Romania: Israel's President Herzog warns of ‘alarming’ rise of antisemitism at Iași pogrom memorial

Israeli President Isaac Herzog warned on Sunday of an “alarming” rise of global Jew-hatred at a memorial marking the 85th anniversary of the Iași pogrom in Romania.

The Iași pogrom (pronounced 'Yah-see') was a series of violent attacks carried out against the Jewish population of the Romanian city of Iași in 1941, under the regime of Marshal Ion Antonescu, during World War II. More than 13,000 Jewish residents – representing one-third of the total local Jewish population – were killed during the violence and its aftermath, and many others were deported. The event is widely regarded as one of the most severe pogroms of the Holocaust period.

Sunday's memorial event took place at the Iași Jewish cemetery and was opened by the chief rabbi of Romania, Rabbi Rafael Shaffer, and was attended by representatives of Romanian authorities and the local Jewish community.

“It is no coincidence that in this very town, decades before the Iași pogrom and massacre, Naftali Herz Imber wrote the first draft of what would become the Israeli national anthem: HaTikvah, The Hope," Herzog stated.

"Imagine, as we stand here, in this somber, sobering place, we note that our nation's hope emerged from Iași. Naftali Herz Imber's words became the anthem of that great human movement, Zionism, that saw Jews take their destiny into their own hands and establish a Jewish national home in the land of Israel,” the president continued.

“This act of remembrance for the many thousands of Jewish women, men, children, and elderly murdered on this soil, in Iași and its surroundings between June 28 and July 6, 1941, does not erase the suffering of the victims."

Herzog continued: "Nor does it lessen the ethical stain of the perpetrators. It does not undo the murder, the humiliation, the beatings, or the death trains, orchestrated high up, but unleashed across every level of society, during those infernal summer days, 85 years ago."

“Nor does it help us make sense of this simple but burning question: How? How can the cruelty of this scope, across an entire society, possibly be comprehended?" he asked.

Herzog drew a comparison between Jew-hatred during the Holocaust and contemporary antisemitism following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attack in southern Israel. He said it was alarming that in parts of Europe, and through the influence of what he described as “an evil empire that traffics in hatred,” antisemitism has once again reared its "ugly head."

"The moral infrastructure that humanity established in response to the moral destruction of the Holocaust is weaker than it has been for 80 years," he warned.

The Israeli president stressed that Jew-hatred is ultimately a societal threat to humanity and not only Jews. "This is a danger for Jews; this is a danger for all people of goodwill. It is therefore our shared responsibility to recognize and name this danger, to actively embrace the moral calling it invokes, and to fiercely combat it. Let that be the lesson of Iași."

The Israeli president is scheduled to address the Romanian Parliament on Monday. Prior to the Holocaust, Romania was home to a large Jewish community numbering between 700,000 and 800,000 people. Around half of the Jewish community survived the Holocaust and most of the surviving Romanian Jews eventually moved to Israel after 1948.

Romania and Israel have developed strong diplomatic relations in recent years. In March 2024, the Romanian Parliament approved the National Day of Friendship and Solidarity with Israel, to be observed each year on May 14, marking Israel’s Independence Day.