Gura Humorului
Encyclopedia
Gura Humorului (ˌɡura huˈmoruluj; Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 and Yiddish
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...

: גורה חומורולוי - Gur’ Humuruluei or גורה הומורה - Gur' Humura; German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...

: Gura Humora) is a town located in northern Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

, Suceava County
Suceava County
Suceava is a county of Romania, in the historical region of Moldavia and few villages in Transylvania, with the capital city at Suceava.- Demographics :...

 in southern Bukovina
Bukovina
Bukovina is a historical region on the northern slopes of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plains.-Name:The name Bukovina came into official use in 1775 with the region's annexation from the Principality of Moldavia to the possessions of the Habsburg Monarchy, which became...

. Until 1918 it was in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and formed a shtetl
Shtetl
A shtetl was typically a small town with a large Jewish population in Central and Eastern Europe until The Holocaust. Shtetls were mainly found in the areas which constituted the 19th century Pale of Settlement in the Russian Empire, the Congress Kingdom of Poland, Galicia and Romania...

. It has a population of 15,837.

The town administers one village, Voroneţ, site of Voroneţ Monastery
Voronet Monastery
Voroneț is a monastery in Romania, located in the town of Gura Humorului, Moldavia. It is one of the famous painted monasteries from southern Bukovina, in Suceava County...

.

Gura Humorului Jewish community

According to the 1775 Austrian Bukovina census, its population comprised only about 60,000 spread over 10,422 square kilometers. In order to encourage the development of this sparsely-settled land, the authorities subsidized the immigration of colonists to Bukovina. With the end of the first wave of settlement, colonists were to continue arriving at their own expense. As a result of these policies, the census of 1910 showed that the population had risen to over 800,000. People of many different ethnic groups took part in this immigration, including Germans
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....

, Armenians
Armenians in Romania
Armenians have been present in what is now Romania and Moldova for over a millennium, and have been an important presence as traders since the 14th century...

, Hungarians, Ukrainians
Ukrainians
Ukrainians are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Ukraine, which is the sixth-largest nation in Europe. The Constitution of Ukraine applies the term 'Ukrainians' to all its citizens...

, Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...

, Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....

, and Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

.

No Jews lived in Gura Humorului before 1835, when they were allowed to settle - joining other, already represented, ethnic groups (such as Germans from Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...

, mainly from the Böhmerwald: thirty families settled on the mountainous and densely forested lands nearby the town, establishing a quarter named Bori). The Jewish community began to flourish in 1869, when they formed around a third of the town's population (880 people); the same year, a Beth midrash
Beth midrash
Beth Midrash refers to a study hall, whether in a synagogue, yeshiva, kollel, or other building. It is distinct from a synagogue, although many synagogues are also used as batei midrash and vice versa....

 was established.

A turning point in the town's history was the disastrous fire of May 11, 1899 which destroyed most of the town - more than 400 houses, including many Jewish businesses and homes. It was rebuilt with donations from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Jewish communities.

During World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, Bukovina became a battlefield between Austrian and Imperial Russian troops. Although the Russians were finally driven out in 1917, defeated Austria would cede Bukovina the province to Romania through the Treaty of Saint-Germain
Treaty of Saint-Germain
The Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, was signed on 10 September 1919 by the victorious Allies of World War I on the one hand and by the new Republic of Austria on the other...

 (1919). The Jewish community in Gura Humorului continued to grow, reaching 1,951 members in 1927.

Jewish cultural life reached its peak in the inter-war period. The languages of choice in city life were Yiddish, German and Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...

. Most of the Jewish community adhered to Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism
Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

, and Jewish youngsters studied the Torah
Torah
Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...

 along with secular subjects such as geography, history, and mathematics. The community had established Jewish social and political institutions that contributed to all fields of public life.

While persecutions began to increase under the threats posed by Romanian fascist
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

 movements such as the Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...

, it was World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 that brought an end to Jewish presence in Gura Humorului. Under the dictatorship of Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu
Ion Victor Antonescu was a Romanian soldier, authoritarian politician and convicted war criminal. The Prime Minister and Conducător during most of World War II, he presided over two successive wartime dictatorships...

, Jews were rounded up and deported to Transnistria
Transnistria (World War II)
Transnistria Governorate was a Romanian administered territory, conquered by the Axis Powers from the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, and occupied from 19 August 1941 to 29 January 1944...

, where most of them perished - mass murdered through various means, including shootings and criminal negligence
Criminal negligence
In the criminal law, criminal negligence is one of the three general classes of mens rea element required to constitute a conventional as opposed to strict liability offense. It is defined as an act that is:-Concept:...

 (see Holocaust in Romania). Virtually all of the Jewish community in Gura Humorului was deported: 2,945 people were all transported on October 10, 1941.

The vast majority of survivors made aliyah
Aliyah
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews to the Land of Israel . It is a basic tenet of Zionist ideology. The opposite action, emigration from Israel, is referred to as yerida . The return to the Holy Land has been a Jewish aspiration since the Babylonian exile...

 in 1947-1951. Statistics show that they numbered below 500 people in all at the time of their departure.

Natives

  • Olha Kobylianska
    Olha Kobylianska
    Olha Julianivna Kobylianska was a Ukrainian modernist writer and feminist.-Origin:Kobylianska was born in Gura Humorului in Bukovina in the family of a minor administration worker of Ukrainian noble decent from the Dnieper region. She was the fourth child of seven of Maria Werner and Julian...

    , Ukrainian writer
  • Rixi Markus
    Rixi Markus
    Rixi Markus MBE was an Austrian and British international contract bridge player. She won five world titles, and was the first woman to become a World Grand Master within the World Bridge Federation...

    , bridge
    Contract bridge
    Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...

     player
  • Chaim Sheba
    Chaim Sheba
    Chaim Sheba was an Israeli physician.- Biography :Sheba was born as Chaim Scheiber in 1908 in Frasin, near Gurahumora, Bukovina, then in Austria-Hungary , to the well known Scheiber Hasidic family, a descendant of the Hasidic house of Roujin. He was enrolled as a young child in a school for...

    , Israeli physician (born in Frasin
    Frasin
    Frasin is a town located in Suceava County, Romania. It administers three villages: Bucşoaia, Doroteia and Plutoniţa.-References:...

    )
  • Salomon Wininger, biographer

External links

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