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Gura Humorului (German:Gura Humora) is a town located in northern Romania, Suceava County in southern Bukovina (47°33' 25°54'). It was formerly in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and was a Jewish shtetl. It has a population of 15,837.

Gura Humorului Jewish community Short history

Gura Humorului is a town located in north Romania, Suceava County in southern Bukovina (47°33' 25°54').

In those years Bukovina was the easternmost crown land of the Austrian Empire and covered an area of 10,422 square kilometers. In the 1775 census of this province, its population was only about 60,000 To encourage the development of this sparsely-settled land, the Austrian emperors subsidized the immigration of colonists to Bukovina.

After end of these official immigration programs, colonists would continue to arrive at their own expense. As a result, by the census of 1910, the population of Bukovina had risen to over 800,000. People of many different ethnic groups took part in this immigration, including Germans Armenians, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Poles, Romanians and Jews. In the beginning of the nineteenth century there were no Jews in Gura Humorului. The Jews begin to settle in Gura Humorului around 1835 as well as other ethnic groups (like the German Bohemian that emigrates from the Bohemian Forest. Thirty families settled on the mountainous virgin forest land near Gurahumora, establishing the village of Bori.) The Jewish community began to flourish in 1869, then about third from Gura Humorului inhabitants were Jews (880 souls). In that year also the old "Beth Ha Midrash" was established.

An important point mark in the history of the town is the disastrous great fire of May 11, 1899 that turned almost all Gura Humorului into ashes, destroying more than 400 houses including many businesses and houses of Jews. The town was built up again with the help of American-Jewish donations.

During World War I, Bukovina became a battlefield between Austrian and Russian troops. Although the Russians were finally driven out in 1917, Austria would lose Bukovina with the war, ceding the province to Romania in the Treaty of St. Germain. In spite of the war The Jewish community in Gura Humorului continued to flourish and in 1927 there were 1951 Jews there. The Jews in Gura Humorului had a dynamic Jewish life full of vitality. They spoke in Yiddish alongside German and Romanian. They had a traditional Jewish life. The Jewish youngsters studied Torah along with general subjects such as geography, History, Mathematics and so on. The Jews established a Jewish social and political institute, and they took part in all life fields.

External links

• Gura Humorului Jewish Community

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