rld War II,
and emigration. Between 1958 and 1969 large numbers of Jews emigrated to
Israel with the encouragement of the chief rabbi and the Romanian
government. Many of the rabbis have emigrated with their congregations,
leaving only nine rabbis to care for some seventy congregations. Most of
the congregations were directed by laymen but received regular visits
from one of the rabbis. The only rabbinical school in the country was
closed in the 1950s. The congregations are supervised by the Federation
of Jewish Communities, which is the legally recognized representative
body of the Jews in Romania and is headed by the chief rabbi.

Islam is the religion of the Tatars and Turks in Dobruja. Moslems were
estimated to number between 30,000 and 35,000 in the mid-1950s. Mosques,
most of them built during the Turkish occupation of the area, are found
throughout the region. The seat of the grand mufti, religious head of
the Moslems in Romania, is at the Central Mosque in Constanta.

Unitarianism was introduced into Transylvania in the mid-sixteenth
century, when a group of former Calvinists founded a Unitarian church in
Cluj. The church has always been closely connected with the Hungarian
minority, from which it draws most of its members. The number of
adherents in the mid-1950s was estimated at 70,000. The seat of the
Unitarian Church is in Cluj, which is also the location of its seminary.

Two other legally recognized churches are the Armenian-Gregorian Church
and the Christians of the Old Rite. The Armenian-Gregorian Church is
headed by a bishop in Bucharest, and the Christians of the Old Rite,
also known as Old Catholics, by a bishop in Bukovina. Each had an
estimated membership of 25,000 in the 1950s.

CHAPTER 6

EDUCATION

The Romanian educational system has been transformed to fit the
communist pattern of total subordination to the needs of the state.
Since 1948 the educational system has developed as a major force for
increasing the general educational level of the population, for
inculcating members of society with socialist ideals in support of the
regime and its policies, and for providing technical specialists and
skilled workers for the nation's labor force. Modifications and
adjustments in the system have taken place periodically, but such
changes have largely reflected a shift in emphasis among these major
objectives rather than any change in basic educational principles.

Considerable progress h