The Ottoman Empire gained control of what is now Romania, including the principalities of Moldavia, Wallachia, Transylvania, and the Banat, in the mid-sixteenth century. By the turn of the eighteenth century, it was forced to withdraw from some of these territories: Alba Iulia in Transylvania (at that time the only officially recognized Jewish community) in 1711, and Temeşvar in the Banat in 1716, but it held Moldavia and Wallachia until 1878. The overwhelming majority of the Jews in the Romanian principalities lived in Moldavia (now Moldova) and Wallachia. Until t…