The Jews of Hârlău: the Last of Five Synagogues

Hârlău, a small town in the north of Iași County, was the capital of Moldavia in the 15th century, and at the end of the 19th century Jews made up about three-fifths of its population. Of the five synagogues that once served them one survives, the Great Synagogue of the early 19th century, together with two cemeteries. The community’s history was written by the historian Carol Iancu, himself a member of it.

A tradition from Stephen the Great, a document of 1742

According to a local tradition recorded in Pinkas HaKehillot, Jews lived in Hârlău as early as the reign of Stephen the Great (1457–1504), when the town was a capital. The first document attesting a settled community dates, according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica, from 1742; according to Radio Romania International, drawing on Iancu’s research, it is a complaint against a community leader who broke the community’s rules, under which every Jew paid tax according to his wealth. In the early 18th century, the Pinkas says, Jewish craftsmen arrived from Poland, one of them a goldsmith to Prince Grigore Ghica II.

From 1751 the records mention a “Jews’ Guild”, which in 1834 became an organised community. In 1768 Prince Grigore Callimachi allowed a Jew to set up a glass works and a paper mill in Hârlău; Radio Romania International names him as Hetel Marcovici and describes the works as the first of their kind in Moldavia, and the Pinkas adds that they employed sixty workers. The Jewish population grew steadily: 784 in 1803, 1,008 in 1838, 1,389 in 1859 and 2,254 in 1886 — 56.6% of the town. The 1899 census counted 2,718 Jews, 59.9% according to the Pinkas.

Hasidim, craftsmen and Zionists

At its height the community kept five synagogues, a Talmud Torah, a mikveh, a slaughterhouse and a matzah bakery. According to the Judaica, many of the town’s Jews were Hasidim of the rebbe of Pașcani, and Iancu credits the visits of the Hasidic leader Avraham Matityahu Friedman of Ștefănești with the flourishing of religious life. A primary school opened in 1897 and closed two years later over a dispute; with the help of the Jewish Colonization Association a building for 400 pupils was completed in 1904.

The Jews were mostly merchants and craftsmen. The Pinkas counts, for 1910, 233 merchants, 87 tailors, 49 shoemakers and 17 blacksmiths, and by 1913 almost all the town’s craftsmen and most of its traders were Jews. Iancu found a document from before the First World War listing 120 trades practised by the Jews of Hârlău, among them tinsmiths who roofed churches across Moldavia. In 1899–1900, in the wake of persecution, about half the Jews emigrated, most to the United States, according to the Judaica, but their number did not fall because Jews expelled from the villages took their place.

A Zionist branch with 50 members was active as early as 1883. Rabbi Israel Aizikson, born around 1840, travelled to Paris in 1882, the Pinkas says, to ask Baron Rothschild to fund a settlement in the Land of Israel; his grandson Michael Landau sat in the Romanian parliament and later held senior office in Israel. Sons of the town also included the journalist Horia Carp, born in 1869 and a senator between the wars, and Dr Walter Abeles, later Israel’s ambassador to Colombia. Rabbi Mendel Rabinovitz served from 1916 to 1944, after his father and grandfather. In 1930 there were 2,032 Jews, 22.3% of the population.

1940–1944: persecution, hostages and a town that was not evacuated

During the war Hârlău belonged to Botoșani County. According to Pinkas HaKehillot, in the autumn of 1940, under the Legionary regime, Mayor Ion Bulfan and his officials began a systematic persecution: Jews were accused of communism and arrested, Jewish shops were gradually handed to Legionaries, and Jewish men were drafted for forced labour. Legionaries murdered the head of the community, Yosif Lozner, his wife and their daughter, and several other Jews. Public prayer was banned, the school was confiscated, and the children studied in the Great Synagogue.

After the fall of the Legion, in January 1941, Dr Ioan Agapie was appointed mayor. In June 1941, when the war against the Soviet Union began, Antonescu ordered the Jews of the villages and towns between the Prut and the Siret to be moved to the county capitals. According to Radio Romania International, Hârlău was the only place where the Jews were not evacuated: Agapie persuaded the Botoșani County authorities that they were needed by the town, and most were allowed to stay; the Pinkas, too, says the expulsion order was cancelled. The Encyclopaedia Judaica, by contrast, writes that some of Hârlău’s Jews were deported to Botoșani and others to Iași.

According to the Pinkas, 22 community notables were arrested on charges of sabotage and held hostage for two months in the Great Synagogue. Jewish labour companies were sent to quarries in Bessarabia. The Jewish population fell from 1,736 in 1941 to 1,300 in 1942. Among those who helped, the Pinkas names the priests Constantinescu and Ștefănescu, who protected Jewish property, and the noble families Ghica-Deleni and Polizu-Micșunești. In the spring of 1944 the town was taken by the Red Army.

After the war

In 1947 there were 1,936 Jews in Hârlău. Emigration to Israel and departures during the communist years shrank the community: in 1969 about 60 families lived there and kept a synagogue, and in 2005 there were 22 elderly Jews, according to the Judaica. Iancu puts the remnant at fewer than thirty. The Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania lists no separate community in Hârlău, and JewishGen’s cemetery project records the cemeteries under the authority of the Iași community.

The Great Synagogue and the cemeteries

The Great Synagogue is the only one of the five still standing. Jewish Heritage Europe dates its construction to 1812–1814, and the Federation gives 1814. According to a tradition recorded in the Pinkas, the Great Synagogue was founded as early as the end of the 17th century, and its Holy Ark held 50 Torah scrolls. The wall paintings inside are attributed to the painter Sloime Mendel and are believed to date from the mid-1920s. Jewish Heritage Europe reported, in an undated article, that the structural restoration was nearing completion and that the Federation was seeking funds to restore the paintings. The Federation’s list marks the synagogue as functioning.

The town has two cemeteries. According to JewishGen surveys of 2000, the old one was established at the end of the 18th century, has about 600 gravestones, most of them toppled or broken, and saw its last burial in 1917. The new one opened in 1915, when the old one was full, and has about 1,100 stones with inscriptions in Hebrew, Yiddish and Romanian, and separate sections for Kohanim and children. Iancu draws attention to the sacred and funerary art of the synagogue and the cemeteries.

Visiting

• The Great Synagogue: Strada Mușatinilor 5, according to the Federation’s list. No opening hours have been published; arrange in advance with the Jewish Community of Iași or the Federation.
• The cemeteries: walled, with locked gates, according to the JewishGen surveys. Entry by arrangement only.
• Nearby: Iași; Botoșani.