Propaganda and Nationalism in Wartime Russia By Shimon Redlich (Columbia University Press, 1982, $26.00) NINETEEN EIGHTY THREE marks the fortieth anniversary of the visit of Solomon Mikhoels and Itsik Fefer to this country. The publication of Shimon Redlich’s book on the saga of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) is thus timely and important. In 1943, … Read more
The name of Raoul Wallenberg today evokes deep emotions in the hearts of many people. For those who know even the barest details of his courageous exploits in wartime Budapest, now some thirty eight years ago, he is held in almost reverential respect. Hasidei umot ha-olam – truly a Righteous Gentile. And yet only ten … Read more
“Some day the demand for disarmament by hundreds of millions will, I hope, be so universal and so insistent that no man, no nation can withstand it.” -President Dwight D. Eisenhower A CONTROVERSY which often pervades discussion both here and abroad is the relationship between issues which defend Jewish group interests and those which espouse … Read more
We will wait for months and years. We will wait all our lives if necessary, but we will not renounce our faith or our hopes. We believe: our prayers have reached God. We know: our appeals will reach people. For we are asking: let us go to the land of our forefathers. WHEN GOLDA MEIR … Read more
Ten years after the Leningrad Trial : Part 2 the Plot is Foiled Shortly after the Six-Day War, in. the groundswell of pro-Zionist activity among Russian Jews, Mark Dymshitz, a former pilot, hit on the idea of taking an aircraft and, with other Jewish activists, escaping from the USSR. H enlisted the help of Hillel … Read more
Since the Revolution, there have always been Soviet Jews wishing to repatriate to Israel. The trauma of the Holocaust spiritually created small groups of young assimilated Jews blindly searching for an explanation. The establishment of the state of Israel provided an interpretation and a visible goal. Such clandestine groups evolved with the political thaw that … Read more
WITHIN THE past few days opponents of apartheid commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre when South African police gunned down 67 Africans (graphically pictured above). Afrikaanerdom would not bow before the winds of change or even sway in the breeze. Sharpeville was a political watershed, for it turned South Africa into a feared … Read more
Testimony: The Memoirs of Shostakovitch ed. Solomon Volkov No Travel like Russian Travel: by Nora Beloff For decades, Dmitri Shostakovich was presented as the personification of all that was best in Soviet culture. On his death in 1975. the accolades from the high and mighty cattle cascading down in a torrent of grief. Behind the … Read more
IN 1947, the Soviet Union supported the partition of Palestine and the establishment of a sovereign Jewish national State. It promoted the cause of a new Israel with great vigour within a de facto recognition of the Zionist solution to the Jewish problem. In November, 1947, stating the case for a Jewish State, Andrei Gromyko … Read more
Throughout the centuries Jews have been associated with the struggle for human rights – not only for themselves, but in spirit, and more often in practice, for the community in which they lived. This was, perhaps, an outcome of the ethical teachings of Judaism that, in the depths of persecution and personal suffering, a Jew … Read more