of the Jewish Com-
munity Center of Metropolitan Detroit proudly
announces that we are now accepting applications
for supervisors, specialists, counselors, Jr. coun-
selors, and counselors-in-training.
For more information or applications. please contact
Group Services at 661-1000.
•
country where shtetls like
those of Tevye the Milkman
and Sholom Aleichem sur-
vive intact. According to
David Andelman. writing in
the New York Times, in 10
years or less, most of the
remaining inhabitants of the
rural outposts will have
gone to Israel. leaving be-
hind only small groups of
the aging.
Before World War II
800,000 Jews lived in Ro-
mania. Some 385,000 died at
the hands of the Germans
during the war. In the last
30 years the- Jewish popu-
lation has fallen from per-
haps 400,000 to barely a
tenth of that.
More dramatic have been
the changes in the Mold-
avian town of Dorohoi and
in Suceava, Radauti, Bra-
sov, Falticeni and a score of
other shtetls where Jews
once ran a complex and
diverse economy and so-
ciety, among the most ad-
vanced and learned in East-
ern Europe.
In Dorohoi, barely 10
miles from the Soviet bor-
der, 650 Jews, the last of
8,000 who survived the war
are carrying on the shtetl
tradition. For them life goes
on as always, and if the
Jewish community of Ro-
mania has its way, it will go
on until the last of them can
no longer assemble the re-
quired 10 adult males for
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•
We Wish The
Entire Community
A Happy
and Joyous
NEW YEAR
AL STEINBERG
a -1*4 jar
jrrilli
ga SALES and
EXPERT SERVICE
ART MORAN PONTIAC
29300 TELEGRAPH
JUST NORTH Or , E;
353-9000
Children's Forest
Project of JNF
Here, in Israel
Thousands of children in
Detroit area and Michigan
Jewish schools will partici-
pate in the planting of trees
in Israel to mark Tu
b'Shevat, the New Year of
Trees (Israel Arbor Day)
Jan. 23, announced Mark E.
Schlussel, president of
Greater Detroit JNF Coun-
cil.
This year JNF is launch-
ing the Children's Forest in
the Galilee. American chil-
dren are being offered the
opportunity to join hands
with pupils in Israel in this
innovative project. Each
American pupil will be
paired with an Israeli stu-
dent. Together each pair of
students will plant three
trees, one for each of the
participants, and a third
tree in memory of a child
who perished in the
Holocaust.
The JNF office in Jerusa-
lem will send letters from
Israeli pupils to children in
America. These letters will
be in the form of bi-lingual
double-sided post cards. The
American recipients will re-
tain one-half and use the
other for reply. These re-
plies will be going through
JNF and must be accom-
panied by a contribution of
the price of 1 112 trees. The
Israeli student will do the
same.
The replies will be gath-
ered together in the JNF
Office in Jerusalem, which
will distribute them to the
students in Israel. Receipt
of these replies and contri-
butions will be acknowledg-
ed by a special JNF stamp.
The goal is to plant
1,000,000 trees. For informa-
tion, call the JNF,. 968-0820.
the daily minyan for prayer.
Downtown there are mod-
em office buildings, facto-
ries and apartments where
the 20,000 non-Jews who
have moved in from the
countryside work and live.
Up the sides of the hill,
winding around the last re-
maining synagogue, are the
long, low lines of the wat-
tled shtetl houses, their win-
dows canting at crazy an-
gles in the fading yellow
walls.
The people have assem-
bled on a subzero day in the
unheated wooden synagogue
on the cobblestoned main
square. They have been
waiting, many of them,
since 3 a.m. having traveled
from shtetls miles away for
the visit of Romania's Chief
Rabbi, Moses Rosen, on his
annual pilgrimage to all of
his scattered community.
In the Hebrew school half
a dozen youngsters are as-
sembled, too, waiting to
recite their lessons for the
chief rabbi. They wear fur
hats instead of yarmulkes
because it is freezing in the
tiny room with its two dozen
small desks.
Only 22, the last children
left in the village, are en-
rolled. Most said that they
were learning their lessons
well because Hebrew is the
language of Israel, where
most w),11 go eventually.
There is a ritual butchei
who arrives regularly to su-
pervise the slaughter of
kosher meat. There are two
homes for the elderly. where
the men assemble each
morning for prayer.
The synagogue dates from
the early 19th Century and
has long, warped pews and
neatly polished lamps com-
memorating noted dead and
community milestones.
There are two dangers
that face the Jewish com-
munity today—your com-
munity, our community,"
Rabbi Rosen said, warming
to the occasion, stroking his
beard, sweeping his arms.
his large abdomen heaving
with emotion. "And those
two dangers are physical
extermination and spiritual
extermination. Hitler tried
to exterminate us physically
and failed. But for us what
is most important is spirit-
ual extermination. In 10
years, in 20 years, there will
still be a community here.
But how much of a commu-
nity? Ah, that is the ques-
tion.
"For the government
there is no more Jewish
—
Histadrut to Cite
Union President
NEW YORK—The Hista-
drut Humanitarian Award
will be presented to Sol C.
Chaikin, president of the In-
ternational Ladies' Gar-
ment Workers' Union, at a
testimonial dinner Jan. 24 in
New York.
Under Chaikin's lead-
ership, the garment work-
ers union has helped finance
the medical, vocational
training and social welfare
programs of Histadrut in
Israel, that encompass
some 70 percent of the popu-
lation.
problem in Romania," Rab-
bi Rosen said. "Over the
years we arrived at another
kind of relationship, not of
clash but of mutual interest.
The history of our people
has shown that in any
struggle with a government
we are the losers.
"The result—over 300,000
Jews have gone from Ro-
mania to Israel in the last 30
years, without protests,
without scandals, without
clashes. And not one Jew
still here in even the most
remote shtetl can tell you he
wants to be a Jew and has
not all the facilities."
The mutual interests are
twofold. For one thing the
Communist government has
sought, for diplomatic and
economic reasons, to main-
tain close ties with Israel in
defiance of the Soviet Union
and unlike the rest of East-
ern Europe.
For another, with serious
ethnic problems involving
other minorities, particu-
larly the Hungarians and
Germans, it wanted to avoid
a third problem area.
The Jews have never been
central to the economy or
the society of Romania,"
said a Western diplomat
who has made a study of
minority problems here. In
terms of dominance, he con-
tinued, they controlled the
economy solely in a remote
and underdeveloped seg-
ment, largely agrarian, that
is only now being industrial-
ized.
As the Jews have left the
shtetls, other Romanians
have moved in en masse.
Shtetls at Falticeni, Su-
ceava and other places in
the northeast are being torn
down, to be replaced by
high-rise apartment blocks.
Jobs once held by Jews, in
outlying areas and in Buch-
arest as well, are being
snapped up by other Roma-
nians, contributing to the
desire among the Jews to
leave as quickly and quietly
as possible.
"There are five years un-
til my retirement" said an
engineer at the synagogue
in Falticeni. "By then my
children will have finished
their education. Then we
will start a new life.
"Most of my friends are
gone. The rest of my family
is in Israel. My children's
friends are gone. There is
little left for us here except
this." He indicated the con-
gregation, old men and
women clapping their hands
to the beat of the folk song
"Hava Nagila."
Sadat, Hussein
Coordinating?
CAIRO (ZINS)—Although
King Hussein of Jordan has
declined to attend the Cairo
peace conference, there are
reports that Hussein and
Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat are coordinating
their demands for an
Israeli pull-out from the
occupied territories.
Reportedly, Hussein has
been assured by Sadat that
they have Saudi Arabian
backing for the peace
initiatives.