Rosen, Moses
ROSEN, MOSES
ROSEN, MOSES (1912–1994), chief rabbi of Romania from 1948, when his predecessor, Rabbi Alexander *Safran, left the country, and chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of the Socialist Republic of Romania from 1964. Born in Moinesti, Moldavia, where his father, Rabbi Abraham Aryeh had served as rabbi, Rosen was ordained as a rabbi around the beginning of World War ii. From 1957 he was a member of the Great National Assembly (the parliament) of Romania, his original constituency being a quarter of Bucharest that at one time had a large Jewish population. He was the editor of the Journal of Romanian Religious Jewry, the trilingual (Romanian, Hebrew, Yiddish) biweekly published by the Romanian Jewish community from 1956, the only Hebrew publication in Eastern Europe. Rosen's speeches and sermons were published in this periodical, which also contained items of Jewish news from abroad and articles on the contribution of Romanian Jews to Jewish culture. Rosen's main achievement was the creation of legal conditions for adequate Jewish religious life in Romania.
[Eliezer Palmor]