The Anniversary of the Execution of the Members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

Today, on August 12, we once again commemorate the tragic fate of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC), established in late 1941 – early 1942 at the initiative of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) as a propaganda agency. The primary mission of the JAC was to foster public opinion favorable to the USSR within the Anti-Hitler coalition and to organize fundraising campaigns in Western Jewish communities to support the Red Army. The committee's success in achieving these goals and its pronounced loyalty to the Soviet authorities did not prevent the liquidation of most of its members. This occurred during one of the first post-war anti-Semitic campaigns, conducted by the NKVD under Stalin's instructions. The Chairman of the JAC, Solomon M. Mikhoels, was assassinated, and 13 of its members were executed. However, in late 1955, all members of the JAC were posthumously rehabilitated due to the absence of any criminal offense in their actions.

According to researchers, the "trigger" for these campaigns was the wave of enthusiasm that swept Soviet Jewry following the creation of the State of Israel. The immediate pretext was the mass demonstrations of solidarity on the occasion of the visit of Golda Meir, Israel's first ambassador, to the Moscow Choral Synagogue. However, these events transpired on ground already primed by the developing anti-Jewish policy of the regime, accompanied by repressions, which in fact had begun long before Golda Meir's visit to the synagogue.

In recent years, the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, in cooperation with the "Last Address" project, has dedicated several memorial plaques to the memory of the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Memorial plaques were installed in memory of Itzik Feffer, Leon Talmy, Benjamin Zuskin, and others. Furthermore, earlier this year, the EAJC and the Gulag History Museum published "The Inextinguishable Lamp," a booklet on the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. The EAJC intends to continue initiating and supporting efforts aimed at preserving the memory of the repressed members of the JAC. Blessed be their memory!