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

 
49
transport: Jews could not work in the postal services, customs, prisons, or on 
the police force.
84
 Moreover, only Romanians could practise as barristers. When 
this law was introduced, it only referred to higher courts, but the provisions 
were later extended to cover all courts.
85
 
 
Considerable attention was given to excluding Jews from the health 
services. Jewish doctors and other health service personnel were not permitted 
to work in state hospitals. However, they could be employed if no Romanian 
doctors and nurses were available. Legislation also dealt with hospital patients. 
The general rule was that no more than ten per cent of patients could be Jewish 
and they had to pay for their care.
86
  
 
The education laws were probably the most critical and the most 
damaging group of anti-Jewish legislation passed in Romania in the last 
decades of the nineteenth century. Contemporary observations often mentioned 
the education laws as the most damaging aspect of the situation. The school 
legislation was very elaborate, and there were separate laws for different kinds 
of schools. The basic provisions of the education legislation could be divided 
into four groups. Firstly, Jewish children had to pay school fees, while 
Romanians could attend free of charge. Secondly, Jews were admitted to 
schools only if there was room after all native Romanian pupils had been given 
preference. This could also take the form of Jewish quotas, varying between 5% 
and 10%. The third group of restrictions referred to boarding: Jewish children 
were not allowed to board and had to go to school as day pupils. Finally, Jewish 
pupils were not eligible for state grants or financial aid.
87
  
 
Jewish students were kept totally away from certain vocational schools, 
namely agricultural and forestry schools, and from military schools.
88
 As Jewish 
teachers were in most cases excluded as well, Jewish children had to study in an 
atmosphere dominated by teachers of anti-Semitic mentality. It is generally 
agreed that schools and particularly universities were the strongholds of 
Romanian anti-Semitism. 
  
Discrimination helped (from the Romanian point of view) to decrease the 
percentage of Jewish pupils in schools. In 1891, the percentage of pupils in state 
primary schools that were Jewish was 15,5%, but in 1900 it was only 5,5%. The 
figures for secondary schools in 1897 and 1898 were 11% and 7,5% respectively; 
the secondary school law was passed at this stage and the effects could be seen 
immediately.
89
 Romanian Jews attempted to develop a private school network 
of their own, but met with hindrances designed to interfere with Jewish schools, 
such as administrative attempts to impose Saturday (Jewish Sabbath) 
instruction.
90
 
                                                           
84
  
See, for example, Sincerus 1901, 52 on customs officials. 
85
  
Sincerus 1901, 42-43; Schneider 1981, 434. 
86
  
Gaster Papers, bound volume 2A, memorandum of a Romanian Jewish association, 
April 1893. 
87
  
Iancu 1978, 192-196; Sincerus 1901, 124, 129, 133, 140. 
88
  
Sincerus 1901, 139-140. 
89
  
Iancu 1978, 194; Sincerus 1901, 132-133. 
90
  
See, for example, JC, 26 Jan. 1900. 

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50 
 
Army legislation constituted an exceptional case. Jews were not excluded 
from the army; quite the opposite, they were required to perform military 
service in the same way as the Romanians. However, Jews were not allowed to 
become officers or to participate in any special units, nor could they volunteer 
for the army. Not everyone in the Romanian governing circles was happy with 
army legislation, and sometimes it was questioned whether the Jews would be 
loyal soldiers — after all, they were not Romanian citizens.
91
 
 
The effects of anti-Jewish legislation were open to question. On the 
negative side, the legislation’s effects were accentuated by administrative 
circulars and occasional ‘anti-Semitic’ zeal on the part of local authorities, who 
were responsible for the execution of the laws.
92
 However, there were also 
factors against the rigorous enforcement of the laws, and the very same 
administrative circulars and the responsibility of local authorities might 
occasionally work favourably for the Jews. Many laws could be evaded with 
bribery. Some laws clearly had negative consequences for Jewish economic 
conditions; for example, the hawking law caused suffering to those Jews who 
were already badly off.  
 
In some economic sectors, the Romanian national economy could have 
collapsed if anti-Jewish laws had been properly enforced. This presents a 
peculiar contrast between legislation and practice. The Romanian leaders liked 
to help ethnic Romanian entrepreneurs as much as possible, but, on the other 
hand, it was convenient to use the work of Jews whenever no Romanian 
personnel were available. This arrangement offered the additional possibility of 
obtaining special payments or outright bribe money from Jews on the pretext of 
making exceptions and evading laws — even if the Jewish contribution in the 
economic area in question was more of a rule than an exception.         
 
 
2.5  Anti-Semitism in Romania 
 
 
A number of interpretations of Romanian anti-Semitism have been made, and 
historians have usually emphasised its ‘domestic’ origins. Connections to the 
wider context of European ideas have often been overlooked, and emphasis 
has, indeed, been placed on ‘Romanian’ anti-Semitism. The main focus of 
attention has been on the interwar period
93
, which is understandable because of 
                                                           
91
  
Sincerus 1901, 35-36, 40-41. 
92
  
FO 371/511/41368, Emanuel to Grey, 25 Nov. 1908, enclosure: Conjoint memo.  
93
  
However, Stephen Fischer-Galati has disapproved of the fact that the focus of 
research on Romanian anti-Semitism has been on the Old Kingdom. He has accused 
Carol Iancu, for example, of unbalanced treatment of the question. In Fischer-Galati’s 
opinion, the developments in the other Romanian-inhabited areas, mainly 
Transylvania, before the First World War, have to be taken into account. However, 
this accusation reeks of determinism. Iancu’s studies deal with the pre-First World 
War period only, and to make conclusions based on future occurrences in the Greater 
Romania would result in an unhistorical treatment of material related to pre-1914 
Romania. See Fischer-Galati 1994, 2. 

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