Dej דעעש

For a long time Jews were not allowed to settle in Dej (Dés in Hungarian); the reference works date the community's beginning to 1834, and by mid-century it was established: a first synagogue in 1863, a school, a second synagogue in 1907. By the census of 1930 there were 3,360 Jews in the town—more than a fifth of the inhabitants; in 1941, 3,719.

From 1858 one house led the town. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Paneth, the Maagalei Tzedek, son of the rabbi of Karlsburg, became rabbi and rebbe here, and after him came son, grandson and great-grandson—down to Rabbi Yaakov Elimelech, who perished at Auschwitz. So the court of Dej took its place among the courts of Transylvania beside Satmar and Sighet.

In 1944, when northern Transylvania was under Hungary, the Jews of Dej and the whole county—about 7,800 people—were driven into an open-air ghetto in the Bungur forest outside the town and taken to Auschwitz in three transports between 28 May and 8 June. About a thousand returned after the war; by the start of our century fewer than ten Jews remained in Dej. The court of Dej was re-established in America by descendants of the Paneths.