Romania trip report, part 4

[lethargic_man]

Sibiu

From Braşov, we went on trips into the surrounding countryside, to climb the mountain above the ski resort of Pioana Braşov, and hike on the Babele tableland nearly 2300m above sea level. On one trip we passed through a forest lapping the feet of the Carpathians; aviva_m's father informed us that in his parents' days this used to be the haunt of highwaymen, who would chop down trees so they crossed the road, then hold up travellers when they found their way blocked and demand money to let them proceed on their way.

Fortunately, no such incident befell us on our excursion to Sibiu, or Hermannstadt, which, as the German name gives away is another of the Siebenbürgen. 2500 Saxons originally came to Hermannstadt, but only 100 survived the Magyar conquest.

Like Braşov, Sibiu has a picturesque old centre, but we were lucky still to be able to visit it today: Ceauşescu planned to raze the lot, and only the fact the revolution happened first saved it.

As a cohen, I can't go into churches where there are people buried; kudos to aviva_m's parents for doing the research first to discover whether this was actually the case before taking me into any. As a result of this research, I learned two interesting things: Firstly, burying people in churches is a western Christian thing; they don't do it in Orthodox churches. (Romania is split between Orthodoxy, Catholicism and (in Saxon areas) Lutheranism.) And secondly, like Britain, Romania passed legislation in the nineteenth century prohibiting burial indoors; however, unlike Britain it seems they actually exhumed all bodies that were already buried in churches. In some cases, the tombstones were left in place in the church floor; in other cases, they were subsequently mounted on the walls. In one case, the bodies were reinterred beneath a flowerbed outside the church. ("So that's why the roses are growing so well," I commented.)

After Sibiu, we had planned to see Sighișoara (Schäßburg), another pretty Saxon town, but aviva_m preferred to go hiking in the mountains instead. Her parents asked my opinion, but I said this holiday was all about her family, and I was just tagging along, so I would go with whatever she preferred.

Jewish life

As Jews travelling abroad, aviva_m and I are always on the lookout for sites of Jewish interest and synagogues. Romania was unusual for a communist country in that it let Jews who wanted to emigrate (such as aviva_m's parents) go, provided they went to Israel. Of course; once they did so, there was nothing keeping them there; aviva_m's father stuck it out for a few years, her mother headed instead for Germany, where, thanks to her education in Braşov, she already spoke the language.

As a result, the community is considerably shrunken today. We found the shul in Tulcea in the Danube delta; I believe it's still functioning, but we didn't get to meet the community.

In Constanţa the small community was still meeting in the synagogue as recently as 1996 according to Wikipedia, but maintenance was paid for by the state, and after the revolution in 1990, the money dried up, and now the roof has fallen in (and Wikipedia says anything not nailed to the floor has been looted). I went to have a look from the outside; aviva_m said it was too depressing and chose not to join me.

What was surprising was the number of Israelis we met all over Romania: it's a cheap and not too distant holiday destination for them. Our tour guide in Bucharest told us he frequently has Jewish clients exploring their family roots in Romania. As it happens, the other two people on aviva_m and my tour, a young American couple, turned out also to be Jewish; and went ended up spending a half-hour break at a café entirely schmoozing and playing Jewish geography.

As a result of the small Jewish population but prevalence of Israelis, non-Jewish Romanians seem to have a worse problem than in other countries of keeping the concepts of Jewish and Israeli separate.

In Bucharest, there are several synagogues, but only one still functioning, the cathedral synagogue Templul Coral (the name means "choral", not "coral"). Furthermore, while in the rest of the Jewish world, only progressive denominations call their synagogues temples, because for Orthodoxy and Masorti/Conservative Judaism, the only Temples were the two in Jerusalem, Romania seems to be like Italy in that even Orthodox synagogues are called temples. At least one of the other synagogues has been converted to use as a museum, but we didn't go there.

When we wrote asking about Shabbos meals, the community in Bucharest (which was Ashkenazi but דרפס חסונ in rite) invited us to join us for both Friday night and Shabbos lunch. At the end of the Friday night service, a boy of about twelve called Joseph went up to the bimah to drink the kiddush wine, following which the congregation sang "siman tov umazal tov" to him, so we assumed he was about to be barmitzvahed. It turned out, however, that he had rather just had his bris (circumcision, which is normally done at the age of eight days amongst Jews): ulp! The community made a bit of a fuss over him over the course of Shabbos, and I'm not surprised!

In Braşov there were according to two synagogues according to Wikipedia, one Neolog and one Orthodox. (Neolog is an indigenous Hungarian denomination (Transylvania used to be part of Hungary until the end of the First World War) just to the left of Orthodoxy, but which affiliates with Masorti Olami.) The Orthodox one had closed (we looked for it but couldn't find it) and the Neolog one is now Orthodox in practice. We davened there on Shabbos morning, but they didn't have a Friday night service that week. There's also a kosher restaurant in Braşov, but it's only open on weekdays, and until four o'clock, so we didn't eat there.