The EAJC invites you to the Hanukkah charity concert "The Inextinguishable Lantern"

On December 21, 2019, the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theater in Moscow will host "The Inextinguishable Lamp," a charity concert. This evening of poetry and music is dedicated to the memory of the victims of the anti-Semitic campaign — the members and staff of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.

The creators of the concert — pianist, laureate of prestigous music awards, and Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London, Evgeny Kissin, and theater and film actor, director, screenwriter, and writer, Veniamin Smekhov — aim to depict the lives and creative work of the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the traditions of the Jewish people, and the unique and nearly forgotten Yiddish language, which in the early 20th century was spoken by approximately 11 million Jews worldwide and used by many remarkable Jewish poets, prose writers, and playwrights.

Tickets can be purchased here.

Event page on Facebook.

All proceeds from ticket sales for "The Inextinguishable Lamp" concert will be directed to supporting educational projects, including those aimed at improving the accessibility and quality of educational services for children with autism spectrum disorders.

Partners: The State Museum of the History of the Gulag, Memorial International, "The Last Address" Project. Media partners: Russian Public Television (OTR), Ekho Moskvy.

Official ticketing partner: Ticketland.ru.

"The Inextinguishable Lamp" charity concert is part of a program to memorialize the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC):

In 2019, "The Last Address" project began installing the first memorial plaques on the buildings where the executed members of the JAC lived prior to their arrest. Relatives of the JAC members, activists, and the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress submitted requests for the installation of information plaques, some of which are scheduled to be placed at the respective addresses by the end of the year.

The State Museum of the History of the Gulag will publish a book titled "The Inextinguishable Lamp" about the anti-Semitic campaign and the fate of the JAC members. The release of the book will coincide with the charity concert of the same name.

From December 16, 2019, to July 2020, Memorial International will host the exhibition "Bromberg's Violin: Victims of Anti-Jewish Campaigns in the USSR in the 1920s–1950s," organized with the support of the Russian Jewish Congress. The central theme of the exhibition is persecution based on real or perceived association with Jewish religious, cultural, and political organizations.

The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee was established in the USSR in April 1942. Its mandate was to organize "aid from foreign nations to the Soviet people in achieving victory over fascism." The JAC was headed by Solomon Mikhoels, the artistic director and leading actor of the Moscow State Jewish Theater (GOSET), which was one of the most popular theaters in Moscow at the time. Mikhoels' associates in the JAC included prominent Soviet public figures, scientists, physicians, and cultural figures — poets, writers, and translators of Jewish origin. Through their active efforts, substantial moral and material support was secured for the Red Army, both domestically and from the anti-Hitler coalition in Europe and America.

Immediately following the war, Stalin initiated a broad anti-Semitic campaign. In early 1948, Solomon Mikhoels was assassinated, after which the JAC was dissolved, and many of its members and staff were arrested. In the summer of 1952, a trial of the presidium members and staff of the JAC took place. On July 18, 1952, the military court sentenced all defendants to death, with the exception of academician Lina Stern and the Deputy Minister of State Control of the RSFSR, Solomon Bregman. The sentences were carried out on August 12, 1952. Soviet censorship strictly ensured that information regarding the tragic fate of the defendants remained concealed from the public. Even after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, very few in the USSR knew that the innocent victims had been fully exonerated and their sentences overturned for lack of corpus delicti.