Elias Schwarzfeld

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Elias Schwarzfeld (born March 7, 1855 at Iaşi) was a Romanian Jewish historian and novelist.

He received his early education in the public schools of Iaşi, and while still a student, between 1871 and 1873, contributed to the Iaşi papers Curierul de Jasi and Noul Curier Român. In 1872 he was interested in the foundation of the Vocca Aparatorului, which was started on behalf of the Jews. In May 1874, Schwarzfeld founded in Iaşi the Revista Israelitica, in which he published his first Jewish novel, Darascha. From 1874 to 1876 he studied medicine at the University of Bucharest, abandoning it later, however, to take up the study of law (LL.D. 1881). From 1877 to 1878 he edited the Jüdischer Telegraf, a Yiddish daily; and after this had ceased publication he edited the Yiddish biweekly Ha-Yoeẓ. In 1878 he published his first pamphlet, Chestia Şcoalelor Israelite şi a Progresului Israelit în România, which was occasioned by a circular which the Alliance Israélite Universelle had issued calling for information regarding the state of education among the Romanian Jews.

In 1881, on his return to Bucharest, he took charge of the paper Fraternitatea. He was at this time one of the principal collaborators on the Anuarul Pentru Israelitzi, founded by his brother Moses Schwarzfeld in 1877. In this he published, from 1884 to 1898, his numerous studies on the history of the Jews in Romania. As vice-president of the Fraternitatea lodge, and later as secretary-general of the supreme council of the Jewish lodges of Romania, Schwarzfeld prepared the ground for the B'nai B'rith. In 1885 he published, in behalf of coreligionists in the small towns and villages, the two pamphlets Radu Porumbaru şi Isprăvile lui la Fabrica de Hârtie din Bacău (translated into German) and Adeverul Asupra Revoltei de la Brusturoasa.

Schwarzfeld's activities having rendered him objectionable to the government, he was expelled October 17, 1885, only forty-eight hours being given him to arrange his personal affairs. He went immediately to Paris. In 1886 he was appointed by Baron Maurice de Hirsch secretary of his private bureau of charity. When the Jewish Colonization Association was founded Schwarzfeld became its secretary-general; up to the death of Baroness Hirsch he acted as her secretary in the distribution of her charities.

Schwarzfeld continued at Paris his literary activity in behalf of his Romanian brethren, and he was the co-editor of Egalitatea, founded in 1890 in Bucharest by his brother. To the American Jewish Year Book for 5662 (1901-2) he contributed two essays: "The Jews of Rumania from the Earliest Time to the Present Day" and "The Situation of the Jews in Rumania Since the Berlin Treaty (1878)"; an essay on "The Jews of Moldavia at the Beginning of the Eighteenth Century" appeared in the Jewish Quarterly Review, vol. xvi., and another entitled "Deux Episodes de l'Histoire des Juifs Roumains" in the Revue des Etudes Juives, vol. xiii.

His Jewish novels were: Rabinul Făcator de Minuni, Conte Populaire (1883); Bercu Batlen (1890); Gângavul, Betzivul, Prigonit de Soartă (1895); O Fată Bătrână, Unchiul Berisch, Un Vagabond, Schimschele Ghibor, Judecata Poporană (1896); and Polcovniceasa (1897). Most of these novels have been translated into Hebrew and published by Mebaschan. His Les Juifs en Roumaine Depuis le Traité de Berlin appeared under the pseudonym "Edmond Sincerus" (London, 1901).

Schwarzfeld also translated into Romanian several novels of Leopold Kompert, Ludwig Philippson, M. Lehman, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, S. Kohn, and others; Isidore Loeb's article "Juifs"; Arsène Darmesteter's pamphlet on the Talmud; and the two lectures by Ernest Renan on Judaism.