Judaism in the USSR during Stalin - Cold War DOCUMENTARY
at the end of last year we published a video looking at how the soviet union dealt with religion and how that changed over the lifespan of the ussr but we only looked at orthodox christianity and islam we deliberately avoided judaism in that discussion since we felt it a big enough topic that it required its own episode or episodes actually i'm your host david and this week we are going to start looking at the changing and evolving relationship between the soviet union and judaism this is the cold war i'm a passionate learner and there is nothing better than finding a new topic to explore and research which is why i love the sponsor of today's video magellan tv it's the perfect place to start that journey of exploration magellan tv's historical documentaries are a fantastic compliment for cold war channel videos for example if you've ever wondered about stalin's rise to power and how he ruled the soviet union then you have to watch stalin this documentary studies how the concept of socialism in one's country became a central tenant of soviet society literally the backdrop to one half of the cold war don't forget to check out other documentaries in magellan tv's history's verdict section to learn more about other mid 20th century leaders and the good news is magellan tv has much more than that there are more than 3 000 documentaries waiting for you and hundreds of them are on the history of various eras i really love the biographical documentaries on magellan tv as they're a perfect way to explore the life and times of prominent individuals throughout history new documentaries are added weekly and available on most devices including phones and pcs magellan tv has a kind and exclusive offer for our viewers click the link in the description to get a one month free trial and watch hundreds of history documentaries anytime anywhere we're gonna start this story in 1795 and the third partition of poland as polish territory was divided up between prussia the habsburg monarchy and the russian empire russia was the big land winner securing control of the eastern provinces of the polish-lithuanian commonwealth along with the land came its inhabitants which included over one million jews this territory known in russian as the cherta ocelosti in yiddish as their chum nam and in english as the pale of settlement was where the jews of the empire were required to live with permanent residency outside of the pale forbidden with only some specific exceptions allowed we should also mention that while the greatest number of jews in the empire lived in the pale there was also a significant jewish community in the caucasus the mountain jews who were descended from the jewish communities of the old persian empire now the romanov dynasty portrayed itself as the guardians of christianity and of orthodox christians and generally treated the jewish communities with considerable contempt and distrust referring to them as christ killers jews forced to live in the pale were also largely confined to agricultural communities and were subjected to persecution discrimination and pogroms the word pogrom by the way derives from the russian words bog ramit or to wreck or to destroy when the bolsheviks came to power in late 1917 however it was on a platform of brotherhood of nations and they immediately prohibited any ethnic-based discrimination in russia this was done as part of a bid to win over the different ethnic groups and nationalities that made up the former russian empire and to help consolidate the power of the communist party to this end and something that we talked about in our episode on soviet policy towards the nationalities initial policies were quite progressive in nature so quickly to recap in principle as well as on paper the soviet union was made up of a union of equal republics during the 1920s this manifested itself in a major focus being placed on supporting the economic social and cultural progress of nationalities and ethnic groups it was however seen as a temporary phase as the soviet union moved away from being the prison of nations as lenin had called the empire instead the ussr would allow and assist the social and cultural development of nations enabling them to reach the social levels necessary to achieve communism where everyone would be members of a single classless polity the jewish community of the soviet union was to be included in this development except there was a challenge soviet policy towards nationalities had a clear hierarchy only people with defined lands and territories were considered nations the jewish community lacked any defined political territorial unit in the ussr and as a result they were lower on the hierarchy only being considered a national lost a nationality and not a nation so steps had to be taken within that framework in 1919 the bolsheviks abolished the kahila hebrew word meaning congregation but in practice in the empire it was the name for the jewish communal structure the nazionalnos status allowed for the kahila to be replaced by soviet structures including commissariats soviets and quartz this followed the 1918 creation by the bolsheviks within the party of the yes sexia the jewish sections whose primary goal was to propagate marxist ideas to the jewish people and therefore ensure their loyalty to the nascent workers state the yes sexia as you might expect was made up primarily by jews from various leftist and socialist organizations primarily from the former jewish labour bund now being jewish is not limited to just nationality or ethnicity but also to religion as well and since atheism and the anti-religious struggle was a state policy of the soviet union the religious component of judaism needed to be addressed as part of soviet policy as such judaism faced similar types of restrictions as other major religions in the ussr from its outset the 23rd of january 1918 saw the government decree the on the separation of church from state and school from church policy which led to the closing down of many synagogues as well as the banning of judaism and religious teachings from schools the asexia were naturally front and center in this anti-judaic task they actively promoted marx's thoughts and ideas in combination with anti-religious messages by means of meetings lectures and articles in the jewish press pious jews and clergy were portrayed as sexual deviants and judaism was even found guilty and condemned to death in a mock trial held on rosh hashanah the jewish new year in 1921. the religious symbols of judaism were converted into symbols of socialism like baking hala the plated bread traditional in ashkenazi jewish practice into the shape of a hammer and sickle over one thousand cheddar schools the traditional elementary schools responsible for teaching the basics of judaism were closed the asexia activists were enthusiastic in their fight against judaism even storming into synagogues in order to interrupt services and ceremonies the asexia activist esther frumkin explained this fervor like this the danger is that the masses may think that judaism is exempt from anti-religious propaganda and therefore it rests with the jewish communists to be even more ruthless with rabbis than non-jewish communists are with priests clergymen and anyone conducting religious ceremonies became subject to discrimination and persecution and even arrest like the head of the lubavitch or a shabbat hasidic group like what was happening at the time with christian and muslim groups jewish clergy were stripped of political and civil rights their children were expelled from schools and religious objects and books were confiscated so the persecution was real but we will again point out it was targeted at the religious aspect of judaism the soviet government consistent with its policies on nationalism in the 1920s and early 1930s was supportive of a secular yiddish identity and culture for example while hebrew was deemed a language representative of the bourgeois and the clergy yiddish was upheld as a language of the working class and of progressive jews something that had been proposed by jewish activists like franken as early as 1908. the result of this was the dramatic rise in the use of yiddish in the soviet education system and in cultural programs from the establishment of the ussr to the policy shifts of stalin in the 1930s close to 1 000 schools three teachers colleges 16 technical and five agricultural institutes 116 libraries 47 reading clubs and at least four theaters operated in yiddish and this had an impact many ethnic jews in the empire were well educated this is the result of a very wide range of reasons which we won't go into here as that could actually be an entire channel on its own but this certainly did not change as the soviet union established itself in 1937 15.9 percent of physicians 10 of
writers and journalists and 10.7 percent of artists were jewish 1935 statistics show that 13.3 percent of all university students were of jewish background the jewish community in the soviet union flourished built on the roots established during the empire and with soviet support okay so this is probably where we need to talk about the impacts of oppressing the religious aspect of judaism while at the same time promoting the language and some of the cultural aspects of the jewish community all of which resulted in an emerging and unique soviet jewish identity historian anna vinogradov has stated that the religious jewish identity was specifically suppressed in favor of a secular soviet yiddish identity but since judaism was an essential component of jewish identity it was a difficult process jewish cultural customs were very heavily linked to judaism and as that aspect of life was being excluded from everyday life jewish culture began to change according to political scientist zv gittleman the idea was to create a new jewish culture and a soviet jewish nationality one which would be secular socialist and yiddish this nationality would have nothing in common with the religious hebrews bourgeois jews in capitalist countries this approach actually became the general policy of the soviet union towards all nationalities during the 1920s and into the 1930s until the sharp turn towards stalinism by encouraging secular national yiddish education and culture the practical necessity of acclimatizing soviet jews to socialist ideas was fulfilled this promotion of a secular yiddish culture was also intended to show soviet jews that the ussr was different from the tsarist empire and that it sought to ensure the jewish community would flourish and the results of this policy approach well it was considered to be a great success jews generally became loyal soviet citizens becoming an important part of the soviet intelligencia and bureaucracy historian yuri sleskin has said quote no other ethnic group was as good at being soviet and no other ethnic group was as keen on abandoning its language rituals and traditional areas of settlement interestingly on the point of language although education was available in yiddish many jewish parents chose to send their children to russian language schools seeing it as the best way to jumpstart their professional career in the new soviet state now one of the more remarkable events for soviet jews in the pre-second world war period was the establishment of their own jewish autonomous region in birobijan for a group that had a nation almost but no territory to accompany this it was a big deal mikhail kalinin the du jour soviet head of state at the time spoke to the idea of jewish autonomy in 1926. it is completely natural that the jewish population also discovers itself also strives to find its national place in the soviet union the jewish people face the great task of preserving its own nationalist and to this end a large part of the jewish population must be transformed into an economically stable agriculturally compact group which should number at least hundreds of thousands only under such conditions can the jewish masses hope for the further existence of their nationality he went on to argue that the soviet government should respect the national feelings of each small people living in the ussr only under such conditions i repeat will each nationality consider the soviet union as its fatherland these statements were made at a 1926 conference by comset the structure in the soviet government in charge of involving the soviet jewish population in production work especially agriculture comes out for those who were wondering was an abbreviation for the committee for the settlement of toiling jews on the land comsat was assigned the task of finding suitable lands for the soviet jews to settle on and then help them find accommodation and then procure agricultural tools training and even cattle initially many jews were settled in areas of belarus and ukraine and especially in crimea the asexia activists particularly former bundests heavily promoted the idea of an autonomous region inside the social estate and believed it was a necessary step for jewish self-determination and the eventual creation of a jewish nation esther fromkin said this among all the peoples and tribes to whom october has opened new possibilities is also the extra-territorial jewish people this is not yet a nation in the strict scientific sense of the word because it has neither territory nor a common economy but naturally in the practical policy of the party and of soviet power nations peoples tribes all are all treated as separate national units which have equal rights to national development under the dictatorship of the proletariat the possibility of consolidating itself as a nation opens up to the jewish people frumpkin's thoughts were echoed in 1927 by abram bragan himself a former zionist who said the significance of our work is that we are laying the foundation for the national self-determination of the jewish nation as set forth in the policy of the communist party and the leninist conception of the problem so as i just mentioned crimea was a popular choice for the creation of an autonomous republic but that didn't end up happening instead a region of the russian far east in habarovsk oblast along the chinese border was chosen 4.5 million hectares of land was chosen for the jewish people to live and produce on 4.5 million hectares of
remote and rough terrain the first jewish settlers arrived in april of 1928 and began to establish their first settlement named valdheim two years later there were nine settlements including three schools in the region in 1932 the soviet government added bitobijan as a separate economic unit to the state planning committee and in 1934 the jewish autonomous region was formally established separated from havarovsk oblast for the first time in centuries the jewish people had an officially recognized territorial unit yiddish was the official language and even the streets of birobijan were named after prominent members of the jewish community the jewish autonomous region was a socialist alternative to the zionist project emerging in palestine soviet propaganda portrayed birubhijan as a socialist utopia keeping in mind that this was during the great depression many jews from around the world including the united states argentina and even palestine immigrated to birobijan in search of a better life the goal of the soviet government was to transform the region into an economically productive group in line with marxist leninist dogma but although the facade was there the creation of a functioning soviet jewish homeland was ultimately a failure between 1928 and 1933 22 300 jews moved to the jar but what they found was extremely difficult living conditions the territory itself consisted largely of swamps marshes and generally inhospitable land although the primary occupation of those migrants to the jar was supposed to be agriculture many were not prepared for the type of work that awaited them in birobijan nor the primitive living conditions as you might expect the enthusiasm to move to a cold and swampy locale began to drop by 1939 while the population of the jar was 109 000 people only 18 000 were jews so not ideal but on autonomous jewish territory nonetheless with its own language and culture and then stalin happened as we talked about in our episodes regarding both soviet nationalism and language policy stalin began a process where russian language and culture was prioritized at the expense of others and of course it affected the jewish population in the soviet union as well the first signs of what was to come began as early as 1930 when the hypsexia were abolished removing the organized jewish voice inside the party what then followed was a series of closures between 1934 and 1939 750 yiddish language schools were closed across the country the moscow-based yiddish language newspaper der ernes was shut down in 1938 as were the special jewish courts and the yiddish language and cultural departments at both kiev and minsk universities the second world war brought immeasurable suffering and death to the jews of europe those who lived in soviet territory which was not occupied by the fascists however were relatively safer and the onset of the great patriotic war created a change albeit temporarily in the attitude of the soviet government towards religion including judaism they were suddenly seen as a force that could help mobilize soviet citizens of different backgrounds to help fight the fascist invaders 1943 saw the creation of a council on religious cults which included judaism 1942 the jewish anti-fascist committee was formed with the express aim of using soviet jews to win approval from western public and therefore assure more aid for the soviet union this included sending an official jewish delegation to the west to promote the achievements of the soviet state while calling for aid to help fight the common enemy and this is where we're going to end this first of two episodes regarding this topic our next episode will examine the approach to soviet jews and their treatment by the soviet government in the post-war period by the successive governments of stalin khrushchev and brezhnev make sure you have your notifications turned on we hope you've enjoyed today's episode and to make sure you don't miss all of our future episodes please make sure you subscribe to our channel and have established a separate territory after centuries of persecution one just for our bell button one that isn't located in the swamp i'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our supporters and if you aren't a patron please consider supporting us at patreon.com the cold war or through youtube membership we can be reached via email at thecoldwar channel gmail.com this is the cold war channel and as we think about the cold war i will leave you with the words of jfk in the final analysis our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet we all breathe the same air we all cherish our children's future and we are all mortal
2022-04-11 11:46
