The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, ''Yevreysky antifashistsky komitet''
yi, יידישער אנטי פאשיסטישער קאמיטעט, ''Yidisher anti fashistisher komitet''., abbreviated as JAC, ''YeAK'', was an organization that was created in the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
during
World War II to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, particularly from the
West.
[ It was organized by the Jewish Bund leaders Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter, upon an initiative of Soviet authorities, in fall 1941; both were released from prison in connection with their participation. Following their re-arrest, in December 1941, the Committee was reformed on ]Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet Union, Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as Ge ...
's order[ Sebag-Montefiore, Simon. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. 2003. page 560.] in Kuibyshev in April 1942 with the official support of the Soviet authorities. In 1952, as part of the persecution of Jews in the last year part of Stalin's rule (for example, the "Doctors' plot
The "Doctors' plot" affair, group=rus was an alleged conspiracy of prominent Soviet medical specialists to murder leading government and party officials. It was also known as the case of saboteur doctors or killer doctors. In 1951–1953, a gr ...
"), most prominent members of the JAC were arrested on trumped-up spying charges, tortured, tried in secret proceedings, and executed in the basement of Lubyanka Prison
The Lubyanka ( rus, Лубянка, p=lʊˈbʲankə) is the popular name for the building which contains the headquarters of the FSB, and its affiliated prison, on Lubyanka Square in the Meshchansky District of Moscow, Russia. It is a large ...
. Stalin and elements of the KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
were worried about their influence and connections with the West. They were officially rehabilitated in 1988.
Activities
Solomon Mikhoels, the popular actor and director of the Moscow State Jewish Theatre, was appointed the JAC chairman. The JAC's newspaper in Yiddish
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ve ...
was called ''Eynigkayt'' ( "Unity", Cyrillic
, bg, кирилица , mk, кирилица , russian: кириллица , sr, ћирилица, uk, кирилиця
, fam1 = Egyptian hieroglyphs
, fam2 = Proto-Sinaitic
, fam3 = Phoenician
, fam4 = Gr ...
: ''Эйникейт'').
The JAC broadcast pro-Soviet propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded ...
to foreign audiences, assuring them of the absence of antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
in the Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
. In 1943, Mikhoels and Itzik Feffer
Itzik Feffer (10 September 1900 – 12 August 1952), also Fefer (Yiddish איציק פֿעפֿער, Russian Ицик Фефер, Исаàк Соломòнович Фèфер) was a Soviet Yiddish poet executed on the Night of the Murdered Poet ...
, the first official representatives of the Soviet Jewry allowed to visit the West, embarked on a seven-month tour to the United States, Mexico, Canada and the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Nor ...
to increase their support for the Lend-Lease
Lend-Lease, formally the Lend-Lease Act and introduced as An Act to Promote the Defense of the United States (), was a policy under which the United States supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and other Allied nations with food, oil, ...
. In the US, they were welcomed by a National Reception Committee chaired by Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
and by B.Z. Goldberg, Sholem Aleichem
)
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Pereiaslav, Russian Empire
, death_date =
, death_place = New York City, U.S.
, occupation = Writer
, nationality =
, period =
, genre = Novels, sh ...
's son-in-law, and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, also known as Joint or JDC, is a Jewish relief organization based in New York City. Since 1914 the organisation has supported Jewish people living in Israel and throughout the world. The organization i ...
. The largest pro-Soviet rally ever in the United States was held on July 8 at the Polo Grounds
The Polo Grounds was the name of three stadiums in Upper Manhattan, New York City, used mainly for professional baseball and American football from 1880 through 1963. The original Polo Grounds, opened in 1876 and demolished in 1889, was built fo ...
, where 50,000 people listened to Mikhoels, Feffer, Fiorello H. La Guardia
Fiorello Henry LaGuardia (; born Fiorello Enrico LaGuardia, ; December 11, 1882September 20, 1947) was an American attorney and politician who represented New York in the House of Representatives and served as the 99th Mayor of New York City from ...
, Sholem Asch
Sholem Asch ( yi, שלום אַש, pl, Szalom Asz; 1 November 1880 – 10 July 1957), also written Shalom Ash, was a Polish-Jewish novelist, dramatist, and essayist in the Yiddish language who settled in the United States.
Life and work
Asch ...
, and Chairman of World Jewish Congress
The World Jewish Congress (WJC) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress' main purpose is to act as ...
Rabbi
A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...
Stephen Samuel Wise
Stephen Samuel Wise (March 17, 1874 – April 19, 1949) was an early 20th-century American Reform rabbi and Zionist leader in the Progressive Era. Born in Budapest, he was an infant when his family immigrated to New York. He followed his fat ...
. Among others, they met Chaim Weizmann
Chaim Azriel Weizmann ( he, חיים עזריאל ויצמן ', russian: Хаим Евзорович Вейцман, ''Khaim Evzorovich Veytsman''; 27 November 1874 – 9 November 1952) was a Russian-born biochemist, Zionist leader and Israe ...
, Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr. (16 April 188925 December 1977) was an English comic actor, filmmaker, and composer who rose to fame in the era of silent film. He became a worldwide icon through his screen persona, the Tramp, and is consider ...
, Marc Chagall
Marc Chagall; russian: link=no, Марк Заха́рович Шага́л ; be, Марк Захаравіч Шагал . (born Moishe Shagal; 28 March 1985) was a Russian-French artist. An early modernism, modernist, he was associated with se ...
, Paul Robeson
Paul Leroy Robeson ( ; April 9, 1898 – January 23, 1976) was an American bass-baritone concert artist, stage and film actor, professional football player, and activist who became famous both for his cultural accomplishments and for his p ...
and Lion Feuchtwanger
Lion Feuchtwanger (; 7 July 1884 – 21 December 1958) was a German Jewish novelist and playwright. A prominent figure in the literary world of Weimar Germany, he influenced contemporaries including playwright Bertolt Brecht.
Feuchtwanger's ...
.
In addition to the funds for the Soviet war effort – US$16 million raised in the US, $15 million in England, $1 million in Mexico, $750,000 in Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 i ...
– other help was also contributed: machinery, medical equipment, medicine, ambulances, clothes. On July 16, 1943, ''Pravda
''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, "Truth") is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most influential papers in the c ...
'' 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 Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
." The visit drew the attention of the American public to the necessity of entering the European war.
Persecution
Towards the end and immediately after the war, the JAC became involved in documenting the Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...
. This ran contrary to the official Soviet policy to present it as atrocities against all Soviet citizens, not acknowledging the specific genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Latin ...
of the Jews.
Committee members had international contacts especially in the US at the outset of the Cold War and this may have contributed to them later being accused of treason and espionage.
The contacts with American Jewish organizations resulted in the plan to publish '' The Black Book of Soviet Jewry'' simultaneously in the US and the Soviet Union, documenting the Holocaust and participation of Jews in the resistance movement
A resistance movement is an organized effort by some portion of the civil population of a country to withstand the legally established government or an occupying power and to disrupt civil order and stability. It may seek to achieve its objectives ...
. The Black Book was indeed published in New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
in 1946, but no Russian edition appeared. The typeface
A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font.
There are list of type ...
galleys
A galley is a type of ship that is propelled mainly by oars. The galley is characterized by its long, slender hull, shallow draft, and low freeboard (clearance between sea and gunwale). Virtually all types of galleys had sails that could be us ...
were broken up in 1948, when the political situation of Soviet Jewry deteriorated.
In January 1948, Mikhoels was killed in Minsk
Minsk ( be, Мінск ; russian: Минск) is the capital and the largest city of Belarus, located on the Svislach and the now subterranean Niamiha rivers. As the capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the adm ...
by Ministry of State Security agents who staged the murder as a car accident.Robert Conquest
George Robert Acworth Conquest (15 July 1917 – 3 August 2015) was a British historian and poet.
A long-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Conquest was most notable for his work on the Soviet Union. His books ...
''Reflections on a Ravaged Century'' (2000) The members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested. They were charged with disloyalty, bourgeois nationalism, cosmopolitanism, and planning to establish Jewish autonomy in Crimea
Jewish autonomy in Crimea was a project in the Soviet Union to create an autonomous region for Jews in the Crimean peninsula carried out during the 1920s and 1930s. Following the WWII and the creation of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Fa ...
to serve US interests.
In January 1949, the Soviet mass media launched a massive propaganda campaign against "rootless cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan () was a pejorative Soviet epithet which referred mostly to Jewish intellectuals as an accusation of their lack of allegiance to the Soviet Union, especially during the antisemitic campaign of 1948–1953. This campaig ...
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
The Night of the Murdered Poets (; yi, הרוגי מלכות פֿונעם ראַטנפאַרבאַנד, translit=Harugey malkus funem Ratnfarband, lit=Soviet Union Martyrs) was the execution of thirteen Soviet Jews in the Lubyanka Prison in Mosco ...
" ("Ночь казненных поэтов").
List of notable JAC members
The size of JAC fluctuated with time. According to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repres ...
(''200 Years Together''), it grew to have about 70 members.
* Solomon Mikhoels (Chairman), the actor-director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater
The Moscow State Jewish (Yiddish) Theatre (Russian: Московский Государственный Еврейский Театр; Yiddish: Moskver melukhnisher yidisher teater), also known by its acronym GOSET (ГОСЕТ), was a Yiddish thea ...
* Solomon Lozovsky (Secretary), a former Soviet vice-minister of Foreign Affairs and the head of the Soviet Information Bureau
Soviet Information Bureau (russian: Советское информационное бюро, translit=Sovetskoye informatsionnoye byuro, commonly known as Sovinformburo []) was a leading Soviet Union, Soviet news agency, operating from 1941 to 19 ...
*Shakne Epshtein (Secretary and editor of the ''Eynikeyt'' newspaper)
*Itzik Feffer
Itzik Feffer (10 September 1900 – 12 August 1952), also Fefer (Yiddish איציק פֿעפֿער, Russian Ицик Фефер, Исаàк Соломòнович Фèфер) was a Soviet Yiddish poet executed on the Night of the Murdered Poet ...
, a poet
*Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg (russian: link=no, Илья́ Григо́рьевич Эренбу́рг, ; – August 31, 1967) was a Soviet writer, revolutionary, journalist and historian.
Ehrenburg was among the most prolific and notable autho ...
, a writer
* Eli Falkovich, a writer
* Solomon Bregman, a deputy minister of State Control
* Aaron Katz, a Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army ( Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, afte ...
general of the Stalin Military Academy
* Boris Shimeliovich, the Chief Surgeon of the Red Army and director of Botkin Hospital
* Joseph Yuzefovich, a historian
*Leib Kvitko
Leyb Moiseyevich Kvitko (russian: Лев Моисе́евич Кви́тко, yi, לייב קוויטקאָ) (October 15, 1890 – August 12, 1952) was a prominent Yiddish poet, an author of well-known children's poems and a member of the J ...
, a poet
*Peretz Markish
Peretz Davidovich Markish ( yi, פּרץ מאַרקיש ) (russian: Перец Давидович Маркиш) (7 December 1895 (25 November OS) – 12 August 1952) was a Russian Jewish poet and playwright who wrote predominantly in Yiddish.
...
, a poet
* Isaak Nusinov, a linguist and literature critic
* David Bergelson, a writer
*David Hofstein
Dovid Hofshteyn ( yi, דוד האָפשטיין ''Dovid Hofshteyn'', russian: Давид Гофштейн; June 12, 1889 in Korostyshiv – August 12, 1952), also known as David Hofstein, was a Yiddish poet. He was one of the 13 Jewish intellect ...
, a poet
* Benjamin Zuskin, an actor
* Ilya Vatenberg, an editor
*Shlomo Shleifer Shloime Mikhelevich (Solomon Mikhailovich) Shleifer was born on December 23, 1889, in Moscow. 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 ...
, Chief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi ( he, רב ראשי ''Rav Rashi'') 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. Since 1911, through a ...
of Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
* Emilia Teumin, an editor
* Leon Talmy, a journalist, translator
* Khayke Vatenberg-Ostrowskaya, a translator
* Lina Stern, a biochemist, physiologist and humanist and the first female full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; russian: Росси́йская акаде́мия нау́к (РАН) ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across ...
* Israel Fisanovich, submarine commander, Hero of the Soviet Union
The title Hero of the Soviet Union (russian: Герой Советского Союза, translit=Geroy Sovietskogo Soyuza) was the highest distinction in the Soviet Union, awarded together with the Order of Lenin personally or collectively for ...
* Shmuel Halkin
Shmuel Zalmanovich Halkin ( yi, שמואל האַלקין; be, Самуіл Залманавіч Галкін, ''Samuil Zalmanavič Halkin''; ; December 5, 1897 – September 21, 1960), also known as Samuil Galkin, was a Jewish poet of the Sovie ...
, a poet
See also
*All-Slavic Anti-Fascist Committee
The All-Slavic Anti-Fascist Committee, later known as the All-Slavic Committee of the Soviet Union, was an anti-fascist public organization established in Moscow in 1941 during the Second World War. Its main task was to unite all Slavs in the fight ...
*History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union
The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest pop ...
*Yevsektsiya
A Yevsektsiya ( rus, евсекция, p=jɪfˈsʲektsɨjə; yi, יעווסעקציע) was a Jewish section of the Soviet Communist Party. These sections were established in fall of 1918 with consent of Vladimir Lenin to carry communist revolut ...
*Doctors' plot
The "Doctors' plot" affair, group=rus was an alleged conspiracy of prominent Soviet medical specialists to murder leading government and party officials. It was also known as the case of saboteur doctors or killer doctors. In 1951–1953, a gr ...
* History of anti-Semitism
*Vasily Grossman
Vasily Semyonovich Grossman (russian: Васи́лий Семёнович Гро́ссман; 12 December (29 November, Julian calendar) 1905 – 14 September 1964) was a Soviet writer and journalist.
Born to a Jewish family in Ukraine, then ...
*Polina Zhemchuzhina
Polina Semyonovna Zhemchuzhina (born Perl Solomonovna Karpovskaya; 27 February 1897 – 1 April 1970) was a Soviet politician and the wife of the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov. Zhemchuzhina was the director of the Soviet national ...
*Jewish Bolshevism
Jewish Bolshevism, also Judeo–Bolshevism, is an anti-communist and antisemitic canard, which alleges that the Jews were the originators of the Russian Revolution in 1917, and that they held primary power among the Bolsheviks who led the rev ...
*Jewish left
The Jewish left consists of Jews who identify with, or support, left-wing or left-liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left, ho ...
Notes
References
Further reading
* ''Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee'' (by Joshua Rubenstein
Joshua Rubenstein is an American activist, writer and scholar of literature, dissent, and politics in the former Soviet Union. He won a National Jewish Book Award in Eastern European studies in 2002 for his book ''Stalin’s Secret Pogrom''.
Bio ...
)
The Black Book (Chornaya Kniga), compiled and edited by: Vasily Grossman and Ilya Erenburg
External links
sent to Mikhail Suslov
Mikhail Andreyevich Suslov (russian: Михаи́л Андре́евич Су́слов; 25 January 1982) was a Soviet people, Soviet statesman during the Cold War. He served as Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union#Secre ...
in June 1946 (Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
archives)
JAC case (in Russian language) at International Democracy Fund Archives
* ttp://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/english/61.html Beyond the Pale: The history of Jews in Russiabr>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
*
{{Authority control
1942 establishments in the Soviet Union
Anti-fascist organizations
Bundism in Europe
Jewish political organizations
Soviet state institutions
Jews and Judaism in the Soviet Union
Political repression in the Soviet Union
Organizations established in 1942
Jewish anti-fascists