If the name “Bergman” isn’t a dead giveaway: I am Jewish. I am not very religious, but I did celebrate my “coming-of-age” by becoming a Bat Mitzvah a month before my thirteenth birthday, and I generally observe the big Jewish holidays. I grew up in Washington, DC, where about 4% of the population is Jewish (about double the national rate). Additionally, my school district is about 11.6% Jewish and only six school districts in the country have a higher percentage of Jewish students. The school I attended from kindergarten through twelfth grade, though not associated with any one religion, canceled classes every year on Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) to accommodate the large number of Jewish students who would be in synagogue for the holiday. At Passover, when Jews refrain from eating risen bread and instead eat a cracker called Matzah, local pizza places in the DC area often serve Passover-friendly Matzah-pizza. Additionally, in the seventh grade, I attended Bar and Bat Mitzvahs for about twenty-five of my classmates — roughly a third of the seventh graders. Clearly, though my Jewish identity is technically a minority one, it has not felt that way, and I have not experienced first-hand anti-Semitism at home. Aside from the social acceptance of my Jewish identity that I experienced growing up, I have always taken for granted the fact that my Jewish identity is legally protected by the United States government.
While in Romania, I met with Andrei Oisteanu, a Jewish Romanian historian and writer who has studied and written extensively about the history of the Jewish minority in Romania, including the Holocaust. When he spoke to me, he emphasized the fact that Romania is still very much in the process of denazification today. He underscored the fact that communism came immediately after the Holocaust, so quickly that there wasn’t time for people to grapple with the events of the Holocaust, including the victims, the perpetrators, the murders, the propaganda, and the anti-Jewish legislation. Eventually, after the revolution in 1989, the general population started to acknowledge and discuss this dark recent history. However, even during this time, the parliament and the government still refused to acknowledge the existence of anti-Semitism.
Mr. Oisteanu himself was a participant in a commission that included Israeli, Romanian, and American sociologists, historians, and writers. This delegation made recommendations to the government, pushing in particular for the implementation of mainstream education about the Holocaust, the establishment of an institution to study the Holocaust, the publication of textbooks about the history of the Holocaust, and a Romanian Holocaust remembrance day. They have accomplished some of these goals: Mr. Oisteanu helped write a textbook that is used in schools and includes substantial history of the Holocaust; he also successfully fought for the establishment of a law that prohibits Romanians from denying the events of the Holocaust or Romania’s role in it, as well as the establishment of the Romanian Holocaust Remembrance Day. Both laws were passed in 2004. Despite these legal changes, Mr. Oisteanu stressed, there is still a grave amount of anti-Semitism present in the country today.
I was surprised to hear that this legal change had only come about in recent years. I thought back to 2004, the year these Romanian laws were passed: by 2004, I had already spent four years at the Adas Israel Gan Hayeled nursery and preschool, where I was introduced to an active Jewish community, with little understanding that Jews were currently a minority in the United States, or in the world. I have attended the Adas Israel Synagogue since I was in preschool, and the synagogue has been supported by political actors in the United States. Presidents Obama, Nixon, Ford, Senator Robert Kennedy, and Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey and Al Gore have all spoken at the temple, which to me, indicates a clear acceptance of the Jewish community into the mainstream American community by prominent politicians. Hearing from Mr. Oisteanu about just how institutionalized the anti-Semitism has been in Romania is a startling contrast to my experience at home in DC.
There are no doubt states and districts in the United States that would feel as unfamiliar to a Jewish person as Romania does. But coming from a heavily populated Jewish area in the United States has made the current social and recent legal status of Jews in Romania feel very foreign to me.
DC versus Romania: a Jewish Experience
