The Romanian Cultural Institute in Tel Aviv is organizing, together with Cervantes Institute in Tel Aviv, a conference called ”Sephardi Bucharest and its connection to Spain”, presented by Felicia Waldman. The conference, held in English, will be hosted by Cervantes Institute in Tel Aviv (located on 28 Ha’Arba street) and will begin at 18:00 hours, on June 12th.
History of the Sephardi Jews has been a focal point of European, Israeli and international research. Starting with the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Cahal Grande Temple, also known as the Grand Spanish Temple, which is the first and most important synagogue of Sephardi Jews of Bucharest, researcher Felicia Waldman will review the history of the Sephardi people in Romania. The conference is meant to pay tribute to the 500 year-long history of the Spanish Jews who settled in Bucharest, bringing with them original commodities, as well as community institutions, educational establishments and cultural organizations, from which, more than often, benefited the Ashkenazi Jews, who came after them but soon became more numerous, however with fewer financial possibilities, and even the Romanians, if we take into account the donations made by the Sephardi bankers to the Romanian Academy and the University of Bucharest.
Recognized as a guild in 1694 and as an institution beginning with 1730, the community of Spanish (Sephardi) Jews contributed massively to the development of the economy and the evolution of culture, not only in the Jewish world, but also in the Romanian one as a whole, both in Bucharest and the rest of the country. Its decline began during the Second World War, with the destruction of the Cahal Grande Temple, perpetrated by the far right movement, and the departure of its inhabitants, especially to South America. After 1944, when the great Rabbi of the community, Sabetay Djaen, left due to health reasons, in Buenos Aires, the Sephardi community became a section of the Ashkenazi Community. Today, we can no longer talk about a Sephardi community structure, due to the very small number of its members, thus marking the end of a history of more than 500 years.
The conference held at the Cervantes Institute in Tel Aviv on June 12th, in English, starting with 18:00 hours, aims to recapture and present to the public the history of Sephardi Bucharest, largely forgotten, whose physical heritage is, unfortunately, in the process of disappearance due to demolitions, as well as a description of the Romanian Sephardi community, of which, to this day, there are no more than 50 people left, including mixed families, and its links with Spain and other Latin American countries. Furthermore, the lecture will highlight the common cultural heritage of the Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews in Romania, as well as the similarities between the Sephardi heritage in Romania and Spain.
Felicia Waldman is a researcher, specializing in Hebrew language and literature, Jewish mysticism, Holocaust education and Jewish heritage in Romania. At present, she has been teaching as a lecturer at the University of Bucharest since 1999, and until 2013 she was an associate professor at "Al. I. Cuza" University of Iași and a visiting professor at the University of Milan, Italy.
