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

 
42 
operation with the other Great Powers. The concert of Europe had begun to 
break up, and bloc rivalry had entered the scene, which also decreased the 
possibilities for international Jewish co-operation. The Powers were less willing 
to act as a united group for a common cause, for example over the Jewish 
issue.
55
 
 
In Britain, international intervention based on Article 44 of the Berlin 
Treaty was considered to be possible in theory, and Article 44 was interpreted 
to allow permanent control of the Romanian Jewish situation. The standard 
Romanian view was the opposite: the Powers’ right of intervention had ceased 
when they had recognised Romanian independence in 1880 and, at the same 
time, effectively accepted the Romanian interpretation of the Jewish rights. The 
text of the treaty was favourable to the Romanian interpretation. Article 44 
imposed a condition for the recognition of Romania without direct reference to 
any follow-up procedures.
56
 This was apparent when compared to Article 61, 
which dealt with the position of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire. After the 
duties of the Porte were described, a provision on Great Power supervision 
followed: 
 
 
 
‘It [the Porte] will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the 
Powers, who will superintend their application.’
57
  
 
The Armenian article led to a great deal of meddling by the Powers, especially 
by Britain, which was the keenest in pushing through reforms, engaging in 
diplomatic manoeuvres, and urging fellow Powers to intervene. The Powers 
even managed to embark on joint diplomatic action on some occasions.
58
 As 
nothing of the sort was included in the provisions concerning Romania, the 
Romanian interpretation appears to have been correct from the strict 
international legal point of view. Yet the dominant international perception was 
that the right to intervene by the Powers existed. The Powers had promised to 
observe the application of the Romanian citizenship law when they had 
recognised Romanian independence, although the promise itself was not based 
on any formal international arrangements.  
 
 
                                                           
55
  
Black 1988, 303; Levene 1992, 6-8. 
56
  
Rey 1903, 509-510; Macartney 1934, 168. For a more modern argument against the 
right of intervention after the recognition of Romanian independence, see Welter 
1989, 156. 
57
 
Major Peace Treaties II, Treaty of Berlin, 975-997.  
58
  
Sonyel 1987, 57, 75, 78, 166-167. Sonyel does not discuss the international legal 
aspects of the Berlin Treaty. For an anti-Armenian and anti-Powers interpretation of 
the international aspects of the Armenian question, see Öke 1988, p. 89-94. Literature 
on the Armenian question is abundant, with more or less biased either pro-Armenian 
or anti-Armenian (i.e. pro-Ottoman) contributions. The main controversy has been 
over the Armenian massacres (or ‘alleged’ massacres) during the First World War, 
but the earlier history of the question is usually presented in considerable detail in 
order to help the reader understand the later events. See, for example, Dadrian 1995 
and Nassibian 1984. 

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43
2.3  Features of the Romanian Jewish community  
 
 
The number of Jews in the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, and 
subsequently in the Kingdom of Romania, had grown steadily and 
continuously throughout the nineteenth century. Many Jews who had at first 
settled in Moldavia moved south to Wallachia. In 1899, when there were 
approximately 267,000 Jews in Romania, nearly 200,000 of them lived in 
Moldavia. The percentage of Jews out of the total population was 10.5% in 
Moldavia, while it was considerably smaller in the Wallachian regions 
Muntenia (2.3%) and Oltenia (0.4%). In Dobrudja, the province on the Black Sea 
coast that had been acquired in 1878 at the Congress of Berlin, the percentage 
was 1.6%.
59
 As there were many more Jews in Moldavia than in Wallachia, the 
greatest problems occurred in Moldavia. Both the relative and absolute 
numbers of Jews were at their highest at the turn of the century, as Table 1 
shows. After that, emigration took its toll, and the Jewish population stagnated 
— and even decreased slightly — while at the same time the total population of 
the country increased substantially. 
 
 
TABLE 1   The number of Jews in Romania, 1860-1912.
60
  
 
Year 
Number of Jews 
Total population 
Percentage of Jews 
1860 134,168 
3,864,848 
3.5% 
1899 266,652 
5,956,690 
4.5% 
1912 241,088 
7,234,920 
3.3% 
 
 
 
As in the other countries in Eastern Europe, there were hardly any mixed 
marriages between Jews and non-Jews in Romania. Neither did Jews often 
convert to Christianity.
61
 The great majority of Romanian Jews were Ashkenazi 
Jews of Eastern and Central European origin. Sephardic Jews of Mediterranean 
origin numbered approximately 10,000 in 1919, which would suggest that the 
number was roughly the same in the two previous decades, as the Sephardi 
community was solidly established without any radical numerical changes one 
way or another.
62
 
 
According to Moses Mendelsohn, Moldavian Jewish communities could 
be characterised as typically Eastern European, while Wallachian communities 
were more of the Western European type. The Wallachian community was 
long-established, with some families having lived in the area from the sixteenth 
century onwards, and it was concentrated in the capital city, Bucharest. They 
                                                           
59
  
RG 1899, xlv. 
60
  
RG 1899, xliv-xlvi; BT 1921, 6, 49, 52, 
61
  
Ettinger 1976, 860. 
62
  
Iancu 1978, 143. 

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