Ten thousand Jews jammed the streets of Red Bucharest in front of the new Israeli legation on Valentine's Day 1949, dancing and crying "Long live Israel." After 15 years of Fascist pogroms and four more of Communist misery, the exhilarating dream of the promised land had suddenly become a reality. Thousands sold their last belongings to buy fantastically priced exit permits and steamship tickets, bade goodbye to their children and set forth to Israel, empty-handed but hopeful. By the end of 1951, when the Reds suddenly ordered a stop to emigration, 120,000 of Rumania's 350,000 Jews (the largest Jewish community...
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