Broken Spirits

Ten thousand Jews jammed the streets of Red Bucharest in front of the new Israeli legation on Valentine's Day 1949, dancing and crying "Long live Israel." After 15 years of Fascist pogroms and four more of Communist misery, the exhilarating dream of the promised land had suddenly become a reality. Thousands sold their last belongings to buy fantastically priced exit permits and steamship tickets, bade goodbye to their children and set forth to Israel, empty-handed but hopeful. By the end of 1951, when the Reds suddenly ordered a stop to emigration, 120,000 of Rumania's 350,000 Jews (the largest Jewish community in any satellite) had poured through Haifa into the great adventure.

Last week, five years later almost to the day, 69 of Rumania's emigrant Jews returned to Haifa, reboarded a steamer and started back to Rumania. They were the vanguard of an exodus of 2,000. The number was comparatively small, but the fact of their leaving was disquieting.

For them, life in frontierlike Israel had proved too hard. Most were middle-aged and middle class. Their uncalloused hands were unsuited for the road building, foresting and citrus picking that growing Israel demanded of its immigrants. Wrote one unhappy Rumanian to the Jerusalem Post: "Former industrialists, merchants and intellectuals think themselves lucky now if they can get jobs as night watchmen." They longed for their children, but these the Reds had kept behind in Rumania. They hoped for comfort in the promised land, but found their spirits broken in lonely months in one-roomed tin huts and canvas shacks.

One day last November, the Rumanian consulate advertised an offer of repatriation, a promise of "free passage from the frontier of Israel to your home" and repayment of all their debts to Israel (amounting to as much as $2,000 in some cases). The 2,000 who queued up were taunted by passers-by for "deserting." Israel's government is convinced that Rumania's motive is to exhibit these disillusioned travelers to the young and able-bodied Jews back home who are anxious to get to Israel.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.