Historical Links in Middle East Draw Thousands of Israelis to Romania

The only all-night fast-food joint in town is an Israeli-owned Burger Ranch. Pepsi and Tuborg are bottled here by Israelis. Heinz mustard bottles in the stores have a Hebrew label.

Israelis run or own a leading advertising firm, casinos, a bank, a top hotel and a downtown office complex. One of the biggest employers of Romanians is the Israeli construction industry. Israelis are building a power plant.

Bucharest, the economically resurgent Romanian capital, was once known as the “Paris of the East” for its attachment to French culture, including its Arch of Triumph, a faithful copy of its bigger brother in Paris. Today, the city might better be termed the “Beersheba of the Balkans” after the boom town in southern Israel.

The phenomenon results from Romania’s closeness to the Middle East and to several historical links, said Jose Iacobescu, chairman of the bustling Israel-Romania Chamber of Commerce.

For one, Romania is the only former Soviet Bloc country not to break ties with Israel after the 1967 Mideast War.

And before World War II, Romania was home to 800,000 Jews, one of the largest Jewish populations in Europe. Half perished in the Nazi Holocaust. Most survivors emigrated to Israel, leaving only about 12,000 Jews, most elderly, behind.

Today, nearly 500,000 Israelis have Romanian Jewish ancestry, making Israel, a country of barely 6 million people, home to the world’s largest expatriate Romanian community.

The opportunities of Romania’s post-Communist economy, which is starting to grow after six years of crisis and stagnation, are luring thousands of those Israelis back as tourists, students and business people.

Romania’s bilateral trade with Israel last year exceeded $230 million. That represents slightly less than 2% of Romania’s overall trade but is one of the largest with countries outside Europe and about half of Romania’s trade with the United States.

Gabriela Baicu, deputy head of the Romanian Development Agency, which handles foreign investment deals, welcomed the trend.

“There’s a special interest [Israelis] have in Romania, and it originates in the strong ties between our countries and people,” she said. “People have a tendency to return to the roots.”

Marius Solomon, a Romanian-born Israeli who runs Bucharest’s Casino Palace, said the returning Jews have a unique leg up in business endeavors.

“We speak the [Romanian] language, but have a Western mind-set,” he said.

After the December 1989 collapse of Nicolae Ceausescu’s Communist regime, Solomon concluded that his best business prospects were in Romania, which he had left 18 years earlier as a child.

He was soon joined by Israelis Dudik Halfi, who runs the local Pepsi bottling company, and Shlomo Graziani, who runs the new Tuborg brewery. Israelis represent other companies such as Kodak and Agfa.

“Everywhere I look, there are Israelis,” said Ronen Petreanu, an Israeli-American who manages the local affiliate of U.S.-based BBDO advertising company.

In early May, Israeli officials were in town for the successful test of the prototype of a MiG-21 fighter refurbished with state-of-the-art avionics by Israel’s Elbit electronics. The hybrid plane, called the Lancer, is to go into production in Romania this year and become a staple of its air force.

Individual Israelis have set up about 1,500 ventures worth more than $20 million. According to Romanian government figures, about 3% of all foreign investors are Israeli.

That was before billionaire Shoul Eisenberg’s Israel Corp. agreed to invest $90 million in the Grozavesti power plant outside Bucharest.

Sources at Israel Corp., who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the company was considering further longer-term investments of $1.5 billion in Romania.

Israeli importers have filled Romanian shelves--primarily in Bucharest, but increasingly also in other towns--with Israeli brand names such as Elite coffee, Prigat juices, Remedia baby food and Ossem snacks. Heinz mustard in Bucharest’s new supermarkets comes from Israel, bearing a blue-and-yellow Hebrew label on the back.

The prices are out of the reach of most Romanians. A quart of Prigat orange juice, for example, costs 7,800 lei, or about $2.50, more than half a day’s average wage. But the number of Romanians earning higher salaries is increasing, and importers see this as a hopeful sign for sales.

In addition, 50,000 Romanians are doing construction work in Israel, about half the foreign workers hired in recent years to take over jobs once performed by Palestinians. They send back an estimated $50 million to their families each year, or about $1,000 each in a country where the average monthly wage is the equivalent of only $100.

When Israelis started flocking to Romania after 1989, one result was a burst of anti-Semitism from a small segment of the population, with articles in nationalistic newspapers such as Romania Mare (Greater Romania) accusing the Jews of trying to dominate Romania economically.

Lately, that appears to have subsided. And there seems to be a growing fascination with Israel and pride in the connection between the two nations.

The top-selling Romanian daily, Evenimentul Zilei, led its front page with a story that the new heads of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and Shin Bet security service are both of Romanian ancestry.