MARCULEȘTI

MARCULEȘTI , Jewish agricultural colony in Bessarabia. It was founded in 1837 on an area of 549 hectares leased from a private owner by 239 settlers from Podolia. In 1888 the land was acquired by the settlers, but because of the *May Laws of 1882 it was registered under the name of a Christian property owner. According to the census of 1897 there were 1,336 Jewish inhabitants. However, the survey conducted by the *Jewish Colonization Association in 1899 records 292 families (1,534 individuals), of whom 123 were landowners (with an average of 4.5 hectares to a family). After the railway to Odessa was laid, and a station was built close to Marculesti, an impetus was given to trading mainly in farm products. The settlement gradually lost its agricultural character, and turned into a typical Jewish town. Under the agrarian reform in Romania in 1922, 105 Jews in Marculesti received plots of land. In 1901 a school was opened which was directed by the writer Shelomo *Hillels. Of the 541 members registered in the local loan fund in 1925, 195 were farmers. In 1930 the Jewish population numbered 2,319 (87.4% of the total). *Tarbut elementary and high schools functioned there during the 1930s. The colony was destroyed when the Germans and Romanians invaded Bessarabia in July 1941, after its incorporation within the Soviet Union. On the 8^th of that month, about 1,000 Jews living there were murdered. In September–November 1941 a transit camp was established in Marculesti for Bessarabian Jews who were deported to *Transnistria. Ada *Maimon and Rabbi Y.L. *Maimon (Fishman), who served as the rabbi of the colony from 1900 to 1905, were born in Marculesti.

[Eliyahu Feldman]