About 8 of us head for a restaurant across the road from our hotel in Sighet. It’s pleasant, if a little noisy – with two massive TV screens showing football. We eventually get brought a menu and make our choices.
The waitress arrives and endeavours to take our orders. Unfortunately, she doesn’t speak a word of English. No amount of gesticulating will describe the details of what we want. There is some pointing at items on the menu, which she manages but, with each additional customer on our table, she is getting increasingly – albeit good naturedly – exasperated.
She eventually turns to two young women at the next table and asks them if they speak English. The younger of the two happily complies. She comes over and explains that the waitress is struggling to understand us, and she will translate. She speaks perfect English (although we’ll forgive her the slight American accent).
She smilingly comes round and takes each of our orders, immediately translating for the waitress and adding any nuanced requests that we have made. She is so professional at it that some of my friends thinks she is a member of staff.
When she gets to me, I notice that she has her name round her neck in beautiful gold script. Her name is Orly. It means “my light” in Hebrew. I ask her about it. She tells me that her father was from Haifa, in the north of Israel. However, her mother is a local Romanian. She herself was born in Romania but grew up speaking Hebrew at home. We continue in Hebrew. She is proud of her heritage.
She later tells us her story. She’s 26 and a trainee English teacher. She went to the high school round the corner and is currently studying at a local university.
Sighet is a small town with a population of 32,700. Everyone knows everyone. She always thought that she would be married and having kids by 23, but the prospect of dating anyone local is hard; they feel like siblings because they know each other so well. I didn’t ask, but it must be impossible if she is confining her choices to Jewish men, there being but a handful and most are elderly. So here she is, single at 26 with no prospect of marriage or babies in sight.
We have been told that there are some 20 halachically (recognised by Jewish law) Jewish individuals in Sighet, and around another 125 who consider themselves Jewish or have some Jewish heritage, and play somewhat of a part in the community, but are not halachically Jewish.
Orly’s lament is the story of the Romanian Jews today. The Jewish community is petering out and will no longer exist in the next generation, due to both emigration and intermarriage.
Orly is dining with a friend. We never find out her name. She is a little bit older than Orly and speaks a decent English. She looks to be in her early 40s. Her story is tragic.
She was happily married to an Israeli man. About five years ago, he and some friends went on a hunting trip. His friend accidentally fatally shot him. The friend walked away scot-free.
She subsequently tried to go and live in Israel (go on Aliyah). She started to learn some Hebrew and spent many months in Israel, but the authorities wouldn’t let her immigrate. I couldn’t make head or tail of this. If her husband was Israeli, she should be welcomed as the spouse of an Israeli citizen.
I later found out from someone who knows her, that she was never actually married,and she wasn’t halachically Jewish, although she did have a child with this man. That makes more sense, why they wouldn’t let her in. Ironically, her daughter now lives in Israel – another potential family to produce the next generation lost to the Romanian Jewish community.
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