The Jews in the Soviet Union since 1917

Nora Levin

The civil war and the pogroms in the Ukraine led many Jews to support their Bolshevik protectors. The removal of Tsarist restrictions, social and economic changes, and the anti-religious campaign disrupted traditional Jewish life. In the 1930s, "nationalist" Yiddish and Jewish culture fell under suspicion. Thousands of Jews died in the purges. Describes the Holocaust in the USSR, the passivity of the population, the occasional collaboration, the spread of antisemitism, and the establishment of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. From 1946 on, Stalin's insecurity and xenophobia led him to suspect the Jews' loyalty. Dismissals, mass arrests, and secret trials reached their height in the Doctors' Plot, halted only by his death. Stalin's successors, while repudiating these charges, continued a policy of discrimination and vicious anti-Zionist propaganda. Discusses the rise of the emigration and dissident movements, and the prospects for Soviet Jewry in view of recent signs of a thaw.