The history of theJews inBessarabia, a historical region in Eastern Europe, dates back hundreds of years.

Jews are mentioned from very early on in thePrincipality of Moldavia, but they did not represent a significant number. Their main activity in Moldavia wascommerce, but they could not compete withGreeks andArmenians, who had knowledge ofLevantine commerce and relationships.^{[citation needed]}

Several times, when Jewish merchants created monopolies in some places in north Moldavia, Moldavian rulers sent them back toGalicia andPodolia. One such example was during the reign ofPetru Șchiopul (1583–1591), who favored the English merchants led byWilliam Harborne.^[1]

In the 18th century, more Jews started to settle in Moldavia. Some of them were in charge of theDniester crossings, replacing Moldavians and Greeks, until the captain ofSoroca demanded their expulsion.

Others traded withspirits (horilka), first brought in fromUkraine, afterward building localvelnițas (pre-industrial distilleries) onboyar manors. The number of Jews increased significantly during theRusso-Turkish War (1806–1812), when the Podolia-Moldavia border was open.^[1]

When this war ended, in 1812, Bessarabia (eastern half of thePrincipality of Moldavia) was annexed by the Russian Empire. Acemetery was established in the early 19th century.^[2]

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The 1818 Statutory Law (Așezământul) of theGovernorate of Bessarabia mentions Jews as a separate state (social class), which was further divided into merchants, tradesmen, and land-workers. Unlike the other states, Jews were not allowed to own agricultural land, with the exception of "empty lots only from the property of the state, for cultivation and for building factories". Jews were allowed to keep and control the sale of spirits on government and private manors, to hold "mills,velnițas, breweries, and similar holdings", but were explicitly disallowed to "rule over Christians". During the 1817 census, there were 3,826 Jewish families in Bessarabia (estimated at 19,000 people, or 4.2% of the total population).^[1]

Over the next generations, the Jewish population ofBessarabia grew significantly. Unlike most of the rest of theRussian Empire, in Bessarabia, Jews were allowed to settle in fairs and cities.Tsar Nicholas I issued an ukaz (decree) that allowed Jews to settle in Bessarabia "in a higher number", giving settled Jews two years free of taxation. At the same time, Jews from Podolia and Kherson Governorates were given five years free of taxation if they crossed the Dniester and settle in Bessarabia.^[3]

As a result, the merchant activity was not enough to sustain all Jews, which led the Tsarist authorities to create 17 Jewish agricultural colonies:

• Dumbrăveni (now part ofVădeni commune)
• Brăciova (Bricevo, now Briceva, part ofTârnova commune in Dondușeni district)
• Mărculești (Starăuca/Starovka, for some period)
• Vârtojani (Vertiujeni, Șteap for some period)
• Lublin (later Nemirovka, now Nimereuca)
• Căprești
• Zgurița
• Maramonovca

• Șibca (now Șipca)
• Nicolaevca-Blagodați (nowNeculăieuca)
• Teleneștii Noi

• Grătiești and Hulboaca under joint administration (both now part of Grătești commune withinRîșcani sector ofChișinău)

• Alexăndreni (now part of Alexăndreni Commune inSîngerei District)
• Valea lui Vlad (now part ofDumbrăvița Commune in Sîngerei District)

• Lomacința (now inDnistrovskyi Raion,Chernivtsi Oblast ofUkraine)

• Romanăuți (Romanovca) (now within city limits ofBasarabeasca)

10,589 Jews were settled in these villages, forming 1,082 households. This plan was borrowed from the ideas of Emperor Joseph II of Austria in regard toBukovina Jews, but it became impractical as there Jews preferred to leave Bukovina than to settle in villages. The impression that Jews would not stay in the rural areas was proved wrong by the Russian Tzar, as his colonization at first seemed a success. However, after several years, Jews in these rural colonies preferred merchant activities with cattle, leather, wool, tobacco, while their agricultural land was mostly rented out to Christian peasants. After more years, many of these Jews moved to fairs and sold their land to Moldavians. During the 1856 census, there were 78,751 Jews in Bessarabia (about 8% of the total population of 990,000).^[3]

• 1889: There were 180,918 Jews of a total population of 1,628,867 in Bessarabia, or 11.11%
• 1897: TheJewish population had grown to 225,637 of a total of 1,936,392, or 11.65%
• 1903:Chișinău (then known asKishinev), inRussian Bessarabia had a Jewish population of 50,000, or 46%, out of a total of approximately 110,000. Jewish life flourished with 16Jewish schools and over 2,000 pupils in Chișinău alone.

There were two massacres in Kishinev (modernChișinău) in 1903 and 1905 known as theKishinev pogroms.

In 1903, aChristian Ukrainian boy, Mikhail Ribalenko, was found murdered in the town ofDubăsari, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) northeast of Chișinău; the town is on the left bank of the riverDniester and was not a part of Bessarabia. Although it was clear that the boy had been killed by a relative (who was later found), the government called it aritual murder plot by the Jews. The mobs were incited byPavel Krushevan, the editor of theRussian languageanti-Semitic newspaperBessarabian and the vice-governor Ustrugov.^{[citation needed]} The newspaper regularly accused the Jewish community of numerous crimes, and on multiple occasions published headlines such as "Death to the Jews!" and "Crusade Against the Hated Race!"^[4] They used the age-oldcalumny against the Jews (that the boy had been killed touse his blood in preparation ofmatzo).

Viacheslav Plehve, the Minister of Interior, supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters. However, the pogrom lasted for three days, without the intervention of the police. Forty seven (some say 49) Jews were killed, 92 severely wounded, 500 slightly wounded and over 700 houses destroyed. Despite a world outcry, only two men were sentenced to seven and five years and 22 were sentenced for one or two years. Thispogrom is considered the first state-inspired action against Jews in the 20th century^{[citation needed]} and was instrumental in convincing tens of thousands of Russian Jews to leave to the West and toPalestine.^{[citation needed]}Many of the younger Jews, includingMendel Portugali, made an effort to defend the community.

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In theSfatul Țării, Bessarabian Jews were represented by:

• Isac Gherman, 60 years old, lawyer fromChișinău
• Eugen Kenigschatz, 58, lawyer, Chișinău
• Samuel Lichtmann, 60, civil servant
• Moise Slutski, 62, physician, Chișinău
• Gutman Landau, 40, civil servant
• Mendel Steinberg

The former four abstained from vote for theUnion of Bessarabia with Romania on April 9 [O.S. March 27] 1918, while the latter two were absent.

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• 1920: The Jewish population had grown to approx. 267,000.
• 1930: Romanian census registers 270,000 Jews

Many people was deported toSiberia from the region following the Soviet takeover, including a disproportionate number of Jews.^[5] According to the authoritative estimate of Dov Levin, the top expert in the history of the Jews in the territories occupied by the Soviet Union in 1939-1940, with which Jean Ancel concurs, the number of Bukovinian Jews who were deported to Soviet Asia in June 1941 was 5,000, together with 10,000 from Bessarabia; about half of them died in there according to Jean Ancel, the specialist on the Holocaust in Romania and Transnistria.^[6][7]

In 1941, theEinsatzkommandos,German mobile killing units drawn from theNaziSS and commanded byOtto Ohlendorf entered Bessarabia. They were instrumental in the massacre of many Jews in Bessarabia, who did not flee in face of the German advance. On 8 July 1941,Mihai Antonescu, deputy prime minister and Romania's ruler at the time, made a declaration in front of the Ministers' Council:

… With the risk of not being understood by some traditionalists which may be among you, I am in favour of the forced migration of the entire Jew element from Bessarabia andBukovina, which must be thrown over the border. Also, I am in favor of the forced migration of theUkrainian element, which does not belong here at this time. I don't care if we appear in history asbarbarians. TheRoman Empire has made a series of barbaric acts from a contemporary point of view and, still, was the greatest political settlement. There has never been a more suitable moment. If necessary, shoot with the machine gun. (This quote can be found in "The Stenograms of the Ministers' Council, Ion Antonescu's Government", vol. IV, July–September 1941 period, Bucharest, year 2000, page 57) (Stenogramele ședințelor Consiliului de Miniștri, Guvernarea Ion Antonescu, vol. IV, perioada iulie-septembrie 1941, București, anul 2000, pagina 57).

The killing squads ofEinsatzgruppe D, with special non-military units attached to the GermanWehrmacht andRomanian Armies were involved in many massacres in Bessarabia (over 10,000 in a single month of war, in June–July 1941), while deporting other thousands toTransnistria. The majority (up to 2/3) of Jews from Bessarabia (207,000 as of the last census of 1930) fled before the retreat of the Soviet troops. Perhaps as many as 100,000 to 130,000 Jews from Bessarabia and northern Bukovina left with the Soviets (including the deportees), including 124,000 according to Radu Ioanid.^[8] According to the Yad Vashem database, the number of Bessarabian Jews, excluding the deportees, who were registered during the evacuation in the interior of the Soviet Union was 49,435.^[9] However, 110,033 Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina (the latter included at the time the counties of Cernăuți, Storojineț, Rădăuți, Suceava, Câmpulung, and Dorohoi: some other 100,000 Jews) — all except a small minority of the Jews that did not flee in 1941 — were deported toTransnistria, a region that was under Romanian military control during 1941–1944.

Inghettos organized in several towns, as well as incamps (there was a comparable number of Jews from Transnistria in those camps) many people died from starvation, bad sanitation, or by being shot by special Nazi units right before the arrival of Soviet troops in 1944. The Romanian military administration of Transnistria kept very poor records of the people in the ghettos and camps. The only exact number found in Romanian sources is that 59,292 who reached Transnistria died in the ghettos and camps from the moment those were open until September 1, 1943.^[10][11][12] This number includes all internees regardless of their origin, but does not include those that perished on the way to the camps, those that perished between mid-1943 and spring 1944, as well as the thousands who perished in the immediate aftermath of the Romanian army's taking control of Transnistria (seeOdessa massacre).

In June–July 1941, about 10,000 (mostly civilians) were killed during the military action in the region in 1941 by German Einzatsgruppe D units and on some occasions by some Romanian troops. InSculeni, several dozen local Jews were killed by the Romanian troops. In Bălți around 150 local civilians were shot by Einzatsgruppe (the young women were also raped), and 14 Jewish POWs by the Romanians. InMărculești, 486 Soviet POWs of Jewish origin (many conscripted locals), who were left behind by the Soviet army because of wounds, to avoid being surrounded, were shot. Approximately 40 corpses of Jews were found dumped at the outskirts of Orhei, executed either by the German or Romanian units.

From 1941 to 1942, 120,000 Jews from Bessarabia, all of Bukovina, and the Dorohoi county in Romania proper, were deported by the Romanian authorities to ghettos and concentration camps inTransnistria, with only a small portion returning in 1944. The number of Jewish deportees to Transnistria sent there in 1941 who reached the latter province included 110,033 people, including 55,867 from Bessarabia, 43,798 from Bukovina, 10,368 from Dorohoi; out of these, 50,741 still survived by September 1, 1943.^[13][14] A further 4,000 Chernivtsi Jews were deported to Transnistria in June 1942.^[15] According to the Romanian gendarmerie, on September 1, 1943, 50,741 Jewish deportees survived in Transnistria, including 36,761 from Bukovina, including Dorohoi County (historically a part of the Old Kingdom of Romania, but administratively a part of Bukovina at that time), and 13,980 from Bessarabia.^[16][17] According to the statistics from the office of the Romanian prime minister of November 15, 1943, by province of origin from Romania and of county of residence in Transnistria, in the latter area there were 49,927 Jewish deportees who had survived, including 31,141 from Bukovina (without Dorohoi County, but including Hotin County), 11,683 from Bessarabia (without Hotin County), 6,425 from Dorohoi County, and 678 from the rest of Romania.^[18] According to the foremost Israeli scholarly study on the Holocaust by Leni Yahil, almost 60,000 Jewish deportees survived in Transnistria.^[19] According to theEncyclopedia of the Holocaust, 55,000 to 60,000 of the Jewish deportees to Transnistria survived the Holocaust.^[20] Another estimate of the total number of Bessarabian Jews who survived the deportations to Transnistria was 20,000, which also indicates that a large majority of the deportees died in Transnistria.^[21] The ones who died did so in the most inhuman and horrible conditions. (In the same ghettos and camps there were many Jews from that region as well, responsibility for whose death lies on the Romanian authorities that occupied it in 1941–44.) According to Wolf Moskovich, Professor of Russian and Slavic Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in the article "Bessarabia", in TheYIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, "Only a third of the deported Jews survived Transnistria."^[22] According to Wolf Moskovich in the same article, "In all, some 100,000 Bessarabian Jews perished during World War II."^[23] According to the Yad Vashem database, 60,732 Jews whose names are listed who had lived in Bessarabia before the war were killed during World War II, while 133 died indirectly in relation to the Holocaust.^[24] The number of Jews listed by name who died or were killed in the Holocaust or Soviet repression who had lived in (historical) northern and southern Bukovina before the war in the Yad Vashem database as of 2025 was 50,749, whereas 7 died indirectly died because of the Holocaust, and 1,707 were "registered following the evacuation/ in the Interior of the Soviet Union".^[25]

Shargorod was one of the few localities in Transnistria where most Bessarabian Jewish deportees survived the Holocaust. Many of the Jews in this ghetto died of disease, 1,449 from a typhus epidemic in early 1942, or were deported tolabor camps, leaving only about 2,971 deported Jews (2,731 from Bukovina and 240 from Bessarabia) alive on September 1, 1943, though about 500 Jews originally from Dorohoi were relocated to the village of Capushterna in 1943, as a part of the relocation of 1,000 Jews to ten nearby villages.^{[26][27][28][29][30]} Before the war, 2,145 of those who died during the Holocaust in Shargorod had lived in Romania before the war according to the Yad Vashem database.^[31] Out of them, 1,672 had lived in Bukovina before the war.^[32] Moreover, 76 had lived in Bessarabia before the war,^[33] while 301 had lived in Dorohoi and the adjacent localities.^[34] Most of the Bessarabian Jews who died in Shargorod whose names are known came fromHotin.^[35]

The remainder of the 270,000 Jewish community of the region survived World War II, primarily consisting of Bessarabian Jews who fled in advance of the Soviet troop withdrawal in mid-July 1941. While they survived the period between 1941-1944, the conditions they endured during their relocation to the interior of the Soviet Union—such as to Uzbekistan in the summer of 1941—were harsh. The journey and subsequent living conditions upon their arrival were notably difficult. Around 15,000 Jews fromCernăuți and further 5,000 from elsewhere inBukovina were saved by the then-mayor of the cityTraian Popovici. Nevertheless, he was not able to save everyone, and some 43,798 Bukovinian Jews were deported to, and arrived in,Transnistria.^[36][37] At the end of the war, the remaining Jewish community of Bukovina decided to move toIsrael.

As a result of the departure of theRomanian intellectuals in 1940 and 1944, of the Bukovinian Germans in 1940–41, of the surviving Bukovinian Jews in 1945, and of the forceful repatriation of Bukovinian Polish to Poland, Cernăuți, one of the cultural and university "jewels" ofAustria-Hungary andRomania ceased to exist as such: its population (already 100,000 in 1930) being greatly reduced. After the war, some Bukovinian Ukrainians from the countryside, as well as a few Ukrainians fromPodolia andGalicia moved to the city. However, they were generally excluded from the Soviet apparatus and higher positions in the economy and administration, which was formed mostly by people known to be loyal to the Soviet system sent from eastern Ukraine or from other parts of the USSR.

By the end of 1993, there were an estimated 15,000 Jews in theRepublic of Moldova. In the same year 2,173 Jews emigrated toIsrael. There were two Jewish periodical publications, both published in Chișinău. The one most widely circulated was наш голосNash golos —אונדזער קול Undzer kol ("Our Voice"), inYiddish andRussian.

According to the 1930 Romanian Census, Jews were distributed in Bessarabia as follows:

• Hotin County:Hotin, 5,781,Briceni-Târg, 5,354,Edineți-Târg, 5,341,Lipcani-Târg 4,693,Secureni-Târg, 4,200,Sulița-Târg 4,152,Clișcăuți 452,Edineți-Sat, 398, other localities 5,614. Total:35,985
• Soroca County:Soroca, 5,417,Zgurița, 2,541,Briceva, 2,431,Otaci-Târg 2,781,Mărculești-Colonie, 2,319,Vadu-Rașcu, 1,958,Vârtejeni-Colonie, 1,834,Căprești-Colonie, 1,815, Dumbrăveni, 1,198,Floreștii-Noi 372,Cotiujenii Mari 367,Dondoșani-Gară, 277,Liublin-Colonie 274,Târnova, 236,Ocnița-Gară, 200, other localities 5,171. Total:29,191
• Bălți County:Bălți, 14,229,Fălești, 3,263, Rășcani-Târg 2,055,Ungheni-Târg, 1,368,Valea-lui-Vlad, 1,281,Sculeni-Târg, 1,204,Pârlița-Târg, 1,064,Alexandreni-Târg, 1,018,Cornești-Târg 338,Glodeni, 212, other localities 5,663. Total:31,695
• Orhei County:
• Lăpușna County:
• Tighina County:
• Cahul County:Leova, 2,324,Cahul, 803,Baimaclia, 509, other localities 798. Total:4,434
• Ismail County:Chilia-Nouă, 1,952,Ismail, 1,623,Bolgrad, 1,215,Reni, 1,170, other localities 346. Total:6,306
• Cetatea Albă County:Cetatea Albă 4,239,Tarutino, 1,546,Tatar-Bunar, 1,194,Bairamcea, 805,Volintiri 420,Arciz, 342,Sărata, 316, other localities 2,528. Total:11,390

According to the 2004 Census, there are 4,000 Jews in the Bessarabian part of Moldova (excludingTransnistria), including:

• 2,649 inChișinău,
• 411 inBălți,
• 385 inTighina (Bender),
• 548 in other localities under Chișinău control, and
• 7 in suburbs of Tighina (Bender) under Tiraspol control.

There were also 867 Jews inTransnistria, including

• 573 inTiraspol,
• 166 inRîbnița, and
• 128 in other localities.

• Batushansky
• History of the Jews in Moldova
• History of the Jews in Bukovina
• Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova
• Jewish agricultural colonies in the Russian Empire
• Diana Dumitru, Moldovan researcher of the Holocaust in Bessarabia

• Jews of Bessarabia on the Eve of the War(PDF). New York: William Morrow. 1993.ISBN 978-0-965-65080-9 – via Atlas of the Holocaust, rev. ed. by Sir Martin Gilbert. Reprinted with permission from the publisher
• Massacres, Deportations, and Death Marches from Bessarabia, From July 1941(PDF). New York: William Morrow. 1993.ISBN 978-0-965-65080-9 – via Atlas of the Holocaust, rev. ed. by Sir Martin Gilbert. Reprinted with permission from the publisher
• Solonari, Vladimir (September 2006). ""Model province": Explaining the Holocaust of Bessarabian and Bukovinian Jewry".Nationalities Papers.34 (4):471–500.doi:10.1080/00905990600842106.S2CID 129413315.
• Weiner, Miriam; Ukrainian State Archives (in cooperation with); Moldovan National Archives (in cooperation with) (1999).Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova: Pages from the Past and Archival Inventories. Secaucus, NJ: Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation.ISBN 978-0-96-565081-6.OCLC 607423469.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toJewish people of Bessarabia.

• Article about Bessarabia in the Jewish Encyclopedia
• JewishMemory, a site about Jews in Moldova

• History of Chernivtsi Oblast
• Bessarabia Governorate
• History of Bessarabia
• Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic
• History of Budjak
• Jewish Moldovan history
• Jewish Romanian history
• Jewish Russian and Soviet history
• Jewish Ukrainian history

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