Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
Encyclopedia
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's order in Kuibyshev
Samara, Russia
Samara , is the sixth largest city in Russia. It is situated in the southeastern part of European Russia at the confluence of the Volga and Samara Rivers. Samara is the administrative center of Samara Oblast. Population: . The metropolitan area of Samara-Tolyatti-Syzran within Samara Oblast...
in April 1942 with the official support of the Soviet authorities. It was designed to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
, particularly from the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
.
Activities
Solomon MikhoelsSolomon Mikhoels
Solomon Mikhoels ; was a Soviet Jewish actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during the Second World War...
, the popular actor and director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater
Moscow State Jewish Theater
The Moscow State Jewish Theater, Russian language: Московский Государственный Еврейский Театр, also known by its acronym GOSET: ГОСЕТ) was a Yiddish theater company established in 1919 and shut down in 1948 by the Soviet authorities....
, was appointed the JAC chairman. The JAC's newspaper in Yiddish language
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
was called Einigkeit (אייניקייט "Unity", Cyrillic
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
: Эйникейт).
The JAC broadcast pro-Soviet propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
to foreign audiences, assuring them of the absence of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
in the USSR
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In 1943, Mikhoels and Itzik Feffer
Itzik Feffer
Itzik Feffer , also Fefer was a Soviet Yiddish poet who fell victim to Joseph Stalin's purges.-Background:...
, the first official representatives of the Soviet Jewry allowed to visit the West
Western world
The Western world, also known as the West and the Occident , is a term referring to the countries of Western Europe , the countries of the Americas, as well all countries of Northern and Central Europe, Australia and New Zealand...
, embarked on a seven-month tour to the USA, Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
to drum up their support. In the US, they were welcomed by a National Reception Committee chaired by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
and by B.Z. Goldberg, Sholom Aleichem
Sholom Aleichem
Sholem Aleichem was the pen name of Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, a leading Yiddish author and playwright...
's son-in-law, and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee is a worldwide Jewish relief organization headquartered in New York. It was established in 1914 and is active in more than 70 countries....
. The largest pro-Soviet rally ever in the United States was held on July 8 at the Polo Grounds
Polo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name given to four different stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used by many professional teams in both baseball and American football from 1880 until 1963...
, where 50,000 people listened to Mikhoels, Fefer, Fiorello La Guardia, Sholem Asch
Sholem Asch
Sholem Asch, born Szalom Asz , also written Shalom Asch was a Polish-born American Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language.-Life and work:...
, and Chairman of World Jewish Congress
World Jewish Congress
The World Jewish Congress was founded in Geneva, Switzerland, in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations...
Rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
Stephen Wise. Among others, they met Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann, , was a Zionist leader, President of the Zionist Organization, and the first President of the State of Israel. He was elected on 1 February 1949, and served until his death in 1952....
, Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century."According to art historian Michael J...
, Paul Robeson
Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson was an American concert singer , recording artist, actor, athlete, scholar who was an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement in the first half of the twentieth century...
and Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger was a German-Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht....
.
In addition to the funds for the Russian war effort — US$16 million raised in the US, $15 million in England, $1 million in Mexico, $750,000 in the British Mandate of Palestine — other help was also contributed: machinery, medical equipment, medicine, ambulances, clothes. On July 16, 1943, Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
reported: "Mikhoels and Feffer received a message from Chicago that a special conference of the Joint initiated a campaign to finance a thousand ambulances for the needs of the Red Army." The visit also evoked the American public to the necessity of entering the European war.
Persecution
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. This ran contrary to the official Soviet policy to present it as atrocities against all Soviet citizens, not acknowledging the specific genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
of the Jews.
Some of the committee members were vocal supporters of the State of Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, established in 1948, something that Stalin supported very briefly. Their international contacts
Jewish diaspora
The Jewish diaspora is the English term used to describe the Galut גלות , or 'exile', of the Jews from the region of the Kingdom of Judah and Roman Iudaea and later emigration from wider Eretz Israel....
especially to the USA at the outset of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, would eventually make them vulnerable to charges that they had become politically incorrect
Political correctness
Political correctness is a term which denotes language, ideas, policies, and behavior seen as seeking to minimize social and institutional offense in occupational, gender, racial, cultural, sexual orientation, certain other religions, beliefs or ideologies, disability, and age-related contexts,...
.
The contacts with American Jewish organizations resulted in the plan to publish the Black Book
Black Book
The Black Book: The Ruthless Murder of Jews by German-Fascist Invaders Throughout the Temporarily-Occupied Regions of the Soviet Union and in the Death Camps of Poland during the War 1941–1945 alternatively The Black Book of the Holocaust, or simply The Black Book, was a result of the...
simultaneously in the US and the Soviet Union, documenting the Holocaust and participation of Jews in the resistance movement
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
. The Black Book was indeed published in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
in 1946, but no Russian edition appeared. The typeface
Movable type
Movable type is the system of printing and typography that uses movable components to reproduce the elements of a document ....
galleys
Galley proof
In printing and publishing, proofs are the preliminary versions of publications meant for review by authors, editors, and proofreaders, often with extra wide margins. Galley proofs may be uncut and unbound, or in some cases electronic...
were broken up in 1948, when the political situation of Soviet Jewry deteriorated.
In January 1948, Mikhoels was killed in Minsk
Minsk
- Ecological situation :The ecological situation is monitored by Republican Center of Radioactive and Environmental Control .During 2003–2008 the overall weight of contaminants increased from 186,000 to 247,400 tons. The change of gas as industrial fuel to mazut for financial reasons has worsened...
by the Soviet secret police
Ministry for State Security (USSR)
The Ministry of State Security was the name of Soviet secret police from 1946 to 1953.-Origins of the MGB:The MGB was just one of many incarnations of the Soviet State Security apparatus. Since the revolution, the Bolsheviks relied on a strong political police or security force to support and...
agents who staged the murder as a car accident. The members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested. They were charged with disloyalty, bourgeois nationalism
Bourgeois nationalism
Bourgeois nationalism is a term from Marxist phraseology. It refers to the alleged practice by the ruling classes of deliberately dividing people by nationality, race, ethnicity, or religion, so as to distract them from possible class warfare...
, cosmopolitanism, and planning to set up a Jewish republic in Crimea
Crimea
Crimea , or the Autonomous Republic of Crimea , is a sub-national unit, an autonomous republic, of Ukraine. It is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea, occupying a peninsula of the same name...
to serve US interests.
In January 1949, the Soviet mass media launched massive propaganda campaign against "rootless cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan was a Soviet euphemism widely used during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1948–1953, which culminated in the "exposure" of the alleged Doctors' plot...
s", unmistakably aimed at Jews. Markish observed at the time: "Hitler wanted to destroy us physically, Stalin wants to do it spiritually." On 12 August 1952, at least thirteen prominent Yiddish writers were executed in the event known as the "Night of the Murdered Poets
Night of the Murdered Poets
On August 12, 1952, thirteen Soviet Jews were executed in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, Russia as a result of charges of espionage based on forced, false confessions resulting from coercion and torture. This massacre is known as the Night of the Murdered Poets....
" ("Ночь казненных поэтов").
List of notable JAC members
The size of JAC fluctuated with time. According to Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
(200 Years Together), it grew to have about 70 members.
- Solomon MikhoelsSolomon MikhoelsSolomon Mikhoels ; was a Soviet Jewish actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during the Second World War...
(Chairman), the actor-director of the Moscow State Jewish TheaterMoscow State Jewish TheaterThe Moscow State Jewish Theater, Russian language: Московский Государственный Еврейский Театр, also known by its acronym GOSET: ГОСЕТ) was a Yiddish theater company established in 1919 and shut down in 1948 by the Soviet authorities.... - Solomon LozovskySolomon LozovskySolomon Lozovsky was a prominent Bolshevik revolutionary, a high official in various parts of the Soviet government, including as a Presidium member of the All-Union Central Council of Soviet Trade Unions, a Central Committee member of the Communist Party, a member of the Supreme Soviet, a deputy...
(Secretary), a former Soviet vice-minister of Foreign Affairs and the head of the Soviet Information BureauSoviet Information BureauSoviet Information Bureau , commonly known as Sovinformburo ) was a leading Soviet news agency in 1941 - 1961. It was established on June 24, 1941, shortly after the opening of the Eastern Front of World War II by a directive of Sovnarkom and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the... - Shakne EpshteinShakne EpshteinShakne Epshtein was a Jewish-Russian journalist and the secretary and editor of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee 's newspaper, Eynikayt...
(Secretary and editor of the Eynikeyt newspaper) - Itzik FefferItzik FefferItzik Feffer , also Fefer was a Soviet Yiddish poet who fell victim to Joseph Stalin's purges.-Background:...
, a poet - Ilya EhrenburgIlya EhrenburgIlya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg was a Soviet writer, journalist, translator, and cultural figure.Ehrenburg is among the most prolific and notable authors of the Soviet Union; he published around one hundred titles. He became known first and foremost as a novelist and a journalist - in particular, as a...
, a writer - Solomon BregmanSolomon BregmanSolomon Bregman was a prominent member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee formed in the Soviet Union in April 1942. The committee was led by the famous Yiddish actor Solomon Mikhoels....
, a deputy minister of State Control - Aaron KatzAaron KatzThis article is about the Soviet General. For the independent filmmaker see Aaron Katz .Aaron Davidovich Katz was a Major General in the Red Army and a member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee ....
, a General of the Stalin Military Academy - Boris ShimeliovichBoris ShimeliovichBoris Abramovich Shimeliovich was the medical director of Moscow's Botkin Hospital, a well known and widely respected institution.Born in Riga, he was an active revolutionary who participated in the Russian Civil War and eventually became active in Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee...
, the Chief Surgeon of the Red ArmyRed ArmyThe Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
and director of BotkinSergei Botkin-External links:* *...
Hospital - Joseph Yuzefovich, a historian
- Leib KvitkoLeib KvitkoLeib Kvitko was a prominent Yiddish poet, an author of well-known children's poems and a member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee . He was one of the editors of Eynikayt and of the Heymland, a literary magazine...
, a poet - Peretz MarkishPeretz MarkishPeretz Davidovich Markish was a Soviet/Russian Jewish poet and playwright who wrote in Yiddish.Peretz Markish was born in Polonnoye in 1895. His distant ancestors lived in Spain. As a child he attended a cheder and sang in the choir of the local synagogue. He served as a private in the Russian...
, a poet - Isaak Nusinov, a linguist and literature critic
- David BergelsonDavid BergelsonDavid Bergelson was a Yiddish language writer. Ukrainian-born, he lived for a time in Berlin, Germany. He moved back to the Soviet Union when Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany...
, a writer - David HofsteinDavid HofsteinDavid Hofstein was a Yiddish poet.He was born in Ukraine, Russian Empire and received a traditional Jewish education; his application to the Kiev University was declined. Hofstein began to write in Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, and Ukrainian....
, a poet - Benjamin ZuskinBenjamin ZuskinBenjamin Zuskin was a Jewish actor and director in Moscow State Jewish Theater. Zuskin had a title of the People's actor of the Russian SFSR. He was a laureate of the Stalin Prize in 1946.- Biography :...
, an actor - Ilya Vatenberg, an editor
- Shlomo ShleiferShlomo ShleiferShloime Mikhelevich Shleifer was born on December 23, 1889 in the village of Smela, near Kiev. His father was the rabbi of Alexandria, a town near Kherson. During the First World War, the Shlifer family moved to Moscow, where Rabbi Shleifer worked as a bookkeeper until 1943. He also served as the...
, Chief RabbiChief RabbiChief Rabbi is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities...
of MoscowMoscowMoscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent... - Emilia Teumin, an editor
- Leon Talmy, a journalist, translator
- Khayke Vatenberg-Ostrowskaya, a translator
- Lina SternLina SternLina Solomonovna Stern was a notable Soviet biochemist, physiologist and humanist whose medical discoveries saved thousands of lives at the fronts of World War II...
, a scientist - Israel FisanovichIsrael FisanovichIsrael Ilyich Fisanovich born 1914, died 1944, was a Soviet Navy submarine commander and Hero of the Soviet Union. He died when his submarine, the former was sunk in a friendly fire incident....
, submarine commander, Hero of the Soviet UnionHero of the Soviet UnionThe title Hero of the Soviet Union was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded personally or collectively for heroic feats in service to the Soviet state and society.-Overview:...
See also
- History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union
- YevsektsiyaYevsektsiyaYevsektsiya , , the abbreviation of the phrase "Еврейская секция" was the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist party. Yevsektsiya was established to popularize Marxism and encourage loyalty to the Soviet regime among Russian Jews. The founding conference of Yevsektsiya took place on October 20,...
- Doctors' plotDoctors' plotThe Doctors' plot was the most dramatic anti-Jewish episode in the Soviet Union during Joseph Stalin's regime, involving the "unmasking" of a group of prominent Moscow doctors, predominantly Jews, as conspiratorial assassins of Soviet leaders...
- History of anti-SemitismHistory of anti-SemitismThe history of antisemitism – defined as hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group – goes back many centuries; antisemitism has been called "the longest hatred." Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the historical development of...
- Vasily GrossmanVasily GrossmanVasily Semyonovich Grossman was a Soviet writer and journalist. Grossman trained as an engineer and worked in the Donets Basin, but changed career in the 1930s and published short stories and several novels...
- Polina ZhemchuzhinaPolina ZhemchuzhinaPolina Semyonovna Zhemchuzhina was a Soviet stateswoman and the wife of the Soviet premier Vyacheslav Molotov.Born Perl Karpovskaya to the family of a Jewish tailor in the village of Pologi, in the Aleksandrov uyezd of Yekaterinoslav Governorate , she joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour...
- Jewish BolshevismJewish BolshevismJewish Bolshevism, Judeo-Bolshevism, and known as Żydokomuna in Poland, is an antisemitic stereotype based on the claim that Jews have been the driving force behind or are disproportionately involved in the modern Communist movement, or sometimes more specifically Russian Bolshevism.The expression...
- Jewish leftJewish leftThe term "Jewish left" describes Jews who identify with or support left wing, occasionally liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the "Jewish left," however...
Further reading
- ISBN 0-300-08486-2 Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (by Joshua Rubenstein)
- The Black Book (Chornaya Kniga), compiled and edited by: Vasily Grossman and Ilya Erenburg
External links
- Memorandum concerning the Jewish Antifascist Committee sent to Mikhail SuslovMikhail SuslovMikhail Andreyevich Suslov was a Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Second Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1965, and as unofficial Chief Ideologue of the Party until his death in 1982. Suslov was responsible for party democracy and the separation of power...
in June 1946 (Library of CongressLibrary of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
archives) - JAC case (in Russian language) at International Democracy Fund Archives
- Stalin's secret pogrom: Commies who became politically incorrect (By Chuck Morse)
- Beyond the Pale: The history of Jews in Russia
- Group photo of the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
- Stalin’s Bureaucracy in Action: The Creation and Destruction of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee Shimon Redlich, War, Holocaust and Stalinism: A Documented Study of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR, Luxembourg: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1995. Reviewed by Theodore H. Friedgut JAC and its end JAC, Soviet repressions and its demise