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After the proclamation of the People's Republic of Romania, at the end of 1947, until 1988, about 300,000 Jews have left Romania. Currently, in Romania, the Jewish population is around 12,000-15,000, generally aging. Despite the general interest of the Romanian society in Judaism and the Jewish communities, as the article highlights, there are only about half a dozen Jewish museums, most of them being rather unknown and modest community exhibitions, dusty and decrepit. The article focuses on these particular museums and their collections, but trying to point out the resources and real potential of the Jewish heritage in Romania, envisaging that it is high time to experience new Jewish museums. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on Menchem Hacohen, former Chief Rabbi of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Romania. Topics discussed include the creation of the State of Israel which is an expression of the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty, examination of the concept of religion and politics, and Judaic cultural inheritance. Also mentioned are legislation, political extremism, and Jewish culture.

The article sketches the troubled course of the Jewish communities in Romania during the first half of the 20th century. The period between the world wars was characterized by the controversy concerning modernization of the Jewish community. The era of the right wing dictatorships 1939-1944 was marked by the Jewish minority's struggle for survival. And the years in which the communist dictatorship was established and extended were filled with Jewish efforts to maintain the integrity of their communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study presents a number of handwritten notes found in the Satu Mare Hebrew book collection stored in the old synagogue on Decebal Street. These notes provide valuable documentary material referring to the history of private life in the local Jewish communities over the last two centuries. The information on events that occurred in individual or family life, as well as in the "great history" presents a picture of Jewish society and describes the dynamics of a Jewish identity confronted with tensions coming from birth tradition and assimilationism. The contents of the notes in question ranges from references to the main moments in family life--birth and death--to comments concerning the owners' education and other major life experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proverbs as a folklore genre are part of the sapiential literature of a people and are acquisitions in time of a certain ethical code and life experience; they are at the same time a self-educational exercise. This paper offers some reference points in the comparative sudy of Hebrew and Romanian proverbs. The first part is a general survey of the Romanian preoccupations in the field of comparatism in sapiential literature. The second part insists on the dynamics of Jewish culture in Europe in order to emphasize the context in which Jewish sapiential literature could have got in contact with Romanian spirituality. The third part offers a case study regarding similarities and differences from a stylistic or grammatical point of view between Hebrew and Romanian proverbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]