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Despite Romanian extermination of Tiraspol's Jews, strong influences still remain

TIRASPOL (Tiraspol Times) - Pridnestrovie is a country with strong Jewish roots, especially felt in the nation's capital, Tiraspol. In 1897, the Jewish population of Tiraspol represented a full 27% of the total population before dropping as a result of the Romanian/Moldovan extermination campaign of World War II.

Pridnestrovie's 1990 declaration of independence was overwhelmingly supported by the local Jewish groups. They, too, were fearful of minority mistreatment in Moldova at the time.

In 1989, Jews started leaving Moldova in bigger and bigger numbers. Many went to Israel, but some also went to Pridnestrovie (Transnistria) where they felt more at home, especially in Tiraspol. Moldovan Jewish emigration in 1989 was 4,304 (of which 3,702 from Chisinau). A year later, the number was 3 times as high: For 1990, emigration from Moldova to Israel alone in 1990 amounted to 12,080, and in 1991 it was 17,305!

Not a single Jew was elected to the Supreme Soviet in 1990. That year, a monthly Jewish newspaper Nash golos began appearing as Moldovan Jews started to seriously worry about their future in an increasingly nationalist Moldova. A law was passed making knowledge of the Moldovian language mandatory: this created difficulties for the basically Russian-speaking Moldovan Jews, who in the main supported the declaration of the independence of Pridnestrovie ... itself, in part, a result of the passing of the language law.

Both the Joint Distribution Committee and the Jewish Agency began operating in Chisinau. In January 1992, right before the war broke out over Pridnestrovie, direct flights from Moldova to lsrael started as Jews were being airlifted out of the area in larger and larger numbers. But as the Jewish population decreased in Moldova, it actually increased in Pridnestrovie where no language law was in effect and where the Jewish communities were still respected. This was not the case in Moldova anymore: In March 1994 the old Jewish cemetery was desecrated in Chisinau and there were several instances of anti-Jewish violence.

Later, the same sort of violence came to Tiraspol in what some local community leaders speculate could have been a "planted" or "staged" event imported from the other side of the Dniester: In March of 2004, close to 80 tombstones in the city's Jewish cemetery were desecrated, and the Moldovan press was quick to imply some sort of PMR complicity. Unsourced claims that Tiraspol's city authorities did not help with the cleanup were circulated almost immediately in Moldovan newspapers. When Yefim Teitel, the 67-year-old chairman of the local Jewish community, issued a statement countering this claim, Moldova's media ignored it. A retraction was not even printed after he supplied photographic proof of how the community pulled together for the cleanup effort, counting with staff from the Tiraspol city administration.

A land with a Jewish history

In 1910 Tiraspol had two Jewish private schools, one for boys and one for girls. In 1926 the Jews represented 29.1% of all inhabitants. This changed when Moldova and Romania, supported by Nazi Germany, invaded. During the Nazi occupation Tiraspol
was under Romanian administration; almost all its Jewish population perished.

Despite the World War II Romanian/Moldovan extermination campaign in 1941-1944 the Jewish community in Pridnestrovie is still strong. The Jewish influence is seen throughout the nation.

Ryshkany (formerly Ryshkanovca, also Rascani) is a town in Northern Pridnestrovie, near Kamenka. Ryshkany developed into an urban community during the 19th century as a result of the large Jewish settlement in the region at that time. In 1897 there were 2,247 Jews (69% of the total population) in the town, and in 1930 there were 2,055 (66% of the total). In the 1930s the communal institutions included a kindergarten and an elementary school, both maintained by the Tarbut organization. The community was destroyed when the Germans and Rumanians entered Pridnestrovie in July 1941, although in 1970 the Jewish population was still estimated at about 150 families.

Like a dozen other post-communist countries, the Pridnestrovskaia Moldavskaia Respublica, also known unofficially as Transnistria, declared its independence in 1990. Later, in a nationwide referendum, the inhabitants of the country voted to reaffirm Pridnestrovie's independence and rejected efforts to join neighboring Moldova. Despite meeting the requirements for statehood under international law, the young nation struggles with a formal lack of diplomatic recognition from other countries.

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