Nicolae Ceaușescu’s rule of Romania from 1965 to 1989 stood out for its brutality even among eastern-bloc dictatorships. Yet, unlike his Warsaw Pact colleagues, Ceaușescu did not try to extinguish Jewish life and never severed relations with Israel. In fact, Jewish institutions survived under his rule, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was allowed to provide assistance to Romanian Jews, and a sizable number managed to leave for Israel—in large part thanks to the effort of Romania’s chief rabbi. Liam Hoare writes:
Around 40,000 Jews lived in Romania in 1978, and at that time the community owned 120 operating synagogues, 61 of which had daily morning and evening services. There were Talmud Torah classes and community choirs, kosher restaurants, Jewish cemeteries, magazines in Hebrew and Yiddish, a [communal] seder on Passover, festivities for Hanukkah, Purim, and Sukkot, and a Jewish museum in Bucharest. . . .
Romania was the only eastern-bloc state to maintain relations with Israel after the Six-Day War. . . . Romanian Jews were also allowed to make aliyah, although . . . Ceaușescu turned Jewish emigration into a profit-making venture. . . . It is thought that Israel paid the regime $112,498,800 between 1968 and 1989 for 40,577 Jews, at a price of $2,500-$3,300 a head, at a rate of around 1,500 Jews per annum.
All of this—the survival of Jewish life, the contribution of the JDC, and the continuation of aliyah—was made possible, in no small part, due to the work of Rabbi Moses Rosen. It was Rosen who acted as a conduit between Romania and the United States to help secure the return of the JDC, in turn developing a system of social assistance within the community, and between Romania and Israel to set up the cash-for-olim system that thinned the ranks of Romanian Jewry so dramatically.
Read more on eJewish Philanthropy: http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/jewish-life-in-romania-under-ceausescu-dealing-with-the-devil/