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

 
11
reader with a detailed account of the Romanian Jewish situation, often with 
large tracts of documents included. The efforts of foreign governments and 
Western Jews often feature prominently in these accounts, along with internal 
aspects of the matter.  
 
If we take a further look at the existing body of research dealing with the 
period before the First World War, we soon notice that the late nineteenth 
century is generally much more extensively covered than the early twentieth 
century. As a rule, the early twentieth century has been researched in a fairly 
cursory manner, occasionally presented as a kind of afterthought following a 
detailed discussion on, say, the events of the 1870s.  
 
Jeffrey Stuart Schneider’s unpublished thesis, The Jewish Problem in 
Romania Prior to the First World War (1981), is perhaps the most detailed account 
on the events of the early twentieth century so far, although admittedly, like so 
many others, he focuses on the late nineteenth century. Schneider attempts to 
incorporate the whole Romanian pre-First World War Jewish question, with all 
its domestic and international aspects, in one single study. As to the British 
perspective, Schneider does offer a lot of information on British attitudes and 
policies, but he has not gone systematically through the British Jewish archives 
and publications.  
 
Another feature of research on Romanian Jews has been the prejudiced 
treatment that the subject has often received from historians. Fritz Stern, 
although not a specialist on Romanian Jewish matters, has remarked 
perceptively that ‘the history of Romanian Jewry has always been written with 
more polemics than factuality’.
4
 This holds true especially for contemporary 
pamphlets that were published by Jews or their opponents, but many modern 
studies are also somewhat biased in their handling of the subject.
5
  
 
The most prolific historian of Romanian Jews is undoubtedly French 
historian Carol Iancu. His studies are reconstructions of contemporary opinions 
on Romanian Jews, and include extensive citations. They also include a strong 
pro-Jewish bias. Iancu has mostly concentrated on the late 19th century in his 
studies, but he has also studied the early 20th century. Principally, Iancu has 
used the Alliance Israélite Universelle archives and French diplomatic 
correspondence — therefore, understandably, the role of the British Jews is not 
elaborated in his studies.  Iancu’s major study is perhaps Les Juifs en Roumanie, 
                                                           
4
  
Stern 1977, 354. 
5
 
 
For example, Ismar Elbogen wrote in 1946 (the chapter title was ’Terror in Rumania 
and Russia’): ’Rumania set the record in maltreating the Jews. Russia was more 
brutal, but Russia had the courage to confess its brutality. Rumania, on the other 
hand, practiced the "cold" pogrom and washed its hands in innocence… The hocus-
pocus which declared that the Jews were aliens in the country in which they and 
their fathers had been born, in which they had received their education and had 
rendered their military service, provided limitless possibilities for willful and 
capricious treatment… To the suggested solution that the Rumanians be brought up 
to work and so be enabled to compete with the Jews, they turned a deaf ear. The 
natural consequence was that the Jews were tormented and ruined, and the 
Rumanian people in no wise helped. The country which was fertile and rich in 
minerals was constantly on the brink of bankruptcy.’ Elbogen 1946, 355-356. 
 

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12 
1866-1919: De l´exclusion a l´émancipation (1978). It chronicles the main events of 
Romanian Jewish history in the late nineteenth century, along with domestic 
and foreign attitudes, and it therefore provides useful details and background 
on the Jewish community for someone who is actually studying the early 
twentieth century situation. L’emancipation des Juifs de Roumanie (1992) is 
especially valuable as it discusses the Romanian Jews during the Balkan Wars 
in 1912-1913, a theme that has otherwise attracted hardly any research at all.
6
 
 
Beate Welter’s German contribution, Die Judenpolitik der rumänischen 
Regierung, 1866-1888 (1989), is mainly based on Austrian archives. The book’s 
approach is interesting, with the work being divided into three sections: one on 
internal politics (especially interesting), one on international politics, and one 
on the Jewish activities. This is undoubtedly one of the more reasonably 
balanced accounts on the issue.     
 
General histories of Romania often either ignore the Jewish question in the 
pre-First World War period (in the case of Romanian editions) or, alternatively, 
present a short overview of the matter (in the case of Western books). If the 
question is discussed, the focus tends to be on the developments relating to the 
international condemnation of Romanian Jewish policy in the 1860s and to the 
recognition of Romanian independence in the late 1870s.
7
  
 
Certain specific aspects of the Jewish question have also been focused on 
in historical research, for example Jewish mass emigration and Romanian anti-
Semitism. In addition, the implications of certain events concerning Jews, such 
as the Peasant Revolt of 1907, have attracted the attention of historians.  
 
One of the more popular approaches to the Romanian Jewish question has 
been to examine the subject through the issue of anti-Semitism. Although the 
purpose of my work is not to provide an extensive analysis of anti-Semitism in 
Romania or elsewhere, the matter can not be ignored when placing the 
Romanian situation in an international context.
8
 An interesting study dealing 
exclusively with Romanian anti-Semitism is William O. Oldson’s A Providential 
Anti-Semitism (1991). Some works on Romanian fascism in the interwar era, 
such as Stephen Fischer-Galati’s articles and N. M. Nagy-Talavera’s classic book 
The Green Shirts and Others: A History of Fascism in Hungary and Romania (1970), 
are useful for possible interpretations on the roots of fascism and the nature of 
anti-Semitism in the period preceding the First World War. 
 
The emigration of Romanian Jews is a relatively well researched topic. A 
classic and widely recognised article on Romanian emigration is Joseph 
Kissman’s  The Immigration of Rumanian Jews up to 1914 (1947). It covers all 
aspects of emigration, but it is especially informative on the fusgeyers, the first 
groups of emigrants who left Romania on foot. Eliyahu Feldman’s article, A 
Batch of Letters from Prospective Jewish Emigrants from Roumania (1980), is based 
on letters sent by emigrants to Rabbi Moses Gaster in London. Carol Iancu’s 
                                                           
6
  
Iancu has also edited a number of document collections on Romanian Jews, such as 
Le combat international pour l’émancipation des Juifs de Roumanie (Iancu 1994).    
7
  
See, for example, Durandin 1995, 176-182 and Treptow 1996, 351. 
8
  
Some general works on anti-Semitism have been used and included in the 
bibliography, but this selection is not meant to be all-inclusive. 

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