Jewish Democratic Committee
The Jewish Democratic Committee or Democratic Jewish Committee was a left-wing political party which sought to represent Jewish community interests in Romania. Opposed to the orientation of most Romanian Jews, who supported right-wing Zionism as embodied by the Jewish Party, the CDE was in practice a front for the Romanian Communist Party ; its chairmen M. H. Maxy, Bercu Feldman, and Barbu Lăzăreanu were card-carrying communists. Initially, its anti-Zionism was limited by a recruitment drive among Labour Zionists, which allowed the party to absorb the local variant of Poale Zion. Additionally, the CED was directed against the Union of Romanian Jews, a more traditional vehicle of assimilationism. It annexed an UER dissidence under Moise Zelțer-Sărățeanu, while also taking over chapters of Ihud and accepting in Jewish affiliates of the Romanian Social Democratic Party.
For the November 1946 elections, the CDE ran a Jewish Representation list, closely allied with the PCR. It took one of two Jewish seats in the Assembly of Deputies, and joined the parliamentary coalition backing Petru Groza's cabinet. Such support hinged on Groza's promises to restore Jewish property that had been confiscated in the Holocaust. At the time, the CDE was also involved in relief efforts for homeless returnees, as well as singling out alleged Holocaust perpetrators. Part of its mission was a control over religious Jews through the Federation of the Jewish Communities in Romania, which was placed under the left-leaning rabbi Moses Rosen.
The CDE was averse to the illegal exodus of Jews into Mandatory Palestine, seeking to document, control, and finally suppress it. It presented Jews with the option of integrating into a socialist economy, emphasising producerist guidelines and condemning parasitism. The Romanian regime recognised Israel, but failed in its project of communising the Romanian Jewish colony. Following this, the CDE was given the go-ahead to publish criticism of Israeli society, hoping to persuade Jewish workers into renouncing Zionism. It opposed Hebrew revivalism and promoted instead a Yiddishist alternative, as manifested by its direct supervision of the Barașeum.
The CDE could still join the People's Democratic Front for the elections of March 1948, when it increased its representation to five deputies. However, its activities were restrained by the newly-inaugurated communist regime, whose leadership came to suspect that Zionism had seeped into CDE policies. In late 1948, the Labour Zionists parted ways with the CDE, with some attempting to reorganize as a local section of Mapam. Under Feldman's leadership, the CDE began "unmasking" campaigns, which, from 1949, resulted in a thorough purge of its own national and regional structures; it also opposed the regime's temporary relaxation of emigration restrictions. The Committee was pressed into dissolving itself in March 1953, when it proclaimed that Jews had been fully integrated into the new society. The regime's clampdown on Zionism contradicted this statement, as did the large-scale popularity of emigration projects, lasting into the 1980s, and directly encouraged by Rabbi Rosen.
History
Creation
Historian Corneliu Crăciun notes that the PCR attempt to dominate the Romanian Jewish community upon the end of World War II was part of an "aggressive and all-encompassing strategy" to extend control into all areas of society. In doing so, communists relied on political traditions, as well on the monopolisation of anti-fascist discourse by the Soviet Union after the Holocaust: "Given the Jewish people's suffering at the hands of fascism, it seemed that PCR members could do no wrong, and that their moral-political investment would turn a profit." In September 1944, some days after the anti-fascist coup, the PCR contributed to the creation of a General Jewish Council. This initiative crumbled in October, when other Council representatives, rejecting the implication that "all Jews are communists", refused to join Petru Groza's National Democratic Front. From September 1944, Labour Zionism was taken up in Romania by Ihud, which immediately signed up to the National Democratic Front's platform and, internationally, acted as a section of Mapai. In November, Romania's Labour Zionists formed a Union of the Working Land of Israel —federating Ihud, Poale Zion, Ahdut HaAvoda, as well as a former affiliate of Hashomer Hatzair called Mishmar.The PCR had more success in Northern Transylvania, which had been reattached to Romania during the Budapest Offensive. At Cluj, survivors of extermination camps set up the Jewish Democratic Group, an association backed by communist agents. A Jewish People's Democratic Community, originally called Jewish Anti-hitlerite Group, was co-opted on the Northern Transylvanian Democratic Committee, which functioned as a quasi-government of the region. It was led by a communist cadre and Holocaust survivor, Hillel Kohn, but failed to obey PCR commands by insisting for the restitution of assets confiscated during the Holocaust, as well as for the "protection of unhindered freedom of emigration". More to the south, Arad hosted a Union of Democratic Jews, which, in October 1944, inaugurated a process to restore property confiscated under fascism.
From Bucharest, painter M. H. Maxy and lawyer Iosif Șraier resumed the project to give pro-communist Jews a national representation. Șraier was a noted PCR middleman, having spent the interwar as a public defender for communist prisoners. The CDE effort was officially sanctioned by PCR Secretary Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej while visiting Templul Coral on 25 April 1945, and advanced on 2 June, when Șraier negotiated with David "Dadu" Rosenkranz. The latter, a wartime humanitarian, had been active with the UER before moving into left-wing politics. The Committee was established with a constitutive session on 7 June 1945, though it was only truly active from 22 July. Its first Chairman was Maxy, but only for a short period. According to various reports, it was originally named "Jewish National Committee", and was led in 1945–1946 by Lică Chiriță.
From the beginning, it was a satellite organisation of the PCR: its first-ever meetings were attended by PCR envoy Vasile Luca, supported by two Jewish party colleagues—Maxy and industrialist Emil Calmanovici. According to historian Idith Zertal, it functioned as "an impossible conglomerate of the Communists, the socialist Zionist groups, and leftist political parties, as well as Yiddishist organizations. Its true, main purpose was to mobilize support for Groza's government within the Jewish community". Scholar Carol Iancu moreover argues that: "The Communists tried to control the communities by positioning their representatives in key positions, and finally by imposing their will. The Jewish Democratic Committee was to put this policy into practice by both weakening the two large pre-war Jewish organizations, the Jewish Party and the Union of Romanian Jews."
Imitating communist organisational structures to the point of creating its own Politburo, the new group was both formally and informally dominated by PCR activists, some of whom were integrated into its official leadership. Examples include Maxy, writer Barbu Lăzăreanu, doctors Maximilian Popper and Arthur Kreindler; Maxy returned as the CDE's Chairman in 1946–1948. They served alongside writers Ury Benador and Emil Dorian, the latter leaving skeptical notes with insight into the CDE's role as an amorphous organisation serving PCR commands. Historian Lucian Lucian Zeev-Herșcovici notes that power in the party rested mainly with second-rank PCR cadres, namely Bercu Feldman, Herman Leibovici-Șerban, and Israel Bacalu. According to Iancu, Feldman was a "fanatical" among his fellow communists.
Expansion
Local bodies were quickly integrated into the countrywide structure—on 25 March, the Cluj GDE became a CDE territorial office. In October, it was joined by other Northern Transylvanian organisations, with the CPED, gradually diminished in importance, also finally recorded as a regional CDE branch. Kohn remained in charge of the CDE provincial chapter. His past had by then come under review, resulting in his expulsion from the PCR on grounds that he was a "Hungarian nationalist"; he was allowed to maintain his CDE profile, but gradually withdrew from active politics.CDE figures other than the communist core had double affiliations, including, from April 1946, Jewish members of the Romanian Social Democratic Party, six of whom were co-opted on the CDE leadership board. BEIH was absorbed as an autonomous section of the CDE, with 9 representatives in leadership; through it, the Committee exercised authority over the Romanian chapters of Ihud, Poale Zion, and Mishmar. Theodor Loewenstein-Lavi of the Ihud joined the ranks of CDE activists. With this incorporation of Labour Zionism, the CDE effectively split the Romanian Zionist Executive, isolating the PER's right-wing. CDE influence eventually grew within the Executive, which came to be controlled by the Ihud. The CDE youth section, called Front of the Jewish Democratic Youth, included Zionist factions within the BEIH, as well as all groups federated into the HeHalutz: Bnei Akiva, Borochovia, Dror, Gordonia, and several more.
Other figures continued to be active with the Yidisher Kultur Farband and with a breakaway faction of the UER—Rosenkranz was joined by leader Moise Zelțer-Sărățeanu and his followers. Such affiliates were described as "temporary allies" of the Groza regime. Historian Lucian Nastasă identifies CDE maneuvering as directly responsible for the UER's weakening, as well as for directing, through Zelțer-Sărățeanu, a "firebrand campaign" against the PER leader, A. L. Zissu. Maxy was also an instigator of attacks on Zissu, whom he described as a proxy for reactionary politics. Nastasă additionally argues that, once created, the Committee was able to assume a dominant position, forcing all other Jewish organisations to relate to it. As noted by Crăciun, the PCR had in practice a plurality of the 40 seats on the CDE leadership board, with 15 in all: 9 were PCR envoys or close allies, and 6 more came by way of Zelțer-Sărățeanu's movement. This phenomenon was noted in the provincial sections: CDE leaders in Fălciu County included 9 PCR men, 7 Zionists, and 6 with other or no affiliation; at Sighetu Marmației, the executive board had 10 PCR members, ahead of Aguda with 5; at Oravița, there were 40 CDE members in town, of whom 19 were communists.
The CDE was expected to administer Jewish community affairs, which included direct control over the apolitical Federation of the Jewish Communities in Romania. At the first CDE meetings, Luca already indicated that the CDE was fundamentally anti-Zionist, while also expressing his disapproval of Jews who voted for mainstream Romanian parties. In October 1945, Luca engaged in polemics with Chiriță, who stood accused of not endorsing class conflict. According to Luca, "the Jewish worker fits in with the communist party especially", whereas capitalists, even those of Jewish extraction, endured as "great enemies of the Jewish people". Luca surmised that the Committee was best suited to engage in attacks on the Jewish bourgeoisie, since it was shielded from accusations of antisemitism. In his replies, Chiriță insisted that Jews turned to illegal trading because the CDE could still not provide them with meaningful employment. After that moment, the Committee endorsed "re-stratification", a policy whereby Jewish workers and experts were reclaimed by the Romanian economy, usually by joining cooperatives. This process was directed by the PCR, which injected a producerist agenda into the platforms of subordinate Jewish organisations. Overall, it "took charge of orienting Jewish youth toward manual trades, and away from traditional liberal professions such as jurisprudence, medicine, or journalism."
For a while after its creation, the CDE modeled its stances regarding Zionism on contextual policies of the Soviet Union and Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. As summarised by Nastasă, it made no real effort to tackle Labour Zionism, and regarded the phenomenon as mostly utopian, "with little chance of ever creating an Israeli state." Committee man Dinu Hervian declared in February 1946 that the group had an instrumental reason for not overtly discouraging Zionism: " reactionaries are opposed to the emigration tendency as present among a large portion of our Jewish population. By attacking reactionaries and supporting the sentimental attachment that some Jews hold in respect to Zionism, we can also win over this mass of Zionists." A mirrored version of this approach was documented among nominal supporters. In 1946, Naty Terdiman, the CDE man in Fălciu, reported that Jews were only pretending to endorse the Committee, out of prudence. According to Terdiman, Jews generally viewed the CDE leadership as fully assimilated quasi-Gentiles.
The CDE was directly involved in efforts to curb the illegal transit of Jews into Mandatory Palestine. In May 1946, it nearly convinced Romanian Communist potentate Ana Pauker to arrest in Constanța's harbor the ship Smirni, which was fitted to carry away Zionist emigrants. During those weeks, the Siguranța began keeping files on all Zionist leaders, while Romanian Police opened fire on Zionist protesters at Iași. Directing its own relief efforts for the returning deportees to Transnistria, the CDE also took charge of instilling in them left-wing ideals. In early 1946, the local section of Caraș reported on having marginalised "reactionary and subversive elements" who had attempted to win refugees over to their cause. CDE branches in Northern Transylvania gave direct support to Jews seeking to reach Palestine by fleeing to the West, but also complained that such emigrations were chaotic and dangerous. From August 1946, the CDEs propaganda described Zionist camps for displaced persons as miserable, and journey to Palestine as not worth the risk. Instead, it gave positive reviews to life in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.