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

 
55
politically through their foreign or international organisations, such as the 
Alliance Israélite Universelle.
114
 
 
The concepts of nation and race, widely discussed in many European 
countries at the time, were also visible in the Romanian debate on the Jewish 
question. Nationalism was closely linked with anti-Semitism, as the Jews did 
not fit into the framework of the nation state. The fact that Jews also lived 
among other nations as a minority was in itself a reason for xenophobia.
115
 The 
concept of race was also entwined with the idea of nation. According to social 
Darwinist thinking, the Jewish (Semitic) race was inferior to the Aryan race, and 
Jews could be scientifically distinguished from Aryans through racial 
characteristics. The alleged racial features of the Jews included, for example, 
shortness, dark colouring, greed, and the lack of ability to create an advanced 
culture. Moreover, the Jews were seen as enemies of the Aryans in the 
inevitable battle of the races.
116
 
 
Xenophobia and nationalist fervour
117
 were closely connected with the 
insecurity that Romanians felt after their newly acquired independence and due 
to their situation as a neighbour of several Great Powers: Turkey, Russia, and 
Austria-Hungary. Stephen Fischer-Galati holds an exclusively economically 
based explanation to be inadequate, and places emphasis on the role of the 
influx of alien Jewish elements to Moldavia during the nineteenth century. He 
also stresses the national question and the national humiliations, in the minds of 
the Romanians, brought about by the neighbouring, larger countries.
118
 Indeed, 
Romanian leaders were preoccupied with nation-building and strengthening 
the position of their country, which also involved the aim to eventually annex 
neighbouring territories that were inhabited by ethnic Romanians.
119
 
 
The culture of the Jewish newcomers to the Romanian Principalities had 
been formed in Polish and Russian ghettos, where the Jews lived separately 
from the native populations. They had focused on preserving their religion and 
traditions in a hostile environment. According to James Parkes, ‘citizenship 
implies some considerable degree of assimilation’.
120
 Suspicions between the 
Jews and the ethnic Romanians were mutual: the Jews were not keen to 
embrace the Romanian culture, while the Romanians disliked Jewish culture. 
This was not fruitful ground for Jewish integration. Jews tended to view 
Romanian culture with suspicion and did not rate it very highly.
121
 
 
The Romanian attitude toward Jewish assimilation or integration was 
ambiguous. It was believed that because Jews were not Romanians they could 
not be an integral part of the Romanian state — this was a standard 
                                                           
114
   Brustein 2003, 311. 
115
   Katz 1982, 322. 
116
   Battenberg 1990, 188-191. 
117
   See Brustein 2003, 153-162 for an overview.  
118
   Fischer-Galati 1994,
 3-7. 
119
   Hitchins 1992, 1064-1067. 
120
   Parkes 1946, 97. 
121
   Lindemann 1997, 312-313. 

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56 
international anti-Semitic defence. However, the Jewish side insisted that many 
Jewish families had been living in the Romanian territories for generations, and, 
besides, many so-called ethnic Romanians had foreign ancestry: Greek, 
Albanian, or Armenian.
122
  
 
Mihai Eminescu, the Romanian national poet, argued that no Romanian 
Jews existed since a Jew simply could not be a Romanian. On one hand, 
Eminescu wanted the Jews to be integrated into the society because he saw their 
separate culture as threatening, but, on the other hand, he claimed that the Jews 
were not capable of assimilation.
123
 Eminescu’s reasoning expresses well the 
paradoxical principles of Romanian Jewish policy: the Jews were scorned 
because they were different and, at the same time, they were not allowed to 
become Romanians. 
 
The Western Jewries, the British Jews for example, often argued that the 
purpose of the Romanian policy on Jews was precisely to prevent assimilation 
and to alienate the Jews from the Romanian national sentiment. This way, 
Jewish emancipation could be avoided because the Romanians could claim that 
the Jews were not assimilated and thus could not be granted political rights.
124
  
  
East European Jews, and the majority of Jews in Romania, were Ashkenazi 
Jews who spoke Yiddish as their mother tongue. Those who moved to 
Moldavia from the north and the east belonged to this group. In addition, there 
was a smaller number of Sephardi Jews of Mediterranean origin in Wallachia. 
In the Romanian debate on Jews, a distinction was often made between 
‘Spanish’ (Sephardi) and ‘Polish’ (Ashkenazi) Jews. The Ashkenazim were 
rejected as an inferior group that showed visible characteristics of being 
different, while the Sephardim were considered much more acceptable and 
sometimes even worthy of Romanian citizenship.
125
 Ashkenazi Jews were on 
occasion classified racially as Asians or Mongols and not as Jews at all. 
However, this was not simply a piece of nationalistic propaganda aimed at 
discrediting the Ashkenazi Jews, nor was it an exclusively Romanian belief. The 
Mongol connection referred to the Khazars: a Turkish-Tartar tribe that had 
adopted Judaism in a somewhat modified form during the seventh and eighth 
centuries, which then, in modern times, resulted in speculation on the possible 
Khazar origins of the Eastern European Jewry.
126
  
 
The long-time leader of the Liberal Party, Dimitrie A. Sturdza, also 
distinguished between ‘Spanish and non-Spanish’ Jews in Romania 
127
(meaning 
                                                           
122
   For this argument, see, for example, Lazare 1903, 240-241. 
123
   Oldson 1991, 118-119. Oldson discusses Eminescu’s opinion on Jews in detail. 
124
   FO 371/511/41368. Emanuel to Grey 25
 Nov. 1908. Enclosure: the Conjoint memo. 
125
   Oldson 1991, 140-142. 
126
  Paul Wexler has argued that Ashkenazi Jews are ethnically different to 
Mediterranean Jews and that they have a strong Turkish ethnic element, in addition 
to a Slavic component. Wexler does not especially emphasize the Khazar ancestry, 
however; he dismisses that particular theory as too straightforward. See Wexler 1993, 
16, 242.       
127
   Interestingly, in summer 1902, Sturdza divided the Jews into three groups: the first 
had lived in Romanian lands from the Dacian times, the second had previously been 
under Austrian or other foreign protection, and the third had immigrated from 

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