Nasaud

NASAUD (Rom. Nǎsǎud; Hung. Naszód), town in Bistrita-Nǎsǎud county (Transylvania), Romania. Until 1918 and between 1940 and 1945, Nasaud was part of Hungary. While still under Hungarian rule, it was a center of the Romanian nationalist movement. Jews settled in Nasaud after the law prohibiting their settlement was abrogated in 1848 while residence in the town itself was still barred. Jews lived in the nearby village of Jidovitza (Entredam), today named *Rebreanu. The community was Orthodox and strongly influenced by *Ḥasidism. In 1885 the government designated the community as the administrative center for the Jews of all the villages in the district. At the beginning of their residence in Nasaud the Jews belonged to two different communities: the "Hungarian" and the "Polish." This situation lasted until the 1880s, when they decided to unite the congregations. The community possessed a large synagogue, a bet midrash, and a ḥeder. Jewish children attended elementary and secondary school in which the language of instruction was Romanian. The Jewish population in Nasaud itself declined from 859 in 1866 to 425 (12% of the total) in 1930, and 415 (12.9%) in 1940. Between the two world wars there was an important Zionist movement in the town. There were 1,198 Jews living in the surrounding villages in 1930. Some 400 Jews were deported to Auschwitz in the summer of 1944. In 1941 the Hungarian Horthiite authorities deported the "foreign" Jews to Kamenets-Podolski, in the Ukraine, where they were soon murdered by the Nazis. In 1944 the remaining local Jews were sent to a ghetto in Bistrita, the district capital, and from there deported to Auschwitz. After World War II, about 110 Jews returned to Nasaud, including former residents who had survived the camps and some who had previously lived in the surrounding district. As a result of immigration to Israel and elsewhere, the Jewish population dwindled and by 1971 only two families were left in the town.