Other news:

On August 4, dr. Valeria Mariana Stoica, ambassador of Romania in Israel, met with Avner Shalev, manager of the Yed Vashem Institute in Jerusalem, in order to discuss Romania's participation to the International Commission of Investigations on the Holocaust period in Romania (whose creation has recently been announced by the Yad Vashem). According to Yad Vashem's spokeswoman, the commission was initiated by Avner Shalev through a letter sent to the Romanian president, Ion Iliescu, on July 27. The letter was the result of the remarks made by Mr. Iliescu in an interview given to the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz", remarks that had diminished the importance of the Holocaust.

Mrs. Stoica assured the Yad Vashem of Romania's full cooperation in establishing this international commission. Avner Shalev supported the Romanian diplomat's suggestion that Prof. Elie Wiesel be appointed chairman of the commission. The Yad Vashem will be represented in the commission by historian Jean Ancel, author of a recent two-volume study dedicated to the Holocaust period in Romania.

Ambassador Stoica announced Romania's intention to send a group of young politicians representing all the parties (except for The Great Romania Party) to the Yad Vashem International School for Holocaust Studies. They will attend a seminar on the history of the Holocaust in Romania and the importance of the Holocaust in the Romanian education system. Mrs. Stoica also announced that the new Romanian minister of education would come to the Yad Vashem in October in order to discuss a future cooperation in the field of teaching about the Holocaust.

The meeting between the Romanian ambassador and Mr. Shalev was also an opportunity to talk about Romania's intention of establishing a National Holocaust Memorial Day in June. On that day, the pogrom in Iasi (June 29-July 2, 1941) will be commemorated officially in the Parliament and in the major cities across the country

An article published in the "Libertatea" newspaper (Bucharest) and in other periodicals in the Capital and across the country:

The Cabinet approved, through the Government Decision 686/2003, the Cooperation program in the fields of education, culture and science between the Governments of Romania and Israel, for the period 2002-2006. The program regulates the following: the mutual granting of scholarships; the cooperation between the Romanian Academy and the Academy for Humanistic Studies in Israel; the direct cooperation between education institutions; the exchanges of students, artistic groups, soloists, dancers and choreographers; the direct cooperation between museums; the presence at the festivals and the book fairs in the two countries; the exchange of scientific and technical information; the exchanges of TV producers and the exchanges of news between the national press agencies; the cooperation between the youth associations (for a better understanding between the young people in the two countries) etc.

The Israeli party will support the activity of Israeli lecturers at the universities of Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest, while the Romanian party will encourage the creation of a Romanian lecturer position at the University of Tel Aviv and at another Israeli university that is interested in this. Furthermore, the program recently approved expresses the two parties' mutual interest to sign a convention regarding the recognition and equivalence of academic degrees. In order to achieve this, the two parties will create a joint commission which will draft the equivalence convention; each party will be represented by three members. (The commission will meet alternatively in Romania and Israel.) An important stipulation of the agreement concerns the fact that Romanian teachers will be invited to attend seminaries in which they will gain knowledge about the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. Another joint commission will be created in order to analyze the history, geography and culture textbooks in the two countries, making sure that they contain adequate and up-to-date information.

From "The Cultural Observer" magazine (Bucharest)

The Ethnocultural Diversity Resource Center in Cluj has recently published a vast and remarkable volume, "Ethnocultural Minorities. Documents. The Jews of Romania (1945-1965)", coordinated by Lucian Nastasa and edited by Andreea Andreescu, Lucian Nastasa and Andrea Varga. The volume belongs to the series "Ethnocultural Diversity in Romania", coordinated by Gabor Adam and Levente Salat. It has a foreword by dr. Liviu Rotman (University of Tel Aviv) entitled "The Jews of Romania - an end of history", and a solid introductory study by Lucian Nastasa.