A century after the riots, the Jews of Chisinau are still fighting anti-Semitism

When students at a school in Moldova were asked "What does a Jew look like?" They immediately answered "huge nose and wigs". The Jewish community decided to deal with the negative stigmas that permeated Moldovan society - and established a program in which youths learn about religion in a fun atmosphere: "Not numbers or movies, but life"

A century after the riots, the Jews of Chisinau are still fighting anti-Semitism

(In the video: Rivlin speaks in German Parliament on anti-Semitism in Europe, last week)

For the past two years, a program called "Towards Moldova" has been operating in Chisinau, aimed at reversing the negative stigmas on the Jewish community that have permeated Moldovan society for centuries. In the same city where the notorious riots were committed in 1903, where 29 members of the Jewish community were brutally murdered - young Jews are now trying to end anti-Semitism.

To date, the program has trained 86 instructors from both Jewish schools in Chisinau, and conducted classroom sessions for more than 800 Christian students in eight public schools in the city. Among the instructors are Arina Andrushenko student in the press department at a local university, and Nikita Bivell a 10th grader

At a theater school in Chisinau, Erina asked a group of 15 seventh graders "What do you think looks Jewish?" The answers ranged from "playing the violin", to "wigs" to "having a huge nose". With her came Nikita, who passed the students a blue-and-white dome and asked them to try wearing it. In addition, he introduced a menorah, explained to them about Chanukah, and even passed a matzah and gave them a taste.

"It's a great idea. In Moldova, there are many stereotypes about Jews and Jewish religion," said Maya Soboliev, a teacher who supervised her class during the encounter. "Children must learn the real facts - not numbers or movies, but life. It's good that other children present the subject with a fun learning atmosphere and that it's no longer an adult who wants them."

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Instructor Arina draws Jewish figure according to student stigma (Photo: Larry Laxner)

Arina Andriushko draws a figure of a Jew on the descriptions of the students at a Jewish school in Chisinau, Moldova. Arina is one of the Jewish volunteers who works in public schools with the aim of eradicating anti-Semitic stereotypes (Photo: Larry Laxner, official website)

The initiator of the program is Ivette Mertzbacher, a Swiss Jewish donor born in Peru to a family whose roots are in the region. She inaugurated the initiative in Switzerland in 2002, then came to Austria and Germany as well, and now runs the program in Moldova. Mertzbacher had to make many changes to the program to suit Moldova, mainly because of the need to first teach Moldova Jews themselves about their Jewish heritage.

"The young Jews in Moldova know very little about Judaism, their roots, their history or the Holocaust," said Mertzbacher. "Through seminars, workshops, tours and Jewish heritage tours, we teach them how to build their Jewish identity. We train them in a Jewish leadership trajectory to contribute to their community, and give them many skills to break through the ancient circles of hatred and misunderstanding through dialogue."

World leaders participated in the International Holocaust Forum 2020 at Yad Vashem

"Towards Moldova" guides give teens a taste of matzah (Photo: Larry Laksner)

Vicki Ignatiok (left) and Kate Kluichevsky taste matzah brought to their class by Jewish volunteers who try to disprove anti-Semitic stereotypes prevalent among many in Moldova (Larry Laxner) (Photo: Larry Laxner, official website)

In the program, volunteers also learn how to protect Israel, and receive training on how to respond to negative criticism or attempts at its legitimacy. The instructors also included visiting speakers from the Israeli Embassy in Moldova, the director of the Jewish Culture Center in Chisinau and representatives of the Jewish Agency. "We are responsible for educating the younger generation to find out more about their origins," Mertzbacher said. "We want to encourage them to enjoy Jewish culture and to give them strength to take pride in their identity and to stand alongside Jews and Israel."

This month, the organization inaugurated a Holocaust memorial in the Moldavian town of Ratoschni, commemorating the memory of 326 Jews murdered in July 1941 by the Nazis and Romanian soldiers. It is located along the path of thousands of Jews from the Yedintsy ghetto to camps in Transnistria, where most of them died of hunger, and died of typhoid disease or exhaustion.

"Youths document themselves destroying Jewish gravestones." Rabbi Samson Daniel Isaacson (Photo: Larry Laksner)

Rabbi Shimshon Daniel Isaacson of Chabad is among those hoping to instill a religious belief among the 15,000 Jewish residents of Chisinau (Photo: Larry Laksner, official website)

"Anti-Semitism takes on other forms today"

During its heyday, the Jewish community of Serbs in most of Moldova's territory comprised between 250 and 400,000 Jews. After the severe riots and the Nazis approaching, the Jews abandoned the area. There were only about 100,000 left, and most were murdered during World War II. Today, Moldova lives between 11 and 15,000 Jews. Half of them live in the capital Chisinau, which has four synagogues, two Jewish schools and a Jewish cultural center. But the problem of anti-Semitism in Moldova still exists today.

"We cannot say that there is no anti-Semitism. It simply takes other forms today," explained the chief rabbi of the Moldova Jewish community, Samson Daniel Isaacson. "The 1903 pogrom began following a plot in a local newspaper that Jews killed a 14-year-old Christian boy to use his blood for matzah baking. Today, these are social networks and the Internet, anti-Semitic sites and videos of teenagers destroying tombstones in Jewish cemeteries."

Thousands of broken gravestones. Grand Cemetery in Chisinau (Photo: Larry Laksner)

Broken and crumbled gravestones in the Jewish cemetery of Chisinau (Photo: Larry Laksner, official website)

The Jewish community in Moldova is confronted not only with hatred of Jews, but also with material difficulties that prevent it from returning to its glory days. The city's largest Jewish cemetery has thousands of gravestones, but many are broken or lying on the ground. Not far away, a car dealership invaded the area of ​​the central Holocaust memorial, and the building in which the Cirrelson meeting and its synagogue housed stands desolate with a strip club in front of it.

Alongside the struggle for the restoration of Jewish heritage in Moldova, the effort also continued to gain strong hold over the assets it held for centuries. President of the Jewish Communities Organization in Moldova, Alexander Bilinkis, criticized the government for not restoring Jewish property. "Before World War II, the Jewish community had many assets," he said. "After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Orthodox Church received all its property back from the government, but not the Jews."

The plot that led to pogroms against Jews in Chisinau. Newspaper cover from 1903 (Photo: Larry Laxner)

Olga Siwak, a librarian at the Chisinau Cultural Center presents a 1913 newspaper cover with a plot that led to pogroms against Jews in the city (Photo: Larry Laksner, official website)