The Old World Teaching New Things...

I've just discovered something that makes me think that being an "Urban Nomad" is actually in my blood. Bukovina, the county in Romania from where my grandfather's family hailed, was actually known as the most progressive, dynamic, forward-thinking and entrepreneurial spot for Jews in the Austro-Hungarian empire during the 1800s.  I had no idea. But during a Google search this week, I found the "History of Jews in Bukowina" by Dr. NM Gelber and it's been a real eye-opener.

Being Jewish was not a religious issue, as many people think nowadays, but one of race. Jews were treated like any other minority. Not great, but not without respect.  It was not until the first world war that the Jews of Bukovina began to have problems of race and ethnicity there.  So the assumption that we've always made that most families came to the US to avoid religious persecution is not really accurate.  During that time, in Bukovina, Jews were studying in universities, building hospitals, practicing law, medicine and prospering along with Christians and non-believers.

In 1849, the Autonomous Duchy of Bukovina was founded and, with all liberality, provided that Jews be granted full and equal rights of other citizens under the Autro-Hungarian monarchy. It was one of the 11 "Crown-Lands" under Emperor Franz Josef. The Jews there loved their Kaiser. They loved those Hapsburgs. And the Crown loved them as much as they did their other minorities-- the Magyars, Romanians, Ruthenes, Germans among them. Of the 516 seats in the Parliament at the time, Bukovina with 300,098 inhabitants was allocated 14 seats. These 14 seats were distributed on a population basis as follows:

305,110 Ruthenes	5 seats
273,254 Romanians	5 seats
102,900 Jews	2 seats
65,951 Germans	2 Seats

So the outpouring from Bukovina of so many Jewish families before World War I may really have been stirred by purely economic and social reasons than anything having to do with religion. It may have been more that my own particular family had not done as well over there as, say, the man who founded the "Blue-White" games which later became known as the international Maccabi games or Mr. Isak Rubinstein who was elected to the chamber of commerce for the 1873 to 1879 term left the leadership of the community and became hospital director, in which position, he served until his death in 1878.

When I discovered these and many other facts about Bukovina, it gave me a completely different perspective on my own nomadic inclinations. It reminded me of why, in 1991, I decided that New York was no longer a place for a single woman, who was a writer, producer who was not-gainfully employed. I was not making the money my friends were on Wall Street or prospering the way some others were during the previous Reagan years. For those of us in that category, the world beyond New York was where opportunity lay.

I jumped on the "think global, act local" bandwagon with a fervor that has propelled me to this very day, some twenty years later, much like my ancestors from Bukovina. I know my Grandfather is smiling down on me. I think there are many more insights he's sending my way...