02 - 1812-1918

After the Russian annexation in 1812, Bessarabia was included in the Pale of Settlement, and many Jews settled there from other parts of the Pale. The Jewish population, mainly concentrated in Kishinev and district and in the northern part of the region, grew from 43,062 in 1836 to 94,045 in 1867 (excluding New Bessarabia, see below), and to 228,620 (11.8% of the total) in 1897. Of these 109,703 (48%) lived in the towns (of them 50,237, or 22%, in Kishinev), 60,701 (26.5%) in small towns, and 58,216 (25.5%) in the villages. They formed 37.4% of the town population, 55.7% of the population of the small towns, and 3.8% of the village population. Regulations governing the legal status of the Jews of Bessarabia after the annexation were issued in 1818. In conformance with the Russian pattern Jews were required to join one of the three classes: merchants, townsmen, or peasants. All their former rights were confirmed, while the existent Russian legislation concerning the Jews did not apply, since Bessarabia had autonomous status. The regulations even expressly authorized Bessarabian Jews to reside in the villages and engage in leasing activities and innkeeping, in contradiction to the "Jewish Statute" of 1804 (see Russia). Because of this regional autonomy, the Jews of Bessarabia were spared several of the most severe anti-Jewish decrees issued in the first half of the 19th century. By 1835, when liquidation of Bessarabian autonomy began, the "Jewish legislation" then promulgated in Russia was equally applied to Bessarabian Jewry, although the prohibition on Jewish residence in border regions was not enforced in Bessarabia until 1839, and compulsory military service until 1852. In the second half of the 19th century the restriction on Jewish residence in the border area assumed special importance for the Jews of Bessarabia. By the Treaty of Paris (1856) a territory in the southern part of the region was allocated to Rumania, and many localities, including Kishinev, now fell in the border area. The restrictions were not strictly enforced and thousands of Jews settled in this region, although decrees of expulsion were issued in 1869, 1879, 1886, and 1891. Of these the most severe and extensive was that of 1869. Expulsions of individual Jews also became frequent. The Jews in New Bessarabia—the area incorporated within Rumania by the Treaty of Paris—shared the fate of the other Jews in the country. The anti-Jewish riots which broke out in the towns of this region—Izmail, Kagul, and Vilkovo—in 1872 aroused both Jewish and non-Jewish public opinion in Europe, and diplomatic intervention was enlisted to alleviate their position. When New Bessarabia reverted to Russia in 1878, the Jews who were then recorded on the Rumanian tax registers were permitted to remain there. The "May Laws" of 1882 severely affected Jews in Bessarabia as a considerable proportion lived in the villages, and frequent expulsions ensued. In 1903 a frightful pogrom broke out in Kishinev. The wave of pogroms of 1905 swept Bessarabia. Three towns and 68 other localities were struck and 108 Jews were murdered. The damage was estimated at 3,500,000 rubles. The 1917 Revolution in Russia brought civic equality for the Jews of Bessarabia.

During the 19th century the economic structure of Bessarabian Jewry remained basically unchanged. In their old occupations Jews played an important role within the agrarian economy of the region. An increasing number of Jews entered agriculture, and between 1836 and 1853, 17 Jewish agricultural settlements were established in Bessarabia, mostly in the northern districts, on lands purchased or leased from Christian or Jewish landowners. There were 10,859 persons living on these settlements in 1858; 12.5% of Bessarabian Jewry were farmers, and the region became among the largest and most important centers of Jewish agriculture in Russia. There were 106,031 dessiatines (276,283 acres) in Jewish ownership in 1880 (2.5% of the arable land of Bessarabia) and an additional 206,538 dessiatines (557,652 acres) held by Jews on lease. In time, especially after the application of the "May Laws," most of the settlements were liquidated. According to a survey carried out by the Jewish Colonization Association (ICA) in 1899, there were 1,492 families (7,782 persons), of whom 53% were landowners, on the six settlements still in existence. Of these families only 31.5% were engaged in agricultural work. The land in Jewish ownership also diminished. In 1897, 7.12% of the Jews in Bessarabia were engaged in agriculture; 26.81% in crafts and industry; 3.65% in transport; 2.34% in commercial brokerage; 39.53% in commerce (of these 58% engaged in the trade of agricultural produce); 8.9% as clerks or employees in private enterprises, domestics, daily workers, or unskilled laborers; 4.9% in public or government services or the liberal professions; and 6.75% in miscellaneous occupations. The 22,130 Jews engaged in commerce constituted 81.2% of the total number of merchants in the region, and 95.8% of the grain dealers. The proportion of Jewish artisans, mainly tailors, was lower (39%). From the early 1880s the economic situation of Bessarabian Jewry deteriorated as a result of the frequent expulsions from the villages and border areas, and the agrarian crisis in Russia during this period. Many impoverished Jews emigrated overseas. The principal factor in Jewish spiritual life was Hasidism. Many of the village Jews of no marked learning adopted much of the way of life and customs of the Moldavian peasantry. A major influence was wielded by the zaddikim of the Friedman (see Ruzhin) and Twersky families. During the 1830s and 1840s Haskalah began to penetrate into Bessarabia. From the end of the 1840s Jewish government schools were opened in Bessarabia. In 1855 there were six such schools, in Beltsy, Khotin, Brichany, and Izmail, and two in Kishinev, with 188 pupils. Private secular Jewish schools also began to appear, and from the 1860s Jews in Bessarabia, especially wealthier ones, began to send their children to the general schools. During the 1870s, 30% to 40% of the pupils in some of the secondary schools of the region were Jewish. In 1894, however, 60.9% of Jewish children of school age still attended heder. The population census of 1897 revealed that only 27.8% of Bessarabian Jews above the age of ten could read Russian. After the pogroms of the 1880s, Hovevei Zion societies were founded in Bessarabia as elsewhere, the most important in Kishinev, led by Abraham Grunberg and Meir Dizengoff. Toward the end of the 1880s and early 1890s there was some movement toward pioneer settlement in Erez Israel (aliyah). Seven delegates from Bessarabia, of whom six were from Kishinev, took part at the founding meeting of the Hovevei Zion Odessa Committee (April 1890). The Zionists of Bessarabia were represented at the First Zionist Congress in 1897 by Jacob Bernstein-Kogan of Kishinev. Toward the close of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, a line of poets and authors emerged on the cultural scene in Bessarabia, many of whom were to play an important role in Yiddish and Hebrew literature, including Eliezer Steinbarg, Judah Steinberg, S. Ben-Zion, Jacob Fichman, Samuel Leib Blank, and Hayyim Greenberg. The chief rabbi of Bessarabia, Judah Loeb Zirelson, wrote halakhic works.

Source:
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* History: Moldova