how many Jews and Gentiles do we have on this forum?

[muman613]

I do not consider myself part Romanian at all.  Nor do I consider myself part Russian or part Polish.  That's because I'm not.  I'm 100% Jewish.  The fact that my mother's mother lived in Romania does not make me Romanian.  They were Jews who happened to live in those countries.  If a Jewish family from New York moved to France, would they be French?  Thanks to vicious anti-Semitism all over the world, Jews fled all over the place.  But if they married other wandering Jews and remained Jews, then their children were also Jewish, and they never became "French", or "Polish" or "Romanian", etc.  I was never even in Romania.

What I mean is that there are 'Romanian' Ashkenazi Jews, 'Polish' Ashkenazi Jews, 'Ukrainian' Ashkenazi Jews... Etc...

I am not saying that you are ethnically Romanian... The history of Jews in Romania is about as bad in Ukraine... In the city of Uman there was a pogrom which killed 20,000 Jews {according to some reports}...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_Uman

Massacre of Uman

The Masscre of Uman was the 1768 massacre of the Jews and Poles at Uman, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth by the Ukrainian Haidamak rebel army.

Uman was a well-fortified town that held a large garrison part of Polish troops. This fact made Uman one of the primary targets of Koliyivschyna movement, and, probably, the siege of Uman was planned well in advance. Ivan Gonta, an officer in the private militia of Count Franciszek Salezy Potocki (composed of Registered Cossacks) was accused of connections with haidamakas by local Jewish community three months before the siege; however, due to the lack of hard evidence and the sudden death of a star witness on his road to Uman no formal charges were made. Although Ivan Gonta was de-facto the commander of Uman cossacks he was not the most senior in their ranks.

In early June of 1768 the Ukrainian rebels under the command of Maksym Zalizniak marched on Uman after capturing Cherkasy, Korsun and Kaniv. As Zalizniak openly encouraged the slaughter of Jews and Poles, the town was filled with refugees. A large camp filled with Polish nobility and their private militia, regular soldiers and Jewish refugees was stationed outside the city walls. Polish troops that outnumbered the forces of rebels, and, therefore it was decided that some of the forces should guard the ramparts while Gonta with his cossack unit would meet the Haidamakas in open battle. However, when Gonta met Zalizniak's units he openly declared that he is going to join Koliyivschyna. Some sources claim that the formal commanders of the unit were sent back to Uman, although the authenticity of the story is highly disputed.

The united troops razed the encampment on June 14th and tried to penetrate the ramparts by consealing the rebels behind the backs of Gonta's Registered Cossacks. However, the attempt failed, and so the siege started on June 17th. The very first day large number of Ukrainians deserted the ranks of Polish forces and joined the rebels when the city was surrounded.

After three days of the siege the city fell to Zalizniak in spite of a courageous defence in which the Jews also played an active role. The tragic event occurred after the betrayal of commandant Mladanovitch, who wanted to buy the lives of Poles betraying Jews to Zaliznak and Gonta. This evolved into the violent and bloody massacre (where Mladanovitch was himself killed). The Jews then gathered in the synagogues, where they were led by Leib Shargorodski and Moses Menaker in an attempt to defend themselves, but they were destroyed by cannon fire. Most of the remaining Jews in the city were subsequently killed.

Most historians give an estimate of number of Poles and Jews who were killed in the “massacre of Uman” to be between 2,000[1] and 20,000[2]. According to Breslov the number of Poles and Jews massacred was 33,000[3]. The same estimate is given by Gonta during his trial.

The anniversary of the commencement of the massacre, Tammuz 5, henceforth known as the “Evil Decree of Uman,” was observed as a fast and by a special prayer. Nachman of Breslov settled in Uman, and before his death there, he said, “the souls of the martyrs (slaughtered by Gonta) await me”. After his death in 1811, the Hasidim of Breslov have come to visit his grave, especially for Rosh Hashana. Crowds of up to 30,000 have come at a time.

Here is an entry called "History of Jews of Romania"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanian_Jews

Before and after World War I
The Synagogue of Braşov (built 1901)

The emigration of Romanian Jews on a larger scale commenced soon after 1878; numbers rose and fell, with a major wave of Bessarabian Jews after the Kishinev pogrom in Imperial Russia (1905). The Jewish Encyclopedia wrote in 1905, shortly before the pogrom, "It is admitted that at least 70 per cent would leave the country at any time if the necessary traveling expenses were furnished". There are no official statistics of emigration; but it is safe to place the minimum number of Jewish emigrants from 1898 to 1904 at 70,000.

Land issues and predominantly Jewish presence among estate leaseholders accounted for the 1907 Romanian Peasants' Revolt, partly anti-Semitic in message.[41] During the same period, the anti-Jewish message first expanded beyond its National Liberal base (where it was soon an insignificant attitude),[42] to cover the succession of more radical and Moldavian-based organizations founded by A.C. Cuza (his Democratic Nationalist Party, created in 1910, had the first anti-Semitic program in Romanian political history).[43] No longer present in the PNL's ideology by the 1920s, anti-Semitism also tended to surface in on the left-wing of the political spectrum, in currents originating in Poporanism - which favoured the claim that peasants were being systematically exploited by Jews.[44]

World War I, during which 882 Jewish soldiers died defending Romania (and 825 were decorated), brought about the creation of Greater Romania after the 1919 Paris Peace Conference and subsequent treaties. The enlarged state had an increased Jewish population, corresponding with the addition of communities in Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Transylvania. On signing the treaties, Romania agreed to change its policy towards the Jews, promising to award them both citizenship and minority rights, the effective emancipation of Jews.[38] The 1923 Constitution of Romania sanctioned these requirements, meeting opposition from Cuza's National-Christian Defense League and rioting by far right students in Iaşi;[45] the land reform carried out by the Ion I. C. Brătianu cabinet also settled problems connected with land tenancy.

Political representation for the Jewish community in the inter-war period was divided between the Jewish Party and the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania[46] (the latter was re-established after 1989). During the same period, a division in ritual became apparent between Reform Jews in Transylvania and usually Orthodox ones in the rest of the country[47] (while Bessarabia was the most open to Zionism and especially the socialist Labor Zionism).

The popularity of anti-Jewish messages was, nevertheless, on the rise, and merged itself with the appeal of fascism in the late 1920s - both contributed to the creation and success of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu's Iron Guard and the appearance of new types of anti-Semitic discourses (Trăirism and Gândirism). The idea of a Jewish quota in higher education became highly popular among Romanian students and teachers.[48] According to Andrei Oişteanu's analysis, a relevant number of right-wing  intellectuals refused to adopt overt anti-Semitism, which was ill-reputed through its association with A. C. Cuza's violent discourse; nevertheless, a few years later, such cautions were cast aside, and anti-Semitism became displayed as "spiritual health".[49]

The first motion to exclude Jews from professional associations came on May 16, 1937, when the Confederation of the Associations of Professional Intellectuals (Confederaţia Asociaţiilor de Profesionişti Intelectuali din România) voted to exclude all Jewish members from its affiliated bodies, calling for the state to withdraw their licenses and reassess their citizenship.[50] Although illegal, the measure was popular and it was commented that, in its case, legality had been supplanted by a "heroic decision".[50] According to Oişteanu, the initiative had a direct influence on anti-Semitic regulations passed during the following year.[50]

The threat posed by the Iron Guard, the emergence of Nazi Germany as a European power, and his own fascist sympathies[citation needed], made King Carol II, who was still largely identified as a philo-Semite,[51] adopt racial discrimination as the norm. In the recent election, over 25% of the electorate had voted for explicitly anti-semitic groups (either the Goga-Cuza alliance (9%) or the Iron Guard's political mouthpiece, TPT(16.5%)), and as a result, Carol was forced to let one of the two into his cabinet- he instantly chose the Goga-Cuza alliance over the rabid fascism of the Iron Guard (according to modern historian of the Balkans, Misha Glenny, he also thought that this would "take the sting out of the Guard's tail"). On January 21, 1938, Cuza and Octavian Goga passed a law aimed at reviewing criteria for citizenship (after it cast allegations that previous cabinets had allowed Ukrainian Jews to obtain it illegally),[38] and requiring all Jews who had received citizenship in 1918-1919 to reapply for it (while providing a very short term in which this could be achieved - 20 days);[52]

However, Carol II himself was highly hostile to anti-Semitism. His lover, Elena Lupescu, was Jewish, as were a number of his friends in government, and he soon reverted to his original policies (that is, fiercely opposing the anti-Semites and fascists), but with a newly violent sting. In February 12, 1938, he used the rising violence between political groups as context to seize absolute power (a move which was tacitly supported by the liberals who had come to view him as a lesser evil in comparison to Codreanu's fascist movement). As an authentic Romanian nationalist (albeit, one who had a view of a Westernized, forcefully industrialized Romania at the expense of the peasants whom he viewed with disdain; making him completely the antithesis of the views of Codreanu), Carol was determined that Romania should not fall into the near-absolute economic and political control that many of its neighbors already had, and moved to theatrical resistance against Nazi ideology. The King then arrested the entire leadership of the Iron Guard, on the grounds that they were in the pay of the Nazis, and began using the same accusation against various political opponents, both to solidify his absolute control of the country as well as negatively stigmatize Germany. In November, the fourteen most important fascist leaders (the first of which being Codreanu) were "rinsed" in acid. [53]

However, Carol's policy was doomed by the reluctance of France and Britain to engage the fascist powers of Germany, Italy and Russia (or rather, Stalinist communist, in the case of the latter) in war. Russia attacked Romania and declared annexation of Bukovina and Bessarabia (which was to be renamed Moldova), and when Carol turned to the only possible hope - that is, assistance from the former "eternal foe", Nazi Germany - he was angrily rejected by Hitler personally, who did not have to try hard to remember how Carol had previously humiliated the cause of his ideology. Carol was forced to acknowledge the annexation, leading directly to his overthrow in a coup led by Ion Antonescu.

In 1940, the Ion Gigurtu cabinet adopted Romania's equivalent to the Nuremberg Laws, forbidding Jewish-Christian intermarriage, and defining Jews after racial criteria (a person was Jewish if he or she had a Jewish grandparent on one side of the family).[54]

[IsraelForever]

Very true.  In those days, to be a Jew in Europe, was a very dangerous life.  As you pointed out, you could be killed at any time.  I feel towards Europe the way I feel towards cancer, a plague, or vermin.  I'd live on an inner tube floating in the middle of the ocean before I'd live in Europe. 

[דוד בן זאב אריה]

75% Russian 25% Czech and Hungarian.

100% Ashkanazi

But I speak modern Israeli Hebrew

[mord]

They do have sephardim from Russia and i don't mean Bucharim,Georgian, North kafkaz or any other known Sephardi areas.I had a friend in my gym his last name was Barbara everyone thought he was Italian.He was a Jew who hundreds of yrs back his ancestors Italian Jews immigrated to Russia.G-D knows why anyone normal would move from Italy to Russia

[tron77]

Mizrachi.  My ancestry is Iranian. 

Hey Lisa Me as well.

[Lisa]

Nice to see that we have several Iranian Jews here. 

[IsraeliGovtAreKapos]

Am I the only "Russo" Jew here 

[White Israelite]

I am an Ashkenazi Jew.  My grandparents were from Russia, Romania and Poland.  Woody Allen, Larry David, Allen Dershowitz or Goldberg (the wrestler) could easily be in my family with that look.

Very interesting... Romania comes up AGAIN.... My boss is a very nice Romanian man whom while I was driving home tonight I ran into at the gas station while filling up, seeing him there got me thinking about Romania... Today an IDF helicopter crashed in Romania killing 6 Israelis and a Romanian.. And now I read this thread where you are part Romanian... My experience with those Romanians at my work is a good one...

Just wish people would stop thinking Romanians are Gypsies.

[TruthSpreader]

100% Christian/Gentile here.

[White Israelite]

I do not consider myself part Romanian at all.  Nor do I consider myself part Russian or part Polish.  That's because I'm not.  I'm 100% Jewish.  The fact that my mother's mother lived in Romania does not make me Romanian.  They were Jews who happened to live in those countries.  If a Jewish family from New York moved to France, would they be French?  Thanks to vicious anti-Semitism all over the world, Jews fled all over the place.  But if they married other wandering Jews and remained Jews, then their children were also Jewish, and they never became "French", or "Polish" or "Romanian", etc.  I was never even in Romania.

I suppose but what about people who converted who do not have physical ancestry to Israel? My mom doesn't have physical ancestry to Israel, she's French and German by ethnicity but converted to Judaism, my dad is Jewish, his last name is Jewish origin, and his origins trace back to Aaron.

[White Israelite]

Am I the only "Russo" Jew here 

There's about 2.5 million of them in New York.