History of the Jews in Chișinău

The history of the Jews in Chișinău dates to the early 1700s, when Chișinău (then known as Kishinev) was located first in Moldavia and later from 1812 onwards in the Bessarabia region of the Russian Empire. Chișinău is now the capital city of Moldova and is the center of the country's Jewish population. As of 2022, around 10,000 of the 15,000 Moldovan Jews reside in Chișinău.^[1]

Chișinău (Keshenev in Yiddish) was historically part of Moldavia. In 1812, the region was annexed by the Russian Empire and became known as Bessarabia. The earliest Jewish presence in Chișinău dates back to the early 18th century. By 1774, Jewish people were 7% of the total population of Chișinău. In 1774, a Jewish burial society was founded in the city with 144 members.^[1] A cemetery was established in the early 19th century.^[2]

From 1941 to 1942, 120,000 Jews from Bessarabia, all of Bukovina, and the Dorohoi county in Romania proper, were deported by the Romanian authorities to ghettos and concentration camps in Transnistria, with only a small portion returning in 1944. The number of Jewish deportees to Transnistria sent there in 1941 who reached the latter province included 110,033 people, including 55,867 from Bessarabia, 43,798 from Bukovina, 10,368 from Dorohoi; out of these, 50,741 still survived by September 1, 1943.^[3][4] A further 4,000 Chernivtsi Jews were deported to Transnistria in June 1942.^[5] According to the Romanian gendarmerie, on September 1, 1943, 50,741 Jewish deportees survived in Transnistria, including 36,761 from Bukovina, including Dorohoi County (historically a part of the Old Kingdom of Romania, but administratively a part of Bukovina at that time), and 13,980 from Bessarabia.^[6][7] According to the statistics from the office of the Romanian prime minister of November 15, 1943, by province of origin from Romania and of county of residence in Transnistria, in the latter area there were 49,927 Jewish deportees who had survived, including 31,141 from Bukovina (without Dorohoi County, but including Hotin County), 11,683 from Bessarabia (without Hotin County), 6,425 from Dorohoi County, and 678 from the rest of Romania.^[8] According to the foremost Israeli scholarly study on the Holocaust by Leni Yahil, almost 60,000 Jewish deportees survived in Transnistria.^[9] According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 55,000 to 60,000 of the Jewish deportees to Transnistria survived the Holocaust.^[10] Another estimate of the total number of Bessarabian Jews who survived the deportations to Transnistria was 20,000, which also indicates that a large majority of the deportees died in Transnistria.^[11] The ones who died did so in the most inhuman and horrible conditions. (In the same ghettos and camps there were many Jews from that region as well, responsibility for whose death lies on the Romanian authorities that occupied it in 1941–44.) According to Wolf Moskovich, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the article "Bessarabia", in The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, "Only a third of the deported Jews survived Transnistria."^[12] According to Wolf Moskovich in the same article, "In all, some 100,000 Bessarabian Jews perished during World War II."^[13] According to the Yad Vashem database, 60,732 Jews whose names are listed who had lived in Bessarabia before the war were killed during World War II, while 133 died indirectly in relation to the Holocaust.^[14]

Wolf Moskovinch wrote about the Holocaust in Chisinau: "In the first days following the German attack on the Soviet Union, many of Kishinev’s 70,000 Jews became victims of the intensive aerial bombardment of the city. Thousands escaped to the east. The returning Romanians showed no mercy to Bessarabian Jews, considering them to be Communists and Russian sympathizers. When the Romanians entered Kishinev on 16 July 1941, they staged a pogrom that continued for several days, and then established a ghetto with more than 11,000 prisoners, some of whom were murdered in the following months; indeed, 837 Jews were executed at the city cemetery. On 4–31 October 1941, the remaining Jews were deported to Transnistria in several groups, followed in May 1942 by the last 200 Jews who were hiding in the city. Few Jews from Kishinev survived the camps."^[15] According to the Yad Vashem database, 5,987 Jews who were living in Chisinau were killed in the city.^[16] Among the Jews who lived in Chisinau before the war, Yad Vashem has a list of 16,522 who were evacuated to the Soviet east in 1941.^[17] The deportation of the city's Jews (and of Bessarabian Jews as a whole) to Transnistria, which was done by peasant carts and on foot (unlike in the case of the Jews of southern Bukovina, Chernivtsi and Dorohoi, which was done by train) reduced its Jewish population from 11,388 in the fall of 1941 to 177 in 1943; a large majority of the deportees died according to Jean Ancel.^[18]

Since 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many Moldovan Jews have made aliyah to Israel or have emigrated to Western countries such as the United States. The population of Moldovan Jews is disproportionately elderly, with between a quarter to half of the community being elders.

Chabad maintains a synagogue in Chișinău. Agudath Israel, led by Rabbi Pinchas Zaltsman, operates the Torat Emet yeshiva.^[19]

In 2022, Ukrainian-Jewish refugees found refuge in Chișinău's four main synagogues, including the Sinagoga Sticlarilor (Glassmakers' Synagogue).^[20]

• Olga Bancic, a Romanian communist activist known for her role in the French Resistance.
• Abraham Baratz, a Romanian–French chess master.
• Isaac B. Bersuker, a Soviet-Moldоvan-American theoretical physicist and quantum chemist.
• Alexandr Bilinkis, a Moldovan businessman, public and diplomatic figure, and philanthropist.
• Samuel Bronston, a Bessarabian-born American film producer, film director, and a nephew of Leon Trotsky.
• Isaak Bubis, a Moldovan Soviet engineer and architect.
• Marc Chirik, a communist revolutionary who co-founded the International Communist Current.
• Yitzhak Coren, an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Mapai and the Alignment.
• William F. Friedman, a US Army cryptographer who ran the research division of the Army's Signal Intelligence Service (SIS) in the 1930s.
• Alexander Frumkin, a Russian/Soviet electrochemist.
• Dennis Gaitsgory, a professor of mathematics at Harvard University.
• Marat Gelman, a Russian collector, gallerist, and an op-ed columnist.
• Jeff Gitelman, a Grammy-nominated record producer, musician and songwriter.
• Izso Glickstein, a naturalized American cantor (hazzan).
• Alexander Goldenweiser (composer), a Soviet and Russian pianist, teacher and composer.
• Sarah Gorby, a French contralto singer.
• Julius Isserlis, a Russian pianist and composer.
• Eliahu Itzkovitz, a Moldovan/Romanian-born Israeli assassin.
• Ira Jan, a painter and writer.
• Joseph Joanovici, a French Jewish merchant of scrap metal who supplied both Nazi Germany and the French Resistance.
• Katia Kapovich, a Russian poet now living in the United States.
• Boris Katz, an American research scientist.
• Abe Katzman, a Klezmer violinist, bandleader, composer, and Brunswick Records recording artist.
• David Kaushansky, a Soviet lawyer.
• David Kessler (actor), a prominent actor in the first great era of Yiddish theater.
• Nathaniel Kleitman, a Bessarabian-born American physiologist and sleep researcher.
• Jacob Knaani, a Moldavian born, later Israeli, lexicographer.
• Gary Koshnitsky, a Bessarabian-born Australian chess master.
• Jacob M. Landau, a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
• Boris Leskin, a Soviet and American film and theater actor.
• Avigdor Lieberman, a Soviet-born Israeli politician.
• Haia Lifșiț,
• Moissaye Marans, a Bessarabian-born American sculptor.
• Shmuel Merlin, a Revisionist Zionist activist, Irgun member and Israeli politician.
• Grégoire Michonze, a Bessarabian-born Russian-French painter.
• Lewis Milestone, a Russian-American film director.
• Sacha Moldovan, a Russian-born American expressionist and post-impressionist painter.
• Ilya Oleynikov, a Russian comic actor and television personality.
• Nina Pekerman, an Israeli athlete who competes in triathlon and Ironman Triathlon competitions.
• Mendel Portugali, one of the leading figures in the Second Aliyah and a founder of the Hashomer movement.
• Oleg Reidman, a Moldovan politician serving in the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova.
• Boris Rosenthal, a character actor and operetta lyricist in the Yiddish theater.
• Joe Rosenthal (sculptor), a Romanian-born Canadian sculptor.
• Itzhak Shum, a retired Israeli football player and manager.
• Abner Tannenbaum, a Russian-born Jewish-American Yiddish writer and journalist.
• Zlata Tkach, a Moldovan composer and music educator.
• Svetlana Toma, a Soviet actress.
• Marina Tauber, a Member of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova.
• Anna Tumarkin, a Russian-born Swiss academic and first woman professor of philosophy at the University of Bern.
• Alexander Ulanovsky, a chief illegal "rezident" for Soviet Military Intelligence (GRU) in the USA.
• Abram Vaysbeyn, a Romanian-born Soviet and Moldovan architect.
• Dina Vierny, an artists' model who became a singer, French art dealer, collector and museum director.
• Zev Vilnay, an Israeli geographer, author and lecturer.
• Maria Winetzkaja, an American mezzo-soprano opera singer.
• Iona Yakir, a Red Army commander.
• Avraham Yaski, an Israeli architect.
• Chaim Yassky, a physician and medical administrator in Jerusalem.
• Mark Zeltser, a Soviet-born American pianist.
• Sam Zemurray, an American businessman who made his fortune in the banana trade.

• History of the Jewish people in Bessarabia
• History of the Jewish people in Moldova
• History of the Jewish people in Romania
• Chișinău Choral Synagogue