Shtetl and Shtot / 14 days

This morning we shall head straight North to the Ukrainian border, to Siret, in an area where several “shtetl” existed until, after a steady decline in face of economic changes, WW2 put an end to their existence. Small communities (the size of a hamlet or village) where a traditional, conservative lifestyle was strictly observed and occupations were individually
assigned and carried on, the “shtetlekh” epitomized the rural Jewish community in Central and Eastern Europe until the first half of the 20th century. In Siret we are going to see the extensive local graveyard, considered as the oldest Jewish graveyard in Eastern Europe, with the oldest tombstone going back to 1560; the most frequently met motifs include the Lion, the Bird, the griffin, the Menorah, the Tree of Life, the Hands of Blessing and the Torah. It will be then on to Rădăuți, a town historically marked by the great influence of Hasidism and by the conflict it would have with Zionism, but also the town the entire Jewish population of which (about a third of the entire population) was sent to death camps in 1941. We shall then carry on across wonderful Bukovina with its great rustic tradition set in a captivating natural setting complete with dramatic mountains and extensive woodlands, with an optional detour to Vatra Dornei and a leg stretching break in Ciocănești, where we can admire the local houses decorated with colourful plaster patterns inspired by local embroideries. After that great drive, we shall cross Prislop Pass into Maramureș, also known as the land of timber due to the great skill local people have when it comes to wood carving and carpentry.

• Breakfast.
• Visit to the Jewish Graveyard in Siret.
• Visit to the Great Temple in Rădăuți.
  • Optional detour to see from the outside the nowadays abandoned Great Temple completed in 1902 at the foot of Runc Hill in Vatra Dornei.
  • Optional walk in Ciocănești to see the local houses decorated with embroidery-inspired patterns.
• Accommodation in Sighetu Marmației, 3* guesthouse or hotel.

The first Jews arrived in Sighetu Marmației in the 17th century and their number constantly grew until they made up almost half the population in town in the 1930s. The town also played a major role in the religious, cultural and educational development of the Jews in the region, with Hasidism being pivotal to that. During WW2, when North Transylvania (including Maramureș, and on our route also including the cities of Baia Mare, Satu Mare, Oradea, Cluj and Târgu Mureș) was annexed by Miklós Horthy’s Hungary, that resulted in massive deportations to Auschwitz. Up in this part of the Maramureș, about 14,000 Jews in Sighet and the neighbouring area were forcibly moved in two ghettos from where they were further deported to Auschwitz in 4 stages in May 1944, as part of a greater process that saw some 440,000 Hungarian Jews from outside Budapest sent to the same destination, most of which being gassed upon arriving in Birkenau. One of the aforemention 14,000 was named Elie Wiesel; losing his mother and younger sister in Auschwitz, he would manage to survive and write his account entitled “Night”, later being awarded the Nobel Prize for being a “messenger to mankind: his message being one of peace, atonement and dignity”. And during our tour today we shall recall Wiesel’s own words:

“The synagogue resembled a large railroad station: baggage and tears. The altar was shattered, the wall coverings shredded, the walls themselves bare. There were so many of us, we could hardly breathe. The twenty-four hours we spent there were horrendous. The men were downstairs, the women upstairs. It was Saturday — the Sabbath — and it was as though we were there to attend services. Forbidden to go outside, people relieved themselves in a corner.
The next morning, we walked toward the station, where a convoy of cattle cars was waiting. The Hungarian police made us climb into cars, eighty persons in each one. They handed us some bread, a few pails of water. They checked the bars on the windows to make sure they would not come loose. The cars were sealed. One person was placed in charge of every car: if someone managed to escape, that person would be shot.
Two Gestapo officers strolled down the length of the platform. They were all smiles; all things considered, it had gone very smoothly.”

Elie Wiesel – “Night”

• Breakfast.
• Visit to the Klaus Vizhnitzer Synagogue completed in 1902 and restored in 2021.
• Visit to Elie Wiesel’s memorial house.
• Visit to the Sighet Museum which preserves the Drimer’s house, a typical 19th century property built by a rabbi’s family, and that also doubled as a synagogue.
• Accommodation in Sighetu Marmației, 3* guesthouse or hotel.

After crossing the Gutâi Pass this morning, we shall go on to Baia Mare, where the Jewish presence strengthened once the restrictions imposed on Jews were lifted in 1850, with their becoming involved in industry, crafts and trade. In 1944 however, similarly to the fate of the Sighetu Marmației community, almost 6,000 Jews in Baia Mare were deported to Auschwitz. After a view of the rather modest synagogue here, we shall carry on Westwards to Satu Mare and its imposing, Moorish style Great Temple built in 1889, respectively the adjacent, Baroque Saare Tora Synagogue, but with a community sharing the tragic history of the Jews in Baia Mare. While in the communities up North-East on our tour Jews observed mainly the Orthodox branch with a focus on Hasidism, the community in Satu Mare and other towns further on our journey included Orthodox Jews (conservatives), Neolog Jews (liberals), and status-quo ante Jews (independents). With the Satmar Hasidic dynasty, Satu Mare became one of the most important rabbinical centers of Transylvania; coming from this dynasty, Joel Teitelbaum would become the chief rabbi of New York City after WW2. Back on the road, we shall head across the vast Western Plains to Art Nouveau and Secession style-infused Oradea. A town that developed on a major trade route, development where Jews had a major contribution to the point where the 1930s saw about 30,000 Jews counting for one third of the population (many of which would be shot in the street, while most others were deported to Auschwitz after being crammed in two ghettos) and with the religious service held in over 20 synagogues. Of those still standing from the latter, three are particularly interesting, one (the Aachvas Rein) hosting an evocative Jewish history museum, another one (the Neolog Sion) rising wonderfully on the West bank of the Crișul Repede and the last one (the Orthodox) with a façade reminding us of the Great Temple in Satu Mare. And, while walking down the passage under the iconic, Secession Style Vulturul Negru Palace with its fabulous stained glass panels, it is worth knowing that the property was built by two local Jewish lawyers, Dr. Ede Kurländer and Dr. Emil Adorján.

• Breakfast
• Exterior view of the Baia Mare synagogue.
• Exterior view of the Great Temple in Satu Mare.
• Visit to the Jewish History Museum in Oradea (if arriving too late in Oradea, this or the Neolog Sion Synagogue visit might be done the following morning, provided it is not a Monday).
• Visit to the Neolog Sion Synagogue in Oradea.
  • Optional (time allowing) detour to see the Vijnitzer Temple in South Oradea.
• Walk downtown, taking in the Vulturul Negru Palace.
• Accommodation in Oradea, 3* hotel set in a period property.

This morning we shall leave the main road and head up, across the countryside, to the small town of Șimleu Silvaniei. While the town, like the whole region of Northern Transylvania, saw a similar treatment of its Jewish community between 1940 and 1944, the Șimleu Synagogue built in 1876, about to fall apart following the last local Jewish families’ leaving Romania in the 1960s, was restored and revived in 2005, and it has hosted a museum dedicated to the Northern Transylvania Holocaust ever since; a moving experience that we believe to be more than worth the detour North to see it. We shall then reach Cluj, a thriving student town and the most populous city in Transylvania. With a Jewish presence in the city as early as the 15th century, their increasing number had the Hungarian administration restrict newcomers’ from settling and they were denied the right to settle in towns, own land or houses, respectively build synagogues until the mid 19th century when there occurred a change of policy; the latter led to an increase of the Jewish population to the point where the interwar period saw around 13% of the urban population being of Jewish origin. The same period however saw the growth of antisemitic movements, with the Legionaries (a religious fascist movement founded in 1927) or their adherents proceeding to anything from harassment to execution, while 1944 would see over 16,000 Jews being deported to Auschwitz. After visiting the picturesque, Moorish style 1887 Neolog Synagogue in Cluj, we shall carry on to the very heart of Transylvania, to Târgu Mureș, complete with its fine Secession style Palace of Culture, but also to one of the most beautiful synagogues in the country, the Statu Quo Ante that represented one of the community branches following the Orthodox – Neolog schism in 1871, a branch that saw all Târgu Mureș Jews join after 1945, following the Holocaust that counted almost 6,000 local Jews.

• Breakfast.
• Visit to the Northern Transylvania Holocaust Museum in Șimleu Silvaniei.
• Exterior view of the Neolog Synagogue in Cluj.
• Walking tour including exterior view of the Status Quo Ante Synagogue in Târgu Mureș.
• Accommodation in Târgu Mureș, 3* guesthouse or 4* hotel set in a period property.

Today we shall make our way Southwards into the Siebenbürgen, or the region where Hungarian King Geza II invited the Saxons to settle, granting them several benefits in exchange for their protecting this part of the kingdom border. Differently from their villages that often banned outsiders to settle, Saxon-settled towns relied heavily on trade and crafts and the contact with other communities was not only necessary, but even boosted, which did not however mean foreigners, and particularly Jews were welcome to settle (Jews were granted full rights in the Siebenbürgen only after 1851). In this greater picture, Sighișoara, a medieval fortified town, saw a rather small Jewish population that rose at its peak at about 150 persons with the synagogue built after 1900 and the last local Jew that died in 2009, yet
its story is evocative for other Saxon towns in the region. A background that could hardly fit better Queen Maria’s opening lines of her romantic novel written in the 1930s:

“Old Baruch Șaraga owned an antique shop in one of the narrowest and poorest streets of a small town in Transylvania. […] Old Șaraga’s house was located at the bottom of the hill the town was perched on and the annual floods reached him too, but those of Baruch Șaraga’s kind do not afford to see the more pleasant side of things; their voice is faint and if they go constantly mourning, their mourning has the appearance of the ancient lament of the perpetual wanderer without a country of his own.”

The afternoon will see us in the same Siebenbürgen region, in Brașov. With the first Jews settling in during the first years of the 19th century, the community slowly developed despite the restrictions imposed on them, such as the fact that they could be hired for a job only if local Saxons refused it, and observing the typical split between the Neolog and Orthodox branches with their respective synagogues (the latter of which, going back to 1924, being in a bad, hardly accessible state). While, as already mentioned, the town and region did not see deportations to death camps, Jewish property was confiscated, harassment and beatings occurred throughout WW2. Even so, in the early 1940s a number of Jews from Moldavia and North Transylvania fled their home towns and settled in Brașov so as to escape the horrors there.

• Breakfast.
• Walk across the fortified town in Sighișoara.
• Visit to the synagogue in Sighișoara.
• Walk through the old town in Brașov.
• Visit to the 1901, Moorish style Beit Israel Synagogue in Brașov.
• Accommodation in a hotel hosted in a heritage property in the old town of Brașov.

This morning we shall cross the lower part of Transylvania through the same Saxon Siebenbürgen, with the impressive ridge of Făgăraș Mountains to the South. The community in the town of Făgăraș about half the way to Sibiu was rather modest and settled later than in other regions (during 1820), with a synagogue opening in 1829, just to be demolished in 1836 by the administration of the Province of Transylvanian following a request by the municipality (it would be rebuilt in 1858); locals’ attacks on Jewish houses two years later following an act that ordered Jews to leave town further deteriorated the situation of the latter. A Viennese Court decision that punished the perpetrators and compensated the Jewish community somewhat de-escalated the situation and slowly Jews’ number increased to over 500 by the early 20th century, just to drop to slightly over 260 in 1941; the community veered from Neolog Judaism to Orthodoxy in 1926. The Holocaust period did not see deportations in this area, it instead saw the confiscation of property and Jews being ordered to do forced labour. With the community almost extinct, the city hall had the old synagogue restored and an exterior view will provide an interesting break en route to Sibiu. Designated as European Capital of Culture back in 2007, Sibiu is among the most interesting of the medieval Saxon towns in Transylvania in terms of heritage, with the great atmosphere around its three main squares in the old town. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Jews were mentioned in Sibiu as traders or intermediaries between Poland and the Ottoman Empire. However, it would not be until 1851 that Jews got the right to settle in town, the synagogue being built in 1899 and the number of the local community – which observed Orthodoxy – reaching over 1360 by 1941. Just like in Brașov and Făgăraș, while deportations did not occur, Jewish property confiscation and forced labour were the norms of the WW2 years. The afternoon will then see us in Mediaș, where the Jewish presence followed a similar history to that in Brașov or Sibiu. However what impresses here, even now, when the community is extinct, is the 1896 synagogue built in eclectic style with strong Romantic and Moorish influences, as well as the adjacent rabbi’s house and “yeshiva” (school) that comes complete with the “mikvah” (ritual bath), a property that nowadays hosts the archives and library of the old Jewish community, as well as various exhibitions on the town history and culture.

• Breakfast.
• Early departure (08:00).
• Exterior view of the synagogue in Făgăraș.
• Visit to the Sibiu Synagogue (last admission at 11:00).
• Walk in the old town of Sibiu.
• Visit to the house by the synagogue in Mediaș (in case of a late arrival, it can be visited the following day, provided it is not a Sunday or Monday) and to the synagogue.
• Accommodation in Mediaș, 3* hotel.

Reaching Alba Iulia with its well preserved, extensive, Vauban style fortress going back to the 18th century, we shall find ourselves in a town of particular importance for Jews’ history in Romania. That happened because Alba Iulia was among the first Transylvanian towns where Jews were allowed to settle as early as the Middle Ages, to the point where by the end of the 16th century a community together with a rabbinic court existed here; most of them were Sephardic and had fled Spain. Their main occupations included trade (especially as middlemen between the Ottoman Empire, Poland and other parts of the Habsburg Monarchy), industry and, following a 17th century allowance, serfs for local landlords. The community steadily developed to the point where the interwar period saw over 1,500 Jews in town, which accounted for about 12% of the total population. The same period however saw an increasing antisemitic movement which saw, among others, a bomb being detonated at the local synagogue by some Legionary pupils, or the community leaders and rabbis being arrested and tortured in 1940, while after 1941 Jews in the region were massed in Alba Iulia, their property was often confiscated and they had to do forced labour. Leaving Alba Iulia, our next stop will be in Deva, the city overlooked by a 13th century hilltop (actually small volcano top) fortress, and which has hosted a Jewish community since the mid 19th century and reached about 900 persons on the eve of WW2. After seeing the local synagogue built in 1897 and restored in 2019, we shall carry on Westwards among the typical Transylvanian rolling hills into Banat, a historical region with a heterogeneous population including, among others, Romanians, Schwabs, Serbs, Croats, Hungarians, Jews, Romani and Austrians. Jewish communities appeared in Banat in the 17th century, during the Ottoman rule (1552-1716).

• Breakfast.
• Visit to the 1883 Spanish Synagogue in Alba Iulia.
• Exterior view of the synagogue in Deva (inside visit if open).
• Orientation walk in Timișoara, taking in Victoria Square (with exterior views of the elegant properties built by rich Jews: the Dauerbach, Merbl and Neuhausz buildings), Liberty Square and Union Square.
• Accommodation in Timișoara, 4* guesthouse or residence near the old town or in a quiet neighbourhood out of it.

We shall allocate this day to two major cities in the region: Timișoara and Arad. First, Timișoara saw both Ashkenazi (from Central Europe) and Sephardic (from Spain, sometimes via Istanbul or Thessalonica) Jews settle in town; the latter arrived as early as 1515. However, once the Ottomans were defeated by the Habsburgs, strict rules were imposed on Jews, among which travel restrictions and their being moved out of the town proper, to be lifted towards the mid 19th century. The same century saw the Fortress Synagogue built in 1865; its building was so impressive that Emperor Franz Josef paid a visit in 1872. As the community grew and Jews were spread out, two more synagogues were later added, the smaller Iosefin Synagogue in 1895 (the only one still in use for service) and the jewel-like Fabric Synagogue in 1899 (unfortunately in a very bad state today). The community reached its peak of about 12,000 persons (around 10% of the population) during the interwar period and, even though WW2 saw high risks (the Jews of Arad and Timișoara were scheduled to be deported to the Bełżec extermination camp in 1942, but the order was withdrawn) and abuses, most Jews survived those difficult years (a plaque in the graveyard chapel however mentions 28 deceased during the Holocaust). We shall then head over to Arad, where the first Jews settled in the early 18th century and a synagogue was built in 1828, but the local community stood out especially given its support for the Judaism reform movement, fact that would have it in conflict with other rabbis in Hungary Arad was part of at that time. There were almost 8,000 Jews in Arad in 1941 and, just like Timișoara, despite the WW2 abuses, there were no deportations.

• Breakfast.
• Visit to the Cetate Synagogue in Timișoara (if open, as there might still be restoration works and the synagogue is also used by the local philharmonic orchestra for rehearsals and concerts).
• Exterior view of the New Fabric Synagogue in Timișoara (in a very bad state) and the Orthodox Fabric Synagogue (nowadays hosting a funeral home).
• Exterior view of the Iosefin Synagogue in Timișoara (the only one still holding the religious service).
• Visit to the Jewish Cemetery in Timișoara (the main, Strada Liniștei one), including many artistic tombstones and the oldest tombstone going back to 1636, belonging to Assael Azriel.
• Exterior views of the Neolog Synagogue (closed down) and the Orthodox Synagogue set in Art Nouveau style in Arad (inside visit of the latter if open).
• Accommodation in Timișoara, 4* guesthouse or residence near the old town or in a quiet neighbourhood out of it.

This morning we shall head Eastwards and reach Lugoj, a town that once had a well established (over 1,000 persons by 1942 and over 1,600 in 1947, given the influx of refugees from Northern Bukovina annexed by the Soviet Union), highly active Jewish community, with many of its members working in trade, but Jews were also well-known locally as watchmakers. An interesting fact here is that the central park was created on the site of the former Jewish Cemetery, after graves being moved away to the new cemetery. It will then be farther South to Caransebeș. Jews settled here later than in other towns in the region, with the first community being mentioned in 1819 and growing to around 500 persons in the interwar period, when Jews ran most of the banking and trading activity in town. A particularity here is the fact that the local synagogue was built in Neo Gothic style, atypically for synagogues in Romania, and that its excellent acoustics turned it into the concert venue of choice for musicians in town. Similarly to Timișoara, the Holocaust period did not see deportations in Caransebeș or Lugoj, but Jews here were persecuted and suffered abuse during the early 1940s. In the afternoon we shall reach Craiova in the middle of the Danubian Plains. The first to settle here were the Sephardic Jews that had arrived from the Ottoman Empire, created a community in town by the 18th century, respectively built the first synagogue in 1832 on the site of the future Choral Temple completed in 1887 by the Ashkenazi community originating in Poland and locally known as the Leh Ashkenazi; the new Sephardic synagogue would collapse during the 1977 earthquake. Soon after the Sephardic settling, Ashkenazi Jews also arrived in Craiova and by the 19th century outnumbered the former, building two synagogues in 1842, respectively 1880. In 1941 the over 1,800 Jewish strong community saw abuses, arrests and property being confiscated (or forcibly sold for meagre prices), while the remaining Jewish run businesses were boycotted. The following years to the end of WW2 saw local Jews sent to forced labour, while the local community also had to cope with the incoming groups of Jews brought to Craiova from North Moldavia. The end of the war also saw waves of refugees from Transnistria and North Bukovina, which increased the number of the local Jewish population to around 2,500 persons.

• Breakfast.
• Exterior view of the 1843 synagogue in Lugoj (it often hosts concerts and various events, visit inside if open).
• Visit to the Beit El Synagogue in Caransebeș, completed in 1894.
• Walk in the pedestrian area of Craiova (on and around Lipscani Street where many Jewish merchants used to have their shops).
• Visit to the Choral Temple.
• Accommodation in a guesthouse hosted in a period villa in Craiova.

Today we shall carry on Eastwards, with a break in Pitești. Jews first settled in town in the early 19th century and their community saw a significant growth with the arrival of many families coming from Russia and Poland, especially from the former following the anti-Jewish movement following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by the “Narodnaya Volya” organization. However, if at the end of the 19th century there were over 1,500 Jews in Pitești, during the interwar period their number fell so that there were around 400 left in 1941. The period saw property confiscation, forced labour and detention among Jews; however, as the local authorities wanted to keep the local economy going, they did not close down Jewish-run, instead allowing them to carry on while forcing the managers to fire all their Jewish staff which remained without an income source. A synagogue, a “mikvah” and a “yeshiva” were built in 1849 and they would be replaced with the monumental synagogue and the “yeshiva” we can see today (started in 1919); the synagogue is however currently used for art exhibitions and concerts. After this break in Pitești, we shall carry on to Bucharest, a city the local Jewish community has had a great contribution to, with the first Jews mentioned in town as early as the mid 16th century. First there were the Sephardic Jews having fled Spain and Portugal and usually arriving here via the Ottoman Empire. Then, the mid 17th century saw Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s uprising against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the massacre of tens of thousands of Poles and Jews, so that some of the latter fled and settled in Wallachia or more specifically in Bucharest. Skilled merchants and craftsmen, the local Jews saw their community develop at a fast pace so that, for instance, it had 6,000 members in 1860, four times more than in 1803, and then followed a real demographic boom, with an approximate of 40,000 Jews by the end of the 19th century, 98,000 by 1941 and around 150,000 in 1948. This community growth was a result, apart from the newly born, of the high influx of people coming to Bucharest from the Ottoman Empire, but also from Moldavia and Transylvania, especially given the WW2 pogroms in Moldavia and the deportations to Auschwitz in the then Hungarian ruled Northern Transylvania. However, like elsewhere in the country, the first part of the 1940s was bleak for the Bucharest Jewish community as well. Early 1941 saw the rebellion of the Legionary Movement that led to 120 Jewish casualties; later on, antisemitic legislation was passed and Jews were considered as second rate citizens: they lost the right to education and health care, some lost their jobs, had their property confiscated and were subjected to forced labour. The following year about 1,000 Jews were deported to Transnistria. Despite this situation however, most Jews in Bucharest were spared the Holocaust horrors elsewhere, and the comparatively better conditions here drew many refugees from the parts of the country annexed by the Soviet Union and from regions where they still felt unsafe following the recent Holocaust terror. The creation of the State of Israel, as well as the more and more oppressive Communist rule that saw many intellectuals and former politicians tortured, murdered or imprisoned, resulted in a situation where a constant flux of Jews migrated to Israel and other countries, to the point where there are about 3,000 Jews left in Bucharest nowadays, with the service still held in 2 synagogues, while some other two host museums. At the same time, the extensive Dudești – Unirea district still talks of the great Jewish community once living here. A city and community we shall briefly approach today and have a better look at the following days.

• Breakfast.
• Visit to the synagogue in Pitești (if open).
• Panoramic tour of Bucharest, taking in the historic Calea Victoriei, with a break to see the Yeshua Tova Synagogue off Amzei Market (exterior view; the synagogue is used for religious service).
• Accommodation in a 4* boutique hotel set in an elegant period property on the verge of the former Jewish Quarter.

A history that started with the first synagogue built in the 17th century and a Jewish-run inn that would be complete with its own synagogue in 1817 (Jews’ Inn and Bet Hamidrash Synagogue), would carry on with 11 prayer houses by 1832 (10 Ashkenazim ones and a
Sephardic one) and reach its peak in the beginning of the 20th century when there were 70 synagogues in town. Today, following the dwindling Jewish population in the second part of the 20th century, as well as Nicolae Ceaușescu’s razing a quarter of the old, heritage Bucharest (including the great 1848 Malbim Synagogue demolished in 1986 together with the whole neighbourhood around it), there still exist 7 synagogues, of which 2 in use for service (the central Choral Temple and the Yeshua Tova), 2 museums (the Great Synagogue and the Holy Union), 2 in a ruined state (the Bet Hamidrash and the Hevrah Amuna) and one hosting a business, with the building altered (the Ha Ezra). Then, the Jews in Bucharest included both the well-to-do people with their fine residences in the North-Western part of the former Jewish District and the poor ones where quite often 5-6 different families lived in poverty while crammed in small apartments sharing the same, typically long and narrow alley, sometimes without running water in Dudești area. On the other hand, talking of the intense artistic life of the Jewish community, but also of the highly significant contribution it had to Romanian culture, performances are still held at the Jewish Theatre, formerly known as the Barașeum upon its opening in the 1930s. At the same time, the two extensive Jewish cemeteries in Bucharest are highly evocative of the great past of the local Jewish community. Let us take a day and explore the anything but easy and steady history of the Jewish presence in Bucharest!

• Breakfast.
• Walking tour taking in the Jewish Theatre and the three main synagogues in downtown Bucharest: the Holy Union, the Choral Temple and the Great Synagogue.
• Visit to the Great Synagogue if open (only on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays).
• Visit to the Holy Union Synagogue.
  • Optional: kosher lunch at the bistro-like Avraham Restaurant.
• Driven and walking tour across the former Jewish Quarter, from the richer properties down Romulus and Remus streets to the poorer houses in Dudești.
• Accommodation in a 4* boutique hotel set in an elegant period property on the verge of the former Jewish Quarter.

“Poftiți! Vin îndată!” (En. Come in! I am coming (down) right away!), was the line customers were welcomed with by the typical Jewish merchants or shop keepers in the numerous businesses they ran across the old town in Bucharest; the living or storage quarters were upstairs, while the shop was downstairs. In terms of profession, they belonged to a variety of guilds among which watchmakers, tailors, hat makers, fur coat makers, jewelers, while in the neighbourhoods they lived or worked in greater numbers the traditional butchers, grocers, teahouses and dairy bars (there did exist such a notion) were unmissable. And what probably made them feel at ease while preserving their culture and traditions with intense vitality was the heterogeneity Bucharest has always been about, with its ethnic diversity including, alongside Romanians or Jews, many Bulgarians, Poles, Hungarians, Armenians (which also has their own quarter), Romani, Turks and Greeks. Let us take this morning and have a walk across the old merchant and craft town, picturing this place before tourism settled in, when the numerous shops up Lipscani, Blănari, Șelari or Smârdan streets oozed of a constant human flow, one where merchants, craftsmen, inn keepers, coffee and bragă (fermented millet refreshing drink) street vendors, monks from the monasteries nearby and bankers from the banks nearby, all joined a highly picturesque and captivating image. And then, while this tour might come to an end here, we trust it will provide a good image on the Jewish history and heritage in Romania.

• Breakfast.
• Walking tour starting at the Holocaust Memorial and then across the old town where some of the craftsman businesses and shops used to be run by Jews.
• Transfer to the airport for the outbound flight or drop off in Bucharest.
• End of services.