Chișinău Rebuilds Jewish Culture on the Road to Europe—Even as Much of Europe Forgets Its Judaism

I arrived in Chișinău expecting a footnote of Jewish Europe. I left with the sense that I’d just walked through its next chapter. In Moldova, Jewish life isn’t a museum label; it’s a living project—practical, welcoming, and determined. During my visit I became convinced that Moldova remains a place to be Jewish—and to invest in Jewish culture, Tarbut in the fullest sense of the word. Tarbut is not nostalgia. It’s a blueprint. And in Moldova, it is being used.

A long arc, bent but unbroken

Jews have lived in the lands of today’s Moldova for centuries, from traders along early routes to the bustling Jewish quarter of Kishinev/Chișinău by the late 19th century. The interwar period saw a confident, Hebrew-forward school network—Tarbut—spread across Bessarabia: by 1922 there were roughly 75 Tarbut institutions here alone, a reminder that modern Jewish nation-building was once written in classroom chalk across this soil.

History, of course, was not kind. The 1903 Kishinev pogrom—two days that shocked the world—left dozens murdered and galvanized Jewish politics and letters far beyond Bessarabia’s borders; it remains a hinge event in modern Jewish history. A second pogrom followed in 1905.

Then came 1941. Under Romanian administration, Jews from Bessarabia and Bukovina were deported east into Transnistria, where tens of thousands perished by murder, starvation, and disease. Few historical sentences weigh more than this one—and yet it must be said: Transnistria was a key site of the Holocaust, with deportations and mass killings directed by Romanian authorities and auxiliaries.

Soviet rule that followed constricted religious life and shuttered institutions. One beacon stayed lit: Chișinău’s Glaziers’ Synagogue, the only synagogue in the country that remained open throughout the Soviet period—today a Chabad-Lubavitch center, still serving a community that refused to vanish.

The present tense: from survival to renewal

Since independence, Moldova’s Jewish community has done more than rebuild; it has reimagined. The Kishinev Jacobs Jewish Campus hosts several independent Jewish organizations including The Jewish Community of the Republic of Moldova (JCM) , KEDEM Jacobs JCC, Charity Organization Hasad Yehuda, The Joint (JDC) and ICTPD (International Center of Training and Professional Development).

Education is a pillar, not a slogan: Chișinău’s ORT network—B.Z. Herzl Technology Lyceum and Lyceum Rambam—blends national curricula with STEM and Jewish studies, giving families a modern school with a Jewish backbone. This is Tarbut in practice: language, skills, heritage, and community under one roof.

Memory work is tangible, not performative. On January 30, 2023, the community opened the Orhei Jewish Museum in a restored prayer house—proof that remembrance here comes with keys, curators, and school visits. Each year the community joins the #WeRemember campaign around International Holocaust Remembrance Day, keeping the story active in the public square.

Numbers vary by source, but the picture is consistent: a small, resilient community concentrated in Chișinău—estimated in the low tens of thousands—organized, visible, and interlinked with partners at home and abroad.

Leadership with a steady hand

At the center stands Alexander Bilinkis, President of the JCM and, since May 2025, a Vice President of the World Jewish Congress (WJC)—a milestone that gives Moldova’s Jews a stronger voice at the global table. His track record spans community building, heritage projects, and broader cultural philanthropy in Moldova. This isn’t ceremonial; it’s daily work—fundraising, diplomacy, security, education—woven into one portfolio.

I left my meetings convinced: supporting Bilinkis and the JCM is not just supporting a community; it’s investing in a national asset that preserves Moldova’s past and equips its future.

Across politics, respect—and policy

One of the strongest signals I encountered was the cross‑institutional respect for Jewish culture. This is not mere rhetoric. Moldova recognized January 27 as National Holocaust Remembrance Day, endorsed the Elie Wiesel Commission report, and in January 2019 officially adopted the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism—steps that align law, education, and commemoration. Presidents and prime ministers regularly attend remembrance events and use their platforms to condemn antisemitism. This is what a culture of respect looks like when it’s translated into policy and public ceremony.

International ties reinforce the trajectory. On February 4, 2025, Israel opened its first embassy in Moldova—three decades into diplomatic relations—further stitching Moldova’s Jewish chapter into a regional fabric of cooperation.

“On the way to Europe” is not a metaphor

Moldova isn’t merely looking west; it is moving. On June 25, 2024, the EU formally opened accession negotiations with Moldova. As screenings and chapters progress, the country’s standards on minority protection, education, and culture will integrate even more tightly with European frameworks. Tarbut stands to benefit: access, funding streams, and networks that strengthen museums, schools, archives, festivals.

Here’s the paradox that struck me: even as parts of Europe wrestle with assimilation and a thinning Jewish presence, Moldova is choosing to build Jewish life as part of its European future. It is not retreating into memory; it is operationalizing it.

Tarbut will make Moldova great again

Permit me one slogan, because Moldova earns it: Tarbut—Hebrew for culture—will make Moldova great again. By “great,” I mean intellectually honest about its past, inclusive in its present, and ambitious for its children. That means:

• Schools that form citizens and Jews at the same time, like the ORT lyceums.
• Cultural centers that hum every night, like KEDEM.
• Synagogues that stayed open when history tried to shut them, like the Glaziers’ Synagogue.
• Museums that teach with objects and eyewitness memory, like Orhei’s new Jewish museum.
• A representative leadership with global reach, like Bilinkis at the WJC, drawing Moldova’s voice into the world conversation and bringing world support back home.

A civic invitation

If you are thinking about how to do something concrete for Jewish continuity, Moldova offers clarity. Support scholarships at Herzl or Rambam. Underwrite a KEDEM program. Help catalog cemeteries and archives. Sponsor security improvements, teacher training, or digitization. Back the Orhei museum’s next exhibit. These are investments with human returns—measurable, trackable, meaningful.

And if you’re in public life, look at Moldova’s policy toolkit. Recognize remembrance days. Adopt the IHRA definition. Show up, visibly, at commemoration events. Forge partnerships with the JCM and its institutions. Moldova demonstrates that respectful politics and a confident Jewish culture can reinforce each other.

Why I’m coming back

I came to Moldova curious. I left convinced. In September 2025, I will be back in Chișinău to continue this voyage through the past and future of Tarbut in Moldova—to sit again in the Glaziers’ Synagogue, to hear students debate robotics and Hebrew verbs in the same hallway, to watch a city that once symbolized catastrophe now practice cultural construction. The story is not finished; that’s precisely why it’s worth writing.

Moldova is on its way to Europe. And in a time when too many corners of the continent lower their eyes from Jewish life, Chișinău is lifting its gaze—and building. That is why Tarbut, here, can make Moldova great again.