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Anti-Semitism was a constant presence in interwar Romania, but took different forms during 1919-1933 and 1934-1939. The first period was marked by the granting of civil rights under the Constitutions of 1923, but also by their questioning through various legal bills, as well as by persistent anti-Jewish unrest provoked by the students and fueled by the far right organizations and its ideologies. The second period between 1934 and 1939 was marked by the return of an anti-Jewish legislation, and ultimately, by a withdrawal of citizenship.
After 1922, anti-Semitism intensified, and Jews, mainly in the annexed provinces, were identified as hostile strangers to Romanians and were constantly accused of having pro-Hungarian or "Bolshevik" inclinations.
Romanian anti-Semitism during the interwar period served as a major recruiting theme for popular and notorious political parties. Particularly anti-Semitic was the university professor Alexandru C. Cuza, whose actions covered a period of more than half a century, beginning in 1888. After the Jews' emancipation, Cuza's party, Liga pentru Apărarea Nationala Creştină (League of National Christian Defense, LANC) preached the physical liquidation of the Jews. Cuza also called for a numerus clausus (quota) to stop the Jews rush into universities. Cuza's party sought to revoke Jews' political rights, to expel those who arrived in the country after 1914, and to ban Jews from the army and from public office. From 1921 the swastika was the symbol of Cuza's movement ; he claimed a purely Romanian character of this symbol without referring to its use in Germany. One of Cuza's collaborators, Nicolae C. Păulescu (1869-1931) was noted for claiming Jews' genetic inferiority.
The underlying principles of Antonescu's "ethnocratic state" were conceived in 1923 by Nichifor Crainic, an early supporter of the Guard, and by Octavian Goga, leader of the National Christian Party with Cuza. Nichifor Crainic, the main theoretician of the traditionalist and Christian Orthodox anti-Semitic trends, claimed that his program was an elaboration of the Romanian nationalism formulated in 1909 by Nicolae Iorga: "Romania for Romanians, all Romanians, and only Romanians." The cosmopolitan, multi -cultural foundation of the democratic state, "cannot create a nation-state." Crainic's concept was also based on the principle that " the Jews pose a permanent threat to every state nation." His call for the nationalization of Jewish property as well as other "practical ideas" were translated into anti-Semitic statues under Antonescu.
In 1927, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, a former disciple of Cuza, left the National Christian Defense League(NCLD), founded the fascist organization Legion of the Archangel Michael (Legiunea Arhanghelului Mihai). In 1930, Codreanu established Garda de Fier (The Iron Guard), as a military wing of the Legion, that constituted a major social and political force between 1930 and 1941, and had an anti-Semitic extremist agenda.
Anti-Semitic trends strengthened after Hitler's rise to power. The Nazi government had an influence on most of the parties, and after 1933, their election platforms included anti-Semitic clauses. Discriminatory laws against the Jewish population were issued, and violence against Jews and Jewish property became a daily reality. Anti-Semitic policies also aimed to "Romanianize" the economy and the liberal professions. The "Law for the use of Romanian Personnel in Enterprises" passed in 1934, and although not explicitly aimed at the Jews, it had a much greater impact on them than other minorities. For the first time Jews were confronted with the possibility of a government process that would deprive them of their jobs and professions.
One year later, in 1935, popular political slogans advocated retracting the citizenship granted to Jews in 1923. In December 1936, a parliamentary commission began consideration of a draft law to review the citizenship. The draft did not become law, but the Tătărescu government issued a series decree laws and orders aimed at removing Jews from the liberal professions, finance and other branches of the economy. This record of Romania's mainstream political elite paved the way to the more radical anti-Semitic policies during the short lived National Christian Party government .
In December 1937, the National Christian Party, which drew its inspiration from the Nazis, came to power, its leader, Octavian Goga, became prime minister, and his deputy was A.C.Cuza. In the 1937 elections, the Christian National Party, the result of the 1935 merger of the party led by Octavian Goga - the National Agrarian Party and that of A.C. Cuza - The Christian National Defense League, obtained the fourth score: 9.15 percent.
During the 44 days of its regime, Goga's government succeeded in passing a law calling for the re-examination of the question of Jewish citizenship. Even after the government fell, its discriminatory laws remained in force, and in the summer of 1940, new laws were adopted, along the lines of the Nuremberg Laws in Germany. The Jews citizenship was canceled, and mixed marriages were forbidden. The basis for the Holocaust had been laid.
Theodor Lavi, Encyclopedia Judaica: Numerus clausus, vol.12. col.1267-1268
Ezra Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe, Indiana University Press, 1983, 203-204
Paul Cenovodeanu, Liviu Rotman, and Raphael Vago, eds. Toldot ha-yehudim be- Roamnyah, , Tel Aviv, 1996-2003
Radu Ioanid, Hashoah, Vol. 4, Tel Aviv, 2000
Leon Volovici, Nationalist Ideology and Antisemitism: The Case of Romanian Intellectuals in the 1930s, Oxford, 1990
Carol Iancu, Jews in Romania, 1866–1919 , Boulder and New York, 1996
Carol Iancu, Les juifs en Roumanie, 1919-1938, Paris, 1996
Nichifor Crainic, Programul Statului Ethnocratic, Colecția Naționalistă, Bucharest, 1938, 3-5, 12
Irina Livezeanu, Cultural Politics in Greater Romania: Regionalism, Nation Building & Ethnic Struggle, 1918–1930 ,Ithaca and London, 1995
