Rootless Cosmopolitan - Background

Background

Further information: History of the Jews in Russia and Soviet Union and History of anti-Semitism

Towards the end of and immediately after World War II, the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) grew increasingly influential to the post-Holocaust Soviet Jewry, and was accepted as its representative in the West. As its activities sometimes contradicted official Soviet policies (see Black Book as an example), it became a nuisance to Soviet authorities. The CPSU Central Auditing Commission concluded that instead of focusing its attention on the "struggle against forces of international reaction", the JAC continued the line of the Bund — a dangerous designation, since former Bund members were to be "purged".

In January 1948 the JAC's head, the popular actor and world-famous public figure Solomon Mikhoels, was killed by the Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) on the Politburo's orders; his murder was framed as a car accident where a truck ran over him as he was taking a walk on a narrow road. This was followed by eventual arrests of JAC's members and its termination.

The USSR voted for the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine and in May 1948 it recognized the establishment of the state of Israel there, subsequently supporting it with weapons (via Czechoslovakia, in defiance of the embargo) in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Many Soviet Jews felt inspired and sympathetic towards Israel and sent thousands of letters to the (still formally existing) JAC with offers to contribute to or even volunteer for Israel's defense.

In September 1948, the first Israeli ambassador to the USSR, Golda Meir, arrived in Moscow. Huge enthusiastic crowds (estimated 50,000) gathered along her path and in and around Moscow synagogue when she attended it for Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.

The September 21, 1948 edition of Pravda contained Ilya Ehrenburg's article "Regarding one letter", in which he criticized anti-Semitism but argued that the fate of Soviet Jews was assimilation into the united "Soviet people". Later he admitted that it was ordered by the dictator Josef Stalin.

These events corresponded in time with a visible upsurge of Russian nationalism orchestrated by official propaganda, the increasingly hostile Cold War and the realization by the Soviet leadership that Israel had chosen the Western option. Domestically, Soviet Jews were being considered a security liability for their international connections, especially to the United States, and growing national awareness.

With United States becoming the opponent of the Soviet Union, by the end of 1948, the USSR switched sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict and began supporting the Arabs against Israel, first politically and later also militarily. For his part David Ben-Gurion declared support for the United States in the Korean War, despite opposition from left-wing Israeli parties. From 1950 on, Israeli-Soviet relations were an inextricable part of the Cold War—with ominous implications for Soviet Jews supporting Israel, or perceived as supporting it.

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