The Plight of Soviet Jewry after World War II: Reading Selections

         The piece entitled “Soviet Jews as Economic Criminals” from the Journal of the International Commission of Jurists relates that the Jews of Lvov have been there since the thirteenth century. Lvov had been under Polish rule, and it was not under Soviet influence until the end of World War II. There were 30,000 Jews in Lvov and though they did not pose a political threat to the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union viewed them as an ideological threat so they were either deported to Russia, killed by the Germans, or evacuated to Poland as the Tehran Conference decided to hand in the city to the Soviet Union.  The Jewish inhabitants of the city of Lvov were attacked in the press in seven articles that criticized the remnant of the Jewish community in Lvov. These articles carried anti-Semitic and biased perspectives. The synagogue was depicted as the site where “anti-Soviet activity” took place and as the “center for illicit currency dealings” where “Jewish speculators from Lvov and foreign towns met and carried on their trade and concluded their transactions” (p. 116).  The leadership of the synagogue was regarded as “speculators”. The ritual slaughterer Kntorovich is attacked for making “religion and its rites the source of his personal income”. He was put on trial and received the death sentence. Moreover, the Jews are accused of carrying out a “black market”. The articles also criticize the fact that Israeli diplomats visited the synagogue and distributed “Israeli propaganda material”. The Rabbi is also sentenced to death along with other members of the synagogue council. In analyzing the proceedings of these trials, it is evident that injustice was done against them. There was no fair trial and the accusations were fabricated.  The Soviet regime condemns those who have relations with people from abroad and regards them as suspicious. The attacks are also directed against the Jews of Moscow who are deemed “a large group of parasites who do not wish to encumber themselves with work useful to society” (p. 119).  The articles report other cases in which Jews are said to “go to any length in order to help their kind” (p. 120). There are other reports were Jews are depicted as being dishonest, thieves, exploiters, wanted to get rich quickly, corrupt, willing to use bribes, immoral, “whose only God is gold”. This anti-Semitic propaganda hides the true facts and relates things only one sided casting the blame on the Jews.  The goal of this is to portray how beneficial communism is and that capitalism is “both evil and less successful” (p. 126).

              “The Jewish National Movement in the Soviet Union: A Profile” by Yossi Goldstein portrays the Jewish national movement that emerged in the Soviet Union after World War II and the reasons for its emergence. An activist desired to leave the Soviet Union to emigrate to Israel and was willing to petition the government in regards for this.  The activists tended to have a better education and a better economic situation than the non-activists. Thought they did not identify with traditional religious values, they were motivated by the recent events that had emerged attacking the existence of the Jewish people, such as the Holocaust, the Six Day war, and the experiences in the Soviet Union, which included anti-Semitic incidents. They protested to be allowed to emigrate to Israel, which was forbidden to them by the regime of the Soviet Union.

              “Jewish Freedom Letters from Russia” are a collection of letters in which Jewish intellectuals were appealing to higher authorities requesting help so they would be able to emigrate to Israel when the Soviet authorities forbid them to do so, and they had no one else to turn to. The Jews of Lithuania appeal to the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party pointing out their fears given the rise of anti-Semitism and reminded to the Party that the 25,000 Jews living in Soviet Lithuania are aware of the mass murders that have been carried out against their tens of thousands of their brethren. The point that the anti-Israeli propaganda that is carried out leads to the rise of anti-Semitism in their midst and they point how Jews face significant restrictions in their daily lives, such as not having access to higher education and jobs, not being able to teach their children Hebrew, being publicly humiliated and oppressed, even Jewish cemeteries being desecrated in Lithuania, something that did not happen not even under the Nazis. Another letter depicts a similar situation in the Soviet Union, where anti-Israel propaganda prevails. Moreover, the Jews of Georgia address a letter to the Prime Minister of Israel Golda Meir and to the Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations were they delineate their plight and request help to leave to Israel. Boris Kochubiyevsky’s letter points out his plight as a Jew living in the Soviet Union who is harshly punished with 3 years of forced labor for his support of Israel. He lost his job as an engineer and his wife was dismissed from the Pedagogical Institute of the Young Communist League. In his letter, he points out that his relatives were shot by the fascists, and he is forbidden to teach his children Hebrew, to read Jewish newspapers or to attend a Jewish theater. Under the Soviet regime, he was accused like a criminal of “slandering Soviet reality”.

          The excerpts from “Fascism under the Blue Star” from Theodore Freedman’s  “Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union are directed at attacking the ideology of Zionism that the Jewish people, regardless of where they were born and where they live, form one undivided nation. It claims that the ancient Hebrews have disappeared a long time ago, and therefore the “slogan of Zionism” in regards to “the ingathering of the nation from the Diaspora” is unfounded. The argument is that a Jewish nation is being created by the Zionists now in the “national home” they claim, but this did not exist before. They say that the countries in which Jews live have welcomed them like brothers and the Jews have prospered in these locations intellectually and economically, and therefore the Jews belong to these social milieus. It claims that Zionism wants to instill anger in the midst of the other people where the Jews live so as to compel the Jews to leave their countries and come to Israel where a new nation would be built.