Romania's Chief Rabbi Moses Rosen, who helped hundreds of thousands of Jews flee communist tyranny and settle in Israel, died of a heart attack Friday, the Jewish community said.

Rosen, 81, one of the most colorful religious leaders in Eastern Europe, died of heart failure following a stroke three weeks ago, the Romanian Federation of Jewish Communities said in a statement."The death of Moses Rosen is an irreparable loss to us. Our spiritual life was beheaded through his death," Rosen's deputy, Sorin Iulian, told Reuters.

The rabbi came to notice most recently for his outspoken resistance to a rising wave of anti-Semitism since the 1989 collapse of communist rule and the execution of Stalinist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

When Rosen was elected by a congress of 600 Romanian rabbis 52 years ago, his community had been more than halved from 850,000 to 400,000 by the Nazi Holocaust.

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Now only 14,000 Jews are left in Romania and more than 60 percent of them are over 60.

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