Volume 4 No 2 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

2012] POLLS AND ANTISEMITISM IN POST-COMMUNIST ROMANIA 391a population of between 10,000-49,000 inhabitants. 13 Significant differencesemerged in the case of the “very offensive” answers as well: in thecase of the Jews, the most aware that jidan has a pejorative meaning wereresidents of middle-sized towns (50,000-199,000 inhabitants), 37 percent ofwhom returned that response; they were followed by residents of rural areas(28.6%) and those residing in small towns (23.2%), with those residing inlarge towns with a population of over 200,000 occupying the last place(21.8%). Surveys carried out in Romania have repeatedly shown that thestrongest rejection of the Hungarian minority is found in regions wheremembers of that minority are either historically absent or present in insignificantnumbers. 14 This may well explain why residents of middle-sizedtowns and rural areas, as most Transylvanian settlements are, tend to viewtheir Hungarian-minority neighbors with a more benevolent eye and bemore aware of the significance of pejorative meanings. The same applies tosome extent to the Roma, since a large proportion of that population residesin middle-sized towns and rural areas. But since Romania’s Jewish populationhas been reduced to a meager few thousands, 15 with practically no Jewsresiding in the countryside and very few in small towns, this explanationcan hardly apply in their case.Is historical memory, then, playing a role? The results of the 2009IMAS survey seem to point in that direction, as the largest share of thosewhose opinion is that jidan is a “very offensive” term stems from respondentsfrom Moldova (40.0%), where a large proportion of Romania’s Jew-13. The four types of localities into which the sample was divided were rural,small town (10,000-49,000), middle-sized towns (50,000-199,000), and large towns(200,000+ inhabitants).14. As reported by the daily Evenimentul zilei on December 8, 1993, in referenceto a poll conducted by CURS and by the weekly Revista 22, No. 31 (August3-9, 1994), in reference to a survey conducted by IMAS. The latter findings werealso reported by the daily Adevãrul, August 13, 1994.15. According to the census conducted in March 2002, only 6,057 Jews (0.02%of the total population) were still living in Romania (5,870 had defined themselvesas Jews according to nationality and 6,057 according to religion; 951 said Yiddishwas their mother tongue. See “Structura etnodemografică a României,” http://recensamant.referinte.transindex.ro/?pg=8. The results of a census conducted inJuly 2011 have not been published in full and the number of Jews is small enoughto have been included under “Other minorities” in preliminary reports; see CristianAndrei, “Recensământul populaţiei, primele rezultate. Câţi români sunt, câţi etnicimaghiari şi cât de mare este minoritatea romă,” Gândul, February 2, 2012, http://www.gandul.info/news/recensamantul-populatiei-primele-rezultate-cati-romanisunt-cati-etnici-maghiari-si-cat-de-mare-este-minoritatea-roma-9200308.