page_title: Jewish Democratic Committee
section_title: Early causes
hierarchical_section_title: Jewish Democratic Committee / History / Early causes
caption_attribution_description: English: State Jewish Theater, Str. Iuliu Barash 15, Bucharest, Romania Română: Teatrul Evreiesc de Stat, Str. Iuliu Barash 15, Bucureşti, România
context_page_description: The Jewish Democratic Committee or Democratic Jewish Committee was a left-wing political party which sought to represent Jewish community interests in Romania. Opposed to the orientation of most Romanian Jews, who supported right-wing Zionism as embodied by the Jewish Party, the CDE was in practice a front for the Romanian Communist Party; its chairmen M. H. Maxy, Bercu Feldman, and Barbu Lăzăreanu were card-carrying communists. Initially, its anti-Zionism was limited by a recruitment drive among Labour Zionists, which allowed the party to absorb the local variant of Poale Zion. Additionally, the CED was directed against the Union of Romanian Jews, a more traditional vehicle of assimilationism. It annexed an UER dissidence under Moise Zelțer-Sărățeanu, while also taking over chapters of Ihud and accepting in Jewish affiliates of the Romanian Social Democratic Party.
  For the November 1946 elections, the CDE ran a Jewish Representation list, closely allied with the PCR. It took one of two Jewish seats in the Assembly of Deputies, and joined the parliamentary coalition backing Petru Groza's cabinet.
context_section_description: Some CDE chapters by then demanding the full restitution of assets confiscated in the Holocaust, addressing Groza a memorandum on the matter. In response to such calls, Groza insisted that "the Jews cannot ask for privileges just because they are Jews", disseminating rumors that most Jews were speculators, and asking for left-wingers among them to concentrate on combating their "outrageous lifestyle". The CDE was successful in obtaining other concessions, such as the exemption of former concentration camp inmates from service in the Romanian Army or steps to release Jewish inmates from the Red Army's captivity. While the despoliation question remained unresolved, CDE cadres were also involved in responding to antisemitic violence, as well as in denouncing alleged Holocaust perpetrators, including football coach Ferenc Rónai and teacher Sava Dumitru. They made efforts to collect data about specific pogroms, including one in Vișeu de Sus, and staged a burial ceremony for soap bars assumed to be made from human fat. However, Kohn's CPED, integrated as a CDE section in 1946, also championed reconciliation with the Hungarian community. At a MADOSZ rally in 1946, Kohn spoke of the special cultural connection between the two communities—as noted by historian Attila Gidó, his speech featured a relativisation of the Holocaust in Hungary.
  Other activists gave their own replies on the issue of Hungarian responsibility for the Holocaust. László Erdős, leader of the CDE's Cluj section, refused to promise protection to Calvinist and Unitarian clergy, implying that both had been complicit in Holocaust crimes. CDE operative Otto Rappaport also spoke on the issue, but insisted that MADOSZ and other local Hungarians "openly and firmly judge the crimes of an era and generation." While advocating the liquidation of Hungarian fascism, Rappaport contended: "Jewry does not identify and does not generalize the traitors of the Hungarian people with the Hungarian democrats. The Jewry equally hates the Hungarian and Romanian reaction". Despite Kohn's attempts at finding common ground, MADOSZ and the CDE were at odds over issues such as the return of Jewish property in Bistrița County.
  Shunning the Hebrew revival encouraged by Zionism, the CDE had as its central mouthpiece a Romanian-language weekly, Unirea, first published in November 1945. Its name ("unity" or "unification") was selected to contradict Luca's notions of class conflict. At an early stage, the newspaper's general line was that Zionism was only justified in Western countries, as a reaction to antisemitism. It viewed itself as heir to "Jewry's democratic traditions", while also endorsing a "combat of the entire Romanian people for democracy, restoration, and prosperity." In practice, it circulated PCR propaganda, some of which was penned by Sașa Pană, formerly an avant-garde author. The chief editor was Anton Celaru, a distinguished translator from Yiddish. From 1947, the CDE also put out a Yiddish literary review, Yikuf Bletter, and, for a while in 1948, printed a Hungarian–Romanian bulletin. The Cluj newspaper Egység, later known as Új Út, was also published by the CDE. According to Zeev-Herșcovici, the CDE was only successful in promoting socialist Yiddishism through its network of schools, including obtaining a Yiddish state curriculum; the Barașeum was maintained as a state theater, to promote Yiddish drama. Yiddishist campaigns were partly supervised by Polia Barasch, who was an inspector for the Ministry of Education, as well as serving as leader of the CDE Female Section. The latter was strong at Arad and elsewhere in the Banat, where schoolgirl Hedi Schauer was also leader of the FTDE.
  The CDE had as its stated objective the suppression of religious and cultural Judaism; Yiddish culture was tolerated as a brand of Jewish secularism. Thus, Egység's agenda was "to eliminate cooperation between the Jewish population on the one hand, and the religious communities and bourgeois forces on the other." In this, the Committee earned backing from Rabbi Meyer Abraham Halevy, who declare
caption: Exterior of the Barașeum (2002 photograph)
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