Jewish Democratic Committee

Jewish Democratic Committee Comitetul Democrat Evreiesc הוועד הדמוקרטי היהודי Demokrata Zsidó Komité
Chairman	M. H. Maxy (1945; 1946–1948) Lică Chiriță (1945–1946) Paul Iscovici (1948) Bercu Feldman (1949) Barbu Lăzăreanu (1949–1953)
Founded	7 June 1945
Dissolved	16 March 1953
Preceded by	General Jewish Council Jewish People's Democratic Alliance Union of the Working Land of Israel
Newspaper	Unirea (1945–1951) Viața Nouă (1951–1953)
Cultural wing	Yidisher Kultur Farband
Youth wing	Front of the Jewish Democratic Youth
Female wing	CDE Female Section
Membership	20,000 (1950 est.)
Ideology	Jewish community interests Socialism (Jewish) Jewish secularism Yiddishism Anti-Zionism Producerism Anti-fascism Minorities: Communism Labour Zionism (to 1948) Assimilationism
Political position	Centre-left to far-left
National affiliation	Jewish Representation (1946) People's Democratic Front (1948)
International affiliation	World Jewish Congress
Politics of Romania Political parties Elections

The Jewish Democratic Committee or Democratic Jewish Committee (Romanian: Comitetul Democrat Evreiesc, CDE, also Comitetul Democrat Evreesc, Comitetul Democratic Evreiesc; Hebrew: הוועד הדמוקרטי היהודי; Hungarian: Demokrata Zsidó Komité, DZSK) was a left-wing political party which sought to represent Jewish community interests in Romania. Opposed to the orientation of most Romanian Jews, who supported right-wing Zionism as embodied by the Jewish Party (PER), the CDE was in practice a front for the Romanian Communist Party (PCR); its chairmen M. H. Maxy, Bercu Feldman, and Barbu Lăzăreanu were card-carrying communists. Initially, its anti-Zionism was limited by a recruitment drive among Labour Zionists, which allowed the party to absorb the local variant of Poale Zion. Additionally, the CED was directed against the Union of Romanian Jews (UER), a more traditional vehicle of assimilationism. It annexed an UER dissidence under Moise Zelțer-Sărățeanu, while also taking over chapters of Ihud and accepting in Jewish affiliates of the Romanian Social Democratic Party.

For the November 1946 elections, the CDE ran a Jewish Representation list, closely allied with the PCR. It took one of two Jewish seats in the Assembly of Deputies, and joined the parliamentary coalition backing Petru Groza's cabinet. Such support hinged on Groza's promises to restore Jewish property that had been confiscated in the Holocaust. At the time, the CDE was also involved in relief efforts for homeless returnees, as well as singling out alleged Holocaust perpetrators. Part of its mission was a control over religious Jews through the Federation of the Jewish Communities in Romania, which was placed under the left-leaning rabbi Moses Rosen.

The CDE was averse to the illegal exodus of Jews into Mandatory Palestine, seeking to document, control, and finally suppress it. It presented Jews with the option of integrating into a socialist economy, emphasising producerist guidelines and condemning parasitism. The Romanian regime recognised Israel, but failed in its project of communising the Romanian Jewish colony. Following this, the CDE was given the go-ahead to publish criticism of Israeli society, hoping to persuade Jewish workers into renouncing Zionism. It opposed Hebrew revivalism and promoted instead a Yiddishist alternative, as manifested by its direct supervision of the Barașeum.

The CDE could still join the People's Democratic Front for the elections of March 1948, when it increased its representation to five deputies. However, its activities were restrained by the newly-inaugurated communist regime, whose leadership came to suspect that Zionism had seeped into CDE policies. In late 1948, the Labour Zionists parted ways with the CDE, with some attempting to reorganize as a local section of Mapam. Under Feldman's leadership, the CDE began "unmasking" campaigns, which, from 1949, resulted in a thorough purge of its own national and regional structures; it also opposed the regime's temporary relaxation of emigration restrictions. The Committee was pressed into dissolving itself in March 1953, when it proclaimed that Jews had been fully integrated into the new society. The regime's clampdown on Zionism contradicted this statement, as did the large-scale popularity of emigration projects, lasting into the 1980s, and directly encouraged by Rabbi Rosen.