View source for Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

{{Short description|WWII-era organization in the Soviet Union}}
{{More footnotes|date=June 2020}}

The '''Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee''',{{efn|{{langx|ru|Еврейский антифашистский комитет}} ''Yevreysky antifashistsky komitet''<br />{{langx|yi|יידישער אנטי פאשיסטישער קאמיטעט}}, ''Yidisher anti fashistisher komitet''.}} abbreviated as '''JAC''',{{efn|{{langx|ru|ЕАК}}, ''YeAK''}} was an organization that was created in the [[Soviet Union]] during [[World War II]] to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against [[Nazi Germany]], particularly from the [[Western world|West]].<ref name=Zax/> It was organized by the Jewish [[General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia|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.<ref>[[Blatman, Daniel]] (8 July 2010) "[http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Alter_Wiktor Alter, Wiktor]." Translated from the Hebrew by David Fachler. ''YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe''. Retrieved 21 October 2015.</ref><ref>Blatman, Daniel (6 August 2010). "[http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Erlich_Henryk Ehrlich, Henryk]." Translated from the Hebrew by David Fachler. ''YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe''. Retrieved 21 October 2015.</ref> Following their re-arrest, in December 1941, the Committee was reformed on [[Joseph Stalin]]'s order<ref>[[Simon Sebag-Montefiore|Sebag-Montefiore, Simon]]. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. 2003. page 560.</ref> in [[Samara, Russia|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]]"), 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 Building|Lubyanka Prison]]. Stalin and elements of the [[Ministry of State Security (Soviet Union)|Ministry of State Security]] were worried about their influence and connections with the West.<ref name=Zax>{{cite news|work=The Forward|author1=Talya Zax|title=65 Years Ago, The USSR Murdered Its Greatest Jewish Poets. What's Left Of Their Legacy?|url=http://forward.com/culture/379568/65-years-ago-the-ussr-murdered-its-greatest-jewish-poets-whats-left-of-thei|access-date=August 12, 2017|date=August 12, 2017|quote=...they...were executed in the [Lubyanka Prison]'s basement.}}</ref> They were officially [[Rehabilitation (Soviet)|rehabilitated]] in 1988.

==Activities==
[[File:Itzik Feffer, Albert Einstein and Solomon Mikhoels 1943.jpg|thumb|260px|[[Itzik Feffer]], [[Albert Einstein]] and [[Solomon Mikhoels]] in the United States in 1943.]]
[[Solomon Mikhoels]], the popular actor and director of the [[Moscow State Jewish Theatre]], was appointed the JAC chairman. The JAC's newspaper in [[Yiddish]] was called ''Eynigkayt'' ({{lang|yi|אייניקייט}} "Unity", [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]]: ''Эйникейт'').

The JAC broadcast pro-Soviet [[propaganda]] to foreign audiences, assuring them of the absence of [[antisemitism]] in the [[Soviet Union]]. In 1943, Mikhoels and [[Itzik Feffer]], the first official representatives of the Soviet Jewry allowed to visit the [[Western world|West]], embarked on a seven-month tour to the United States, Mexico, Canada and the [[United Kingdom]] to increase their support for the [[Lend-Lease]]. In the US, they were welcomed by a National Reception Committee chaired by [[Albert Einstein]] and by B.Z. Goldberg, [[Sholem Aleichem]]'s son-in-law, and [[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee]]. The largest pro-Soviet rally ever in the United States was held on July 8 at the [[Polo Grounds]], where 50,000 people listened to Mikhoels, Feffer, [[Fiorello H. La Guardia]], [[Sholem Asch]], and Chairman of [[World Jewish Congress]] [[Rabbi]] [[Stephen Samuel Wise]]. Among others, they met [[Chaim Weizmann]], [[Charlie Chaplin]], [[Marc Chagall]], [[Paul Robeson]] and [[Lion Feuchtwanger]].

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]] – other help was also contributed: machinery, medical equipment, medicine, ambulances, clothes. On May 24, 1942, at the second meeting of the “representatives of the Jewish people”, a worldwide appeal for donations was made to collect money for the purchase of 1,000 tanks and 500 airplanes for the Red Army.<ref>https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-anti-fascist-committee {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2025}}</ref> On July 16, 1943, ''[[Pravda]]'' 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 visit drew the attention of the American public to the necessity of entering the European war.

==Persecution==
[[Image:Soviet Jews participation in WW2.png|right|thumb|1946. The official response to an inquiry by JAC about the participation of the Jewish soldiers in the war (1.8% of the total number according to Soviet army records. Many Jews declared themselves as other ethnicities to avoid discrimination).{{fact|date=April 2025}} Some accuse Jews of the lack of patriotism and of hiding from the military service.]]
Towards the end and immediately after the war, the JAC became involved in documenting [[the Holocaust]]. This ran contrary to the official Soviet policy to emphasize the atrocities against all Soviet citizens, and not the specific [[genocide]] of the Jews.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.yadvashem.org/articles/academic/stalins-bureaucracy-in-action-the-jewish-anti-fascist-committee.html|title=Stalin's Bureaucracy in Action: The Creation and Destruction of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee|author=Shimon Redlich|website=The World Holocaust Remembrance Center}}</ref>

Committee members had [[Jewish diaspora|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]]. The Black Book was indeed published in [[New York City]] in 1946, but no Russian edition appeared. The [[movable type|typeface]] [[galley proof|galleys]] were broken up in 1948, when the political situation of Soviet Jewry  deteriorated.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/15/books/chapters/quotstalins-secret-pogrom-the-postwar-inquisition-of-the.html|title="Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee"|author=Joshua Rubenstein|website=The New York Times|date=15 July 2001}}</ref>

In January 1948, Mikhoels was killed in [[Minsk]] by [[Ministry of State Security (Soviet Union)|Ministry of State Security]] agents who staged the murder as a car accident.<ref name="reflections">[[Robert Conquest]] ''Reflections on a Ravaged Century'' (2000) {{ISBN|0-393-04818-7}}</ref> 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]] to serve US interests.

In January 1949, the Soviet mass media launched a massive propaganda campaign against "[[rootless cosmopolitan]]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]]" ("Ночь казненных поэтов").<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/4466454|title=The Jewish Antifascist Committee in the Soviet Union|author=Shimon Redlich|journal=Jewish Social Studies|year=1969 |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=25–36 |jstor=4466454 }}</ref>

==List of notable JAC members==
The size of JAC fluctuated with time. According to [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]] (''200 Years Together''), it grew to have about 70 members.

*[[Solomon Mikhoels]] (Chairman), the actor-director of the [[Moscow State Jewish Theater]]
*[[Solomon Lozovsky]] (Secretary), a former Soviet vice-minister of Foreign Affairs and the head of the [[Soviet Information Bureau]]
*[[Shakne Epshtein]] (Secretary and editor of the ''Eynikeyt'' newspaper)
*[[Itzik Feffer]], a poet
*[[Ilya Ehrenburg]], a writer
*[[Eli Falkovich]], a writer
*[[Solomon Bregman]], a deputy minister of State Control
*[[Aaron Katz (Soviet general)|Aaron Katz]], a [[Red Army]] general of the [[Stalin Military Academy]]
*[[Boris Shimeliovich]], the Chief Surgeon of the Red Army and director of [[Sergei Botkin|Botkin]] Hospital 
*[[Joseph Yuzefovich]], a historian
*[[Leib Kvitko]], a poet
*[[Peretz Markish]], a poet
*[[Isaak Nusinov]], a linguist and literature critic
*[[David Bergelson]], a writer 
*[[David Hofstein]], a poet
*[[Benjamin Zuskin]], an actor
*[[Ilya Vatenberg]], an editor
*[[Shlomo Shleifer]], [[Chief Rabbi]] of [[Moscow]]
*[[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]]
*[[Israel Fisanovich]], submarine commander, [[Hero of the Soviet Union]]
* [[Shmuel Halkin]], a poet

==See also==
*[[All-Slavic Anti-Fascist Committee]] 
*[[History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union]]
*[[Yevsektsiya]]
*[[Doctors' plot]]
*[[History of anti-Semitism]]
*[[Vasily Grossman]]
*[[Polina Zhemchuzhina]]
*[[Jewish Bolshevism]]
*[[Jewish left]]
==Notes==
{{noteslist}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{ISBN|0-300-08486-2}} ''Stalin's Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee'' (by [[Joshua Rubenstein]])
*[http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/black_book/Black_Book.html The Black Book (Chornaya Kniga), compiled and edited by: Vasily Grossman and Ilya Erenburg]

==External links==
{{Commons category|Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee}}
*[https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/jewi.html Memorandum concerning the Jewish Antifascist Committee] sent to [[Mikhail Suslov]] in June 1946 ([[Library of Congress]] archives)
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20040314025617/http://www.idf.ru/9/doc.shtml JAC case (in Russian language) at International Democracy Fund Archives]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20040224193831/http://www.yale.edu/annals/Reviews/review_texts/Morse_on_Pogrom_08.01.htm Stalin's secret pogrom: Commies who became politically incorrect (By Chuck Morse)]
*[http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/english/61.html Beyond the Pale: The history of Jews in Russia]
*[http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/eng_captions/61-3.html Group photo of the members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee]
*[http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%203213.pdf 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
* {{in lang|ru}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20070311030314/http://www.kackad.com/article.asp?article=6 JAC and its end]
* {{in lang|ru}} [https://web.archive.org/web/20061009051627/http://www.ort.spb.ru/nesh/jewworld/eak.htm JAC, Soviet repressions and its demise]

{{Jews in the Soviet Union}}

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[[Category:1942 establishments in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Anti-fascist organizations]]
[[Category:Bundism in Europe]]
[[Category:Jewish political organizations]]
[[Category:Soviet state institutions]]
[[Category:Jews and Judaism in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Organizations established in 1942]]
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[[Category:Jewish political movements]]