Bobota Jewish Cemetery

The first Jews appeared in Bobota in the mid-19th century. According to Petri Mór (1902), there were no Jews in Bobota in 1847, and the population was predominantly Greek Catholic. However, birth records show that between 1850 and 1860, eight Jewish children were born in Nagyderzsida to six families: Gershon, Markovics, Josef, Efrajim,
Salamon, and Joel. This indicates that by the 1850s, the Jewish population already consisted of at least six families and several dozen individuals.

According to Hungarian statistical data, by 1880 there were 54 Jews in Bobota. Petri Mór’s data shows the Jewish population reaching its peak of 67 in 1890. By 1910, it had decreased to 37, but by 1930 it had grown again to 65.

Bobota was not an independent community, but it maintained a permanent minyan and a Jewish cemetery (at least from the 1900s).

Based on the fact that Jewish birth records for Bobota from the 1850s through the 1900s were kept in Tasnád – the nearest large community – the Jews of Bobota during this period belonged to the Tasnád rabbinate. However, according to Pinkas Kehilot Romania, in the 1930s Bobota, together with a dozen other surrounding villages, belonged to the community of Șimleu Silvaniei (Hung. Szilágysomlyó, Yid. שאמלויא), located 23 kilometers away. This community was established in the late 18th century and by 1920 numbered 1,580 Jews (23% of the population), with two synagogues, four Ashkenazi batei midrash and two Hasidic ones, as well as all necessary communal institutions, including a
Jewish school and yeshiva.

Holocaust survivor Elisabet Blau (née Weiss) from Bobota recounts that in the late 1930s, her family was part of the Șimleu Silvaniei community, attended the Great Synagogue there, and communicated with rabbi of that community (supposedly Shlomo Zalman Orenreich, a renowned Transylvanian rabbi, author of several dozen rabbinical works, including responses “Lekhem Shelomo”, who led the Șimleu Silvaniei community during 45 years until 1944) Apparently, at that time there was no synagogue or prayer house in Bobota itself.

According to birth records from the late 19th century, the main occupation of Jews in the rural community of Bobota was agriculture. Farmers included Zsigmond Samuel, Benedek József, Mór Weiszman, Ignác Silberman, and Bernát Naftoli. There were also craftsmen: peddler David Czukerman, shoemaker Lajos (Aron) Friedmann, as well as
representatives of other traditional Jewish occupations: merchants (such as Farkas Telekovich), innkeepers Oser Weiss and Bernát Salamon, land tenant Bernát Spitz, and notary Salamon Samuel.

In 1941, the village had 57 Jews.

In early May 1944, the Jews of Șimleu Silvaniei and nearly the entire Sălaj district, Tasnád, and other areas were gathered into a ghetto in Șimleu Silvaniei – including the Jews of Bobota. In late May and June 1944, they were deported to Auschwitz. A few people from Bobota survived (including Elizabet Weiss). After the war, a small community in Șimleu Silvaniei was restored and existed for several more years until the remaining Jews emigrated to Israel. Jews did not return to Bobota after the war.

The Jewish cemetery in Bobota apparently dates to the late 19th or very early 20th century. Today, about a dozen tombstones remain, mostly from the 1910s-1920s.