Great Britain, British Jews, and the international protection of Romanian Jews, 1900-1914: a study of Jewish diplomacy and minority rights

 
 
59
especially in towns. In this situation, emigration was an option that was 
seriously considered by many individuals.  
 
Between 1871 and 1914, approximately 75,000 Jews left Romania.
3
 The 
most popular destination of the emigrants was, not surprisingly, the United 
States, but some migrants went to Canada, Australia, Western European 
countries, Cyprus, Ottoman Anatolia, and Palestine.
4
 The peak year was 1900, 
followed by 1902 and 1903. The flow of emigrants began to dry up in 1904.  
 
TABLE 4   Jewish emigration from Romania, 1899-1904.
5
 
 
Year 
Number of emigrants 
1899  
3,375 
1900 16,678 
1901  
3,401 
1902  
8,974 
1903  
6,671 
1904  
2,682 
Total 41,754 
 
 
As Zosa Szajkowski remarks, it is difficult to obtain reliable figures on 
Romanian Jewish emigrants. Szajkowski’s own statistics, taken from the 
Alliance Israélite Universelle bulletins, are very similar to the figures presented 
in Table 4, differing only for 1902 and 1904, and in the total of 42,968. 
Szajkowski apparently believes that the number of emigrants was actually 
larger, since the statistics were based on the number of passports issued, but 
many Jews left Romania without passports. Moreover, Romanian attempts to 
make the figures appear smaller may also have played a role.
6
 
 
The figures given by Samuel Joseph also differ to some extent, but these 
are numbers of immigrants arriving in the United States, rather than numbers 
of emigrants leaving Romania. Even though the majority of migrants eventually 
went to the United States, they did not necessarily reach America during the 
same calendar year as they left Romania. According to Joseph, the peak year of 
Romanian Jewish arrivals to the United States was 1903, when approximately 
8,500 Romanian Jews entered the country. The total number of Romanian 
Jewish arrivals between 1899 and 1910 was 54,827. It is worth pointing out that 
although the great majority of Romanian immigrants to America were Jewish, 
                                                           
3
  
Kissman 1947, 160; Marrus 1985, 34. 
4
  
Already in the 1880s, some Romanian Jews had founded a colony in Palestine. The 
project was considered a failure. See Schneider 1981, 528-532.  
5
 
Iancu 1978, 260. Iancu does not give any figures for the following years. His tables 
are based on the Alliance Israélite Universelle statistics. 
6
  
Szajkowski 1951, 56. 

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60
 
some ethnic Romanians were also included. At the turn of the century, over 
95% of Romanian immigrants were Jews, but in 1910 only 79%.
7
  
 
Perceived from another angle, Jewish emigration from Romania formed a 
relatively small percentage of all Jewish immigration to the United States: in its 
peak year, 1903, it was less than 13 per cent. However, it was usually much 
lower than this, and the annual average in 1899-1910 was less than 7 per cent. It 
is clear that Samuel Joseph’s figures have major problems when it comes to 
transmigration; he admits himself that many of those who, according to 
statistics, arrived from Britain and Canada were actually East European Jews 
who had temporarily stayed in Britain or Canada.
8
 This element was also 
apparent in the case of Romanian Jews who travelled via England and, in 
addition, tended to prefer Canada as their first destination on the American 
continent.      
 
Jewish emigration from Romania was the most intensive of all the Jewish 
emigration movements prior to the First World War. In Russia, which produced 
the greatest mass of Jewish emigrants, an average of 17.3 Jews per thousand 
emigrated annually between 1900 and 1914, whereas in Romanian this figure 
was 19.6. Both figures were much higher than among the gentile population in 
these countries.
9
 The proportion of women and children among the Jewish 
emigrants was relatively large: only about 13,000 out of 41,000 Romanian Jewish 
emigrants between 1899 and 1904 were adult men, and the rest were women or 
children. Another remarkable feature was the dominance of artisans: they 
numbered nearly 10,000, again in 1899-1904.
10
  
 
The large number of artisans among the emigrants was not surprising 
when mirrored to the key points of the emigration discussion of the era, but the 
emigration of whole families was often overlooked when contemporaries 
attempted to paint a picture of Jewish emigration from Romania. As will be 
shown in the following chapters, international Jewish organisations sometimes 
tried to prevent the emigration of whole families and, for the most part, wanted 
to select skilled artisans. However, the opposite view, which disapproved of 
emigrating men who left their families behind, also prevailed in some Jewish 
circles, most notably in Britain. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                                                           
7
  
Joseph 1914, 167-168. In 1900, 1901, 1902 and 1904, more than 6,000 Romanian Jews 
arrived in the United States each year. To compare, in 1909, less than 1,400 Romanian 
Jews arrived. 
8
  
Joseph 1914, 93, 95, 167. 
9
  
Ettinger 1976, 861-862.    
10
  
Iancu 1978, 260. 

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61
3.2  The causes of emigration 
 
 
Romania got into serious financial difficulties in 1899. The immediate cause of 
the crisis was the total failure of the harvest of 1899, resulting from a serious 
drought. However, the economic problems had been building up for several 
years. The Romanian state had, for a prolonged period, issued treasury bonds 
in order to carry out extensive public works, which were sometimes lavish and 
over-ambitious undertakings. The army had also received substantial financing. 
Since Romania was extremely dependent on agricultural exports, the harvest 
failure hit hard. The population had no purchasing power; merchants could not 
sell their stock, and the state lost revenue in the form of indirect taxation. In the 
past, Romania had financed its budget deficits through heavy foreign loans, but 
now there was a crisis in the European money market because of the Boer War 
in South Africa. Thus, it was harder for Romania to obtain extra money just 
when it needed it desperately.
11
  
 
A serious political crisis also took place in Romania in spring 1899. 
Dimitrie A. Sturdza, with his Liberal Party, had been in power for four years. 
The Conservative Party accused Sturdza of treason and organised street riots 
against the government. The disagreement was over the Transylvanian 
question: Sturdza was alleged to have co-operated with Hungarians and was 
accused of having given inadequate support for Romanian schools in 
Transylvania.
12
 The crisis led to the formation of a Conservative government, 
with Gheorge Grigore Cantacuzino as Prime Minister and Jean Lahovary as 
Foreign Secretary.
13
 
 
Romanian financial difficulties were discussed in great detail during the 
following years, often in connection with the Jewish question. The economic 
situation in Romania drew a great deal of attention from abroad. Foreign 
newspapers wrote a large number of articles about the Romanian situation, 
diplomatic representatives reported the matter extensively, and Jewish 
organisations in Western Europe used the economic problems for their own 
purposes in presenting Romania in a bad light.  
 
For the repayment of state treasury bonds and for other urgent expenses, 
Romania obtained loans from Berlin. The leading Berlin banking houses thus 
held the treasury bonds and practically controlled Romanian finances. This 
meant that Germany in general and the Berlin bankers in particular were able to 
exert pressure on Romanian economic affairs.
14
 Furthermore, the ‘natural’ 
sympathy for Germany in Romania, partly because of King Carol’s German 
                                                           
11
  
FO 104/143/4, British Minister in Bucharest, John Gordon Kennedy, to Salisbury, 17 
Jan. 1900; The Roumanian Bulletin, supplement to JC, 11 July 1902; see also The Times, 
27 Dec. 1901, for an overview of Romanian financial difficulties. 
12
  
FO 104/139/31, Kennedy to Salisbury, 14 April 1899. In Kennedy’s opinion, Sturdza 
had passed many useful legal measures and was a hardworking but hot-tempered 
individual. 
13
  
FO 104/139/33, Kennedy to Salisbury, 23 April 1899; Schneider 1981, 526. 
14
  
Schneider 1981, 428. 

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