The Australasian Hebrew (July 3, 1896)
From Roumania.
The Jews of Roumania : For many years Roumania was a standing column in all the Jewish journals. It was the country where hatred against the Jews flourished luxuriantly before the modern anti-Semitism came into existence. Then for several years things were quiet in this country. Only quite lately the noble Bojares have remembered their mission and hatched a plan which is the vilest that could be produced by the spirit of hatred and persecution. It was in spring of 1891 when the Roumanian parliament passed a set of laws by which the admission to the public State school was practically forbidden to Jewish children. According to those laws the children of foreigners (foreigner means, in the official Roumanian style, Jew) are only admitted to the schools when there is not a full number of Roumanians and have to pay school taxes, from which the latter are exempt. That caused a great stir amongst the poor Jews. How could they obtain education for their children ? They are too poor to build private schools, too poor even to pay the school tax. Lately they had an opportunity of making their grievances heard. The Government brought a new bill before the Parliament, in which those restrictions were maintained. The Jews sent a petition to the Parliament to have them removed and were supported by a similar petition from the Jewish students of Jassy. But it was in vain. On the 21st of April the new bill was dealt with, and after a thoroughly anti-Semitic speech by the Premier Sturdza the restrictive clauses were passed with great majority.
Poor Jews of Roumania !—
AMg. Zeit. des Judenthums.