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

 
57
Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, but he did not use these words). Sturdza 
announced that the non-Spanish Jews of Romania were descendants of Mongols 
who had been converted to Judaism hundreds of years previously (referring to 
Khazars) and who thought they were better than Romanians. Those people 
could not be naturalised; they could constitute a real danger to the country 
when naturalised, as they would form a majority in many Moldavian towns. 
This would further attract new arrivals from Russia and Austrian Galicia.
128
  
 
Prejudice against Jews was identified with discourse on the essence of 
Romanian culture and nationhood. The leading Romanian intellectuals 
maintained, in harmony with the international anti-Semitic currents, that a 
natural, essentialist distinction existed between races. There was much talk of 
Romanian national values and fear of any alteration in Romanian traditions. For 
instance, the national poet Mihai Eminescu and the historian Alexandru D. 
Xenopol argued that the Romanian nationality and heritage had to be preserved 
and that any course of action was justified in the name of national survival.
129
 
Also along standard anti-Semitic lines, a negative stereotype prevailed of a Jew 
sporting side curls and a caftan, and, perhaps more importantly, sporting 
certain personality traits. He was constantly seeking profit, he was usurious, 
and he was an exploiter of peasants. He poisoned the Romanian countryside; in 
short, he was ‘The Village Bloodsucker’.
130
 
 
Negative stereotypes also existed in Romania in regards to foreigners 
outside the country; for example, Hungarians were the oppressors of ethnic 
Romanians in Transylvania, Russians had occupied Romanian lands, and Turks 
were pagans that had invaded Romania and kept it under a yoke for centuries. 
Stereotypes of ‘internal’ foreigners, as Leon Volovici calls them, involved 
Greeks and Jews. The Greek problem had been acute in the 18th century, but in 
the late 19th century it had disappeared when the Greeks were more or less 
assimilated and were no longer perceived as a threat to Romanian culture. 
Hence it was the Jews who were left as representatives of foreign invasion in 
Romanian economic and social life. They had the features of external enemies, 
because of their alleged links to the international Jewish bourgeoisie and to a 
world-wide conspiracy.
131
  
 
 
 
 
                                                                                                                                                                          
Russia or Galicia. The third, in his view, was a group of pauper Jews that caused 
social problems. JC, 18 July 1902.   
128
   FO 104/159/59, Browne to Lansdowne, 8 Sept. 1903; FRUS 1903, 704. Jackson to 
Hay, 7 Sept. 1903. Part of the Sturdza-Jackson discussion was forwarded to the 
British government, but a more detailed account is included in the Foreign Relations 
series. 
129
   Oldson 1991, 99, 112-113,116,136. Lindemann agrees: ‘hostility to Jews was an 
integral part of Romanian national feeling’. Lindemann 1997, 307. 
130
   Volovici 1991, 10. The image of ‘The Village Bloodsucker’ was based on the late 
19th century play of the same title by Vasile Alecsandri.  
131
   Volovici 1991, 4-5. 

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3  THE BEGINNING OF ROMANIAN JEWISH MASS 
EMIGRATION AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY
 
 
 
3.1   Emigration statistics 
 
 
The situation of Romanian Jews reappeared on the international scene at the 
turn of the century, after a comparatively quiet period during the two previous 
decades. The attention of the international Jewish community had mainly been 
focused on the conditions of Russian Jews, which had undoubtedly worsened. 
In Romania, the situation had stayed, in principle, the same as it had been at the 
time of the Berlin Congress; the Jewish question continued to cause serious 
problems. During the two final decades of the nineteenth century, successive 
Romanian governments had passed a large number of laws restricting the 
economic activities and the legal position of Jews. However, the turn of the 
century marked the emergence of a new issue: Jewish mass emigration from 
Romania.  
 
Jewish emigration from Romania can be traced back to 1872, when the 
American consul in Bucharest, Benjamin Peixotto, spoke in favour of Jewish 
emigration. Peixotto’s scheme never materialised, however, as the international 
Jewish community for the most part opposed the plan. Only a few dozen 
Romanian Jewish families emigrated in the 1870s, after which the movement 
temporarily died out.
1
 
 
Romanian Jewish mass emigration began in the middle of the year 1899. 
Prior to this, emigration had been relatively small and had not caused any 
serious domestic or international debate; although, according to Samuel 
Joseph’s migration statistics, more than 10,000 Jews had left Romania for the 
United States between 1881 and 1898.
2
 At the turn of the century, however, 
economic depression in Romania, combined with restrictive legislation, made it 
impossible for many Jews, who were not well off, to earn a livelihood, 
                                                           
1
  
Vitcu & Bădărău 1992, 256-258. 
2
  
Joseph 1914, 167. 

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