In Loving Memory of Malca z”l

About half of the 800,000 Jews who lived in Romania before World War II were murdered during the Holocaust years of 1940-1944. The fact that many survived is due to the efforts, skills and personality of Rabbi Alexandre Safran z”l.

Alexandre Safran was born on September 12, 1910 in Bacáu, a city in Northeastern Romania where his father, Rabbi Bezalel Zeev Safran (1866-1930), was the chief Rabbi and one of the most distinguished Jewish intellectuals.

During the years 1933 to 1940, Romania’s Jews were harassed and subjected to unlimited attacks by the Iron Guard antisemitic movements and other politically antisemitic parties. In 1938, due to chaotic, corrupt governments and pressure coming from political events in Europe, the monarchical political system was dominated by an anti-Jewish dictatorship.

Following the death of Romania’s chief Rabbi, Jacob-Isaac Niemirover (1873-1939), Alexandre Safran was appointed to the position. He was chosen for his intellect, oratorical skills, and his late father’s reputation. “When the issue of the succession was first raised, I was only twenty-nine years-old. Nonetheless, I had been my father’s disciple, associate and successor… I had contributed to Zionist and Jewish synagogues in the old kingdom, Bukovina and also in Vienna…Actually it was my wife Sarah who inspired me to yield to the countrywide trend in favor of my election as chief rabbi…”[1] At 29-years-old, Safran was the youngest chief Rabbi in the world at that time. The 800,000 Romanian Jews badly needed an inspiring leader.

The country was clearly drifting into the Axis camp and strong antisemitic legislation had been introduced. A member of the Romanian Senate, Safran used his position to counter the growing wave of antisemitism, and succeeded in winning the respect of some of the Senate members.

In June, 1940, in accordance with the Vienna decree, Soviet Russia seized the provinces of Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina and later that year, Romania lost Northern Transylvania to Hungary and Southern Dobrudja to Bulgaria.

During the month of September 1940 to the end of January 1941 Romania was under the terror of the Iron Guard regime. On January 21-23 1941, Bucharest’s Jewish population suffered the infamous pogrom known as the Bucharest Kristallnacht. The pogrom claimed 130 Jewish lives, [and] scores of burned, vandalized homes, stores and synagogues.[2]

There were reports that the Iron Guard thugs were going to take the Chief Rabbi hostage. In his memoir, Resisting the Storm, Rabbi Safran describes how legionnaires (the Iron Guard) seized his wife, Sarah, and their young daughter during the events of January 21-23, 1941. Their death was announced on the radio, but they were later released…![3]

On June 28-29, 1941, in Iasi, the capital of Moldova province, a monstrous pogrom took place which left close to 12,000 Jews dead and 4,000 Jews deported by sealed train. By the time the train reached the city of Calarasi, over 2,500 people had died of suffocation. The history books refer to this event as the Iasi death train: “According to officially certified Romanian police reports, more than two and a half thousand died by suffocation.”[4]

I recall attending—with my mother z”l—the Shabbat Tshuva services (before Yom Kippur, 5741 / 1941). This unique Shabbat is alive in my memory. Rabbi Safran delivering his sermon, could not stop crying—he could hardly pull himself together to give the sermon. I shall never forget this scene, which took place at the Malbim synagogue, a fortress of Jewish spiritual, and religious resistance.

Throughout the autumn of 1941, methods of mass deportation were being devised. Jews from Northern Romania (Moldova, Bukovina and Bessarabia), including a few thousand from other cities, were deported to Transnistria.

In 1942, when there were clear signs that the Nazi-Germans were preparing to deport Romania’s Jews, Rabbi Safran courageously and strongly appealed to Metropolitan Nicolae Balan, the head of the Orthodox Church. Balan was a friend of Romania’s dictator Ion Antonescu.

The cold and traditionally anti-Jewish Balan was touched by Safran’s appeal, and succeeded in persuading Marshal Ion Antonescu not to surrender control of the Romanian Jews to the Germans. Safran’s charm caught the attention and respect of the members of Romania’s Royal Family, who tried to mitigate the plight of the Jews.

Through his courage, perseverance, and powerful personality, Rabbi Safran succeeded in obtaining the cancellation of Antonescu’s harsh and humiliating laws, stipulating that Bucharest’s Jews had—like all Romanian Jews—to wear the yellow star. Bucharest was freed from this degrading law. As a member of the organized illegal resistance movement (of which Rabbi Safran was the leader), I, along with other youngsters, distributed mimeographed flyers to Jewish homes, encouraging the Jewish population not to wear the yellow star. The Law, thankfully, was soon abolished.

When the war began to turn against the Axis powers (i.e., after the Stalingrad debacle in 1943), Antonescu’s regime proved more amenable to entreaties. Yet, despite promises, close to 350,000 Jews perished in the killing fields of Transnistria and in other Romanian cities, including Dorohoi, Galatzi, Ploesti and Bucharest.

At the overthrow of Antonescu’s regime on August 23, 1944, a pro-communist regime was installed. In the new, Stalin-style regime, there was no room for an independent spirit like Safran. In December 1947, he was ordered to leave the country immediately. He left Romania and settled in Switzerland. In 1948, he became the chief Rabbi of Geneva, where worked tirelessly to promote good relations between Jews and Christians.

Rabbi Safran published works on the Kabbalah—law and mysticism in the Jewish tradition (a French version in 1960 and an English version in 1975). In 1987, Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial Center in Jerusalem published his memoirs, Resisting the Storm—Romania. 1940-1947.

Rabbi Safran continued on in his position as the Rabbi of Geneva until his death on July 28, 2006 He was 95. The Romanian Jews lost their greatest leader, and world Jewry is the poorer without this courageous and irreplaceable zadik.