After a contentious election, Romania’s few Jews remain on guard against antisemitism

SIGHIȘOARA, Romania — Only a 10-minute stroll down a maze of cobblestone streets from the birthplace of Vlad Dracul — who inspired the fictional, bloodsucking Count Dracula — sits an empty but remarkably well-preserved synagogue in a fairy-tale town that no longer has any Jews.

Built in 1903, the Sighișoara Synagogue was, for a time, the spiritual center for roughly 200 Yiddish-speaking Jewish families. But the Holocaust claimed most of them, and the few who survived World War II eventually left for Israel. In 1984, the last prayer service took place, and the sole remaining Jew — a lawyer named Radicanu — died in 2009.

Around that time, an American lawyer, David Blum, financed the renovation of the building at 11 Tache Ionescu St. in memory of his parents and grandparents. Since then, Vi