The 80th Anniversary of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

80 years ago, in 1941, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) was established, and in August 1952, its leaders—prominent Jewish intellectuals—were executed.

The concept of dual loyalty (effectively interpreted as disloyalty or incomplete allegiance to the regime and society of the host country) is one of the most widespread antisemitic stereotypes of modern times, and it is by no means new. Today, this notion implies that a Jewish person stands with Israel or the Jewish people, regardless of their actual country of residence.

The relationship between Jewish communities and the authorities and populations of their host countries, as part of the broader question of Jewish existence in the Diaspora, remains a frequent subject of debate. For centuries, Jews lived among other nations and operated under diverse legal frameworks. Consequently, the Talmudic principle known as "the law of the land is the law" (Dina d'malkhuta dina) continues to be a subject of extensive discussion.

In the public sphere, this topic has been raised repeatedly both in the past and present. For instance, a 2014 survey by the Anti-Defamation League revealed that 29% of respondents believed that Jewish people possess too much influence in international relations. The study also demonstrated that accusations of dual loyalty remain a primary antisemitic stereotype.

"This substantial figure creates fertile ground for many other antisemitic trends," notes Manfred Gerstenfeld, a prominent researcher of contemporary antisemitism in the Western world. "If the interests of Israel conflict with the interests of the country where a Jew resides, an antisemite may accuse that Jewish citizen of prioritizing Israel's interests, effectively saying: 'You are not truly one of us.' The most extreme form of this dual loyalty accusation is a charge of treason."

The conclusions drawn from these discussions by host populations and their leaders rarely remained purely abstract; they repeatedly crossed into practical measures and actions that had severe consequences for Jewish communities.

The Jews of the Soviet Union were no exception. A striking phenomenon of the Soviet era was the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC), which became one of the most prominent yet tragic chapters in the history of Soviet Jewry. This body was established in 1941 at the initiative of the authorities as a propaganda tool. Its objective was to foster public opinion favorable to the USSR in the Allied countries and to organize fundraising campaigns within Western Jewish communities for the needs of the Red Army. Solomon Mikhoels, the most prominent figure in Soviet Jewish culture, was invited to lead the JAC.

According to available records, their efforts were highly successful. The Soviet newspaper Pravda reported on a decision by a special Joint Distribution Committee conference in Chicago to "finance one thousand ambulances for the needs of the Red Army."

Concurrently, regardless of his own plans or desires, Mikhoels was effectively perceived as the representative of Soviet Jewry both within and outside the USSR. It is well known that under his leadership, the JAC became a focal point for Soviet Jews seeking assistance, protection, and support, as well as a place to share their aspirations and plans.

However, this went far beyond the mandate of the JAC as defined by the authorities and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin personally, which was to function strictly for the benefit of the communist regime.

In general, the Committee's leaders accepted the established rules of the game and demonstrated their loyalty to the regime in every possible way. For instance, the very name of the official publication of this project—the newspaper "Eynikeyt" (Unity)—was explained as the "unity of Soviet patriots writing in Yiddish."

Given the success of the JAC members in fulfilling their assigned duties, the authorities temporarily tolerated the Committee's acquisition of this alternative function. This stance changed with the end of World War II and, in particular, on the eve of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. In the autumn of 1946, Mikhail Suslov, head of the party's foreign policy department, noted that the JAC had played "a certain positive role during the Patriotic War... contributing to some extent to the mobilization of the foreign Jewish population for the struggle against German fascism," but added that "with the end of the war, the positive role of the Committee has been exhausted and <...> is becoming politically harmful." According to Suslov, the primary defect in the activities of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee "is that it is acquiring an increasingly nationalistic, Zionist character... and contributes to fostering nationalistic, Zionist sentiments among a certain section of the Jewish population in the USSR."

The decision to dissolve the JAC was merely a matter of timing and circumstances. In January 1948, the head of the JAC, Solomon Mikhoels, was brutally murdered in a covert operation (strangled and subsequently run over by a truck). He was given a state funeral with obituaries and condolences in leading newspapers, a public memorial service, and speeches by prominent figures in culture and the arts; the Jewish Theater in Moscow was named after him. The Soviet press and newsreels referred to Mikhoels as a "great artist."

However, in 1948, the USSR Minister of State Security, Viktor Abakumov, presented Joseph Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Andrei Zhdanov with an extensive document on the activities of the JAC. In it, Solomon Mikhoels, along with poets Itzik Feffer, Peretz Markish, Lev Kvitko, writer David Bergelson, and other JAC members, were declared "active nationalists" who, "orienting themselves toward the Americans, are in essence conducting anti-Soviet nationalistic work." The document made mention of "uncovered American and British spies among them" who, "being hostile to the Soviet system, conducted subversive work..."

Under the communist establishment's interpretation of "dual loyalty" strictly as disloyalty to the Soviet regime and an assault on its ideological monopoly, the fate of the JAC members was sealed. Its leaders were arrested (the interrogation transcripts of those arrested in the JAC case were sent directly to Stalin) and, after being subjected to torture, were executed by firing squad. The State Jewish Theater was closed in November 1948, and Mikhoels was posthumously branded a "bourgeois nationalist" and the leader of a "Zionist conspiracy."

On August 12, 1952, the death sentences were carried out against Lozovsky, Feffer, Yuzefovich, Shimeliovich, Kvitko, Markish, Bergelson, Hofstein, Zuskin, Talmy, Teumin, Watenberg, and Watenberg-Ostrovskaya. Professor Lina Stern, the first female member of the USSR Academy of Sciences, was sentenced to three and a half years of imprisonment followed by five years of exile, while Solomon Bregman, Deputy Minister of State Control of the RSFSR, died in custody from "cardiac failure."

The charges brought against the defendants were of an extraordinary nature. For example, the Jewish theater actor Zuskin was sentenced to death because he "together with Mikhoels, staged plays in the theater that glorified the Jewish past, shtetl traditions, lifestyle, and the tragic doom of the Jews, thereby exciting nationalistic feelings among Jewish spectators," while journalist and literary critic Miriam Aizenshtadt was executed for publishing lists of 135 Jewish Heroes of the Soviet Union, as well as collecting materials and writing 30 profiles on some of them. In a note left for her husband and daughter, the journalist wrote: "The charges against me are monstrous. I will sign nothing, and therefore, we shall never meet again." As Aizenshtadt’s daughter recalls, "she signed nothing; her file contains only two pages: the interrogation transcript and the death sentence."

It is worth noting that the journalist wrote about the heroes of a recently concluded war—heroes who enjoyed well-deserved respect among the populace.

An article in Pravda on January 28, 1948, introduced the terms "rootless cosmopolitan" and "bourgeois nationalist," which became labels for Jewish intellectuals and a call to dismantle the remnants of Jewish culture in the USSR.

During the Khrushchev Thaw and the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet regime, the deceased and surviving victims of the JAC case and other post-war antisemitic campaigns were rehabilitated; however, the ideological and political tone established at the end of the Stalin era persisted for another four decades. Suspicions and accusations of "dual loyalty"—or outright disloyalty to the Soviet state—against Soviet Jews in light of "Zionist sentiments present among a section of them" formed the backdrop of both domestic and state-sponsored antisemitism (professional bans, travel restrictions, and discrimination in university admissions) almost until the very end of the Soviet era.

Dr. Haim Ben Yakov, Director General of the EAJC