Last week, the annual general assembly of the Unitary Organization of the Romanian-born Jews (AMIR) created a special commission in charge with analyzing the three projects of the future museum of the Romanian Judaism that were presented last year, and to nominate the best of them.

The authors of the three projects are David Gafni, Beno Friedl and Amnon Rechter, renowned for the museums they designed over the years.

The general assembly was opened by gen. in reserve Moshe Nativ, executive president of the AMIR. He asked the participants to hold a minute of silence in memory of AMIR president Itzhak Artzi, and of Moshe Zaltzman, leading personalities of the Romanian aliyah, who were evoked by Itzhak Ialon and by Zvi Ben Dov respectively.

Moshe Nativ presented AMIR's activity report for the last 12 months. "The Book of Families" Project (who is to record the families of the Israelis who were born in Romania) and the agreement with Beit Basarabia (whose building will shelter the future museum) were also discussed.

Historian Lucian Zeev Herscovici was received in AMIR's commission of historians, led by dr. Rafael Vago.

This is the title of an interesting article published by the "Viata noastra" ("Our Life") newspaper on Friday. It was written by Victor Rusu, who used to work for "The Magazine of the Mosaic Cult" (edited by the Federation of the Jewish Communities in Romania - FJCR) in the times when the Foundation was led by rabbi Moses Rosen. Here are some excerpts from the article:

"Dignity. I believe this is the proper attribute, the chief merit of rabbi Rosen. For the Jews in Romania, he was a worthy representative who inspired respect, and this was reflected by his community. Whenever he would make a public appearance and hold a speech…, he would be listened to with interest and, more than that, with admiration. I myself once heard M. Sadoveanu congratulating the chief rabbi for the beautiful Romanian he spoke and for how he knew to color his speeches with Biblical and Talmudic proverbs…

…No, rabbi Rosen's position was not a comfortable one, his balance was fragile and sometimes even seemed precarious. His merit is to have found, in the multitude of problems, the path to follow, explaining time and again to the authorities that the situation of the local Jews was the barometer that indicated the political climate in Romania to the international institutions. He thus achieved things that seemed impossible to achieve, like the "Joint"'s activity in Romania… …I know, some of my readers will be surprised by what I have written, some will even be puzzled. They all overlooked the positive aspects of this personality, only keeping in mind the disagreeable images. No one is saying that the latter did not exist. Vanity, the hunger for eulogies, the quality of (seemingly) being approved by the regime. I repeat, these traits also belonged to this less ordinary personality. There is nothing new about it. An ordinary person has ordinary qualities and flaws. Unordinary people have unordinary qualities and flaws. Or, like the Talmud goes, the bigger the tree, the bigger its shade…"