Tag #121297 - Interview #101947 (Saul Rotariu)

I attend the service at the synagogue every Saturday. Now that I am retired, I go more often than I used to when I was working – I didn’t even have the time then. During communism, you could practice your religion without restraints. It was only that you had to be at work, even if it was a holiday. But in certain cases, whenever possible, if they were willing to give you one or two days off, you took a leave for one or two days. It also depended on where you worked. If you worked in a highly politicized institution, you couldn’t tell them: ‘Give me a day off, I have business to attend to at the synagogue’ – for such was politics, it was atheistic. But, in general, you could observe the holidays if you wanted. You took a leave of absence and you had a week or two for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah. Furthermore, you could go to the synagogue, nobody asked anything about that. If you held a high-ranking position in the political hierarchy, well then, that was a different matter: you had agreed to get involved in that, you had to take it [the consequences].