“The bathtub in the bathroom was full of medicine.” How Israel paid communist Romania to repatriate its people

Actress Sandra Sade remembers that, as a child, in Romania, there was something unusual in her family's home. People came and went; they spoke in whispers and were constantly afraid, writes the press from Israel. Only later did she understand that her family was involved in clandestine efforts to bring essential medicine to the Jews, at a time when antibiotics and morphine were rarely banned.

“The bathtub in the bathroom was full of medicine,” she said. “The couriers would come, pick them up and ask no questions.”

The price paid was high. Her father was arrested and sent to hard labor dismantling sunken ships, a particularly dangerous task. In 1964, her mother immigrated to Israel with the children and elderly grandparents, while her father remained in prison. The family was reunited much later.

Another story is that of Dudi Ben-Yishai, born in 1928 in Iasi county. His family immigrated to Israel in 1950, leaving him alone in Romania. For 12 years, he worked as an engineer in Bucharest, while secretly engaging in clandestine activities, at a time when any connection with Israel was considered a serious crime.

His daughter, Dr. Galit Cohen, said he operated through coded messages, short meetings in public places and shower briefings to avoid audio surveillance. After the fall of the regime, he turned to the archives of the Security Service and discovered the extent of the surveillance: 12 thick files documenting every step he took.

In March 1961, he was arrested, harshly interrogated and sentenced to severe punishment. In April 1962, on the eve of Passover, he was released following a deal and arrived in Israel, where he built a new life without seeking recognition or speaking publicly about his activities.

Recently revealed documents and testimonies expose the political and economic mechanism that allowed approximately 400,000 Romanian Jews to go to Israel through discreet agreements, indirect transactions and years of undercover activity.

For decades, the story was told as another chapter in their desire for freedom. Recently discovered documents and testimonies, however, point to a much more complex picture.

Behind the constant flow of Romanian Jews to Israel was a sophisticated political and economic mechanism that included secret deals, financial incentives and intelligence activities.

The results were presented for the first time at the Yitzhak Artzi Forum of the AMIR organization, in cooperation with the national military historian, Colonel (reserved) Dr. Benny Michelson, who presented archival documents, testimonies and personal accounts, highlighting the diplomatic context that allowed the migration of Romanian Jews over the decades.

A silent mechanism behind closed doors

After World War II, Eastern European countries closed their borders. Romania was almost the only state that allowed the continuous emigration of Jews – but not for free. According to the documents, “aliyah” (The term describes both the spiritual/historical return to the biblical homeland and the legal process of obtaining Israeli citizenship) was accompanied by political and economic arrangements, sometimes indirect, sometimes completely hidden.

Agricultural assistance, infrastructure equipment, drilling rigs, state credit and technology provision were used as bargaining tools. Within this system, an unofficial name took root: “chicken coops for Jews.”

Between 1961 and 1965 alone, some 80,000 Jews immigrated to Israel under such agreements. Estimates suggest that Romania won tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars in contemporary terms – not through a single dramatic deal, but through a steady stream of deals and understandings.

Israel made use of two institutions: Nativ, which functioned as a diplomatic arm, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which played a central role in financing operations and providing loans that supported the arrangements.

Native (officially appointed Lishkat HaKesher – “Liaison Office”) was an Israeli organization created in 1952which worked for a long time as a semi-secret structure of the state.

In short, it was kind of diplomatic arm + clandestine of Israel, used mostly for:

• maintaining ties with Jews from the communist blocwhere contacts with Israel were restricted;
• supporting Jewish emigration from those countries to Israel (aliyah), including through unofficial channels;
• discreet diplomacyespecially in states where Israel could not act openly.

After the collapse of the USSR, its role was gradually reduced and turned more into an institution of public diplomacy and diaspora relations.

American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) — often called simple “The Joint” — is one of the largest and oldest Jewish humanitarian organizations in the world.

Established in 1914in the US, the JDC is an organization non-profitapolitical (in principle), focused on humanitarian aid. It provided support to Jews in crisis, as well as other vulnerable communities, in many countries

The JDC had a major role in: helping Jews during and after First World Warsupporting Holocaust survivors after 1945 and supporting Jewish communities in Eastern Europe during the communist period (sometimes discreetly)

Micha Harish, the president of AMIR, said that the newly revealed materials make it possible to “understand in depth the decisions and agreements that allowed the exit from Romania for five decades – a process that was far from obvious in the communist bloc”.

Between East and West

On the diplomatic level, Romania enjoyed a unique status. It was the only country in the communist bloc that did not sever relations with Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War, while maintaining ties with the Palestine Liberation Organization. This dual position gave him significant political and economic influence.

Even in the 1990s, when Bucharest became a central transit point for Soviet Jewish immigration to Israel, similar financial mechanisms apparently continued to operate.

The newly revealed materials present the Romanian aliyah not as a one-dimensional heroic story, but as a protracted and complex process involving political compromises, economic arrangements, personal risks and secret networks.

Behind every statistic were individuals—and often a heavy price to pay.