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

 
34 
The intervention of the international Jewry and the intervention of the West 
European governments happened simultaneously in fact, with the first active 
period in both cases being the 1860s. Nevertheless, Cohen sees the stance of 
Romanian Jews as decisive: they believed that foreign intervention would help, 
and they encouraged their coreligionists abroad to interfere. It is not quite clear 
whether Cohen holds the Romanian Jews fully responsible, or whether he also 
thinks that to some extent the foreign Jewry became interested in the Romanian 
problem without any agitation from Romania, as part of a natural interest in the 
Jewish issues everywhere.    
 
In the second half of the nineteenth century, a number of significant 
Jewish organisations were established in Western and Central Europe. They 
were often deeply involved in the battle for Jewish emancipation abroad. The 
Alliance Israélite Universelle, international in name but French in practice, was 
the most important of these new creations. In Britain, the Anglo-Jewish 
Association was established in 1871 as a branch of the Alliance Israélite 
Universelle.
17
 The British Jews had first become involved in intervention on 
behalf of foreign Jews in 1840, in the ‘Damascus blood libel case’. Sir Moses 
Montefiore, an Anglo-Jewish notable, travelled to the Near East with a French 
Jewish leader, Adolphe Crémieux, to request the release of the Jews who had 
been imprisoned for an alleged ritual murder. The undertaking was successful. 
In the following decades, Montefiore carried out other missions to defend 
persecuted Jews abroad, in Russia, Italy, and Romania. None of these efforts 
resulted, however, in a long-lasting improvement in Jewish status.
18
  
 
The approaches of Romania and the Great Powers to the Jewish question 
were so different that there could be no mutual understanding at the 
international level. The starting point for the Western Powers was religious 
freedom; they emphasised the rights of the Romanian Jews as people of the 
Jewish religion, who should not be discriminated against because of their 
religion. Romania, on the other hand, approached the question from the 
viewpoint of national values and economic considerations. The Jews were seen 
as a threatening group of foreigners invading Romania. As a rule, the 
Romanians did not lay emphasis on the role of the Jewish religion.
19
  
 
It was often argued on the part of the Romanians that Jews living in 
Romania were different from those in the West. Fritz Stern has drawn an 
interesting parallel in order to clarify the viewpoint of the opposing sides. 
According to Stern, the Jews of Iaşi (Jassy) were undoubtedly different from 
those of, say, Paris, but so too were the other inhabitants of Paris different from 
the people of Bucharest.
20
  
 
When demanding Jewish equality of the West European type for 
Romanian Jews, the Great Powers and particularly the Western Jewries 
overlooked the fundamental differences in the Romanian situation compared to 
                                                           
17
  
Endelman 2002, 121-122; Levene 1992, 2. 
18
  
Endelman 2002, 122-123. See also Feldman 2001, 232-248. 
19
  
Schuster 1939, 94. 
20
  
Stern 1977, 356. 

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35
the situation prevailing in the West. There were three main differences. Firstly, 
the percentage of Jews in Romania was much larger than in Western Europe; it 
was not more than one per cent in any Western European country. Moreover, 
the numbers of Jews in the West were not likely to rise substantially in the near 
future, whereas Jewish immigration to Romania continued into the late 
nineteenth century. Secondly, the Jews in Romania enjoyed a monopoly in 
many sectors of the economy, while in the West this was not the case. Finally, 
there was the question of assimilation and integration. In Romania, there had 
been no period of assimilation that could have resulted in Jewish political rights 
like those in Western Europe.
21
  
 
At the same time, the Romanian Jews were not satisfied with their 
position, which was basically insecure despite their economic success. They 
wanted to broaden their field of activity, for example into public and 
administrative positions. Parkes evaluates that ‘the situation was intolerable to 
both sides, and neither side was in the least to blame.’
22
 This assessment is 
unusual. Interpretations of the Jewish situation in Romania that claim to 
understand the viewpoints of both ethnic groups are hard to find, apart from a 
quite similar one by Paul E. Michelson, who remarks that there is no balanced 
treatment of the Jewish problem in Romania. He believes this is mostly because 
the issue was a complex one and both sides had some truth in their arguments 
while continually ignoring the other’s viewpoint.
23
  
 
The ‘anti-Romanian’ attitude of the British government has been much 
discussed and often exaggerated, especially in older studies on the subject. 
Britain, although not always very favourable towards Romanian ambitions, did 
make compromises on the Jewish issue, and ended up favouring the union of 
the Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia.
24
  
 
Between 1866 and 1877 British interests in Romania were mainly 
economic, focusing on railway lines and other transport issues. Relations 
between the two countries (although Romania was not yet independent) were 
limited, and the British tended to view Romanian affairs in the context of wider 
Great Power policy issues in the Balkan area. Moreover, the British treated the 
Principalities as an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, thus linking Romanian 
                                                           
21
  
Parkes 1946, 97. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century ‘assimilation’ 
often referred to a phenomenon that could today be termed ‘acculturation’ or 
‘integration’. For modern usage of the terms in Jewish studies, see for example, 
Nathans 2001, 11. According to Nathans, ‘assimilation should be understood as a 
process culminating in the disappearance of a given group as a recognizably distinct 
element within a larger society. Acculturation signifies a form of adaptation to the 
surrounding society that alters rather than erases the criteria of difference, especially 
in the realm of culture and identity. Integration is the counterpart of acculturation 
(though the two do not necessarily go hand in hand) in the social realm — whether 
institutional (e.g., schooling), geographic (patterns of residential settlement), or 
economic (occupational profile).’  
22
  
Parkes 1946, 97-98. 
23
  
Michelson 1987, 166. 
24
  
Funderburk 1982, 429; Marinescu 1983, 238-239. Both Marinescu and Funderbunk 
dismiss the theory of the consistent anti-Romanian attitude of the British 
government. For an opposite view, see Riker 1931. 

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