History of the Jews in Moldova
The history of the Jews in Moldova reaches back to the 1st century BC, when Roman Jews lived in the cities of the province of Lower Moesia. Bessarabian Jews have been living in the area for some time. Between the 4th-7th centuries AD, Moldova was part of an important trading route between Asia and Europe, and bordered the Khazar Khaganate, where Judaism was the state religion. Prior to the Second World War, violent antisemitic movements across the Bessarabian region badly affected the region's Jewish population. In the 1930s and '40s, under the Romanian governments of Octavian Goga and Ion Antonescu, government-directed pogroms and mass deportations led to the concentration and extermination of Jewish citizens followed, leading to the extermination of between 45,000-60,000 Jews across Bessarabia. The total number of Romanian and Ukrainian Jews who perished in territories under Romanian administration is between 280,000 and 380,000.
Torah scrolls presented by Jewish community of Chișinău to Nicholas II in 1914
Kishinev pogrom (19-21 April 1903)
Synagogue of the Glaziers, Chișinău
Meir Dizengoff (1861-1936), first mayor of Tel Aviv, Israel.
History of the Jews in Bessarabia
The history of the Jews in Bessarabia, a historical region in Eastern Europe, dates back hundreds of years.
Jewish man in Chișinău (1900)
Torah scrolls presented by the Jewish community of Chișinău to Nicholas II, 1914
The Chișinău Choral Synagogue, 1913.
Victims of pogrom in Chișinău, 1903