Between the 4th-7th centuries AD, Moldova was part of an important trading route between Asia and Europe, and bordered the Khazar Khaganate, where Judaism was the state religion.

The constitution of Moldova guarantees the right to freedom of religion and the total separation of church and state, while noting the "exceptional importance" of Orthodox Christianity.

[8] In 1903, a young Christian Orthodox boy, Mikhail Rybachenko, was found murdered in the town of Dubăsari (Dubossary), 37 km northeast of Chișinău.

A Russian language antisemitic newspaper "Bessarabian", published by Pavel Krushevan, began to disseminate rumors about the murder being part of a Jewish ritual.

[14] Although the official investigation had determined the lack of any ritualism in the murder and eventually discovered that the boy had been killed by a relative (who was later found), the unrest caused by these and other rumors had resulted in a major pogrom during the Easter holidays.

There was outcry from prominent Russian writers Leo Tolstoy and Maksim Gorky, as well as protests from Jews and non-Jews in Europe and the United States.

The killing squads of Einsatzgruppe D, together with special non-military units attached to the German Wehrmacht and the Romanian army were involved in many massacres in Bessarabia (over 10,000 in a single month of war, in June–July 1941), while deporting other thousands to Transnistria.

[20] During the 1970s Soviet Union aliyah and immigration to the West and especially in the late 1980s, many of them emigrated to Israel, United States, Canada and some to Australia and Western Europe.

At the same time, there are 75,492 Moldovan Jews living in Israel, and also small communities in other parts of the world, such as Russia, the US, the UK, Germany, Romania, Australia, etc.

According to the results of the poll (reported by The Times of Israel), "a majority of the 923 respondents indicated that they were either neutral on Jews (27%) or associated them (35%) with “positive” qualities, including “respect, intelligent, smart, normal people, capable, ordinary, educated."

In response to the poll, the director of the European Jewish Association lobby group, Rabbi Menachem Margolin stated that "deep-rooted antisemitism persists in Moldova.

There can be no rational explanation as to why a community that represents such a tiny fraction of the overall population bears the brunt of such an alarmingly high number of stereotypes and tropes.”[22] As of December 8,2024 Rabbi Yitzchok Dovid Grossman has issued a apeal for Nosson Malul who has been imprisoned for nearly a year in Moldavia without trial[23]