Tag #127029 - Interview #78410 (Ticu Goldstein)

I also went to the cheder, on the street formerly named Mamulari, near the Tailors’ Synagogue, where the History Museum of the Jewish Community in Bucharest is now. It was a sort of yeshivah, where I trained myself for the bar mitzvah under the supervision of Alexandru Safran [4], who was a young rabbi back then. I was the head of my class and I spoke at the Choral Temple on behalf of all the boys who were confirmed then. I was fascinated by the personal charm that rabbi Safran already possessed. He didn’t lower himself to the level of the herd, but lifted the herd to his own level. Many years later, I told the rabbi – some works of whom I translated into Romanian – about the impression he left on me when I was a child. I was told that young rabbi Safran was once in Bacau, inspecting the Mosaism courses provided to the Jewish pupils in the Romanian schools. A non-Jewish principal, impressed by his refined appearance, told him: ‘Forgive me for saying this, but this is how I have always imagined Jesus Christ’. I met rabbi Safran again when he held his reception speech at the Romanian Academy. We could all admire his Romanian, still exemplary after 60 years of exile.