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

 
47
political life. The Constitution of 1866 clearly ruled that only Romanians were 
eligible to vote and to stand for election. In addition, Jewish, or rather ‘alien’, 
participation in local elections was forbidden under regular legislation; and 
only Romanian citizens were allowed to hold public office. Some confusion 
prevailed over Jewish civil rights, such as freedom of press and freedom of 
assembly.
74
 The law was not clear on this matter, and occasionally suppression 
of the Jewish press and prohibition of Jewish public meetings occurred, based 
on the argument that only Romanian citizens held freedom of press and 
freedom of assembly.
75
 
 
Jewish residence in the countryside was restricted, and rural Jews, as 
aliens, were liable to expulsion. It should be emphasised that Jews were allowed 
to reside in the countryside, although some pro-Jewish sources and studies 
have sometimes argued otherwise. Jews, as aliens, had to possess an internal 
passport before they could settle in another rural commune, and they had to 
obtain a residence permit from the municipal council.
76
 One of the most 
controversial laws in Romania was the Aliens Law of 1881, which stipulated 
that a foreigner residing in Romania could be deported from the country if he 
threatened state security or public order. 
 
Economic laws were related to the ‘peculiar circumstances’ of Romanian 
Jews, as the leaders of the British Jews put it.
77
 Although the laws were 
nominally directed against all foreigners, they referred to typical Jewish 
activities. Their first main concern was with the sectors of national economy in 
which Jews competed against the new Romanian middle class. The second field 
targeted comprised of rural middlemen occupations, which were seen as being 
exploitative of the peasantry. 
 
The Jews, as foreigners, were not allowed to own land in the rural 
communes, so they could not, in principle, be engaged in agriculture. The ban 
did not, however, cover land rental from the large landowners, although there 
were occasionally some relatively half-hearted attempts to limit rental also. In 
addition to arendaşi, or renter-middlemen, a significant rural Jewish occupation 
and the foundation of their economic power in the countryside was inn 
keeping, which usually included alcohol and tobacco trade, and money lending. 
The latter activity caused friction because of the allegedly usurious rates and 
the connection of money lending with the alcohol trade; it was argued that 
when the peasants borrowed money, they spent it on alcohol that was so 
conveniently available on the same premises.
78
  
                                                           
74
  
Sincerus 1901, 194, 199. 
75
  
For example, in 1902, when Jewish artisans wanted to hold a meeting to discuss the 
new Trades Law, the Prime Minister at the time, Dimitrie A. Strurdza, argued that 
Jews had no right to hold such a meeting because the right of assembly was a 
political right. AJA Annual Report 1901-1902, 18.  
76
  
Gaster Papers, bound volume 2A, memorandum of a Romanian Jewish association, 
April 1893. 
77
   FO 371/511/41368, Conjoint Committee secretary Charles Emanuel to Foreign 
Secretary Edward Grey, 25 Nov. 1908, enclosure: Conjoint memorandum. 
78
  
Parkes 1946, 96. 

---

 
48 
 
The laws against the Jewish alcohol trade in the countryside were not 
effective, and, on the contrary, the number of inns and taverns increased in the 
late nineteenth century.
79
 According to the law of 1873, only those who were 
eligible to vote were able to obtain a license for selling alcohol in villages and 
rural taverns, i.e. in the countryside. This did not apply to towns. Edmond 
Sincerus, in his contemporary study on Romanian anti-Jewish legislation, 
claimed that the law of 1873 eventually pushed the Jews out of the alcohol trade 
in the countryside and that various officials of the municipal communes took 
their place. Sincerus forgot, however, the usual Romanian habit of separating 
the functions of the license owner and the person who actually handled the 
trade. The latter was, in many cases, a Jew, even if the owner was an ethnic 
Romanian. As for the tobacco laws, the officials and vendors of the state tobacco 
monopoly were all supposed to be Romanians, both in urban and rural 
communes. However, the Jews continued to sell tobacco in the name of 
Romanian entrepreneurs.
80
  
 
The Romanian government was also worried about hawking. It was 
mainly Jews who were engaged in hawking in Romania, and therefore the law 
of 1884, which introduced special permits for hawking, hit hardest the poorer 
section of the Jewish population. In the 1880s, the authorities still granted about 
10% of all the permits to Jews, but the proportion of the Jewish hawkers 
decreased considerably. This was the key reason for the first wave of 
emigration of Romanian Jews in the 1880s, although the numbers involved then 
were still insignificant compared to those at the turn of the century.
81
 
 
Anti-Jewish legislation that was connected with the development of 
national industry and commerce could be understood as being about setting 
limits on the more prosperous Jewish entrepreneurs — not the hawkers or small 
traders. The Romanians created the Chambers of Commerce and Trade to act as 
the main bodies representing commercial interests. Although the Jews formed a 
large minority of merchants and industrialists, they were not permitted to 
become members in the Chambers, nor were they eligible to select 
representatives for the Chambers. Moreover, the Jews were not given the 
opportunity to be employed in major state financial institutions, for example the 
newly established National Bank. The right of Jews to occupy administrative 
positions of joint stock companies was limited, but not entirely forbidden.
82
  
 
When a factory was founded, two thirds of the workers had to be native 
Romanians after a five year period. Jews were not allowed to be employed in 
the state railways, and 60% of all the workers in private railways had to be 
Romanians.
83
 There were further restrictions in the sphere of state security and 
                                                           
79
  
Schneider 1981, 203, 205.   
80
  
Sincerus 1901, 25, 27, 30-31. 
81
  
Schneider 1981, 437-440; Sincerus 1901, 65-66, 69-70. 
82
  
Gaster Papers, bound volume 2A, memorandum of a Romanian Jewish association,  
April 1893. 
83
  
Joseph 1914, 73-74; Sincerus 1901, 94, 97-99. Although Joseph concludes that the two 
third Romanian quotas ‘practically’ excluded Jews, the restrictions hardly meant 
that. After all, one third of the private railway workers were allowed to be Jewish. 

---