Broken Heart / Broken Wholeness: The Post-Holocaust Plea for Jewish Reconstruction of the Soviet Yiddish Writer Der Nister 9781618115317

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Broken Heart / Broken Wholeness THE POST-HOLOCAUST PLEA FOR JEWISH RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOVIET YIDDISH WRITER DER NISTER

Jews of Russia & Eastern Europe and Their Legacy Series Editor Maxim D. Shrayer (Boston College) Editorial Board Ilya Altman (Russian Holocaust Center and Russian State University for the Humanities) Karel Berkhoff (NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies) Jeremy Hicks (Queen Mary University of London) Brian Horowitz (Tulane University) Luba Jurgenson (Universite ParisIV—Sorbonne) Roman Katsman (Bar-Ilan University) Dov-Ber Kerler (Indiana University) Vladimir Khazan (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Mikhail Krutikov (University of Michigan) Joanna Beata Michlic (Bristol University) Alice Nakhimovsky (Colgate University) Antony Polonsky (Brandeis University) Jonathan D. Sarna (Brandeis University) David Shneer (University of Colorado at Boulder) Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto) Leona Toker (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Mark Tolts (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

Broken Heart / Broken Wholeness THE POST-HOLOCAUST PLEA FOR JEWISH RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOVIET YIDDISH WRITER DER NISTER BER KOTLERMAN

Boston 2017

Published with the assistance of The Itzhak Akavyahu Fund Department of Literature of the Jewish People Bar Ilan University and The Şitnovitzer-Schmidt-Hecht Memorial Foundation Tel Aviv Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Names: Kotlerman, Ber Boris, 1971- author. Title: Broken heart / broken wholeness : the post-Holocaust plea for Jewish reconstruction of the Soviet Yiddish writer Der Nister/ Ber Kotlerman. Other titles: Jews of Russia & Eastern Europe and their legacy. Description: Boston : Academic Studies Press, 2016. | Series: Jews of Russia & Eastern Europe and their legacy Identifiers: LCCN 2016037758 (print) | LCCN 2016041052 (ebook) | ISBN 9781618115300 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781618115317 (e-book) Subjects: LCSH: Nister, 1884-1950-Travel—Russia (Federation)—Birobidzhan. | Nister, 1884-1950-Trials, litigation, etc. | Authors, Yiddish—Soviet Union—Biography.| Jewish authors—Crimes against—Russia (Federation)—Birobidzhan. | Jews-Persecutions—Soviet Union. Classification: LCC PJ5129.K27 Z73 2016 (print) | LCC PJ5129.K27 (ebook) | DDC 839/.0933 [B] -dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016037758 I SBN 978-1-61811-530-0 (hardback) ISBN 978-1-61811-531-7 (electronic) Copyright © 2017 Academic Studies Press All rights reserved Book design by Kryon Publishing www.kryonpublishing.com Published by Academic Studies Press in 2017 28 Montfern Avenue Brighton, MA 02135, USA [email protected] www.academicstudiespress.com

Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. Virgil, Aeneid 3.658

And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great horn shall be blown; and they shall come that were lost in the land of Assyria, and they that were dispersed in the land of Egypt; and they shall worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem. Isaiah 27:13

Contents

Foreword by Zvi Gitelman...................................................... viii Note on the Translation and Transliteration................................. x Acronyms and Abbreviations..................................................... xi Preface................................................................................. xiii Part One: Der Nister’s Journey from Moscow to Birobidzhan ........ 1 A Wedding on a Migrant Train............................................... 3 Der Nister’s Images and Impressions ...................................... 20 “With the Second Echelon” .............................................23 “With the New Settlers to Birobidzhan”............................ 35 A Man Dieth in a Tent ....................................................... 55 Russian-Jewish “Hybridization”.............................................73 Comfort Ye My People.........................................................87 Real Action....................................................................... 102 Part Two: Investigation Case No. 68......................................... 115 Der Nister Affair............................................................... 117 Accused in the Case .......................................................... 136 Detention Order: BUZI MILLER, June 6, 1949, Birobidzhan 140 Interrogation Records........................................................ 145 Defendant HESHL RABINKOV, July 23, 1949, Khabarovsk .145 Defendant BUZI MILLER, August 5, 1949, Khabarovsk .... 151 Defendant BUZI MILLER, August 29, 1949, Khabarovsk .. 169 Defendant BUZI MILLER, September 17, 1949, Khabarovsk .. 179 Defendant ITSIK FEFER, June 30, 1949, Moscow ............. 185 Defendant BUZI MILLER, October 1949, Khabarovsk ...... 189

Contents

Defendant BUZI MILLER and Defendant HESHL RABINKOV, October 28, 1949, Khabarovsk (Confrontation)....193 Defendant LUBA VASSERMAN, July 12, 1949, Khabarovsk 199 Arrestee GRIGORI FRID, April 4, 1938, Minsk (Testimony) .203 Defendant LUBA VASSERMAN, August 17, 1949, Khabarovsk ..................................................................207 Defendant SHIMEN SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, October 25, 1949, Khabarovsk......................................... 211 Defendant FAIVISH ARONES, November 1949, Khabarovsk................................................................... 215 Defendant FAIVISH ARONES, November 21, 1949, Khabarovsk ..................................................................217 Defendant FAIVISH ARONES and Witness ALEKSANDR DRISIN, November 29, 1949, Khabarovsk (Confrontation) ...........................................223 Resubmission of the Indictment: Defendant BUZI MILLER, December 15, 1949, Khabarovsk ......................................... 231 Bill of Indictment: BUZI MILLER, HESHL RABINKOV, ISROEL EMIOT, BER SLUTSKI, LUBA VASSERMAN, SHIMEN SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, and FAIVISH ARONES, April 6, 1950, Khabarovsk (Excerpts)................... 233 The Sentence: BUZI MILLER, May 31, 1950, Moscow (Excerpt).......................................................................... 241 The Early Release: BUZI MILLER, December 27, 1955, Moscow (Excerpt)....................................................................242 Appendix: Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto” (Yiddish) .........243 Bibliography ...............................................................................257 Index.......................................................................................... 273

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Foreword

As might be expected by those familiar with the fashions of historiography, in recent decades scholars have turned from descriptions and analyses of the dominant and mainstream in the study of Russia and the Soviet Union to examining the marginal and deviant. In their zeal to “correct” the “errors” of their predecessors, revisionists sometimes do not just challenge previously accepted truths but reject them reflexively and uncritically. However, as Hegel might have predicted, a third wave of analysis sometimes comes along and navigates a middle course between the old and new orthodoxies. This judicious book is a case in point. In some circles, the radical, rejectionist, and militantly communist Yiddish literature produced in the Soviet Union in the two decades before World War II was welcomed as a breath of fresh air. But following the war, it was mostly dismissed as hack work written for political reasons and without artistic merit. In recent years, a reassessment of this literature has been undertaken in an attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff and the lasting from the evanescent. In such a reassessment, the work of Pinkhas Kahanovitsh (“Der Nister”) looms large. Der Nister was indeed “hidden” from the wrath of Soviet conformism and survived the scrutiny of ideological vigilantes longer than many of his contemporaries. He was the most un-Soviet of the Soviet Yiddish literary establishment. Deeply influenced by his traditional religious upbringing and explorations of Jewish mysticism, Der Nister’s prerevolutionary writings, delving into the fantastic and symbolic, were very far from what became the Soviet official aesthetic of “socialist realism.” Even after returning to Russia in 1925, Der Nister continued to write fantastic stories. When he moved toward a more Soviet thematic and style, he stood out from genuinely enthusiastic Stalinists, such as Itsik Fefer, by his focus on historical themes. Though

Foreword

he was a member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during the war, after the war he seemed still aloof from the mainstream of Yiddish writing. Der Nister’s trip to Birobidzhan, vividly portrayed and analyzed in this book, appeared to be firmly in line with the prevailing Soviet orthodoxy, but it may well have been, as Mishe Lev and Ber Kotlerman surmise, Der Nister’s grasping for some last hope that Yiddish culture and the Soviet Jewish would survive the catastrophe that had befallen them during the war. Of course, within a year and a half, that hope was dashed with Der Nister’s arrest and the liquidation of Soviet Yiddish culture and its leading lights. This unusual book combines a description of Der Nister’s journey to Birobidzhan, his own writings about it, and a transcript of the subsequent trial of the Birobidzhan “conspirators,” who were supposedly and incongruously organized by Der Nister. It provides several unusual angles of vision by which we can view the complexities of the immediate postwar situation of Soviet Jewry. Based on new archival research and personal interviews, this book brings the reader as close as possible to the realities of postwar Soviet Jewish life as it was lived by different kinds of people. In turn, that can point to further developments, culminating in the massive Soviet Jewish emigration in the decades following 1971. Der Nister’s personal fate encapsulates the larger tragedy of Soviet Jewry. They were forced to live constantly with tensions between the tug of a rich religio-cultural tradition and a revolutionary new secular culture, between personal fulfillment and political obligation, and between dreams of new beginnings and crushing disappointments. This was compounded by the inability to express these tensions publicly and the hypocrisy forced upon people by a demanding, vigilant regime. The people emigrated and the regime collapsed, but not before it had claimed its victims. Zvi Gitelman

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Note on the Translation and Transliteration

All the sources cited in the bibliographical references in this book are spelled out in the original language and orthography. Yiddish words, and Jewish names in the Yiddish sources, are given using the system of Latin transliteration of the YIVO Institute. Russian and Ukrainian titles are transliterated using the Library of Congress transliteration system, and Hebrew titles are given in a simplified Latin transcription. In order to make recognition simpler, capital letters in titles and personal names absent in Yiddish and Hebrew are entered in the transliteration. The names of literary works in Yiddish, Russian, and other languages are cited in English translation and in their original in Latin transcription upon their first appearance. The names of Russian, Yiddish, Hebrew, and other periodicals are given in the original in Latin transcription.

Acronyms and Abbreviations Agitprop  Otdel agitatsii i propagandy TsK VKP(b)/KPSS (The CC CPSU Department for Agitation and Propaganda) Ambijan American Birobijan Committee, or American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobijan, USA CC CPSU  Tsentral’nyi Komitet Kommunisticheskoi Partii Sovetskogo Soyuza (Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union) GAEAO  Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Evreiskoi avtonomnoi oblasti (State Archive of the Jewish Autonomous Region), Birobidzhan Glavlit  Glavnoe upravlenie po delam literatury (Central Office for Matters of Literature) GOSET Gosudarstvennyi evreiskii teatr (State Yiddish Theater) JAFC Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, USSR JAR  Jewish Autonomous Region (Birobidzhan) KOMZET  (Komerd, in Yiddish) Komitet po zemel’nomu ustroistvu evreiskikh trudiashchikhsia (Committee for the Settlement of Toiling Jews on the Land) MGB  Ministerstvo gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti (Ministry of State Security) MGETU  Moskovskoe gosudarstvennoe evreiskoe teatral’noe uchilishche (Moscow State Jewish Seminar of Theater) MVD Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del (Ministry of Internal Affairs) Obllit  Oblastnoe upravlenie po delam literatury (Regional Office for Matters of Literature) OZET (Gezerd, in Yiddish) Obshchestvo po zemel’nomu ustroistvu evreiskikh trudiashchikhsia (Society for Settling Toiling Jews on the Land) RGALI  Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (Russian State Archive of Literature and Art), Moscow RGASPI  Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii (Russian State Archive of Social and Political History), Moscow YIVO  Yidisher visnshaftlekher institut (Institute for Jewish Research), New York

Der Nister (Pinkhas Kahanovitsh, 1884-1950) Courtesy of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art

Preface

A year and a half before his arrest in Moscow, and three years before his tragic death in a labor camp hospital not far from the Arctic Circle, one of the most significant Soviet Jewish writers and, perhaps, one of the most studied today, Der Nister (Pinkhas Kahanovitsh/Kaganovich, 1884–1950), made a trip to Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) in the Soviet Far East. He traveled there on a special migrant train, together with a thousand Jewish Holocaust survivors, mostly from the Ukraine. This trip, made in the summer of 1947, is a rather well-known historical fact, usually portrayed in biographical essays about Der Nister as one of the significant events in his life. “Now, after the Holocaust, Der Nister viewed himself as being obligated to raise his voice in matters he had kept away from previously,” the prominent scholar of Yiddish literature Khone Shmeruk wrote about the writer’s journey.1 However, what, in fact, had Der Nister wanted to say? In February 2009, I found myself in Kibbutz Merhavia in the Galilee as a guest of Shalom Luria (who, unfortunately, has since passed away), the keen adept and translator of Der Nister from Yiddish into Hebrew. It was Shalom who asked the question above. He then proposed that I take it upon myself to “look the writer in the face” in this matter and publish my findings in the scholarly journal he edited.2 During the second half of the 1940s, for a short period, the Soviet authorities enabled a renewal of mass Jewish resettlement in Birobidzhan.3   1 Hone Shmeruk, “Der Nister: hayav u-yetsirato,” in Der Nister, Hanazir ve-hagdiya: sipurim, shirim, maamarim (Jerusalem: Mosad Byalik, 1963), 46.   2 It was a Haifa University journal, Hulyot/Ringen, dedicated to Yiddish literature and its ties with Hebrew literature, which was folded after Luria’s death in 2011.   3 For the scholarly books devoted exclusively to the project, see Ya’akov Lvavi (Babitski), Hahityashvut hayehudit be-Birobidzhan (Jerusalem: Historical Society of Israel, 1965), Robert Weinberg, Stalin’s Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making

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My family was among those directly affected by this development, and so it had always attracted my interest as a topic for research. I was not as interested in the factual aspects of the episode (which are still far from being well known) as in the spiritual quests of those who participated in it. Der Nister, with his characteristic pathos, called these quests a matter of striving for “consolidation of the Jewish people” and “reconstruction of the broken wholeness.” The settlers themselves looked upon their move more simply. Thus, in my family there is a story about my grandfather on my father’s side (a former Red Army soldier whose first wife and small son were killed in a Nazi action) suddenly deciding to “go away tsu undzerike [to our own people]” after someone complained loudly in his presence that it was too bad that not all [the Jews] were killed. Gradually I began to collect material. Apart from the travel notes written by Der Nister himself,4 and by the Yiddish newspaper Eynikayt correspondent Ilia Lumkis, who was traveling on the same train with the writer,5 two other items were available to illuminate those distant events with especial vividness and brilliance. One item was the reminiscences of the poet Isroel Emiot, whose manuscript I found, thanks to the prompting of Mordechai Altshuler of the Hebrew University, in the store rooms of the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem.6 The other item was the memoirs of the of a Soviet Jewish Homeland: An Illustrated History, 1928–1996 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), Antje Kuchenbecker, Zionismus ohne Zion. Birobidz ˘an: Idee und Geschichte eines jüdischen Staates in Sowjet-Fernost (Berlin: Metropol, 2000), and Ber Kotlerman, In Search of Milk and Honey: The Theater of “Soviet Jewish Statehood” (1934–49) (Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2009). See also the special issue on Birobidzhan of Jews in Eastern Europe 3, no. 49 (2002).   4 See below in this book.   5 Ilya Lyumkis, Eshelonen geyen keyn Birobidzhan (Moscow: Der Emes, 1948).   6 Emiot’s manuscript no. 544 from the collection of documents of the Israeli governmental liaison organization “Nativ” is held in the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem (hereinafter: Emiot, CAHJP). The manuscript is much more detailed than its published version, Yisroel Emiot, Der birobidzhaner inyen (khronik fun a groyliker tsayt) (Rochester, NY: Sol Bogorad, 1960), and than its English translation, Israel Emiot, The Birobidzhan Affair: A Yiddish Writer in Siberia (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1981).

Preface

poet Yosef Kerler.7 It seems that these two poets were among the persons closest to Der Nister during the time of his Birobidzhan tour. Their highly emotional approach helped me greatly to “look the writer in the face” more intently. Then, when I received an invitation to speak at the Der Nister conference to be held at Oxford’s St. Hilda’s College in August 2012, I became seriously involved. Preparing my paper,8 I reread once again the materials of Investigation Case No. 68, conducted by the Khabarovsk Directorate of the USSR Ministry of State Security (MGB) in 1949–50, where the name of Der Nister is mentioned more than once. These materials were given to me by Mikhael Zozulya, a doctoral student at the Bar Ilan University’s Center of Yiddish Studies. He did so at the request of Mark Miller, now deceased, son of one of the figures implicated in the case. In the mid-1990s, not long before immigrating to Israel, Mark got the opportunity to look at the case’s documents in the former archives of the KGB in Khabarovsk and to photocopy that part of them concerning his father, the Birobidzhan Yiddish writer Buzi Miller. From the six bulky volumes of the investigation, Mark chose about one hundred pages. He did not limit himself to records of the investigations of his father exclusively, but he made an effort to take a more or less representative sample, including documents touching upon other persons involved in the case, such as the Yiddish writers Heshl Rabinkov, Luba Vasserman, Ber Slutski, and Isroel Emiot, the Yiddish theater actor Faivish Arones, and the JAR Regional Executive Committee Resettlement Department employee Shimen Siniavski-­Sindelevich. They were all arrested in July–October 1949 and sentenced in absentia by the Special Council of the USSR MGB on May 31, 1950, in Moscow to ten years in labor camp.   7 Yoysef Kerler, “Der Nister (1884–1950),” in Geklibene proze (eseyen, zikhroynes, dertseylungen) (Jerusalem: Yerusholaymer almanakh, 1991), 109–24.   8 For the abridged version of the paper, see Kotlerman, “We Are Lacking ‘A Man Dieth in a Tent’: Der Nister’s Search for Redemption in the Summer of 1947,” in Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister, ed. Gennady Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge, and Mikhail Krutikov (Oxford: Legenda, 2014), 174–84. The editors of this collection organized the abovementioned conference.

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By a malicious twist of fate, just several days after the pronouncement of this sentence, Der Nister died in a special camp for political prisoners, located in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, about fifty kilometers from the Arctic Circle. However, his name continued to appear in trials that ensnared other Birobidzhaners, including figures active in Jewish culture and former public leaders of the JAR. In the very beginning of 1956, all the accused in the “Birobidzhan Affair” were released from prison ahead of schedule and later restored (rehabilitated in Soviet terminology) to the state of acquittal. Two of the accused, the writer Ber Slutski and the former chairman of the JAR Regional Executive Committee, Mikhail Levitin, died before their release. The publication of the materials of the Khabarovsk investigation available to us is important in itself, especially in light of the fact that the stenograph of a similar nepravednyi sud (“unjust trial,” to use Vladimir Naumov’s phrase) has been published, that is, the stenograph of the notorious Moscow trial, known as the “Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee’s Case,” in which charges were brought against the Yiddish writers David Bergelson, Perets Markish, David Hofshtein, Itsik Fefer, Leib Kvitko, and others.9 And if, in the latter case, we are dealing with statements made by the accused during the actual court proceedings, then the Khabarovsk materials enable us to gain insight into how the pretrial preparations for similar cases were conducted. The obviously fabricated character of the “Birobidzhan Affair,” which became one of the elements in the anti-Semitic campaign orchestrated in the USSR in 1948–53, cannot be demonstrated today with any greater clarity. The investigators acted brutally in their efforts to break the spirit of the accused, using various types of physical coercion, such as punishment cells and nighttime interrogations. Today, in the court of history, the “confessions” and mutual recriminations beaten out of these exhausted,   9 Vladimir Naumov, ed., Nepravednyi sud: poslednii stalinskii rasstrel: Stenogramma sudebnogo protsessa nad chlenami Evreiskogo antifashistskogo komiteta (Moscow: Nauka, 1994); also Joshua Rubenstein and Vladimir Naumov, eds., Stalin’s Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press/The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2001).

Preface

intimidated, and humiliated persons—who, with their last bit of strength, resisted the pressure being put upon them, and sometimes even managed to compel their inquisitors to change tactics—by no means reflect badly upon them. They reflect, rather, the inhumanity and cruelty of the Stalinist system, which tried to conceal its immorality behind a farcical imitation of legality, and in doing so spawned a countless multitude of innocent victims. The records of the interrogations of the Birobidzhaners have also a clearly anti-Semitic tone that underlines all the more distinctly the perversity of that system, whose prosecutors turned both the leading cultural figures of the “Soviet Jewish Statehood” (the regime’s own creation) and Jewish culture in general into outlaws. Furthermore, this was done at a time when the Holocaust and the war against Nazi Germany were fresh and painful memories. It is not necessary to look for any signs of guilt in the figures interrogated. Peter Maggs of the University of Illinois, an expert on Soviet law, expresses this conclusion forcefully and concisely when giving his evaluation of the procedure followed in the arrest and sentencing of Der Nister. He writes, “These documents certainly do not tell the truth, let alone the whole truth . . . because they are based on what George Orwell called ‘THE BIG LIE.’”10 The materials of Investigation Case No. 68 reveal that Der Nister was cynically chosen by the MGB investigators to play the fabricated role of organizer and catalyst sent by the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee to set up what the MGB called the “anti-Soviet nationalist grouping in Birobidzhan”—whose existence the investigation ostensibly aimed to prove. However, these materials not only reflect the jesuitical character of the criminal charges brought against the Birobidzhaners connected with Der Nister. Directly and indirectly they also reveal many details about Der Nister’s acts while in Birobidzhan, and give some glimpses of his conception of a postwar Jewish renascence. The writer formulated this vision more clearly in his previously unknown notes (called herein “Birobidzhan Manifesto”), the last that have reached us from 10 Peter B. Maggs, The Mandelstam and “Der Nister” Files: An Introduction to Stalin-era Prison and Labor Camp Records (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996), 3.

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Der Nister’s creative legacy, which are being discussed for the first time in this book. Without the territory the Jews could call their own, Der Nister said, the Jewish people were like “a soul without a body or a body without a soul, and in either case, always a cripple.”11 The materials relating to Investigation Case No. 68 are valuable in their own right, both as a vivid example of state-supported anti-Jewish policy in the USSR in the late 1940s to the early 1950s and as a companion piece to the materials relating to the “JAFC Case.”12 At the base of this book, however, lies the contextualization of these materials in connection with Der Nister, in particular, and this dictated the work’s structure. Part One, with the writer’s 1947 trip to the JAR as its background, is devoted to a historical and literary analysis of Der Nister’s writings, thoughts, and real deeds in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Also included in Part One is a complete translation of Der Nister’s impressions of his journey on the migrants’ train, which became a literary memorial to the postwar Jewish migration to Birobidzhan. Part Two concentrates on the formulation of the charges against Der Nister and the Birobidzhan Yiddish writers associated with him. It includes the translation of fourteen records of interrogations, testimonies, and confrontations, along with several accompanying documents. In addition, a photocopy of Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto” in the original Yiddish is presented as an appendix to the book. I would like to express my profound gratitude to all the people who helped me in this project. I thank first of all Shalom Luria, z“l, for his proposal to “look the writer in the face,” and Yaacov Ro’i of Tel Aviv University for encouraging me to study the postwar resettlement in Birobidzhan as a whole. Special thanks are due to the Yiddish writer Mishe Lev, z“l, and to the composer Sergo Bengelsdorf, son of the 11 Der Nister, “Birobidzhan,” Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), f. 3121, op. 1, d. 32. See Appendix, 255. 12 For the connection between the two cases, see Shimon Redlich, War, Holocaust, and Stalinism: A Documented History of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR (Luxembourg: Harwood, 1995), 150.

Preface

poetess Luba Vasserman, the only witnesses of Der Nister’s trip with whom I had occasion to talk, for sharing with me their valuable recollections, and also to Mark Miller, z“l, without whom the records of the Birobidzhaners’ interrogations in the prison cells of the Khabarovsk MGB would never have reached us. I thank Mikhael Zozulya for copying the interrogation records and Ekaterina Melnik for typesetting them on the computer; Aleksandr Frenkel, director of the St. Petersburg Jewish Community Center, for the help he rendered in working with the materials of the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg; Vera Knorring, archivist of the Russian National Library’s Yiddish collection; Mordechai Altshuler of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem for supplying information about Isroel Emiot; Zvi Mark of Bar Ilan University, for consultations on questions of Hasidism; Daniela Osatsky-Shtern, director of the archive of the Mordechai Anielewicz Memorial Holocaust Study and Research Center in Givat Haviva, for help in working with the Shlomo Perlmutter collection; Arkadi Zeltser, director of Yad Vashem’s Center for Research on the History of Soviet Jews during the Holocaust, for help in working with Yad Vashem’s archives; Anna Sorokina, teacher at the Moscow “Poly-Cultural Center,” for help in working with the Der Nister collection at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow; and to the English translators, Irwin Michael Aronson of Raanana, Shifra Blass of Neve-Tsuf, and Sara Davolt of Kfar HaNassi. I also thank the patient archivists and other employees of the National Library of Israel and the Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem, the Bar Ilan University’s Wurzweiler Central Library, the Mehlmann Library at the Tel Aviv University’s Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center, the Oral History Division of the Hebrew University’s Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry in Jerusalem, the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, the State Regional Museum of Local History and Lore in Birobidzhan, and the State Archive of the Jewish Autonomous Region in Birobidzhan, the Documentation Department of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and the YIVO Institute in New York. Special thanks are due to the Academic Studies Press staff and the editor of the

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“Jews of Russia and Eastern Europe and Their Legacy” series, Maxim D. Shrayer, and to the Isaac and Jessie Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies and Research and its rich library at the University of Cape Town, my sabbatical home in the last months of my Der Nister project. Thank you, my friends and family, for your support. And, last but not least, I owe a special debt of gratitude to my great-grandmother, Luba Pievski, who saved our family during World War II—her image constantly accompanied me during my work on this book. Ber Kotlerman

A Wedding on a Migrant Train

At the end of June 1947, somewhere east of the Siberian Lake Baikal, in one of the carriages of the “Vinnitsa–Birobidzhan” special migrant train, a Jewish wedding was held. Under the improvised huppa (“wedding canopy”) stood a demobilized soldier who had lost his whole family in the recent war with the Nazis and a girl who by a miracle remained alive as her family was shot to death during a Nazi action. No rabbi was to be found on the train, so a former shokhet (“ritual slaughterer”) blessed the newlyweds. During the traditional wedding ceremony the bride sobbed bitterly, and the guests sobbed with her. After this, the benches were tossed onto upper shelves, and the new settlers, deeply moved, began to dance the traditional sher to the tune of cheerful klezmer music. Following custom, the guests gave the newly married couple gifts, and one of the women, accompanied by a violin, even delivered improvised badchen (“wedding jester”) verses, in juicy Yiddish, about the new land and the new home, the people’s blood, and the seeds that were destined yet to sprout.1 The Jews of the huge Soviet Union, and fellow Jews abroad, learned about this unusual event rather quickly from the newspapers. The Yiddish poet from Kishinev, Yankev Shternberg, grandiloquently called this wedding “a touching Song of Songs of [our] tragic and heroic time.”2 The Yiddish writer from Moscow, Pinkhas Kahanovitsh— better known in literary circles in the USSR and abroad by the mystical   1 See Ilya Lyumkis, “Di ershte khasene,” Eynikayt, July 26, 1947.   2 Yankev Shternberg, “‘Eshelonen geyen keyn Birobidzhan,’” Eynikayt, November 2, 1948.

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pseudonym Der Nister, “The Hidden One”— wrote about the same wedding with great emotion: Yo, orem, ober freylekh: tsvey klezmer, eyn kley-koydesh, on a kdushnring un bronfn onshtot vayn, ober me veynt un me tantst, oysgebndik a tokhter mit a zun fun undzer shir nisht umgekumenem klal, a zun mit a tokhter fun der ale mol lebns-feiker un ale mol fun ale fayern un umglikn gants aroyskumendiker ume! . . . Lekhayim! . . . Veyibone bays be­-Yisroel!—Zol vider geboyt vern dos hoyz fun folk far kinder un far kinds-kinder. Yes, poor but happy: two klezmer musicians, one “religious cult servant” without a wedding ring and with vodka in place of wine, but—people cried and danced at the wedding of a daughter and son of our nearly destroyed people, a son and daughter of this nation that always loves life and always emerges from all the fires and disasters . . . L’chaim! To life! . . . May the House of Israel be rebuilt for the sake of the children and the children’s children!3

Der Nister used with good effect a prayer religious Jews repeat three times a day: “May it be Your will, Lord, our God and the God of our fathers, that Your sacred House [of Israel] be speedily rebuilt in our days.” He thus turned the modest wedding of two orphans into a symbol imbued with a Messianic spirit of the rebirth of his people, which had nearly been completely destroyed by the Holocaust: Ot demlt . . . hot undzer eshelon gepravet a khasene fun eynem a mitforndik porl, vos hot aleyn, nit visndik derfun, gedint dem ibervanderer-oylem, velkher iz in a groysn teyl bashtanen fun tsum toyt farmishpete lagernikes—als simbol fun vider-uflebung fun zeyer gorn kibets, vos hot ot-ot gehaltn ba untergeyn un gentslekh fun der erd opgevisht vern. Our migrant train celebrated the wedding of one couple riding on it, who, without themselves knowing it, served the migrating   3 Der Nister, “Mit ibervanderer keyn Birobidzhan,” Heymland 1 (1947): 116.

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public—which consisted mostly of camp-prisoners condemned to death—as a symbol of the rebirth of their whole people, which had already stood on the brink of destruction and under the threat of being finally wiped off the face of the earth.4

On the night of June 6, 1947, the train described above (called “echelon” in the Russian military slang) left the Ukrainian town of Vinnitsa. It consisted of forty-five cars holding about a thousand passengers, of whom a third were children under the age of sixteen.5 This was already the second Jewish migrant train to Birobidzhan organized in Vinnitsa and its vicinity. In a while, a third was to follow. Although there were passengers from other places, the shtetlekh (“small towns”) of Podolia became, not by chance, the main providers of “repatriates”6 for three whole migrant trains. It was precisely in these villages, devastated by the Nazis and their local collaborators, that a postwar outburst of anti-Semitism took place. By the end of 1948, there would be another nine such migrant trains, reaching far-off Birobidzhan from the southeastern regions of the Ukraine (Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa, and Dnepropetrovsk), Crimea (Simferopol), and even Uzbekistan (Samarkand).7 The train from Samarkand brought Jewish refugees who had fled to the Central Asian Soviet republics during the war from territories in the west occupied by the forces of Nazi Germany. Among the passengers were my six-month-old future mother and her parents and grandmother, widow of a soldier who fell in Stalingrad. Several months later my recently   4 Ibid., 114.   5 Der Nister writes that there were 993 passengers, which corresponds to the press reports. See, for example, [Mishe Lev], “Der eshelon naye ibervanderer aroysgeforn fun Vinitse,” Eynikayt, June 7, 1947. According to the information issued by the Council of Ministers of the Ukraine, this echelon transported 346 families, 1,221 persons in all; see Mikhail Mitsel, Evrei Ukrainy v 1943–1955 gg.: Ocherki dokumentirovannoi istorii (Kiev: Dukh i Litera, 2004), 110. These figures probably reflect the number of immigrants in the official plan.   6 According to notices in the Vinnyts’ka pravda newspaper, Regional Departments of Repatriation were dealing with resettlement in the JAR. See Mitsel, Evrei Ukrainy, 105.   7 For the list of the trains, see Lvavi, Hahityashvut, 102–6.

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born future father, his sisters, and his parents (each of whom had lost their previous family) came to Birobidzhan from Zaporozhye, Ukraine, traveling on their own. The renewal of mass resettlement of Jews in the JAR came about as the result of government decisions taken in January 26–27, 1946, which unfroze the “Birobidzhan Project” that had been halted during the war.8 The plan was to resettle, on a voluntary basis, 12,000 to 15,000 families,9 that is, about 50,000 to 60,000 persons, by 1950. However, toward the end of 1949, Jewish resettlement in Birobidzhan was once more virtually halted, this time by the officially inspired anti-Semitic campaign sweeping over the USSR. We return now to the second Vinnitsa migrant train. Three days after it started out on its journey it arrived in Moscow, where it found a festive welcome awaiting it. Right on the platform of the train station the passengers were met cordially by the leaders of the Jewish Anti-­ Fascist Committee, actors of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater, students of the Jewish school of theater, employees of the editorial board of the Eynikayt newspaper and Der Emes publishing house, and Jewish writers and cultural figures. Solomon Mikhoels, Itsik Fefer, Gershon Zhits, Perets Markish, Leib Kvitko, Boris Shimeliovich, Moishe Belenki, Lev Strongin, and many others visited in the train cars, talked with the migrants, gave them travel advice, and recited poetry.10 Der Nister was also among those who came to the train station, but unlike the majority of his colleagues, he had not come to bid farewell to the future builders of the “Soviet Jewish statehood.” Rather, he settled down in one of the cars with his belongings. Also traveling on the same train were the poet Yosef Kerler, who had been a frontline soldier and had decided to settle in Birobidzhan, and the Eynikayt correspondent Ilia Lumkis, who had been commissioned to cover this historic journey.   8 See “Di mosmitlen tsu farfestikn un vayter antviklen di virtshaft fun der Yidisher avtonomer gegnt” and “Ukaz num. 1016,” Eynikayt, February 28, 1946. See also Benjamin Pinkus, The Soviet Government and the Jews, 1948–1967: A Documented Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 371.   9 See Mitsel, Evrei Ukrainy, 111. 10 See “Di bagegenish funem eshelon naye ibervanderer far der Yidisher avtonomer gegnt in Moskve,” Eynikayt, June 10, 1947.

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Lumkis replaced another correspondent of the paper, Mishe Lev, who had accompanied the train from Vinnitsa to Moscow. In a private conversation, Lev recalled the heavy atmosphere prevailing on that train, despite the demonstrative display of cheerfulness: hungry and miserable people who had lost everyone close to them; people who could not bring themselves to return to their prewar homes; people who now had very little in which they could trust or believe. Somewhere deep in their souls they hoped that there, far from the ravines where masses of their brethren had been executed, everything would be different.11 One of the train carriages was a real passenger car, intended mainly for the officials. A first-aid post, a library, and even a hair salon had been set up in it. Another car had been specially equipped for young orphan children; the migrants immediately labeled it kinderheym (“the orphanage”).12 The rest of the carriages were freight cars on which large Hebrew letters had been painted giving the names of the places where migrant groups had been formed: Vinnitsa, Bershad, Obodovka, Kazatin, Yampol, Khmelnik, Murafa, Mohilev-Podolski, Trostianets, Kryzhopol, Chechelnik, Nemirov, Haysin, Litin, and Zhmerinka. The migrants who traveled on the first three Vinnitsa trains came mainly from these and other places destroyed by the war. They were joined by former Jewish kolkhozniks (“collective-farm members”) from the Crimea and southern Ukraine. Each person, of course, had their own reasons for deciding to resettle,13 but one thing united all of them, as Yosef Kerler formulated it many years later: a vague, stubborn dream—to be as far away as possible from the “home,” where the ground was drenched in Jewish blood, to be as far away as possible from the non-Jewish neighbors, who either gave a hand to the terrible slaughter of the Jews, or merely plundered 11 Interview with Mishe Lev, December 27, 2012, Rehovot, Israel. 12 See Mishe Lev, “Yunge ‘birobidzhaner,’” Eynikayt, June 14, 1947. 13 For motives leading people to resettle in Birobidzhan after World War II, see Robert Weinberg, “Jewish Revival in Birobidzhan in the Mirror of Birobidzhanskaya zvezda, 1946–49,” East European Jewish Affairs 26, no. 1 (1996): 39–42.

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Jewish property, or outwardly appeared compassionate while in reality furtively rejoicing. To be free from the eternal hatred. To be among their fellow Jews.14

While the train stood on the Moscow sidings, Der Nister became acquainted with the officials in charge of it: the person in command of the train, demobilized army captain Simcha Krivoruk; his assistant, Yakov Kagan; the head of the JAR Regional Executive Committee Resettlement Department, Abram Gershkov, who was responsible for moving the Vinnitsa Jewish orphan home to Birobidzhan, along with two other figures having resettlement-related responsibilities—the deputy director of the regional library, Shmuel Kibel, and the Resettlement Department employee Shimen Siniavski-Sindelevich. These people represented a section of the Birobidzhan “elite” that was quite characteristic for that time—former frontline soldiers, veterans of the Birobidzhan resettlement movement, refugees from Poland, and even former Zionists, such as Siniavski-Sindelevich, who had lived in Mandatory Palestine for several years. Der Nister was especially interested in Siniavski-Sindelevich and spent a great deal of time in conversations with him, which later found expression in the writer’s travel notes. He also got to know several of the ordinary passengers and some of the orphanage residents. This trip did not easily fit into Der Nister’s way of life. During the years of the revolution and the civil war he had been one of the participants in the “Kiev Group” of modernist Yiddish writers. At the very beginning of the 1920s, for a short time, he worked together with the artist Marc Chagall, the philosopher Matvei Kagan, the composer Joel Engel, and others in the model orphanage, the Malakhovka Jewish Children’s Colony, near Moscow. In 1922 Der Nister immigrated to Germany. In 1925 he returned to the Soviet Union, where—initially in Kiev, then in Kharkov—he earned a living editing Jewish literature and preparing translations, while keeping aloof from public activities. Although Der 14 Kerler, “Der Nister (1884–1950),” 110.

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Nister was widely known in Yiddish-language literary circles, his name is not to be found among the members of the editorial boards of Soviet Jewish literary journals published in the 1920s and 1930s in Moscow, Kharkov, Kiev, and Minsk, where the tone was set by Perets Markish, David Hofshtein, Izi Kharik, Itsik Fefer, David Bergelson, and others.15 Likewise, Der Nister never took part in the Birobidzhan propaganda effort, as if he had no interest whatsoever in that project, and he certainly showed no signs of being interested in going there, even though many of his colleagues did so in the decade before the war. Nor did Der Nister go to the First Regional Congress of Soviets in Birobidzhan in December 18–21, 1934, which completed the organizing process of the JAR. A large delegation of Jewish writers participated in the congress as honored guests, including, among others, Yekhezkel Dobrushin, Shmuel Godiner, Hofshtein, Markish, and Kharik.16 Many years later, Esther Markish, the widow of Perets Markish, recalled that Markish “came back disheartened and disillusioned.” “Could there be any doubt that the wilderness of Birobidzhan was alien to the Jewish spirit? The only other Jewish writer sharing Markish’s pessimism about Birobidzhan,” she noted, “was Der Nister.”17 Indeed, in 1940 the Birobidzhan literary almanac Forpost published Der Nister’s open letter to Bergelson in connection with the latter’s celebration of twenty-five years of literary activity.18 In the mid-1930s, Bergelson had declared before the whole world that he intended to settle in the JAR, and since then people there considered him one of the “local staff.”19 However, Der Nister’s letter never mentioned the 15 See Shmeruk, “Der Nister: hayav u-yetsirato,” 15–17. See also Der Nister’s autobiography, RGALI, f. 3121, op. 1, d. 42, ll. 1–2. 16 See Lvavi, Hahityashvut, 60. 17 Esther Markish, The Long Return, trans. D. I. Goldstein (New York: Ballantine, 1978), 34. 18 Der Nister, “A briv tsu Dovid Bergelson,” Forpost 2–3 (1940): 34–38; also Der Nister, Dertseylungen un eseyen (New York: YKUF, 1957), 290–96. 19 On Bergelson in Birobidzhan, see Ber Kotlerman, “‘Why I Am in Favour of Birobidzhan’: Bergelson’s Fateful Decision,” in David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism, ed. Joseph Sherman and Gennady Estraikh (Oxford: Legenda, 2007), 222–35.

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JAR (where Bergelson himself was never seen after the beginning of 1937). Right after the war, despite the renewal of mass migration, no prominent Jewish writers found the time to visit Birobidzhan. This was so even though the local leadership indicated in numerous ways the need for public support, now that the idea of turning the region into an autonomous republic was once more being considered.20 Then suddenly, the sixty-two-year-old Der Nister, of all people, ill and deeply depressed over the death of his daughter in besieged Leningrad,21 surprised those around him and undertook the trip to Birobidzhan. He did this on his own initiative. However, he still took the trouble to register the trip with the Jewish Section of the Moscow Branch of the Writers Union, so that it became an official assignment, and he also obtained a recommendation from the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, a government Jewish organization, which worked under the Sovinformburo, the propaganda agency attached to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs.22 In addition to all this, he arranged to travel on the special migrant train, which moved at half the speed of a regular passenger train. Almost twenty years earlier, in 1928, right after the very beginning of Jewish resettlement in Birobidzhan, a similar trip was undertaken by another Yiddish writer, Meir Alberton. His travel notes, in their time, became a hallmark of the brand-new Birobidzhan project.23 As Der Nister set out on his journey, no one could imagine what his impressions would turn into for this project. On June 10, the migrant train finally set out on its long, three-week journey along the quite busy tracks of the Trans-Siberian Railroad 20 At the 1952 Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee trial, Bergelson confirmed that in 1947 or 1948 he talked to the JAR Party first secretary Aleksandr Bakhmutski about wanting to settle in Birobidzhan, where he “could die in peace”; see Rubenstein and Naumov, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, 159. 21 On Ada (Hodl) Kaganovich (1913–42), see Hone Shmeruk, “Arb’a igrot shel Der Nister: letoldot sifro ‘Di mishpokhe Mashber’ vehadpasotav,” Behinot 8–9 (1980): 241n51. 22 For JAFC, see Redlich, War, Holocaust, and Stalinism. 23 On Alberton’s travel, see Meir Alberton, Biro-Bidzhan (Kharkov: Tsentrfarlag, 1929); see also Kotlerman, In Search of Milk and Honey, 39–40.

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according to a special timetable prepared by the USSR Ministry of Transportation. Life on the train quickly acquired shtetl-like features with a Soviet hue. At the frequent long stops, women left the cars and lit fires right on the railroad embankments in order to cook kasha or potatoes. The older men gathered in a “silent” minyan (“prayer quorum”) led by the ritual slaughterer mentioned above, Borukh Maizler, who, after the protracted deportation in Kyrgyzstan, had left his “clerical” profession and requalified as an authorized scrap metal collector in a Podolian shtetl; however, he was now full of hopes that in Birobidzhan “no one would prevent him from being a Jew.”24 Occasional matchmakers sought—not without success—singles who would be good candidates as eligible marriage partners. Several musicians put together a small klezmer band. The young people organized amateur theatrical performances or simply sang songs.25 Volunteer tutors worked with the orphan children. Children who could read Yiddish read aloud for the others Leib Kvitko’s poems. A Yiddish course was organized for those adults who forgot or didn’t know the language.26 Komsomol members and demobilized soldiers regularly published the wall newspaper, Der tsveyter eshelon (The Second Echelon). Here is what the former Crimean kolkhoznik Toivi Kreiderman wrote in it: Generation after generation the Jewish people dreamed about its own statehood. But no government, no country ever moved to meet these aspirations of the Jewish people, except for one state—the Soviet.27 24 On Barukh Maizler (1905–63), who became one of the active members of the Birobidzhan religious community, see Ber Kotlerman, “If There Had Been No Synagogue There, They Would Have Had to Invent It: The Case of the Birobidzhan “Religious Community of the Judaic Creed” on the Threshold of Perestroika,” East European Jewish Affairs 42, no. 2 (2012), 90; Nina Maizler (Aranovich), “Slovo ob ottse,” My zdes’, http://www.newswe.com/index.php? go=Pages&in= view&id=215. 25 See Shmuel Kibel, “Mit umgeduld vartn mir afn onkum keyn Birobidzhan,” Birobidzhaner shtern, June 26, 1947. 26 “Study the Yiddish Language While on Their Way,” Ambijan Bulletin 7, no. 2 (1948): 10. 27 Cf. Lyumkis, Eshelonen geyen keyn Birobidzhan, 11.

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At every opportunity, correspondent Lumkis telegraphed his newspaper, Eynikayt, about the progress of the train, its passengers, and all kinds of incidents along the way.28 Thanks to him many details about that journey have reached us. We learn that several teenagers ran off in Moscow to see Red Square and were nearly left behind by the train; that people in Siberia were surprised to see strange and unfamiliar letters on the train cars; that a baby was almost born to one of the migrants on the way; and that a wedding—the one described above— took place along the way. Later, Lumkis brought together his various reports in a booklet entitled Trains Are Going to Birobidzhan (Eshelonen geyen keyn Birobidzhan). The talented young poet Josef Kerler . . . read to the passengers a poem written in the Irkutsk hospital [where in 1943 he recovered from the wounds received on the battlefields], entitled “My Grandfather,” in which he expressed his indomitable faith in final victory over the invaders. He was now translating his faith into action by helping to build the new Jewish state.

These lines, written by Lumkis, were published in English in the pro-­ Soviet New York Jewish magazine Ambijan Bulletin, which continuously covered the postwar Jewish migration to Birobidzhan.29 For the most part, Der Nister observed everything from the sidelines, kept quiet, and constantly scribbled things in his notebook in order not to forget or lose his observations as time passed. “The axe, which was wielded over us, did not reach our roots,” he wrote about the Jewish orphan children. “Typical Russians with religious verses on their lips,” he wrote about a group of converts to Judaism who joined the migrants. “Like birds of the night in the daylight,” was the way he described the Japanese prisoners of war they encountered at a train station in Siberia. As it happened, Der Nister missed the Jewish 28 See, for example, Ilya Lyumkis, “Mitn eshelon keyn Birobidzhan,” Eynikayt, June 21, 1947, and July 8, 1947. 29 I. Lumkis, “With the New Contingent of Birobidjan Settlers,” Ambijan Bulletin 6, no. 5 (1947): 10.

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wedding held on the train because he was not feeling well. However, on the eve of the wedding, the couple, Lusia Oksenhoit and Shmulik Pinchevski, came to him to ask for a blessing, as if he were a Hasidic tsaddik (“spiritual leader”). They told him the sad story of how their parents had been shot to death along with all the Jews of their home shtetl, Khmelnik. Other passengers were also drawn to Der Nister. They came for advice, for a kind word, or simply for the opportunity to talk and remove a burden from their souls. Kerler recalled that at first the officials on the train tried to stop this stream of visitors flowing into the only passenger car, but in the end they gave up and even arranged something like an organized queue to “Comrade Pinkhas.30” Three weeks after leaving Moscow, on July 1, 1947, the migrant train entered the territory of the JAR. This was announced by the sign on the border marker pillar written both in Russian and, as to be expected, in Yiddish, the official language of Soviet Jews: Grenets fun der yidisher avtonomer gegnt (“Border of the Jewish Autonomous Region”). One of the representatives of the JAR traveling on the train at this time was Shmuel Kibel, formerly a refugee from Poland. Shortly thereafter, after his repatriation to Poland, he wrote in the Łódź Yiddish newspaper: “A shiver of joy, anticipation, and curiosity seizes every Jew passing this border marker pillar. People stand at the windows as if glued to them.”31 A short time later the train stopped at the station in Obluchye, the second most populated town in the JAR. A whole group of Birobidzhaners, with bouquets of flowers in their hands, came into Der Nister’s carriage. Among them were several writers who came specially to meet the honored guest at the borders of the Autonomous Region. Der Nister rose to his feet to greet them, and in a surge of feeling—burst into tears. On the station platform filled with people, against the background of the station’s modest facade, decorated for the occasion with colorful ribbons and banners, an orchestra began playing “The Birobidzhan Freylekhs” tune. Then the music subsided, and in the quiet a voice amplified by a microphone rang out in Yiddish: “Khaveyrim! Ibervanderer! 30 Kerler, “Der Nister (1884–1950),” 112. 31 Shmuel Kibel, “Biro-Bidzhan,” Dos naye lebn, August 29, 1947.

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Brider un shvester! Mir hobn gevart af aykh!”—“Comrades! New settlers! Brothers and sisters! We have been waiting for you!” These greetings were delivered by local district Jewish leaders, followed by the Russian railroad station master.32 Special issues of both the Yiddish- and the Russian-language regional newspapers were waiting to be given to the newcomers. The Russian-language Birobidzhanskaia zvezda that day deviated from its official character and splashed an emotional greeting across the whole width of its front page: “Sholom Aleikhem, Newcomer Friends!” and under this, in Yiddish: “To the new builders of our region—Bolshevik greetings!”33 The Yiddish-language Birobidzhaner shtern’s greeting was more meaningful: “Welcome, new builders of Jewish Soviet Statehood!”34 After the ceremonial part of the welcome, the migrants were invited to a festive meal in the station’s lunchroom. The train continued its journey only late that night, in order to arrive in the JAR capital, the city of Birobidzhan, in time for the event planned the next morning. Few of the passengers could sleep—they were too excited. The train trip along the remaining 170 kilometers dragged out to five hours. However, the time passed by almost unnoticed in the friendly and jubilant atmosphere. In addition, representatives of various regional institutions, seeking to exploit the remaining time, passed through the train cars and talked with people in an effort to identify potential new employees. A festive meeting lasting many hours awaited the new migrants at the Birobidzhan railroad station. This event was prepared on a much larger scale than the one in Obluchye. A massive sea of smartly dressed Birobidzhaners came into view before the newcomers, filling the platforms and the square of the train station and the adjoining streets. A great number of the residents came to the station with music, flags, 32 Lyumkis, Eshelonen geyen keyn Birobidzhan, 58; Yisroel Emiot, “Der tsveyter vinitser eshelon ibervanderer ongekumen in der Yidisher avtonomer gegnt,” Eynikayt, July 5, 1947; V. Gold, “Ba di toyern fun der Yidisher avtonomer gegnt,” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 3, 1947. 33 “Sholom aleikhem, druzia novosely! Di naye boyer fun undzer gegnt—a bolshevistishn grus!” Birobidzhanskaia zvezda, July 1, 1947. 34 “Zayt gegrist, naye boyer fun der yidisher sovetisher melukheshaft!” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 1, 1947.

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and posters, in well-organized festive columns formed early in the morning at their places of work. Loudspeakers on the streets joyfully notified everyone else about the arrival of the migrant train. Early in the day, school children had been sent to gather flowers, which were showered upon the newcomers as thousands of voices shouted “Hurrah!” and the city orchestra played Jewish wedding melodies. Using a specially constructed dais, decorated with a large portrait of Stalin, one person after the other came up to speak: regional leaders, representatives of the workers’ collectives, old residents, writers, and actors. The chairman of the Regional Executive Committee, Mikhail (Moishe) Zilbershtein, opened the meeting. He was followed by the first secretary of the Regional Party Committee, Aleksandr Bakhmutski, and the chairman of the City Council, Abram Yarmitski. The local radio station broadcast live, all over the JAR (in Yiddish, Russian, and Ukrainian) the endless greetings “to the new builders of the Soviet Jewish statehood” and the customary glorifications of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party and “the best friend of the Jewish people,” Stalin. The poet Isroel Emiot from Poland, who had settled in Birobidzhan three years earlier, recited several poems in Yiddish from his Birobidzhan cycle. Representatives of the newcomers also ascended the dais, including the newspaper correspondent Ilia Lumkis, who called upon the creative intelligentsia of the whole country to play an active role in the Soviet Jewish cultural construction in Birobidzhan.35 The entire festive event was captured on film by a camera crew of the Far Eastern Motion Picture Newsreel Studio, which came from nearby Khabarovsk. After the meeting, the new settlers were driven by car and truck to the places where they would spend their first days, a kolkhoz members’ dormitory and one of the city’s high school buildings, which was to be used as a center for migrants during the summer vacation. Here a dining room providing three free meals a day, a first-aid station, a children’s room, and an improvised store with essential goods were organized for the migrants. The regional library and the Museum of Local Lore provided the traditional “Lenin corner,” where it was possible to read 35 See Weinberg, “Jewish Revival in Birobidzhan,” 43.

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works of literature and the latest news, and to find information about lodgings and job opportunities.36 Arrangements had been made to give the newly arrived orphaned children new clothes and later to place them in the Jewish orphanage.37 Der Nister did not speak at the grand welcoming event held at the train station, probably because of his dislike of mass meetings, which was undoubtedly reinforced by the fact that he was not feeling well at the time. However, he reassured the journalists anxious to hear from him by telling them that he intended to spend two months in the JAR, so they would still have plenty of time to speak with him.38 Then, being eager to learn about the condition of local Jewish culture, he immediately began questioning the poet Isroel Emiot. Emiot answered evasively and led Der Nister to the nearby Hotel Birobidzhan, the only hotel in the city. There the local authorities provided the Moscow writer with a spacious room and even “fixed him up” with his own cook, who prepared dishes appropriate to his dairy diet.39 For several days, Der Nister felt really unwell and remained in his room resting. However, immediately upon his arrival, at the request of the editorial board of Birobidzhaner shtern, he was obliged to write a “first word” about the place. He was not stingy in his warm-heartedness and announced to his readers that for him, here, “s’hot a shmek geton mit heym, mit shtark eygns”—“something homelike was in the air immediately and something very close.”40 During the first night it was difficult for Der Nister to fall asleep. Until very late noisy groups of newcomers strolled under the hotel’s windows, eager to get acquainted with the city. The outdoor merrymaking continued the next day. On the evening of the third day, Der Nister attended the festive gathering in honor of the new settlers held at the Birobidzhan State 36 “Afn ibervanderer-punkt,” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 3, 1947. 37 Moishe Tsekhtik “Nash detdom,” Novosti nedeli—Evreiskii kamerton, November 4, 2004. The Jewish orphanage existed in Birobidzhan at least until 1950; see David Vaiserman, Birobidzhan: mechty i tragedia (Khabarovsk: RIOTIP, 1999), 368–69. 38 See “Pisatel’ tov. Nister—v Birobidzhane,” Birobidzhanskaia zvezda, July 4, 1947. 39 See Emiot, CAHJP, 42–43. 40 Der Nister, “Mayn ersht vort vegn Birobidzhan,” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 3, 1947.

A Wedding on a Migrant Train

Yiddish Theater, named after Lazar Kaganovich, Stalin’s very close associate. The official part of the gathering concluded with the customary collective letter of thanks to Stalin. Following this, the heroic play Uprising in the Ghetto (Ufshtand in geto) by Perets Markish was performed.41 The play was one of the very first efforts in the USSR to make some sense of the Holocaust.42 The images of ghetto insurgents, partisans, members of the Judenrat, and Nazi murderers came into view before the new settlers, who were all too familiar with the ghetto— from personal experience, not hearsay. Based upon the real figure of the Yiddish poet Hirsh Glik, the play has him dying among the ruins of the Vilna ghetto. As he dies, he cries out the biblical verse, “Let my soul die with the Philistines” (Judges 16:30), kills a Nazi officer, and sings in a fading whisper, “Never say never . . . ” (“Zog nit keynmol . . . ”), from the famous “Hymn of the Jewish Partisans,” composed by the real Hirsh Glik and later put to the tune of the Pokrass brothers’ wellknown Soviet song “Those Aren’t Clouds but Thunderclouds.”43 After this hymn, the popular Soviet patriotic song “Wide Is My Motherland” (“Shiroka strana moia rodnaia,” also known as “Song of the Motherland”) was sung in . . . Russian—in the best tradition of Perets Markish’s writing strategy. Markish always knew how to capture the right tone, even if this tone sounded a bit wrong. However, the unspoiled audience responded with tremendous enthusiasm. On this occasion, too, Der Nister refrained from speaking before the audience. At the beginning of the following week, Der Nister, accompanied by the poet Yosef Kerler, went to meet the leading local figure, the first secretary of the Party Regional Committee, Aleksandr Bakhmutski. The latter was quite alienated from Jewish culture, spoke no Yiddish, and, as he himself later confirmed, had never heard of Der Nister until 41 “Farzamlung fun di naye ibervanderer,” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 5, 1947; “Di aynordenung fun di naye aynvanderer,” Eynikayt, July 8, 1947. 42 See Perets Markish, “Der oyfshtand in geto,” in Zamlung: fun shafungen fun yidishe shrayber un dikhter in Ratnfarband (Rio-de-Janeiro: Tsentral-Komitet YKUF in Brazil, 1956), 84–132. 43 For the “Hymn of the Jewish Partisans,” see Aharon Vinkovetzky, ed., Sinai Leichter, comp., Anthology of Yiddish Folksongs (Jerusalem: Mount Scopus Publications by Magnes Press, 1987), 4:65–67.

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this moment.44 However, Bakhmutski realized the key role Jewish culture would play in the further existence of the Autonomous Region and expressed solidarity with all the initiatives the writer suggested. These initiatives sprang initially from Der Nister’s concern for the needs of the new settlers. “Treat them, at least halfway, like you treat me!” he said, according to Emiot’s memoirs. However, the writer’s concerns extended far beyond the domestic problems of everyday life. He asked, among other things, for as many schools as possible to be opened with Yiddish as the language of instruction, for a Jewish book publishing house to be established, and for the format of the Birobidzhaner shtern Yiddish-language newspaper to be enlarged.45 Der Nister was also received by the Party Regional Committee’s secretary for propaganda, Zinovy Brokhin, an assimilated Jew who had grown up in a Russian province outside the Pale of Settlement and, like Bakhmutski, knew no Yiddish. Der Nister left this meeting disturbed and frustrated, but without having lost hope completely.46 After his visit at the Party Regional Committee, Der Nister locked himself in his hotel room and asked to have no telephone calls. Endlessly smoking “Northern Palmyra” cigarettes and drinking strongly brewed hot tea (brought to him by the local poetess Luba Vasserman from her nearby apartment in a teapot wrapped in a towel),47 he set about making notes on his journey from Moscow to Birobidzhan.

44 See Bakhmutski’s letter to Malenkov with a request to look into his case, February 1, 1950, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 118, d. 728, ll. 142–145. 45 Yisroel Emiot, “Der Nister in Biro Bidzhan (a bintl zikhroyneś),” in In mitele yorn: eseyen, dertseylungen, lider (Rochester, NY: Jewish Community Council in Rochester, 1963), 9. 46 See Emiot, CAHJP, 44. 47 Interview with Sergo Bengelsdorf, the poetess’s son, December 6, 2015, Nahariya, Israel; see also Kerler, “Der Nister (1884–1950),” 116.

A Wedding on a Migrant Train

A festive meeting at the Birobidzhan train station, 1947/48. Courtesy of Rimma Lavochkina, St. Petersburg, Russia

19

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

The work did not come to Der Nister easily. He would write something, cross it out, then write it again—sometimes writing no more than a page a day. Unlike Markish, it was always difficult for Der Nister to strike the necessary ideological balance. It was also impossible to be constantly secluded in the hotel room—the writer was torn to pieces by invitations to take part in conferences, meetings, and trips around the region. And yet, his travel notes—which he called in a simple way “Images and Impressions” (“Bildlekh un ayndrukn”), as if he were trying somehow to obscure their significance—were rather quickly published in the Moscow press in Yiddish and almost simultaneously in Birobidzhan. There were ten “Images” in all, divided equally into two essays: “With the Second Echelon” (“Mitn tsveytn eshelon”) and “With the New Settlers to Birobidzhan” (“Mit ibervanderer keyn Birobidzhan”).1 Nothing in these writings noticeably contradicted the Soviet state’s nationality policy in regard to mass Jewish resettlement, at least its official side. Pursuant to a resolution passed by the USSR Council of Ministers, active steps were taken in the Ukraine and Crimea to register persons for the next migrant trains.2 The Soviet government willingly accepted the American Jewish organization’s (Ambijan) financial aid for Birobidzhan.3 The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee gave more and more   1 Der Nister, “Mitn tsveytn eshelon (bildlekh un ayndrukn),” Eynikayt, August 30, 1947; “Mit ibervanderer keyn Birobidzhan,” Heymland 1 (1947): 108–18. The essays were published in Birobidzhan under the common title “Mitn ibervanderer-­eshelon keyn Birobidzhan,” Birobidzhaner shtern, September 4 and 9, 1947.   2 See Lvavi, Hahityashvut, 106.   3 See Rubenstein and Naumov, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, 259.

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

attention to “the Birobidzhan trend,” and its presidium even established a special subcommittee on Birobidzhan affairs.4 In the JAR itself, and beyond its borders, slogans about the further development of “Soviet Jewish statehood” were becoming more and more pronounced. All this promoted the development of Jewish cultural initiatives of every sort: in the city of Birobidzhan, an evening school providing Yiddish language and literature instruction for adults was opened;5 the local Yiddish theater expected a group of graduates of the State Jewish Seminar of Theater at the Moscow GOSET to join the theater and began planning the opening of a theatrical studio for young people;6 a green light was given to establishing a publishing house for Yiddish books in the JAR;7 in the nearest future measures were proposed broadening the network of national schools, establishing an institute of higher education “in the native language,” and even transferring to the region the Office of Yiddish Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.8 On this background Birobidzhaner shtern’s editor in chief, Buzi Miller, allowed himself to practically ignore the remarks of the JAR chief censor regarding Der Nister’s travel notes and even his demand to remove a whole paragraph, as we learn from the materials of Miller’s interrogation two years later (see Interrogation Records of Miller, August 5, 1949). The censor recalled later with indignation that he did not report the issue to the Party Regional Committee and by doing so he betrayed his Party principles, because Miller managed to convince him of the harmlessness of these notes.9 A short time later, Der Nister’s essays also appeared, under slightly changed titles, in the pro-Soviet Yiddish journals in New York—Eynikayt,   4 Redlich, War, Holocaust, and Stalinism, 49–50.   5 See Birobidzhaner shtern, September 4, 1947 (announcement).   6 See “Helfn boyen dem Birobidzhaner teater in zayn vuks,” Eynikayt, January 10, 1948.   7 See Maltinski, Der moskver mishpet, 22.   8 Aleksandr Bakhmutski, “Kardinale tog-fragn,” Eynikayt, August 28, 1947. The amorphous “institute of higher education in the native language” was pompously called “a full-fledged Yiddish State University” in the statement of the USA National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, as quoted in Rubenstein and Naumov, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, 29.   9 Aleksandr Drabkin, Zachem mne eto vsio . . . (Khabarovsk: Khabarovskaia kraevaia tipografia, 2012), 44.

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published by the American Committee of Jewish Writers, Artists, and Scientists, and the Ambijan’s monthly, Naylebn.10 The essays got to the United States rather quickly through channels of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, after receiving, of course, the approval of the Soviet censor. Subsequently, at the 1952 JAFC trial, Itsik Fefer explained that the Committee paid particular attention to such materials, because the reactionary press in America was conducting a systematic propaganda campaign against Birobidzhan to prove that this was a bluff, that nothing was being done there, and that Jews were not going there . . . . I confirm that not a single article was sent without the permission of Glavlit or the editorial control board of the Central Committee.11

For some reason, only the second installment of Der Nister’s Birobidzhan essays appeared in his widely known posthumous collection, Stories and Essays (Dertseylungen un eseyen), published in New York in 1957.12 Obviously, this is why the first essay is less familiar to the readers and researchers. Since the content of the following chapters is, to a certain extent, connected with these essays, we present them here in full, translated into English.

10 Der Nister, “Oyfn veg keyn Birobidzhan,” Eynikayt: khoydesh-zhurnal (November 1947): 18–20; “Mitn eshelon keyn Birobidzhan,” Naylebn 10 (1948): 9–11. 11 See Rubenstein and Naumov, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, 431. 12 Der Nister, “Mit ibervanderer keyn Birobidzhan,” Dertseylungen un eseyen, 257–78.

“With the Second Echelon”1 I In Moscow I joined the transit migrant train, the echelon, that was formed in Vinnitsa. It was the first day of my boarding the train. In order to sanitize the new settlers, the train was held up for more than twenty-four hours in one of the freight stations, quite a distance away from the capital city. And here it is the first night. I can’t sleep. It’s the beginning of the month of June. In the Ukraine, during such nights, the nightingale trills and sonorously pours forth its song with its enchanting silvery sweetness, in the orchards, which are then in full bloom. But here, where the climate is different, and the place is near to the very populated capital city, there are no orchards, and no nightingale can be heard. The moon in its third quarter, the color of watery milk, stands on the edge of the horizon and looks at me through the window like a sphinx, wanting to lead me to intelligent yet melancholy thoughts: —Wandering again . . . The nation again on the way . . . Starting at the Nile, through all the world’s waters, and now even up to the Amur . . . Then I noticed that another man, who apparently could also not sleep, was standing near me, looking through the same window as I. Perplexed, considering what sad ideas this sphinxish piece of moon could bring me, he suddenly says: —No, it’s not similar. The present wandering is not at all like all those earlier ones . . .   1 According to Der Nister, “Mitn tsveytn eshelon (bildlekh un ayndrukn),” Eynikayt, August 30, 1947. Translated from Yiddish by Sara Davolt and edited by Ber Kotlerman.

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This was spoken to me by a tall, slim Jew, with a flat chest and back, a blond small beard, watery gray eyes, and a resigned smile on his lips, almost unnoticeable. Did I imagine him, that Jew, or did he really look like that—I don’t know. But on my long journey from Moscow to Birobidzhan, he was always sitting or standing at my side, and whether I was interested or not, would always have something to say to me when he found it necessary. He is quite learned in books, and now, the first night, while the train was stopped, and we both couldn’t sleep, when the moon at the edge of the sky wanted to throw me into a melancholy mood, this man wouldn’t allow it, and said: —It’s not similar . . . The present wandering is not at all like all those earlier ones . . . A deep break is occurring in the psychology of the Jewish masses, for the sake of reconstruction, in order to repair the broken wholeness, and put an end to the historical silliness that always left them hanging in the air, without any support, and so poorly rooted, that any light breeze could blow them away from their old familiar habitats. . . . After the recent Catastrophe came the fundamental reexamination. In the Middle Ages, such events, which occurred far and wide in the Diaspora, would awaken hopes in false messiahs. Now—we see a striving for a real action. Now everywhere, wherever there is a Jewish settlement, we see an awakening. However, with time, in places where the people try to realize their ideal, they find strong opposition and interference from known persons of power, who have the ability to decide whether the realization will come about or not. In contrast, here, this folk-ideal is met with open arms. We are encouraged to act, to prove ourselves, and not only will there be no obstacles, but rather maximum help and support. . . . We can say that there is a keen openness toward this folkyearning, even before the people themselves contemplated it consciously. It’s enough to remember the appearances of the official representatives at the time that Birobidzhan was declared a Jewish Autonomous Region, their words: “the consolidation of the Jewish people” were prophetic

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

expressions.2 Here was the genuine social-political understanding of the national need of the Jewish masses in the Soviet Union, which was later expressed in the constitution of the USSR, permanently fixed with the division and establishment of the Jewish Autonomous Region. . . . The government regulation was in time accepted by the Jewish masses with great thanks and satisfaction. But the years before the war and afterwards, during the war, did not allow for the mobilization of the appropriate folk energy to the degree which such a kind of undertaking deserved and required. Now the time is ripe, objectively, thanks to the secure situation after the victory, which allows devoting more attention to this important undertaking, as an important part of the country’s general policy of social justice. It is also ripe subjectively, since the Jewish masses received an historical lesson and SOS signal so as to compel placing the question of consolidation urgently on the agenda for the quickest solution, from-today-until-tomorrow. . . . They now undertook to carry out the matter, both for the sake of the masses, who needed it most, and the state, which had financial aid funds from the Autonomous Region and the Center available for supplying the new settlers with all their needs, from their embarkation point to their new place of settlement in Birobidzhan . . . This is what my Jew said to me, standing beside me by the window of the carriage, at the end of the first night in the echelon, as I looked upon the sad, waning moon that stood at the edge of the horizon. He spoke, understandably, with logic, but everything about such truths was known to all. Later on it became apparent that my Jew also had something lyric in his bosom . . . A few days later, when I again stood at the window in my carriage, which was almost the last one in the train, and looked   2 Der Nister quotes here the words of Mikhail Kalinin, chairman of the USSR Central Executive Committee, on May 28, 1934, in a meeting with Moscow Jewish activists: “By the very fact of the creation of the JAR, Jewish peoplehood is consolidated and acquires all the attributes of a nation.” See “Kh’ Kalinins rede afn ufnem fun der moskver arbeter-delegatsye, vos hot im bazukht dem 28/V 1934,” in Shimen Dimanshteyn, ed., Di yidishe avtonome gegnt—a kind fun der oktyaber-­ revolyutsye (Moscow: Der Emes, 1934), 39.

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toward the front, as the train took a half-turn, making the locomotive visible, which was hurrying with difficulty and giving off white steam from under its wheels—exactly then did my Jew again show himself. This time he was not standing opposite me, but behind my back, looking out in the same direction as I. . . . The locomotive looks to him like the image of our piece of luck: black and silent, but nevertheless hot and alive, agitated and creatively pulling us into the distances, where perhaps a wonderful transformation and renewal are waiting for us. It seems to him that he notices from afar a flag waving on the locomotive . . . He doesn’t see the inscription, but he feels it even though it is not visible: “Forward, to the continuation of the unceasing folk existence” . . .

II

And it was night, and it became day. Early in the morning, after a fiveto six-day journey from Vinnitsa to Moscow, the dusty and dirty migrants were taken to be cleaned up—to bathe and to have their clothes disinfected. The first ones to go were the women with their small children, who returned after about an hour and a half, looking shiny and white, clean and rosy. One of them, looking at her friends, made a cheerful joke, winking at the men with a knowing look: —Ha, do you recognize them, your own? They are real queens . . . Good heavens, what a bath can do . . . Right after the women the men departed, and returned clean and happy from the bath and the penetrating steam. They began to light fires outside the carriages, each group in front of their carriage’s door, and soon along the whole length of the fortyfive-wagon train small and larger bonfires were seen, blazing and smoking away in the daylight. They cooked and roasted whatever they had. They spread out what they had, chattered away, sitting on their knees by the fire, while others were standing at the side and instructing the cooks what to add to make the food tastier.

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

Now they have finished eating. All were washed, fed and rested, ready to continue their journey. The day was coming to an end. They looked out for the locomotive that would finally join up again with the carriages of the echelon, after they had been standing idle for some time, unconnected, abandoned, without a head and leader. And here it is. The people, hearing the whistle, began to board the carriages, each one in his carriage. It was already evening time. On the western side of the sky clouds began to show, quickly bringing rain that was anticipated everywhere, throughout all the expansive territories of the land. Then I found myself boarding not my own carriage, where my place was secured, but rather, having been invited, the wagon that was especially set aside for the children, who had been taken out of the orphanages in the Vinnitsa vicinity, in order to resettle them in the Jewish Autonomous Region. In the long Pullman freight carriage of the children it was warm, due to the considerable number of children and educators who were housed there, with beds, tables and other household items, and also because of the guests who were now invited in. There were also quite a few other passengers of the echelon, who, uninvited, entered the carriage because they wanted to be together with the children and enjoy with them this festive moment of the departure from the capital city. In the carriage, which was equipped with all the necessary goods, there was also a piano, and one of the teachers was sitting at it ready to accompany the children’s choir, as well as the adults who joined the children. They first sing the popular, somewhat sad song “Mayn shtetele Belts,” as if saying goodbye to their homes, which they were leaving . . . One of the young teachers stands out with his high and clear tenor voice reaching high octaves, as he sings solo the first words of the song “Kh’dermon zikh—I remember” . . . When he gets to the refrain: “Oy, oy, Belts,” all of them, adults and children, join in, with a taste of sad regret, and uneven timing. Then comes the opposite extreme—the hopeful, proud, well-known song: “My Moscow,” in Russian, and

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everyone focuses their eyes on the buildings on the outskirts of Moscow, which could be seen on the far horizon, and from which no one was able to tear their eyes away. They sing in a solemn major key, exalting the name of the great worldly capital city, from which it is certainly difficult to part. It is difficult for all, even for the children, who had never even seen it with their own eyes, but had a respectful notion of it. Just then the locomotive gives a strong jerk backwards, then pulls forward, with great effort, the forty-five-carriage train with its thousand-­ head group of new settlers, who have waited a long time for this happy moment. Now we hear “The Birobidzhaner freylekhs” song again, played on a fiddle, a bayan,3 accompanied by a piano, and sung by the children’s choir standing near, as well as the adult choir. They sing with such enthusiasm, which makes it seem that not only the children’s carriage is singing the song, but all the forty-five carriages of the whole length of the train, which is now shaking because of its haste and the grating clang of the wheels. It’s as if the train is trying to make up for the time lost while the train was held up and didn’t progress on its journey. Now it has become a bit hot in the carriage. The wide door of the Pullman freight carriage is open wide unto the field, which is on one side of the railroad. Looking toward the fields of crops and grass of the beginning of the month of June, adorning the fields, we also notice that the clouds coming from the western horizon, which the thirsty fields are waiting for, are moving up even higher, moved by a sky breeze and other rain and storm messengers. A kid is standing alone at a bench that was placed near the door of the carriage. He doesn’t hear, he doesn’t see what is going on around him in the noisy surroundings. With childish fascination he is glued to the picture that he sees perhaps for the first time: how the languid field is slowly darkening because of the clouds bringing rain that are moving above him, and how fiery lightning, portending a storm, which slashes

  3 Russian button accordion.

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

the sky from end to end, suddenly appears and quickly disappears again, soon followed by another blazing flash. Rain poured down. The whole field, as far as the eye could see, meets it with a thirsty steam, dampening the heat and bringing cool air. The kid stands there open-mouthed and amazed, seeing for the first time God’s so-called wonders, the smell of such earthly and heavenly refreshment. I find myself looking both at the field and at the kid, and the silent connection between them. And then I find a fatherly wish in my mouth, which says: Let there be abundance. The whole land is now waiting for rain, for luck and blessing, and more so the seven-time possessed and seven-time plundered children, orphans of the land . . .

III

The first few words, which I find written in my travel pad, are “The axe, which was wielded over us, did not reach our roots . . . ”

I see before me the eleven- or twelve-year-old daughter of a doctor from the city of N., who was killed in the war, at his doctor’s post, as well as his wife, also a doctor. They left behind their tall-grown branch, this girl with her constant silent long form, typically Jewish. Every time she stands near one of the teachers, or someone else whom she trusts, she immediately leans on them with her head and body, as if she has no strength to stand on her own two feet. She is quiet, seldom speaking. We can feel that she is missing the main words in her lexicon—the words “daddy” and “mommy,” which she can’t, and will never be able to say aloud. It seems that these two dear figures, which are marked by the most cherished words in the human language, are always standing before her eyes and reminding her of her early-childhood disaster. This bends her, like a young twig, towards anyone whom she trusts, searching for support and some resemblance of parental tenderness. She is locked in herself. It’s difficult to get a word out of her, or a glance from her forever-lowered eyes. But once in a while she expresses

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herself . . . in a dance . . . during a special “holiday,” that is, when the organizers of the echelon gather in the carriage of the orphaned children, to which they relate apprehensively, and a small festivity is being arranged, with better refreshments than for others. Then, when the self-organized activity group of these children step out in performance—reciting, song and dance—we can see this forever-silent doctor’s daughter performing in that artistic realm, where she stands out with great promise of blessed talent. A rug is spread out on the floor of the wagon—a small, cheap rug like those used once by the street-acrobats, who would go around in skin-colored costumes, together with organ grinders. The doctor’s daughter steps on it in ballet shoes, and with the accompaniment of the sounds of a piano, she lets herself go in classic dance—learned in a dance school in her city—or in an improvised dance for which she finds the beat and the measure with such gracious movements. It seems that if the goddess Melpomene were one of the spectators, she would grab the young artist in the middle of her dance and press her to her heart with soulful warmth. Even while dancing, the forever-silent doctor’s daughter keeps her face locked, and her eyes—in sadness, but now her body speaks for her being . . . these are the words of art . . . The group of spectators looks on with fascinated glances at every turn and curve of her nimble hands and feet, and they imagine that they are also participating with the same ease and versatility as she. And when she sits down on the rug, as do ballet professionals, moves her wing-like arms like a swan moving its wings, and lays her head down on the ground, as if dying,4 it seems that all would place their heads near hers and die together with her in artistically exalted silence.

IV

This is one of the orphans. And here is another: the small “treasure” of Bershad, a brand plucked out of the great fire5 in the days of   4 Der Nister describes the famous solo ballet dance, “The Dying Swan,” created by the Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova.   5 Comp.: “Is not this man a brand plucked out of the fire?” (Zechariah 3:2).

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

Transnistria,6 from the time of the Rumanian regime in that part of the Ukraine, where the shtetl of Bershad is located. A half-orphan, without a father, who was killed then; a ten-year-old with a bony, round face, lackluster skin and a high forehead of old wisdom and naïvely-smart black eyes, which sit half-open and halfbashful under his forehead. At first glance a child, but upon looking more closely you can find in it the traces of a very ancient, thousands of years-old type—the grandchild of those who came out of Egypt, or of those who carried away gifts from the Judean Kingdom to Queen Cleopatra, which can be seen on Egyptian reliefs. But nevertheless, no—it is of our time, from a Podolian shtetl, Bershad, who was destined to survive the hell of the Rumanian occupation and come out whole—even if not with both parents, father and mother, at least with half—with her mother. It’s still possible to see the poverty of the occupation, which up to this day can’t be shaken off: a poor piece of clothing, of cheap-flimsy cloth. But we can see that a mother’s hand manages to preserve it— always washing, sewing and mending when needed. This child was robbed of everything, except for the good “Popshoy” language which remained with her—that with the loud R, and the highsounding O [instead of A]: lOng, krOnk, as well as the gorgeous intonation.7 Anyone who has a sensitive ear for folk dialects should go to this child and ask for music notes. —What did you live on at the time of the Rumanians?—She was asked. —Di mame hot gearbet bam shtrrikn-drreyer—Mom worked for the rrope-makerr. —What did she do? —Zi hot geshtshipet di klotshe—She picked oakum.   6 Comp.: “. . . in the days of Ahasuerus” (Esther 3:2).   7 Der Nister describes peculiarities of the Podolian variety of Southeastern Yiddish.

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You can imagine what income one could have had from rope-making, especially being only a helper in this work, picking oakum. A part of the Jewish population in that area managed to save itself from death by hunger or other deaths, among them this charming, ten-year-old small face, who speaks so nicely and sings even better. Besides this, she was blessed with the gift of learning each newly heard song so easily, so that after the first or second time that it is sung for her, she catches on to the motif, the words, with a rare smile of enjoyment in regard to her own ability, which hovers over her lackluster, round cute features, modestly but also proudly. She also dances, this creature . . . At a performance she appeared as a pair with the doctor’s daughter, and the audience couldn’t decide which one to look at first: that one—with her aristocratic, locked manner, or this one—with all her inborn folk charm, brought out unintentionally, without a school, but with real perfection of control as of a great, experienced dancer.

V

And here is a third child—a ten-, eleven-year-old kid, with hazel, snake-like eyes, which reflect the heat of a desert somewhere in the Middle East, in Central Asia, or even further. He is also from Bershad. In the time of the Rumanian-German affliction he became, after his father’s death, the bread-winner of his household. He says that he worked in a furniture factory. The signs of this work, lacquer and glue, can still be seen on his young, not-yet-hardened small hands, even though he has often washed them since then. This one doesn’t dance. This one sings only folk songs, as well as songs by local or wandering song-writers, who sometimes strayed into that shtetl; his artistic memory remembers a great amount of their “creations.” He doesn’t have a voice, but therefore he displays an array of gusto in reciting ironic texts from those songs. It seems impossible that such a young boy could understand even a small part of their content. Nevertheless he does understand and delivers them with real flavor and emphasis, with the knowing smile of a grown-up as he sings them. This is maturity, not because of his age, but caused by the occupation, which brought together young and old, experienced and inex­­perienced,

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

and forced such a kid to become a bread-winner. As a result of being together with people older than he and partying with them, he internalized such types of lyrics, which at other times would surely not have reached his ears or stuck to him. But never mind—he is still a child, and he himself becomes less excited about his singing, except for the minutes of his artistic “service,” so to say. Not more. A minute later he is again—he himself: a child. Now he is singing a cheap “Shmendrik” burlesque song,8 of which we bring only a few verses: Shmendrik iz bakant ayedn, Fun zayne mayles iz nit tsu redn, A psure vel ikh aykh zogn ale, Mazltov, az Shmendrik hot a kale. Shmendriks kale—iz di longe Reyzl, Un az zi shloft, fayft zi mitn neyzl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Az Shmendrik geyt mit zayn kale shpatsirn, Iz er tsu kurts ir talye tsu barirn, Un az er vil mit ir a geshprekhts firn, Muz er tsu ir aruftelefonirn . . . 9 etc.

  8 A song from Avrom Goldfaden’s early vaudeville Shmendrik, or The Comical Wedding (Shmendrik, oder di komishe khasene, 1877).   9 Everyone knows Shmendrik, There is no need to speak of his virtues, I will tell you all a tiding: Mazl tov, Shmendrik has a bride. Shmendrik’s bride is the tall Reizl, When she sleeps she whistles through her nasal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

When Shmendrik goes for a walk with his bride, He is too short to touch the waist at her side, And when he wants to hold a conversation with her, He must telephone to speak to her . . .

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As he sings he brings out the Shmendrik so alive, that the people surrounding him, who look into his mouth and see his artistic facial expressions, gasp out of laughter and forget that only a few sad years ago this kid found himself in the straits of the occupation, which forced him to become a bread-winner. They also forget that they themselves, his listeners, were also in the same situation. Why am I saying all of this? In order to emphasize that, looking at that kid, and the others mentioned, you feel and are certain that, no— the last line of our life-account has not yet been drawn. Our spring—has not yet dried up, and these previously abandoned, talented children whom we know, and those we don’t know,—children in general, are our comfort, our promise and guarantee of our future rebuilding and renaissance. A small numerical addition: of the 993 new settlers in our echelon, the number of children between the ages of one to sixteen is almost a third . . . Woe to the Hitlers—those that have disappeared, those that still exist, and those that may possibly rise up in the future . . . Amen, woe to them . . .

Passengers of the summer 1947 Vinnitsa-Birobidzhan migrant train. Second from the left— Yiddish poet Yosef Kerler, first from the right—Captain Simcha Krivoruk, the train’s commander (Ambijan Bulletin, October 1947)

“With the New Settlers to Birobidzhan”1 VI —Who is traveling in the echelon? Who are the settler contingents? —All kinds. —Trades and professions? —Various ones, which means: starting with a street cobbler, a patch-maker, up to a civil engineer; from a tractor driver up to a ritual slaughterer, a shokhet2 (yes, even such a “bird” was brought here . . . ); from an old-fashioned hooper who smells of a barrel, a kit, hoops and a clapboard up to a qualified tool maker of fine mechanics; and all the rest, such as carpenters, locksmiths, turners, stitchers, tailors, cutters, saddlers, who can count them all? Somewhat more explicit: here is a woman, a chief clerk in a post and telegraph department in the place where she lived. They by no means wanted to let her go, knowing that it would not be so easy to find someone who was as experienced and efficient in that realm as she. And opposite her—such a man whose place of work did not fight over him too much—a hard-of-hearing barber, with a pale-toned face, hollow cheeks, and a beetle-black mustache, who, besides being a barber, has another income: he plays (despite his deafness) a trombone, when some orchestra needs one at times.

  1 According to Der Nister, “Mit ibervanderer keyn Birobidzhan,” Heymland 1 (1947): 108–18.   2 The shokhet Barukh Maizler (1905–63) became one of the active members of the Birobidzhan religious community. See Kotlerman, “If There Had Been No Synagogue There,” 90.

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Here is a former wagon driver, now a transport department head, a Jew with a blood-shot eye, who likes to speak sharply, and whenever he has an argument with anyone he can stand up for his shtetl. Together with him are a group of converts to Judaism, typical Russians, with a somewhat sectarian ardor and religious verses on their lips.3 Here are farmers from the Crimea and other areas, with hard sun-burned faces and with a non-Jewish disposition in their bones. Opposite them are—energetic city-people, with full suitcases of tararam and turmoil. Here travels a fifty-six-year-old man, a lumberjack, who looks like he was hewed out of a rugged beam, a noise maker, with only one tooth in his mouth, in the front. He nevertheless only recently got married with a young woman, and lived to see a son of his old age; he was a former partisan, who thirty years ago served in Semen Budenny’s cavalry. The uniform and hat he is wearing, which he says is from the last war, in which he also participated, smells of sweat and gunpowder, as if it’s actually from the civil war. And here is his “antipode”: a steel-maker, a quiet young guy, with a silent-steel figure, from whom you can’t hear a word most of the time. For him speaks his bayan, which he plays in the evenings, in whichever wagon he enters, where there are girls—who sit very close to his instrument, and especially to him. And here is another one, a seventeen-, eighteen-year-old metalworker, with a strong, bony face, and with a small mouth which doesn’t allow him to laugh openly, so his eyes laugh instead. This guy, besides his craft also engages in sport, in acrobatics. His hands and chest are like those of a real sailor, tattooed with figures of snakes, eagles, girls, and mermaids. In one word, we have here a kind of Noah’s ark, modern style, not upon water, but on railroad tracks, and not after a deluge, but after a tremendous world war, which is no better than a deluge . . . You have here a generation which was raised on Soviet bread, as well as others who have tasted other kinds of bread, like this ninety-­six-year-old   3 For the Russian gerim (Subbotniks) in Birobidzhan, see Yisroel Emiot, Yakov Yasinski, “A kolvirt fun gerim,” Eynikayt, September 2, 1948; also Kotlerman, “If There Had Been No Synagogue There,” 94, 96.

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

woman, from somewhere under a Haysin who still almost remembers the ancient times of king Jan Sobieski;4 she already looks half dust, half human, but still keeps her head up and takes care of herself, as well as her family. When she begins to speak with someone she can’t stop talking about the wonders of the past, meanwhile clucking with her toothless mouth. There are travelers with different subdialects: Volhynian, Crimean, Odessan, and mainly—Podolian. For some travelers, Yiddish is their bread, while others don’t feel at home with Yiddish anymore, feel ashamed because of their lack of knowledge and dream that when they get there, to the place of their aspiration, they will begin to study and fill in the gap. There are also those who have long planned to live in the Jewish Autonomous Region, but not knowing the language, have started to study it and have had considerable success, like this not-so-young engineer, who already reads, writes and speaks more or less fluently. Good luck to him. In short, you have here a thousand-head mixture of types, characters, kinds, customs, languages and shapes, before which even an experienced anthropologist and statistics expert would be seen standing open­ mouthed, as before a sea. This would be such an astonishing lesson for him in his own field—demography, that, sitting in his office, he would not have thought that he needed, up till now. He would find out, for example, that in this thicket our classic authors would still find enough persons (in fact already somewhat deformed and half-noticeably changed) to describe artistically. If Mendele were to come alive, arrive here and take a look through his deeply penetrating spectacles, even he would find a literary livelihood for himself, seeing some uniquely preserved remnants of his already extinct gallery of living beings, who would ask him to describe them with his pen, saying, in his words: take me, depict me.   4 Jan III Sobieski (1629–96) was king of Poland from 1674 until his death. He granted a charter to the Jews, restoring their privileges and promising them freedom of religion and commercial rights.

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On second thought, even these remnants have outgrown their image and undergone a kind of material self-development, as to know who is worth being “depicted” and for what purpose. And so, for example, when some woman, a very angry one, with a long, thin nose, which makes her bitter, because her husband probably doesn’t like her too much—when this woman begins pinching her child sharply, and cursing him with the curses of Sholem Aleichem’s stepmother, in “The Great Fair”5—a second woman, upon hearing this, says: —Oy, it’s a pity that there is no writer here, who could have depicted her well. —It’s okay, there is writing going on, says a third one, at the same time looking slyly, winking, at the correspondent from Eynikayt,6 who just came in and heard the curses of that woman. She is certain that he, the correspondent, will repay that cursing woman appropriately, in “his” paper. In short, material, a sea of material, and surprising material— which can be more than enough for any anthropologist-statistics researcher, for a journalist, or for all kinds of literary genres to “scoop up” with a shovel and spoon, as the saying goes. Because, again—there are people traveling here who’s aim is to better themselves materially, while others—have other goals, more nationalist, who don’t search for anything better, but say: what will be will be, as long as it is there . . . And here we have fiery enthusiasts, who are prepared to give up everything just as long as they can get there, and even drag half a world along with them. Like, for example, the former Palestine patriot—he with the rich biography—who in his youth was very zealous for the colonization of Palestine, not only platonically, but who also invested a great fortune in its stake.7 He left a rich father in Russia, a lessee of an   5 The Great Fair (Funem yarid, 1913–16), Sholem Aleichem’s autobiographical novel. See Sholem Aleichem, The Great Fair: Scenes from My Childhood, trans. Tamara Kahana (New York: Noonday, 1955).   6 Ilia Lumkis (1908–?), Soviet Yiddish journalist, was a correspondent for Der emes and later for Eynikayt. Arrested in 1948, released in 1956.   7 The reference is to Shimen (Semen) Siniavski-Sindelevich, later charged in accordance with Investigation Case No. 68. According to Emiot, this person was a kind

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

estate, and alone, with several coins in his idealistic pocket, went there ready to do any hard work for the sake of his ideals. He didn’t even refuse being a sewage worker, and even tasted all kinds of blows, which were then connected to work in those places, like malaria, rashes and more—until he lost his pathos for that place, which brought him back to where he had come from, for the sake of other ideals. Now this person is already more than fifty years old, but still has enough drive to spend days and nights awake, so as to see his new venture in splendor, in bloom . . . To make it even clearer: this fiftyyear-old still has so much pioneering energy and initiative, not only to bind himself to the yoke of a new building venture, but also to serve as an organizer, pulling with him the thousand people of this echelon and the thousands more of future ones—with fire and flames, burning with enthusiasm bordering on zealotry and fanaticism. He refuses to hear any opposition or bad words, heaven forbid, against this venture, for which he stands so vigorously and youthfully. Yes, we find such people on this forty-five-carriage echelon, which still has to span a ten-thousand kilometer cross-section of this enormously great land, summer time, getting tired, dusty and exhausted from the week-long journey . . . And when someone, a tired man, turns to the abovementioned, untiring, over fifty-year-old, with an innocent question: “Ha, what do you think, how many more kilometers till we get there?”—he is answered, half in jest and more in earnest: —Why do you ask? Why do you have to know? Since we are traveling to build Birobidzhan, we don’t count the kilometers. It’s kfitsas-haderekh—a miraculous short-cut.

VII

But, enough, isn’t it time to leave the topic of the contingents in general and begin to go into more detail about the characteristics of the human material? of adventurer who offered his services to the JAR Regional Executive Committee for the organization of Jewish resettlement. Siniavski-Sindelevich’s Zionist past attracted Der Nister.

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Yes, let’s begin with the youth, and first of all with a seventeen-­ year-old whose name is Mangerl. Every time the train stops at a station, or doesn’t get to it because the railway semaphore is closed, and the people feel that they will be held up for a long time, the first passenger who is seen jumping off the train, and showing up on the platform or in the middle of a field, is this certain seventeen-year-old young man. He is always wearing a flat chauffeur hat, from which he never parts, not because he needs it (it’s summer), but apparently because it’s the only baggage he is always ready to take with him when he sets out to a neighboring city or a nearby field, or even into the wide world—that is also possible. He doesn’t need anything else—he doesn’t have anything else, except for his hands in his pockets, in which there is probably nothing, and except for a sharp, sideways glance, like a little squint-eyed animal. His head is always held partly slanted to one side, as if when getting off the train he at first looks over his “estate,” like an owner overlooking his estate— meaning all the other passengers from all the other carriages. Some of them will imitate him and also get off, especially some young kids of his age and place of origin, among whom he seems to maintain great authority, and above all—great esteem. Let’s go on . . . every time, when the train was still in the European part of the country, and later on, in the Asian part—in the Ural, in Western Siberia, in Eastern Siberia and in the Far East, we can see, when the train is held up again for a break, in the morning, during the day or evening, when it’s quiet or in the ringing steppes,—how this seventeen-year-old guy lies together with a ring of his friends on the bare ground, in a circle, facing each other. Sometimes they converse quietly, as among friends, and sometimes two or three of them begin singing a ghetto or concentration camp song, while the others silently and attentively listen to them. This is what they sing: Kupitye—koyft zhe papirosn, Trukene, fun regn nit fargosn, Koyft zhe, yidn, benemones, Koyft un hot af mir rakhmones,

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

Lozt mikh do fun hunger nit oysgeyn . . . Kupitye, koyft zhe shvebelekh antikn, Dermit vet ir a yoseml derkvikn, Koyft zhe, yidn, benemones . . . 8 etc.

These kids are singing of their own experiences, having suffered in the camps of a Pechera, a Nikolayev, and others, when their fate was to be in these places at the time of the occupation. And now, having overcome their fate and having become free, they lie here in the field of tall, green grass, or in the steppe, as bnei-horin—free beings.9 This means that they are free personally, and also that they are in a free land, with its thousand-mile wide expanses, besides being passengers in a train whose aim it is to bring them to a desired area where they will remember the nightmarish reality of their recent childhood maybe only sometimes in the happy hours. This was sung at first by the abovementioned Mangerl, together with another seventeen-year-old like him, who is wearing an artillery hat, somewhat too big for him, with a greenish faded cap-band, which looks like it was taken out of a theater warehouse. Looking at this person in his hat, probably gotten from the army or the partisans, you would on no account say that he is a Jewish guy—no, he is a Russian, a Ukrainian, or anything else but a Jew. There is a third one singing, of the same age as the former two—a Mohilev-Podolian young butcher with a dark-blondish forelock, with a stiff, wiry body, and such two hands which could probably grab a young   8

Kupitye, buy cigarettes Dry ones, not rained upon, Come on and buy, Jews, faithfully Buy and have pity on me. Don’t let me die of hunger. Please buy excellent matches With which you will revive an orphan. Please buy, Jews, faithfully . . .

For this song, see Eleanor Gordon Mlotek et al. (comp.), Pearls of Yiddish Song (New York: Education Dept. of the Workmen’s Circle, 1988), 268.   9 Comp.: Hashata avdei leshanah haba’ah bnei horin—“Today, we are slaves. Next year, we will be free beings” (The Passover Haggadah).

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ox by its horns and bring it down with its head to the ground . . . a guy that when there is talk sometimes of changing his profession and qualifying for a better one, he says: No, I like it—he likes butchering . . . he can slaughter, skin, porge [the forbidden fat and veins to make it kosher], chop up and sell. He can’t imagine doing anything else. The “artillery-man” is a shoemaker, and Mangerl is the same. The latter is the son of a shoemaker, and the grandson of a shoemaker, probably back to Sholem Aleichem’s Khlavne, may he rest in peace.10 His grandfather, apparently, did not abhor liquor, and so the grandson inherited a face half pink, half red . . . he is short, with a quiet walk, always looking sideways, like a young animal expecting an attack, but also knowing how to guard himself to avoid danger. This has surely remained with him as a residue from the Pechera camp,11 where the Jews who were caught and incarcerated together with him, called him “Dos moskver moshiekhl—The Little Messiah of Moscow.” This was because he, now a seventeen-year-old, but then eleven or twelve, on his own, with childish, courageous know-how, led a couple of thousand of the twelve thousand who were imprisoned there to freedom, while ten thousand of them remained—and were annihilated. —I,—says this guy, in his Mohilev-Podolian dialect, holding his head a bit arrogantly to the side,—I am going to the Jewish Autonomous Region, without anything as you can see, just as I am, and without any shmeykhlendiks. —Without what? —Without this,—he rubs his thumb against his other two fingers, meaning coins.— Difficulties, you say? Difficulties of any kind don’t scare me. I’m from the camps . . . 10 Khlavne (Chlavne) the shoemaker is a protagonist of Sholem Aleichem’s story “Two Dead Men” (“Tsvey toyte,” 1909). See Sholem Aleichem, “Two Dead Men (A Tale for Purim),” The Old Country, trans. Julius Butwin and Frances Butwin (New York: Crown, 1946), 51–66. 11 For the Pechera (Pechora) concentration camp set up by the Rumanians in Vinnitsa region, Ukraine, see Shmuel Spector and Geoffrey Wigoder,‫‏‬eds., The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust (Jerusalem/New York: Yad Vashem/New York University Press, 2001), 2:977. Also Yitzhak Arad, The Holocaust in the Soviet Union (Lincoln/Jerusalem: University of Nebraska Press/Yad Vashem, 2009), 302.

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

He hasn’t learned much. He had hardly been able to warm the school bench when the Fascist plague caught him and tore him away from it. His speech is therefore somewhat mixed—a juicy Yiddish, but also flavored with crumbs of Russian, Ukrainian and even German words, which he acquired during his enforced upbringing, from his enforcers. Try to picture his “German”: He says “Strasse-Gass,” thinking that “Strasse” is the name of a street . . . But it doesn’t matter. This guy will surely prove himself, as long as he falls into good hands and will be given the opportunity to see what he has missed—which, by the way, we don’t doubt. Not to worry, we can trust him. His famous camp stories can serve as proof. He wasn’t called moshiekhl for nothing. A small matter—a couple of thousand people, rescued by him, on his living conscience . . . Please say it again: a couple of thousand! This is even an enormous number for a great and legendary hero. We must hear this, in general, and also in detail—how this guy describes how he once had to make the long way from Pechera to Mohilev while he was ill, with a high fever. It was through a great forest, many miles from one end to the next, and he was almost unconscious and had to lie down to rest. Nevertheless, he had enough sense left to remember to leave a sign for himself, which would show him from where he entered the forest, so as to know in which direction to continue when he woke up . . . He placed a stick near his head . . . But during his sleep he tossed and turned so much that when he woke up he found the stick lying on the ground . . . He had lost his orientation. —I asked him,—pointing to the “artillery-man,” who had made the trek together with him,—but he started crying. Of course, what did he know about forests? He was still a snail,—he joked about his friend, as if he himself was then already a tourist, a topographer, a geographer, or altogether a knowledgeable person. —Here, there, and what do you think? I finally found the right way again and got out where I was supposed to,—continued that Mangerl, with such a carefree smile, with such light-heartedness as if he were talking not about his and his friend’s life, but about picking an apple from a stranger’s orchard. We must also hear how this short, lively young man relates the picture of how he once led a group of rescued women through the same

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forest at night; how he met a policeman; how that policeman started bargaining with him and demanding ransom money, and not having any he gave him, in the dark, a packet of tobacco rolling papers, saying that it was a packet of stocks; how the policeman discovered the deception. As he was led to his death he began to plead his case as if he were a great scholar, similar to Tevye the Milkman, with the same erudition in verses as he. He explained to him that it is written somewhere in the Scriptures that when you kill a whole family you have to leave a remnant, and since all of his family had been killed, and he was an orphan from all sides, so by law, and by righteousness, and because it was written, he must spare him and leave him as a remnant, a replant . . . —In short,—says the guy, he managed to get out of that in one piece, and with a half-sad, half-ironic smile, a part of which you can still find on his lips when he remembers that instead of money he offered the policeman the equivalent of money—clothing; later he returned to the women he led and said:—Well, women, get undressed, and turn over everything; from then on he led them almost naked, except for an undershirt . . .

VIII

—M’chu . . . —I suddenly heard from behind me, right after the story told by that guy. It sounded like someone was clearing his throat, or perhaps crying, stifling a sob. It turned out that my Jew, with whom I had quite a bit of experience during the first night of the beginning of my trip, standing under me, also heard the story. And while hearing it, all he could do was make a one-syllable grumble, or a half-broken sob: —M’chu . . . Looking at him, I noticed that in a sharp corner of one of his eyes was reflected a Golgotha-like landscape—a place, where the last segment of our history was crucified as a martyr; and at the same time, in another corner of his other eye, I saw a wedding with klezmers, as if he still had the recent story-teller in front of his eyes and could not tear his joyful, astonished look away from him . . . —Yes,—he later remarked,—today they should say, what kind of buildings don’t get built by such as these . . . And they should also say:

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

what kind of Moses, seeing this guy with the company of women he led—at first clothed, and then naked—would not be jealous of him, and not marvel at him more than at himself? . . . We could finish our story here about this guy, but there is still a small, amusing bit of prose, for dessert, in the figure of his older brother. If the young one is a shoemaker still learning, the older one—a twenty-five-year-old, and I think also married—is a highly qualified shoemaker. He is somewhat shorter than average, narrow-boned, and if he has a half-pink, half-red color in his face, it’s not only an inheritance from his grandfather’s penchant for drinking, but surely—from his own. He wears high boots with bootlegs, tight on his legs. He also has a little forelock, like the Cossacks, sticking out from under his round astrakhan hat, the so called kubanka [Kuban hat], with which he dresses up every evening when the train stops and he goes out with others onto a station platform, or for a walk in a field. In general, he is a shoemaker with all the old-fashioned mannerisms. Besides this, even while traveling he doesn’t leave his work behind— sitting in the train, he has under him an improvised work bench, with tools he took with him from home. He works, and thanks to him more than one settler will arrive in Birobidzhan with complete shoes. He is also a survivor through his brother. After the camp, he went to join the Soviet army. He is never willing to part with the insignia, the decorations, and medals he received for his battle merits, wearing them at all times on his chest as jewelry, as befitting. Nevertheless, he values his brother’s heroism more than his own. He praises him and constantly listens to him spellbound whenever he speaks, never letting anyone interrupt with even one word, apart from himself, sometimes, to assent to or endorse what he is saying. And this time, when he notices an important ring of listeners around his brother, and among them the correspondent from Eynikayt, toward whom he, as all the other settlers, relates with great respect, he goes over to him and begins to complain to him about an injustice that was perpetrated against the one he is so proud of and boasts about.

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—As comrade correspondent sees,—pointing to his brother who is in the center of a group,—a book could be written about him. Someone actually wrote about him . . . a certain writer, who was, by the way, even born in our city, Mohilev. He came to us all the way from Moscow, where he now lives. He got a lot of his (winking at his brother) stories and left. He wrote a book, for which he received a large fortune, we heard. But to him,—again pointing to him, like a patron for his client, regretfully,—he never gave even a penny. Phooey, not nice . . . These words, “not nice,” were said on account of the company of patsies, which means on account of the company of writers, to which group also he, the correspondent, surely belongs. Many come to him, the most conspicuous and chosen one in the echelon, with quasi-intelligent claims about someone’s improper deeds, which deserve to be condemned. He, to whom the claims were brought, does not know what to say, since the whole story is indeed unbelievable, and could only arise in the imagination of an inexperienced provincial person. The correspondent is embarrassed, but someone comes to his rescue—a cameraman. He has only one and a half arms, because he lost half an arm in the Finnish War.12 He approaches and expresses his wish to photograph a group of people from the camps, with little Mangerl in the center. The older brother likes the cameraman’s request . . . —How then?—he now says with a half-soothed resentment, somewhat compensated and satisfied for the part of the “royalties” which were not paid to his brother . . . —What then, who more than he deserves to be shown in the newspaper? The correspondent with the one and a half arms, whose missing half is replaced by a shiny black wooden piece with fingers, in a glove, works fast. First he grabs Mangerl and places him in the center; at his side the “artillery-man” with his theater-prop hat, too big for his size; on the other side—the young butcher with his dark-blondish forelock, and above them the elder brother, with the Kuban hat and the medals on his chest. Because of the festive moment he straightens up, like in 12 The “Winter War” between the Soviet Union and Finland in 1939–40.

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

array, and even more than in array. A few other guys, related to the story, are added to the setting. Then the cameraman takes a step back a certain distance and grabs his Zeiss-camera out of its leather satchel, which he always has hanging on a leather strap thrown around his neck. He bends down, with his right eye in the viewfinder of the camera, to see if he got the group in the right focus, and to verify that it will be satisfactory to his plan. —Yes, right. —Quiet, calm! Then he presses the button: Click, click, click. And here you have an echelon picture: still number one.

IX

Those days the high, dazzling sun warmed everything. The surrounding green-yellow fields—standing still before cutting. The sky—appearing as blue as a deep well. And the clouds—with snow-white borders and a dark, ashen color in the middle, resting on the horizon like tired, idly pacing guards. Then, on such a day, our echelon celebrated the wedding of one couple riding on it, who, without themselves knowing it, served the settler public—which consisted mostly of camp-prisoners condemned to death—as a symbol of the rebirth of their whole people, which had already stood on the brink of destruction and under the threat of being finally wiped off the face of the earth. The wedding itself has already been portrayed by another, honestly and lovingly, elevated properly and poetically. The description was published, I think, under the title “A Wedding on Wheels.”13 I, for my part, only want to add that a few hours before that extraordinary wedding ceremony, the couple came into my carriage, where I was at the time. They came to me, as a well-known man of the press, in order to get a blessing. On the eve of such a festive moment, when souls and bodies unite in binding love, the bride wanted to talk, similar to the traditional custom of fasting, crying, and saying prayers of confession by the bride and groom before the wedding, to ensure good fortune . . . 13 See Lyumkis, “Di ershte khasene,” Eynikayt, July 26, 1947.

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In truth, if we are dealing with crying, the bride should have gotten betrothed to a sea, in order to have the necessary amount of tears . . . But no, the bride did not cry. She only told a story—variations of which could be heard from many others here in the echelon, and not only in the echelon, but far and wide of our folk-disaster . . . A story which took place in Khmelnik, where her father was shot before her eyes as she stood with him, hand in hand, waiting to be shot, together with the entire Khmelnik Jewish community . . . How she saved herself, wounded and bloody, hiding out not far from there; how a familiar Ukrainian young man, who had previously had romantic feelings for her, came to her hiding place and helped her get out of there; how she almost froze to death, because it was winter and a biting frost was raging outside. She had already spent hours there, since the morning when the “action” occurred,14 until the evening, when all her limbs had already become stiff . . . How after she was saved began a series of misfortunes, when she worked as a maid for a German military man in a nearby small town. The bride speaks quickly, in a hasty stream flooding the talk, wanting to get it out quickly, as much as possible, into a stranger’s ear. She—speaks, and the groom stares at her, looking into her mouth, amazed, because he, apparently, is not capable of such quick speech. He looks into her mouth, because in his own, as it was said, he surely could not find a tenth of what she, his bride, is expressing so quickly, in such a short while. This is the case with many of those who suffered as she did, and who are in a hurry to tell their story—so that you could conceive the minutest concept of that which cruel fate bestowed upon them—with such regrettable mildness. Finally she tells about her groom, sitting beside her, who, coming home from the army and not finding any of his own in Khmelnik, because during the “action,” when his bride was also meant to perish, they were all lowered into the mass grave, never to leave it again. When he came home and found no one of his family, and also she, returning to the shtetl, 14 In the “action” of January 9–16, 1942, more than 7,000 Jews were executed in the shtetl of Khmelnik, Vinnitsa region, Ukraine; see Spector and Wigoder‫‏‬, Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust, 2:619; also Arad, Holocaust in the Soviet Union, 170.

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

and finding herself in the same situation, and since they knew each other from childhood, they became close and decided to . . . Here she shed a tear, both for remembering bitter experiences, and also, apparently, because of the custom of crying on the day of one’s wedding. Then, when she stopped crying, and her groom, sitting by her side and looking at her in amazement, stopped being silent—both turned to me and invited me to their wedding in a few hours, which was to take place in their carriage. I was not at their wedding, unfortunately, because I was not well. But I do know what went on in that carriage a few hours later, from many of those who were there. I know, for example, that the more than fifty-year-old former Palestinian patriot cried. All of the women also cried—those who were in the same carriage and had prepared the bride for the festivity, as is befitting. They prepared the attire, food, and drinks for the wedding guests—as far as the journey and the conditions on the echelon allowed. The bazetsns, the seating of the bride ceremony, was done almost traditionally, with the flute crying in the flutist’s mouth, the tall klezmer in dark-brown, smoky eyeglasses; it was the same with the fiddle in the hand of the second klezmer, whose face expressed the fact that the klezmer livelihood was similar to the misfortune of all the people in their old home—downtrodden. Therefore they are going to a new home, with the hope that there the klezmer fortune will again revive. The shokhet, the ritual slaughterer, who was the only “religious cult servant” on the echelon, carried out the wedding ceremony and called for a ring. But no one wore rings anymore, because rings and other jewelry remained with the great lovers of such things—the Germans and the Rumanians, who by no means had left any of those items in the hands of the Jewish people . . . So it seems that he led the ceremony without a ring, and said the blessings over vodka instead of wine, which could not be acquired on the journey. When he handed the groom the glass, just for a taste on his lips, the latter, being a soldier who was used to a more substantial amount, gulped down much more, as befitting for a groom. The bride did the same, out of embarrassment and bewilderment.

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Then there was dancing . . . It was very crowded in the carriage, because of all the invited guests, and the curious others that congregated there. But this did not prevent them from dancing the traditional sher-dance, as was appropriate. The women and men celebrating the wedding sweated as they hopped around, not being able to execute the required steps of the dance, because of the crowdedness. Just at that time the train stopped at a station for a long time. By chance, on the parallel line there was an echelon of Japanese prisoners of war. They, hearing the strange music, and seeing the unfamiliar ceremony, kept staring with their narrow-slanted cuckoo eyes, like birds of the night in the daylight. During the dancing they smiled amicably, and if they had been allowed, they would gladly have joined the ring of dancers. Traditional wedding gifts were given, it was said, by those whose hearts were willing, and whose pockets allowed it. There was also a group of young Russian peasant women and men from those distant Siberian places, who watched the wedding while they were standing on the platform, smiling indulgingly with full mouths of white teeth, happy with the good fortune of the bride and groom. Then the cameraman traveling with us, the one with the threequarter arms, showed up again. He again expressed his desire to add this young couple to his album collection. You can see them there: she—of average height and sturdily built, with teeth slightly apart, black eyes, strong, feminine shoulders, a bosom promising motherly fulfillment; he—although a soldier, but nevertheless weaker in comparison to her: with a thin face, and a look that does not contain more than a quiet fascination and loving honor for the one sitting by his side in the picture. Yes, it’s apparent that she, the bride, will be the one setting the tone . . . By the way, we heard that as soon as they arrived at the place, and set foot on the ground, they were taken to a kolkhoz. From the first day, she, the bride, began to fulfill two work norms a day. He, the groom, on the other hand, even though he tried to catch up with her, his destined one, was not able to fulfill more than one norm. But it doesn’t matter: between the two of them they worked for three.

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

Everything I described has remained in my memory as a picture in the frame of a beautiful summer day, hot outside, and festive inside the echelon. As all the people of my carriage, who were invited to the wedding, spent most of the day, evening and even a part of the night at the festivity, the bride, of average height and sturdily built, stood before my eyes as a symbol of all that I kept pondering as I traveled. In the evening, in the darkening carriage, I again saw my stormbitten Jew sitting at my side, perceiving my thoughts about the day’s events in the echelon. He began to decipher them in his manner, saying: —Yes, poor but happy: two klezmer musicians, one “religious cult servant” without a wedding ring and with vodka in place of wine, but—people cried and danced at the wedding of a daughter and son of our nearly destroyed people, a son and daughter of this nation that always loves life and always emerges from all the fires and disasters . . . —Hurrah, l’chaim!—My fellow Jew suddenly got up from his place, and in the dim twilight by the window I think I noticed a glass in his hand and some color in his pale, suffering face, embellished by a bright goatee beard. —L’chaim!—I answered, having in mind the great celebration that took place in the echelon, the poor but happy sher that was being danced just then in the hot carriage of the bride and groom, in honor of and for the sake of cheering up the bride and groom. —Veyibone bays be-Yisroel!—“May the House of Israel be rebuilt”15 for the sake of the children and the children’s children.

X And here is a third picture in the cameraman’s collection of young people. 15 Comp.: “May it be Your will, Lord, our God and the God of our fathers, that Your sacred House [of Israel] be speedily rebuilt in our days” (from the Shemoneh Esrei prayer).

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It’s again a summer evening somewhere in the Urals, in Siberia, or on the Trans-Baikal Route, in the godforsaken steppe, where the train was held up for quite a long time. The young people, in a good mood and happy after the day’s journey, poured out of the train in the steppe near the railroad. They talked, joked, and looked for amusement. A pair came out for a wrestling duel-contest. One of them—the seventeen-year-old metalworker-acrobat whom we have already met, tattooed with snakes, eagles, and human figures; the one with the narrow mouth that doesn’t allow him to laugh broadly, so his eyes laugh instead—on one side, and on the other—a locksmith who works in plumbing, much older than the first, much taller, always smiling, whose smile, however, never crosses his lips, only stays in his gaze, where it apparently feels best. They step out at first in a kind of Tatar folk wrestling, meaning they grab each other by their belts, good and strong, so as to have a better hand grip on the other before the next manipulation. They stand head-to-head, like two butting oxen, with their feet steadfast on the piece of ground that each one claimed on their first position, not giving way one inch, and not allowing the opponent to move from his place. They stood like that for a long time, head-to-head, holding out, not moving, like two oxen equal in strength at the beginning of a battle. Later, though, one of them, the weaker one, moved from his position, and the other one attacked at that opportune moment, for which he had waited silently, gathering his strength persistently. That summer evening in the steppe, in the presence of many young people who surrounded the wrestlers, those watching the battle noticed that although the older and taller one was stronger than the shorter one, who seemingly reached only to his shoulders, nevertheless seeing the widely developed chest of the shorter one, as well as his strong neck and nape and his powerful sunburned hand muscles, coffee-colored— he was given the credit of a victorious outcome. Besides the credit, he was also the favorite of the crowd, who wanted to see him the winner in the duel-contest.

Der Nister’s Images and Impressions

And so it was. Despite the mature courage of the older one, and his advantage in height, which usually plays a part in such contests, the metalworker-acrobat managed each time to pull out of the difficult situations which his heavyweight opponent led him into, due to his agility and training. And finally, after long back-and-forth moves, the short one luckily found some sort of trick with which to overcome his opponent (whose efforts to knock him down were wasted). His acrobatic expertise also helped to bring the bigger one down. He lay face down, to the cheers of those gathered around them, who expressed their satisfaction to the short winner, as if they saw here a battle between a great heroic Goliath against a young, inexperienced-­ in-battle David, along with all their anxious fondness for the latter. The same happened later, when the same two matched up again in French wrestling, carried out by all the rules and regulations of that kind of battle. This time also the older one, a backward guy, came out poorly. The younger one laid him down on the ground and remained “riding” him, to the jubilation of the crowd that watched them. Here we forgot to mention a certain detail, at first glance perhaps not important, but nevertheless characteristic—the seventeen-year-old metalworker-acrobat was all during the battle naked down to his waist, without a shirt. He was only tied up cross-wise with gauze bandage. —What’s the story? —Oh, nothing. The evening before he was to travel in the echelon, he strayed into a deserted forsaken place, probably near the river, where he wanted to bathe. He was attacked by a band of hooligans. Being alone—he tells smilingly with his narrow mouth—he defended himself as well as he could: one he turned over, a second and third he hit with his head under their jaw, so that they probably were left without teeth for the rest of their lives. But nevertheless they outnumbered him, and seeing that they would not overcome him with their bare hands, one of them stabbed him deeply in his chest with a razor blade. This is how I saw him, battered, on my first day of entering the train, when he, the seventeen-year-old kid, who single-handedly stood up against a band of hooligans and came out with not more than a bloody, torn chest, came to get his bandages changed by the doctor in

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our carriage, where the dispensary was situated, smiling carefree with his narrow-boned youthful mouth: Well . . . it happens . . . today they had the upper hand, but tomorrow he would . . . At that point, looking at him, I thought: —Oh, how good, that in the conditions of Soviet power, a new generation of our youth has risen—a generation that would surely have seemed strange to our ancestors in the time of the Travels of Benjamin the Third,16 who in every shadow saw a thief, and in every stray billygoat a ghost, causing trembling and fear. —Oh, how good, that with the potential of these courageous little Davids, who still need to arm themselves more and more, nonstop, with Davidic pride, Davidic authority and love for their people, for their relatives and brothers, so that no Goliaths will ever frighten them again. Because for any attempt to dishonor their origins or their Soviet homeland the invaders will receive the sharpest stone right in the forehead and fall down dead, like Goliath the Philistine, in his boastful and inglorious battle with the small, youthful, and still inexperienced in military cunning David . . . —Yes,—says my Jew, my “alter-ego,” meaning my other self, who also saw the duel wager, standing at my side, and caught my thought just now, but had only one word to say to me in agreement: “Yes,” because I myself expressed what he would have said. —And this is what will be,—he nonetheless hastened to add a few words . . . and this will come about in great, desired bulk, when these small Davids, the sunburned, the muscular metalworkers-acrobats will live in that place of creative assembly and new birth of the nation toward which they are striving and reaching out, like birds with the message of spring on their wings.

16 See Shalom Jacob Abramowich (Mendele Mocher Seforim), The Travels and Adventures of Benjamin the Third, trans. Moshe Spiegel (New York: Schocken, 1949).

A Man Dieth in a Tent

Der Nister’s room in the Hotel Birobidzhan immediately became a place of pilgrimage for the local Yiddish writers, including the émigré poetess from Mandatory Palestine Luba Vasserman, the literary patriarch Ber Slutski, the playwright and critic Heshl Rabinkov, the former frontline soldier poet and newly fledged Birobidzhaner Yosef Kerler (who lived in the same hotel), and others. A short time later, after returning from a business trip to Moscow, the prose writer and Birobidzhaner shtern editor in chief, Buzi Miller, also came to Der Nister’s hotel room. Der Nister should have felt comfortable among the circle of admirers and old acquaintances. He and Slutski, for example, had been acquainted for a very long time, and at the beginning of the 1930s it was Der Nister who had been the editor of Miller’s first book, published in Kharkov.1 As time went on, some of the new settlers Der Nister had met on the migrant train also came to visit him. Often they asked him to intercede with the authorities regarding various matters. For example, many wanted to remain in the regional center instead of being sent by official order to some remote kolkhoz. One of the most frequent guests of Der Nister, it seems, was the poet Isroel Emiot, who fled from Poland in 1939, spent a couple of years in Kazakhstan, and migrated to Birobidzhan in 1944. Der Nister had first met him in Moscow at the beginning of 1944 during one of the regular plenary sessions of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee and was now happy to find a familiar interlocutor in his person. Sometimes

1 Buzi Miler, Mishmoyres baytn zikh (Kharkov: Literatur un kunst, 1931). For this episode, see Buzi Miler, “Emke,” Sovetish heymland 8 (1971): 52–53.

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Emiot joined Der Nister in his daily morning strolls up to the Bira River and back. More than a decade later, Emiot, after his repatriation to Poland, visited Israel for a short time, from August to October 1958, at the invitation of the Israel Historical Society. During his stay he tried to reconstruct his 1947 conversations with Der Nister.2 What did they talk about?—among other things, the Der Emes Moscow publishing house’s delay, since 1944, in publishing the second volume of Der Nister’s monumental novel, The Family Mashber;3 the author’s joy over the novel’s translation into Hebrew;4 and literature, philosophy, and history in general. Der Nister shared memories of meetings he had had with the previous generation of Jewish writers, like Yitzhak Leibush Perets in Warsaw and Chaim Nachman Bialik in Odessa. Occasionally he mentioned his personal tragedy—the death of his daughter during the siege of Leningrad. From the Birobidzhan regional library, named after Sholem Aleichem, where in those days one could still find rare publications unavailable in many other Soviet libraries,5 Emiot proudly brought Der Nister at his hotel several volumes in the original German of the

2 See Emiot, CAHJP, 42–48. Abridged fragments on Der Nister in Birobidzhan were published in Yisroel Emiot, “Der Nister in Birobidzhan (a bintl zikhroynes),” Di goldene keyt 43 (1962): 77–83; In mitele yorn, 7–14; Der birobidzhaner inyen, 14–16. 3 The first volume of the novel was published in Moscow before the war: Der Nister, Di mishpokhe Mashber (Moscow: Der Emes, 1939). Its updated and reedited version was published in Vilna on the eve of the German invasion of the USSR in 1941 and then in New York in 1943. The second volume was published in New York in 1948. For the publishing history of the novel, see Mikhail Krutikov, “Turning My Soul Inside Out: Text and Context of The Family Mashber,” in Uncovering the Hidden, ed. Estraikh, Hoge, and Krutikov, 113–19. 4 Der Nister, Beit Mashber: roman histori, I–II, trans. into Hebrew by Haim Rabinzon, Shimshon Nahmani, and Eliyahu David Shafir (Merhavia: Sifriyat po alim, 1947–1951). 5 According to the librarian of the Birobidzhan regional library, Shmuel Kibel, the Jewish holdings included the works by the historian Simon Dubnow and by the theoretician of “spiritual Zionism” Ahad Ha’am, the poems of the Hebrew poet Chaim Nachman Bialik, along with hundreds of Yiddish periodicals from all around the world; see Shmuel Kibel, “Biro-Bidzhan,” Dos naye lebn, August 29, 1947.

A Man Dieth in a Tent

Berlin Encyclopaedia Judaica,6 Heinrich Graetz’s Geschichte der Juden,7 works by Leopold Zunz, and Hasidic studies by Martin Buber. Judging by this selection of books, the writer continued to work intensively, even in Birobidzhan, on the sequel to The Family Mashber. Emiot wrote, “I remember his attractive appearance, his gentle, quiet movements, his mumbling, reminiscent of praying, his way of carrying on a conversation, like the Hasidic tsaddik of past times.”8 The usually silent Der Nister would now and then quote, enthusiastically and from memory, passages from the foundational kabbalistic tractate Zohar (Book of Splendor), and sayings from Rabbi Nachman of Breslov’s Collected Teachings (Likutey Moharan),9 which, it seemed to Emiot, he knew almost by heart. Among other things, he also mentioned a Hasidic folktale about the founder of the Przyscha Hasidic court, Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak.10 Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak of Przyscha was among the guests at the Passover seder of his teacher, the famous “Seer of Lublin.”11 The latter sat at the table and read the Passover haggadah, as was his custom, with his head and body wrapped in a talis (“prayer shawl”). At the words “uvemorah gadol zeh gilui shekhinah” (“and with great terribleness— this refers to the revelation of the Divine Presence”),12 he removed his talis to reveal his face. When this happened, from fear and dread of the 6 Jakob Klatzkin, ed., Encyclopaedia Judaica; das Judentum in Geschichte und Gegenwart (Berlin: Verlag Eschkol, 1928–1934). 7 Heinrich Graetz, Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart (Leipzig: Leiner, 1897–1911). 8 Emiot, Der birobidzhaner inyen, 14. 9 Nahman mi-Bratslav, Sefer likutey moharan (Warsaw: Halter, 1917). Rabbi Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810)—grandson of the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov. He created a court in the shtetl Breslov, then, shortly before his death, he moved to the town of Uman, where he is buried. Today the adherents of his teachings, called Breslover Hasidim, constitute one of the largest Hasidic sects. 10 Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak Rabinovitz of Przyscha (“The Holy Jew,” 1766–1813)— founder of a special system for studying the Scriptures. He was a pupil of Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak Horowitz of Lublin. 11 Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak Horowitz of Lublin (“The Seer of Lublin,” 1745–1815)— one of the leading figures in the early Hasidism. He was a pupil of Rabbi Dov Ber, the Mezritcher Maggid, successor to the Baal Shem Tov. 12 The Passover haggadah gives here the explanation of the quote, “And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm,

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Almighty, God-fearing Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak of Przyscha lost all his teeth, except one. Subsequently, he, who became known by the nickname “The Holy Jew” (or “The Yehudi”), would call this tooth roshe, “the evil one”—because it did not fall out at the words of his teacher: “and with great terribleness . . . ”13 “Ot dos kharakterizirt di groyse, gute yidn” (“This is what characterizes the great, righteous Jews”), Der Nister would philosophize in the Hotel Birobidzhan in the summer of 1947. It is possible that it was Emiot, who saw himself as a descendant of “The Holy Jew,”14 who encouraged Der Nister in these conversations. The reference to “The Holy Jew” might also have come up in the context of Buber’s most recent novel, Gog and Magog (Gog u’Magog), in which Rabbi Yaakov Yitzhak of Przyscha is at the center. Der Nister, as a member of the JAFC,15 had access to non-Soviet editions and press, including from Israel, and he could read passages from the novel in the Tel Aviv–based Davar newspaper (the novel was published there since 1941) or from its first Jerusalem edition.16 As a youth, Der Nister had earned his livelihood by teaching Hebrew. He could write and speak the language,17 and he avidly followed publications in it, as indicated by his complaints against the criticism of his novel, The Family Mashber, published in the journal Moznaim, organ of the Union of Hebrew Writers in pre–State of Israel Palestine. In a conversation with Emiot, Der Nister mentioned at least two critical articles, “Going against the Heart” and “Balaam’s Blessing.” Both appeared in the same issue of Moznaim for 1945, and both were by and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders” (Deuteronomy 26:8). 13 For this story, see Yitzhak Zvi Ungar, Sefer yemot olam (Jerusalem: H. M. Ernster, 2000), 119. 14 Emiot, In mitele yorn, 10. 15 See Der Nister’s autobiography, RGALI, f. 3121, op. 1, d. 42, l. 2; also Redlich, War, Holocaust, and Stalinism, 63. 16 Martin Buber, Gog u-Magog: megilat yamim (Jerusalem: Tarshish, 1943/4). For the English version, see Martin Buber, For the Sake of Heaven, trans. Ludwig Lewisohn (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1945). 17 On Der Nister’s Hebrew writing, see Dov Sadan, “Pirhey no’ar,” Orhot u-shvilim: sofrey yidish (Tel Aviv: ’Am ’oved, 1979), 108–16; Jordan Finkin, “Der Nister’s Hebrew Nosegay,” in Uncovering the Hidden, ed. Estraikh, Hoge, and Krutikov, 27–40.

A Man Dieth in a Tent

the same author, the Tel Aviv publicist and public figure Shmuel Fridman (who would become the State of Israel’s ambassador in Moscow in 1951–55, under the name Shmuel Elyashiv). In the first article, Der Nister was actually mentioned, along with Bergelson and Markish, as the author of stories about Jewish life in occupied Poland that were weak and divorced from the real situation (for example, the story “Heshl Ansheles”).18 In the second article, Fridman indeed expressed his admiration for the originality and unexpectedness of The Family Mashber, against the backdrop of the increasing superficiality of Jewish literature in the USSR. He called the novel “a song of praise (shir mizmor in Hebrew) to Hasidism in one of its purest forms.”19 However, Der Nister felt that both the ambiguous title of the article, “Balaam’s Blessing,” and the sarcastic tone of the critic were insulting: The writer tries with all his might to notify the reader in advance so that he will not think that the world of ideas described to him is pure and elevated . . . . To tell the truth, it makes no difference to us whether this was done in order to conceal the author’s real intentions or to express his real position—rationalism, which protrudes here and there from under the broad and multicolored canvas he unfurls before his reader. It is possible that the writer himself was captivated by the ideological depth and spiritual beauty of the world of Hasidism, which he had intended to describe as doomed and degrading. Balaam son of Beor in his time also did not know whether he had come to bless or curse, but he had to utter whatever God placed on his lips. Similarly, here: the Jewish writer was raised up above the spiritual desert of contemporary Russian Jewry, with the intention of seeing the Jewish life of the past in its spiritual wholeness—and his words themselves became a blessing.20 18 Shmuel Fridman, “Hamitkahashim lilvavam (‘im sifro shel D. Bergelson ‘’Al gdot ha-Dnyepr’),” Moznaim 19 (1945): 111. See also Der Nister, Heshl Ansheles: dertseylung vegn eynem a fal inem itstikn okupirtn Poyln (New York: YKUF, 1943). 19 Shmuel Fridman, “Birkat Bil’am (’im sifro shel Nister ‘Beyt Mashber’),” Moznaim 19 (1945): 248. For this and previous articles, see Shmuel Elyashiv, Hasifrut hasovyetit hehadasha (Tel Aviv: N. Tverski, 1953), 198–245. 20 Fridman, “Birkat Bil’am,” 251.

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The biblical story of the pagan prophet Balaam son of Beor, who was called upon by Israel’s enemies to curse the people of Israel, but blessed them instead, is told in the weekly Torah portion called “Balak” (Numbers 22:2– 25:9). Quite symbolically, “Balak” happened to be the Torah reading for Der Nister’s first Sabbath in Birobidzhan, a fact the writer was undoubtedly well aware of. Emiot wrote, “He felt hurt and said that they evaluated him incorrectly and measured everything with the same yardstick.” Der Nister was undoubtedly upset because the Tel Aviv critic totally failed to take into consideration the fact that, given the situation existing in the USSR, he did not have much choice. Talking to the Birobidzhan writers, Der Nister lamented about how difficult it was to break through and get a novel dealing with the spiritual quests of Breslov Hasidim published, and about how various types of “well-wishers” had lodged numerous complaints against him in the Party Central Committee.21 The New York critic Shmuel Niger noted that the experienced Soviet reader could not fail to sense the “false bottom” in Der Nister’s descriptions of the Breslov Hasidim. But Niger, too, with all of his understanding of conditions in the Soviet Union, found occasion to allude to Balaam: It is no accident that Breslov Hasidim occupy so much space in the novel. It is no accident that they fill it with their material restrictedness and spiritual broadness, with their torn clothing and unbroken hearts. But they are not alone in The Family Mashber; their rebbe is here too, Rabbi Nachman. Yes, he also is here. In Der Nister he lives. He enables the writer to be the only Soviet author who blesses age-old (Breslov) Jewry even though he had come (in the Preface and first chapter) to curse it. Der Nister, being a Soviet citizen, of course, had no choice; he could not bless the Hasidic poor without also having cursed the wealthy Hasidim and other rich people . . . . The truth is, however, that having paid his debt to godlessness already in the first chapter, in the following chapters he could be impartial, describing the age-old religious customs of the Breslov Hasidim.22 21 Emiot, CAHJP, 48. 22 Shmuel Niger, “Der Nister,” Zamlbikher 8 (1952): 71, 73; bless and cursed my emphasis (BK), the truth . . . , the author’s.

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“There is still something of Rabbi Nachman in him”—thus Niger concluded his article on Der Nister’s later works.23 From Emiot’s reminiscences one gets the impression that Hasidism was the main topic of conversation when he met with Der Nister. The latter’s passionate attraction for the Hasidic righteous men in the Birobidzhan context appears to be very symptomatic, reflecting simul­taneously both Der Nister’s almost ecstatic enthusiasm, noted by Emiot, and his constantly recurring deep depression. Der Nister confided his innermost thoughts to Emiot: Zey hobn nisht geshpilt mit yidishkayt, zeyer yeder rege iz geven a geyn tsu der akeyde—They [the righteous men] did not play around with Yiddishkeit; at any moment they were ready to sacrifice themselves. We, contemporary Jews, occupy ourselves all the time with simulations of Jewishness. This does not cost us very much. Oh, how we are lacking in “Odom ki yomus beohel!—A man dieth in a tent!” It is necessary to be able to die in the tent of Torah; it is necessary to be able to sacrifice oneself!24

The Hebrew verse just cited, which touched Emiot to his soul, is from the weekly Torah portion “Hukkat.” Der Nister was certainly able to cite it in connection with one of the quotations from Likutey Moharan that Emiot recalled him declaiming by heart. The full biblical verse, dealing with the laws of ritual purity, reads literally as follows: “This is the law: when a man dieth in a tent, all that come into the tent, and all that is in the tent, shall be unclean seven days” (Numbers 19:14). It seems, however, that Der Nister’s citation of the verse was clearly in the spirit of Rabbi Nachman’s exegesis, which reads as follows: For a person should wear himself out for the Torah and die for it. As our Sages of blessed memory said regarding the verse, “Zot haTorah: 23 Ibid., 75. For the rabbi’s influence on Der Nister’s writing, see Marc Caplan, “Watch the Throne: Allegory, Kingship and Trauerspiel in the Stories of Der Nister and Reb Nakhman,” in Uncovering the Hidden, ed. Estraikh, Hoge, and Krutikov, 90–110. 24 Emiot, In mitele yorn, 10.

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Adam . . . —This is the Torah [law]: a man, when he dieth in a tent”: What is said in the Torah will only be realized for the person who is prepared to do away with himself for its [the Torah’s] sake (Babylonian Talmud, Brakhot 63b), that is, prepared to do away with his I . . . . Then he will also have a name: man/human being, as the Torah says, “Zot haTorah: Adam” (This is the Torah: a man), that is, by means of the Torah a person is called a man (human being).25

Although this interpretation of the biblical verse is rather well known, there is still the possibility that Der Nister might have made a special effort to reread it in connection with the weekly Torah portion “Hukkat,” whose Sabbath fell on just before the echelon he was traveling on reached Birobidzhan. The medieval Jewish commen­tator Rashi explained the passage in the Talmudic tractate Brakhot cited by Rabbi Nachman as follows: the word “tent” in the biblical verse means, “tent of the Torah.” For both Der Nister and his interlocutor Emiot (who was brought up in a family of Gerer Hasidim and studied with one of Poland’s great Jewish religious authorities, Rabbi Meir Dan Plotsky,26 and also in the famous Lublin yeshiva, where he earned the title of rabbi27), Rashi’s explanation was taken for granted. In this allegorical yet rather transparent manner, Der Nister let it be known that it was by no means career or material considerations that had brought him to Birobidzhan. Pinkhas Kahanovitsh (Der Nister) was born in 1884 to a Hasidic family in Berdichev. He received a traditional religious education. One of his childhood friends recalled that from a very young age he was “immersed not only in Talmud and codes of Jewish law, but also in Kabbalah, and simply would not leave the Zohar.”28 Another contemporary who knew him as a youth noted: “He belonged to that early 25 Nahman mi-Bratslav, Sefer likutey moharan, no. 101. 26 Rabbi Meir Dan Plotsky (1867–1928)—a follower of Gerer Hasidim, one of the founders of the religious political movement “Agudat Israel” in Poland and a member of its supreme body, the Council of Torah Sages. He served as chief rabbi of Warta and Ostrów-Mazowiecka, Emiot’s birthplace. 27 On Emiot’s early days, see Yosef Okrutni, “Der dikhter Yisroel Emiot (tsu zayne zekhtsik yor),” Di goldene keyt 71 (1970): 133–43. 28 Yankev Lvovski, “Der Nister in zayne yugnt-yorn,” Sovetish heymland 3 (1963): 106.

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generation of Jewish writers who came to Yiddish . . . from yeshiva, from Talmud, from religious literature as a whole.”29 A complete biography of Der Nister has not yet been written, and what is known about the years of his formation contains more blank spots than specific details. According to testimony given by the writer’s younger brother, the Parisian art dealer Max (Motl) Kaganovitch, their father, Menakhem Mendel, was an adherent of the Korostyshev (Karshev) Hasidim30 and a follower of Rabbi Moshe Twersky,31 one of the sons of Der Nister’s autobiography written for the Writers the famous Chernobyl Maggid Union in 1948. Courtesy of the Russian State Archive (“Preacher”).32 Berdichev was of Literature and Art. an important center of Hasidism and the place where the major Hasidic figure and legislator Rabbi Levi Yitzhak had been active.33 The town had numerous Hasidic houses 29 Avrom Golomb, “Fun zeyer onheyb: zikhroynes,” Zamlbikher 8 (1952): 250. 30 See Shmeruk, “Der Nister: hayav u-yetsirato,” 9, 47; also Delphine Bechtel, Der Nister’s Work, 1907–1929: A Study of a Yiddish Symbolist (Berne: Peter Lang, 1990), 1. 31 Rabbi Moshe Twersky (The Korostyshev Maggid, 1789–1866)—one of eight sons of Rabbi Mordechai Twersky, the Chernobyl Maggid. Refusing to become the head of the Chernobyl Hasidic court after the death of his father, he moved to Korostyshev and founded the Korostyshev (Koristyshuv, Karshev) branch of the Chernobyl dynasty. 32 Rabbi Mordechai Twersky (The Chernobyl Maggid, 1770–1837)—second head of the Chernobyl school of Hasidism. His sons founded the Korostyshev, Makarov, Cherkasy, Turisk, Talne, Skvira, and Rotmistrivka branches of the Chernobyl dynasty. 33 Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev (1740–1810)—one of the greatest Hasidic authorities. He was a pupil of Rabbi Dov Ber, the Mezritcher Maggid, successor to the

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of prayer, including the Korostyshev synagogue, which the writer’s father probably attended. In his Soviet autobiographies, Der Nister noted, for understandable reasons omitting details, that he had received a traditional Jewish upbringing, finished Jewish elementary and high schools, and received a general education at home from private tutors.34 Before that (in the first half of the 1920s, it seems) Der Nister informed the compiler of the Lexicon of Yiddish Literature, Zalman Reisen, that he derived from “very pious Jewish kabbalists” and that he was “under the strongest influence of Hasidism.”35 The New York critic Nachman Mayzel, who became friendly with Der Nister in their youth, was more specific: “[he was] under the influence of tender, loving, heartfelt, and sincere Breslov Hasidism,”36 like his older brother, Aron, who became a Breslov Hasid, despite his parents’ opposition. In 1907 Pinkhas Kahanovitsh made his debut in literature with two short allegorical stories in Yiddish, signed with the esoteric pseudonym Der Nister, “The Hidden One.”37 In the biographies of a number of Hasidic masters, beginning with the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov, there is the motif of a “hidden” or “concealed” period of their life. The scholar of Jewish Mysticism and Hasidism, Joseph Weiss, describes this phenomenon as follows: The essential value of the “concealment” (hester/nistar), as this period before the “revelation” (hitgalut) is called, does not lie in religious humility. Rather, the significance attributed to it is that of

Baal Shem Tov. He was the last chief rabbi of Berdichev. 34 For Der Nister’s Soviet autobiography, see RGALI, f. 3121, op. 1, d. 42, l. 1. See also Avraham Novershtern, “Der Nister,” in Gershon Hundert, ed., The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 1:402–4. 35 Zalman Reyzen, ed., “Nister, Der,” Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur, prese un filologye (Vilna: B. Kleckin, 1927), 2:580–84. 36 Nakhmen Mayzil, “Der Nister—mentsh un kinstler,” in Der Nister, Dertseylungen un eseyen, 13. 37 Der Nister, Gedanken un motiven: lider in proze (Vilna: Yugend, 1907). Regarding a possible decoding of this pseudonym, see Dov Sadan, “Mai Der Nister?” Hulyot 9 (2005): 305–11.

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preparation and mystical build-up, which precede the going out into the realm of society.38

During this period the future righteous man accumulates esoteric knowledge in a process that keeps his personality concealed from the eyes of most people, and it can rarely be traced by contemporaries or later researchers. As a rule, his personality is strengthened by this solitary and secluded way of life. In many cases the future Hasidic holy men put themselves into voluntary “exile,” living for a while in a foreign place or concealing their name. The image of such a nameless wanderer (navenad, geyer, vanderer) appears in the pages of Der Nister’s early stories and passes through all of his works. So young, so young, and he has already set out as a wanderer (in geyers gegangen) . . . . —What will be his first trial? —He gets to know who he is, and gets to know that they will test him. —And . . . ? —A bad business: He knows, they will take away his holy not-knowing (dos heylike nisht-visn).39

It is probably in this light that we must first of all see Der Nister’s journey to Birobidzhan in the summer of 1947. Prior to this he had kept himself aloof from the social sphere, but now he had decided to reveal in public both his face and his heart. Several years before this, as if explaining his own inner condition, he wrote the concluding chapters to the second part of his novel The Family Mashber. There the main character, Luzi Mashber, decides to leave his home town and go into voluntary exile: The reason he had just made the decision to leave town had nothing to do in fact with his quarrel with the community . . . . No, his reason 38 Yosef Vays, Mehkarim behasidut Braslav (Jerusalem: Mosad Byalik, 1974), 5–6. 39 Der Nister, “Tsum barg,” Gedakht (Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1929), 38–39.

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was a quite different one: it was an inborn yearning for far horizons that is characteristic of former wanderers . . . . Yes. On might swear that Luzi, seeing such wanderers in his mind’s eye, saw among them his ill-fated grandfather of whom it was said in his father’s house that one summer night, before he made his last heretical step, he left the house wearing slippers, not shoes. . . . Later reports were received from reliable persons who had seen him, first in Podolia, then in Moldavia and in Walachia, and finally in Istanbul . . . . [H]is grandfather was among the number of those who had shown himself capable of severing his ties with his family, with his wife and children, with his town and community, to walk out into the world wearing his slippers. Standing there before his window and looking out at the spring sky and thinking about such wanderers, he saw among them also his grandfather who before he had come to his decision to leave must have stood before his window and yearned for far horizons the way he, Luzi, was doing before he, too, undertook to be one of those wanderers.40

In Der Nister’s Birobidzhan essays, it is the author who stands before the window, on the eve of a long journey and fateful decisions. A careful reading of the essays also reveals the phenomenon of “wandering” (vanderung) as a philosophical and religious category and as a hope for the coming repair, the kabbalistic tikun—what the writer calls, “reconstruction” or “restoration of the broken wholeness” (tsebrokhene gantskayt). The phenomenon of Jewish “wandering,” that “historical silliness” (geshikhtlekher laykhtzin) that keeps the Jews eternally suspended in mid-air, without any ground under their feet, must come to an end. Will this reconstruction begin here and now? Instead of a direct answer to this question, the author gives his reader a dialogue that continues throughout the whole text, between the pessimistic narrator 40 Der Nister, Di mishpokhe Mashber: roman, tsveyter teyl (New York: YKUF, 1948), 423–24. The English translation based on Der Nister, “The Hidden One,” The Family Mashber, trans. Leonard Wolf (London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1989), 655.

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and his more optimistic alter ego. Der Nister does not conceal his ambivalence toward the excess of optimism of “that Jew.” For his part, he almost completely identifies himself with the pessimistic narrator, who, by his own admission, is in a state of deep depression (moyreshkhoyre). “Vider vanderung . . . Vider dos folk in veg . . . Onheybndik funem Nilus, durkh ale velt-vasern, un itst azh tsum Amur . . . ”—“Wandering again . . . The nation again on the way . . . Starting at the Nile, through all the world’s waters, and now even up to the Amur . . . ,” sighs the pessimistic narrator as he in passing sketches the historical perspective from which he views his people. “Neyn, s’iz eyno doyme”—“No, it’s not similar,” objects the Jewish optimist, in the manner of the Talmud dispute. Di itstike ibervanderung iz lakhlutn nit glaykh tsu ale andere fun frier . . . S’kumt itst for a tifer iberbrokh in der psikhologye fun der yidisher mase letoyves rekonstruktsye, d”h, kedey tsurik ufshteln ir tsebrokhene gantskayt un kedey an ek un oys tsu makhn mit dem geshikhtekhn laykhtzin, velkher hot zi alemol gemakht blaybn hengen in der luft, on a bodn un azoy shlekht ayngevortslt, az a lyade vint hot zi gekont avekblozn fun ire ayngezesene voyn-erter. Nokh der letster katastrofe iz gekumen di gruntlekhe bazinikung. In mitl-alter flegn azoyne faln, af ale lengn un breytn fun der diaspora, bloyz dervekn hofenung af falshe meshikhim, itst—a shtrebung tsu realer tat. Itst kumt for di ufvakhung umetum, in ale lender, vu nor der yidisher yishev gefint zikh . . . The present wandering is not at all like all those earlier ones . . . A deep break is occurring in the psychology of the Jewish masses, for the sake of reconstruction, in order to repair the broken wholeness, and put an end to the historical silliness that always left them hanging in the air, without any support, and so poorly rooted, that any light breeze could blow them away from their old familiar habitats. After the recent Catastrophe came the fundamental reexamination. In the Middle Ages, such events, which occurred far and wide in the Diaspora, would awaken hopes in false messiahs.

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Now—we see a striving for a real action. Now everywhere, in all the countries wherever there is a Jewish settlement, we see an awakening.

This dialogue between the pessimist and the optimist harbors a very tangible question, one that has persistently occupied Jewish thought: Is the incessant wandering (in other words, galut, meaning “The Exile, or Life in the Diaspora”), the main reason for the Jews’ misfortunes? This particular question was posed in an especially acute manner by the Zionist movement when it arose at the end of the nineteenth century. Now, after the Catastrophe of European Jews, according to Der Nister’s alter ego, the question urgently demanded a “fundamental reexamination.” Speaking about “historical silliness,” his imagined interlocutor, who “is quite learned in books,” paraphrases Nietzsche’s “historical sickness” (historische Krankheit41) that “has attacked the shaping power of life.”42 In his early opus, “On the Utility and Liability of History for Life,” Nietzsche came out against history as a force that defines the present and the future on the basis of the past. The appeal of Der Nister’s alter ego “to put an end to the historical silliness” contains an element of “anti-historicism” (or “counter-historicism,” to use David Biale’s term43) of the same type, one that resembles the statements of another native of the Pale of Settlement, the Hebrew publicist and philosopher Micha Yosef Berdyczewski, a prominent representative of the “Jewish Nietzscheans.”44 We can, with certain reservations, also include among the latter Martin 41 Friedrich Nietzsche, “Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben,” in Deutsche Geschichtsphilosophie von Lessing bis Jaspers, publ. Kurt Rossmann (Bremen: Carl Schünemann, 1959), 361. 42 Friedrich Nietzsche, “On the Utility and Liability of History for Life,” in Unfashionable Observations, Vol. 2 of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, trans. Richard T. Gray (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), 163. 43 David Biale, Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979). 44 See Werner Stegmaier and Daniel Krochmalnik, eds., Jüdischer Nietzscheanismus (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997), especially Daniel Krochmalnik, “Neue Tafeln: Nietzsche und die jüdische Counter-History,” 53–81.

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Buber, who saw in Hasidism a unique form of “Kulturkritik,”45 or, in other words, a counterpoise to “normative” Jewish history. However, this pseudonormative history relates only to the period of the galut, which “broke” the previously existing “wholeness,” to use Der Nister’s words. This is what Der Nister’s alter ego calls “the historical silliness,” now destroyed by the unprecedented Catastrophe, which created, in the cruelest possible way, the conditions for “reconstruction.” All this philosophical background presents the long, exhausting train trip of the writer together with Jewish settlers as a kind of symbolic passage onto the threshold of a new beginning. The old, prewar world ceased to exist, and the ordinary migrant train was like a min noyekhs teyve, stil modern, d”h, nisht afn vaser a teyve, nor af der ayznban, un nisht in keyn mabl, nor nokh a rizikn velt-krig, vos iz nit beser fun a mabl. a kind of Noah’s ark, modern style, not on water, but on railroad tracks, and not in a deluge, but after a tremendous world war that was no better than a deluge.

Where was this contemporary ark headed? Er zet im oys, der lokomotiv, vi di forgeshtaltung fun undzers a shtik mazl: shvarts un shtum, ober dokh lebedik-heys un zudik-sheferish tsit es undz in di merkhakim, vu s’vart af undz, meglekh, a gor vunderlekhe iberandershung un banayung. S’dakht im oykh, az er merkt fun vayt a fon afn lokomotiv zikh fendlen . . . Di ufshrift zet er nit, ober er filt zi, oykh nit zeendik: “Foroys, tsum vayterdikn, umufherlekhn folks-kiem.” The locomotive looks to him like the image of our piece of luck: black and silent, but nevertheless hot and alive, agitated and 45 See Martina Urban, Aesthetics of Renewal: Martin Buber’s Early Representation of Hasidism as Kulturkritik (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 158–59, passim.

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creatively pulling us into the distances, where perhaps a wonderful transformation and renewal is waiting for us. It seems to him that he notices from afar a flag waving on the locomotive . . . He doesn’t see the inscription, but he feels it even though it is not visible: “Forward, to the continuation of the unceasing folk existence.”

This optimism was actually well founded, at least according to Der Nister’s alter ego, insofar as the echelon was full of “kleyne drayste Dovidlekh, velkhe darfn ober nokh mer un nokh mer . . . bavofnt vern oykh mit yener Dovid-shtolts, mit yener Dovid-virde un libe tsu zeyer folk, tsu zeyer foters hoyz-gezind un tsu zeyere brider”—“courageous little Davids, who should arm themselves even more with Davidic pride and love for their people, and for their relatives and brothers,” and then keyne Golyasn zoln zey keynmol nit shreklekh zayn, vayl far yeder pruv tsu shendn zeyer shtam . . . voltn di shender gekrign mitn sharfstn shteyn in shtern getrofn, blaybndik lign peyger, azoy vi der Golyas-haplishti in zayn barimerish-shenderishn kamf mitn kleynem, yungn, nokh umderfarenem in takhsisey-milkhome Dovidn. no Goliaths will ever frighten them because, for any attempt to dishonor their brethren . . . the invader will receive the sharpest stone right in the forehead and fall down dead, like the Philistine Goliath in his boastful and inglorious battle with the small, youthful, and still inexperienced in military cunning David.

The main thing was that a genuine repair—the restoration of the mythical wholeness of the Jewish people—could only take place “in yenem ort fun folks-sheferisher onzamlung, fun nay-geburt un iberdertsiung, avuhin zey shtrebn un tsien itst, vi foyglen mit friling-bsure in di fligl”—“in that place of creative assembly and new birth of the nation toward which they are striving and reaching out, like birds with the message of spring on their wings.” Two elements of the train journey represented for Der Nister pledges of the new birth: the wedding in the echelon we saw earlier and the orphan children, to whom the writer constantly returned and whom

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he called “a holoveshkele, geratevet fun der groyser sreyfe”—“a brand plucked out of the great fire,” alluding to the prophet Zechariah.46 It is rather difficult, however, for the reader to follow from whose point of view the narration is proceeding and who in particular is making all these statements of historical significance. Der Nister the narrator constantly changes places with his alter ego, who is presented outwardly as the complete antithesis of the writer: “a tall, slim Jew, with a flat chest and back, a blond, stray beard, watery gray eyes, and a resigned smile on his lips.” The alter ego, as it were, emerged from the carriage window, through which the writer, during his first night on the train, was observing the sphinxish moon and his own distorted reflection: Tsi hob ikh im oysgetrakht, ot dem yidn . . . —veys ikh nit, nor afn gantsn veg fun mayn langer rayze . . . vel ikh im shoyn alemol hobn zitsn oder shteyn ba mayn zayt. Did I imagine him, that Jew . . . —I don’t know. But during the whole course of my long journey . . . he will always sitting or standing alongside of me.

This image clearly evokes an association with the mysterious Dustperson (shtoyb-parshoyn) featured in Der Nister’s 1929 symbolist parable “Under a Fence” (“Unter a ployt”). The Dust-person had come straight out of the wall,47 from some alternate reality, and compelled the scholar-­ narrator to perform in a circus for the entertainment of the public. The probability that “the Jew from the window” in the Birobidzhan essays was not simply a literary device for expressing the author’s inner thoughts, but rather another of Der Nister’s doppelgangers, a shadowy double who induced the writer to behave in an uncharacteristic manner, introduces a certain ambiguity, not only in the text but also in his real attitude to his extraordinary journey. Be that as it may, Der Nister’s initially rather simple metaphor of a new beginning, under whose sign his trip on the migrant train took 46 Comp.: “Is not this man a brand plucked out of the fire?” (Zechariah 3:2). 47 Der Nister, “Unter a ployt,” Gedakht (Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1929), 285.

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place, was transformed into a much more demanding mission, which the writer took upon himself while in Birobidzhan. Already on his very first day in Birobidzhan, Der Nister called upon the best representatives of the Jewish intelligentsia of the country to find an enhancement of their powers just there where the Jews veln zikh konen oyslebn af zeyer eygnartikn oyfn un loyt zeyer zelbstshtendik-geshafenem shteyger—der rezultat fun gemeynzamen geshikhtlekhn goyrl un doyres-langer derfarung . . . vu zey zoln bavayzn befoyel, af vos undzer folk in di geherike badingungen feyik un bekoyekh. could live in their own special manner and by their own independently created way of life—as a result of their common historical fate and experience of many generations . . . and in practice show what our people is capable of under suitable conditions.48

He, as it were, decided to demonstrate to his sterilely “playing-­ with-Yiddishkeit” colleagues the way of saving the Jews from the “historical silliness”—by means of their own territory, which should lead them away from a state of simulating Jewishness to a state of dynamic “real action.” Thus, that which was hidden was revealed: Der Nister’s emotional and spiritual crisis, brought about by his depressed state in face of the Holocaust in general and the death of his daughter during the siege of Leningrad in particular, found expression in the form of a public “messianic” role that he took upon himself voluntarily. This was almost unthinkable under the conditions of the Soviet regime, which looked upon any unsanctioned initiative with great disfavor.

48 Der Nister, “Mayn ersht vort vegn Birobidzhan,” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 3, 1947.

Russian Jewish “Hybridization”

The “broken wholeness” mentioned above, fitting into the romantic paradigm of a lost paradise, calls to mind the dedication to his daughter that Der Nister wrote about this time. He asked his old friend Nachman Mayzel to add it to the second volume of The Family Mashber being prepared in New York: Mayn kind, mayn umgliklekh-umgekumene tokhter Hodele . . . Zol dayn tatns tsebrokhn harts zayn di matseyve oyf dayn farloyrenem keyver . . . My child, my daughter Hodele, tragically dead . . . Let your father’s broken heart be the monument over your lost grave . . . 1

As if they had merged, as in the well-known Hasidic saying, “There is nothing more whole than a broken heart,” the national “broken wholeness” and the writer’s own “broken heart” came together and demanded an urgent solution to Der Nister’s distraught condition. In her remarkable monograph, Walking through Trauma, Haviva Pedaya of Beersheba University lays bare the traumatic nature of such major phenomena in Jewish history as exile, wandering, roaming,   1 Der Nister, Di mishpokhe Mashber, 3. See also Mayzil, “Der Nister—mentsh un kinstler,” in Dertseylungen un eseyen, 28.

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migration, and emigration—that which she calls, in general, “walking.”2 According to the model she proposes, the aim of such “walking” is to overcome personal or collective trauma, and, to all appearances, this is the case of Der Nister’s journey to Birobidzhan. His call—evoked by the traumas at its base—for the “consolidation of the Jewish people” (the writer uses here the “All-Union headman” Mikhail Kalinin’s, chairman of the USSR Central Executive Committee, half-forgotten prewar phrasing as ideological backup)3 on its own territory, far from the breeding grounds of death and destruction, as well as from the center of the country that, to all intents and purposes, he declared to be irrelevant, opened a dialogue with the Soviet Jewish collective about its present and future. This dialogue gradually grew into a call for a national renascence that clearly would go beyond the bounds of Soviet Jewry and appeal to fellow-Jews “umetum, in ale lender, vu nor der yidisher yishev gefint zikh . . . vu dos folk denkt tsu farvirklekhn zayn ideal”—“everywhere, in all the countries where there is Jewish life . . . where our people intends to realize its ideal,” as Der Nister himself expressed it in his travel notes. During the two months he spent in the JAR in the summer of 1947, Der Nister literally radiated the atmosphere of the special mission he had set for himself. Sharing his thoughts about the role of the Jewish writer with the poet Yosef Kerler in his hotel room, he said, “For others, the writer knows only one thing, his work, ‘Painter, paint—and hush,’ and the rest will already come of itself.”4 Actually, he repeated his own words from the preface to The Family Mashber: Writing this book, I have held fast to the principle of artistic realism. That is to say I followed Goethe’s famous injunction, “Painter, paint—and hush,” fully confident that whatever was necessary and   2 Haviva Pedaya, Halikha she-mi’ever le-trauma: mistika, historia ve-ritual (Tel Aviv: Resling, 2011).   3 See “Kh’ Kalinins rede,” in Dimanshteyn, Di yidishe avtonome gegnt—a kind fun der oktyaber-revolyutsye, 39.   4 Kerler, “Der Nister (1884–1950),” 116.

Russian Jewish “Hybridization”

desirable would come in any case of itself, as a consequence of that painterly fidelity.5

However, to Kerler he now began saying quite the opposite: We, Jewish writers, cannot allow ourselves such luxury. We must be concerned that there will still be a reader, that there will still be children—that there will be a people! We who have survived the Catastrophe could, God forbid, any minute, fall under the weight of this burden, such a mere “trifle” as the very existence of the people with an ancient culture . . . How could we want to be nothing more than simply good writers! But—it is not permitted, it is impossible . . . It is not allowed!6

In other words, he had now no intention whatsoever of following the “principle of artistic realism” chosen by him earlier and remaining silent. Far from playing the least role in changing Der Nister’s writer’s credo was the warm and heartfelt welcome he received in Birobidzhan, which literally turned his head. “It seems, that throughout his entire lifetime in Russia, Der Nister had never received such adulation,” wrote Emiot.7 Under the circumstances it was difficult for him to maintain his habitual role as a silent observer. He began talking, powerfully, ardently, and emphatically. According to the memoirs of the linguist Yosef Cherniak, who had settled in Birobidzhan not long before Der Nister’s arrival, the writer spoke with an unusual expressiveness in those days: “People not only heard his words, but even saw them.”8 It turned out that he was able to be convincing not only on the pages of his writings. His proposals found support among the local   5 Der Nister, Di mishpokhe Mashber (New York, YKUF, 1943), 21. The English translation here is by Leonard Wolf in Der Nister, The Family Mashber, 27.   6 Kerler, “Der Nister (1884–1950),” 116–17.   7 Emiot, In mitele yorn, 12.   8 Yoysef Tshernyak, “Der Nister un zayn gvies-eydes,” Di goldene keyt 53 (1965): 214.

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authorities on the highest level (apart from the interference raised by the Party Regional Committee secretary for propaganda, Zinovy Brokhin, about whom Emiot writes with hostility). The chairman of the Regional Executive Committee, Mikhail (Moishe) Zilbershtein, a connoisseur of Yiddish literature who, in contrast to Bakhmutski and many other local functionaries, had read The Family Mashber in the original (he himself hailed from Berdichev), showed special concern for Der Nister at every opportunity, including the granting of financial aid.9 Der Nister was invited to be the guest of honor at various conferences devoted to questions of culture and education. At literary evenings, whether held in the regional center or in remote places, when he entered the hall, the public always stood and welcomed him with a deafening ovation. His excursions to the settlements—“a triumphant march through the Region,” as the New York magazine Ambijan Bulletin called it bombastically10—became something like an inventory of “Jewish property” on the territory of the JAR. Thus, for example, he considered it necessary to visit the remnants of the Ikor commune, established at the beginning of the 1930s by immigrants from abroad.11 The newspaper Birobidzhaner shtern published selections from Der Nister’s essays “Regrowth,”12 “Flora,”13 and “The Wonder City,”14 paying hefty author’s fees, and JAR Regional Radio broadcast them regularly. Somewhere in the Regional Radio’s phonograph record library a recording of the writer’s voice as he reads his early poem “We” (1910) is probably still preserved:   9 See the report on ideological work in the JAR presented to Stalin by Afanasy Dedov, deputy head of the Department of Party, Trade Union, and Komsomol Organs of the Communist Party Central Committee, June 25, 1949, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 163, d. 1527, ll. 64–73. 10 “Reception in Honor of Nister,” Ambijan Bulletin 7, no. 2 (1948): 11. 11 Efim Kudish, “Der Nister—gost’ smidovchan (o priezde v 1947 g. v Birobidzhan izvestnogo evreiskogo pisatelia Der Nistera),” Birobidzhaner shtern, November 20, 1993. 12 Der Nister, “Vidervuks,” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 19, 1947. 13 Der Nister, “Flora,” Birobidzhaner shtern, August 3, 1947. 14 Der Nister, “Di vunder-shtot,” Birobidzhaner shtern, September 6, 1947. This sketch was dedicated to the 800th anniversary of Moscow, widely marked all over the country.

Russian Jewish “Hybridization”

Dokh mir shlepn           Thus we drag along Untertenik            Stooping Un mir klogn zikh       And not complaining Far keynem,            About this, Nor mit oygn           With timid eyes Shtile kukn           Only Ale nakht          At the sky above Aroyf tsum himl        At night we look Un mir kukn nor       Only we look Un zukhn          And seek Shtern-shterndl    Our starlet-star Fun oybn . . . 15      From above .  .  . Der Nister recited this poem during a radio interview while he was visiting the settlement of Smidovich,16 on his way to the Ikor commune. The founders of Ikor had come there at the beginning of the 1930s from Argentina, the United States, France, Poland, Lithuania, and some other countries, trusting in the Soviet “starlet-star.” Unfortunately, by the time Der Nister came, almost none of the founders remained. Those who did not leave in time disappeared during the period of mass arrests at the end of the 1930s. In general, the local literary figures praised Der Nister’s writing talent in every possible way, calling him “one of the best representatives of Soviet Yiddish literature,” “a profound connoisseur of Jewish folklore,” and “an outstanding master of the artistic word.” The writer Heshl Rabinkov publicly called upon him to create a “great work about the Jewish Autonomous Region and its builders, builders of the Soviet Jewish statehood” and expressed the hope that this future work “would crown Der Nister’s saga about the life and destiny of the Jewish folk masses and the path they carved from the middle of the 19th century until our own times.”17 15 Der Nister, “Mir,” in A shpigl oyf a shteyn. Antologye: poezye un proze fun tsvelf farshnitene yidishe shraybers in Ratn-farband, ed. Khone Shmeruk (Jerusalem: Magnes Press/Hebrew University, 1987), 130. 16 Kudish, “Der Nister—gost’ smidovchan,” Birobidzhaner shtern, November 20, 1993. 17 Sh. Shenker, “A bagegenish mitn sovetishn yidishn shrayber Dem Nister,” Birobidzhaner shtern, August 5, 1947; H. Rabinkov, “Der Nister,” Birobidzhaner shtern, July

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In essence, Rabinkov was proposing that Der Nister, in the third part of The Family Mashber, send his heroes to, of all places, Birobidzhan. In response to all this glorification, Der Nister took the opportunity to talk not about his own works (which he actually never discussed in public), but about what he considered more momentous matters. Thus, at the August 2 literary gathering devoted to him, held on the premises of the regional library, he declared for everyone to hear that the main task standing before the Jewish workers of the Soviet Union today was building their own Soviet statehood (eygene sovetishe melukhishkayt), and that the Birobidzhan public needed to join in the realization of this great historical task still more actively. Birobidzhaner shtern reported the writer’s words without comment and noted that he “was received very warmly by those present at the gathering.”18 The Birobidzhan State Yiddish Theater, for its part, staged a musical montage based on Der Nister’s 1942 story “Grandfather and Grandson” (“Der zeyde mitn eynikl”). While in Tashkent during the wartime evacuation, Der Nister translated from Russian into Yiddish the drama Hamza by Kamil Yashen and Amin Umari (about the modern Uzbek poet Hamza Hakimzade Niyazi), which Moscow GOSET performed in 1943, but the musical montage in Birobidzhan became the only performance of his own works on stage.19 The hero of the story, an elderly rabbi caught in the Nazi-occupied Polish shtetl Mielec, is executed on the Day of Judgment. He holds an ancient Torah scroll in his hands and has a fringed prayer shawl (talis) wrapped around his body. He walks with closed eyes, so as not to see anything around him,

8, 1947, and G. Rabinkov, “Vydaiushchiisia master khudozhestvennogo slova,” Birobidzhanskaia zvezda, July 13, 1947. 18 Shenker, “A bagegenish mitn sovetishn yidishn shrayber Dem Nister,” Birobidzhaner shtern, August 5, 1947. 19 See Kotlerman, In Search of Milk and Honey, 212. For the Yiddish text of Hamza, see RGALI, f. 2307, op. 2, d. 273.

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and with moving lips whispers verses from the book of Psalms, the Yom Kippur prayers, and the Talmud: Judge me, God, and come to my defense in my dispute with the unjust nation . . . (Psalm 43:1) Forgive Your sacred people on this sacred day, O Exalted and Holy One . . . (Yom Kippur prayers) Rabbi Akiva said, “Fortunate are you, Children of Israel . . . Before Whom are you purified? Who purifies you?—Your Father in Heaven” (Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 8:9)

At the same time, the grandfather’s Marxist grandson is led to the gallows. To the Nazi’s bellow, “Heil Hitler!” the rabbi responds with the Jew’s eternal answer, “Shma Yisroel!”—“Hear, O Israel!” and his congregation responds with the prayer’s traditional refrain, “Blessed be the Name of His glorious majesty for ever and ever!”20 This story, the second of Der Nister’s series about what happened in occupied Poland,21 in spite of its noticeable religious subtext, could very well bewilder the reader, because it seems rather feeble when compared to what really happened in Mielec in the fall of 1939, on the eve of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah. In real life, according to eyewitnesses, the Nazis and their Polish accomplices shot to death a whole group of religious Jews whom they had driven into an abattoir. Among the victims was the elderly rabbi Naftoli Meilekh Vassershtrum, a refugee from a neighboring shtetl, who really was seen pressing to his body a Torah scroll belonging to his community. Rabbi Vassershtrum also had a shofar close to his chest, and when the shooting began he blew it. By chance the executioners’ bullets missed teenaged Yankele Shvalb. He grabbed the blood-stained Torah scroll from the hands of the dying rabbi and tried to escape through a window. But outside, the 20 Der Nister, Der zeyde mitn eynikl (New York: YKUF, 1943), 52–54. 21 See also Der Nister, Korbones (dertseylungen) (Moscow: OGIZ/Der Emes, 1943).

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murderers poured petrol over him and lit it, and as he turned into a living torch, they shot him.22 Some Polish Jew in Central Asia probably told Der Nister about what had happened in Mielec. He decided to deepen and work out in detail the image of the old rabbi, to whom he devoted a large part of the story. However, to balance this he “transformed” the cruelly murdered teenager into the old rabbi’s convinced Marxist grandson. To demonstrate the triumph of the Jewish spirit, Der Nister preferred, for understandable reasons, not the blowing of the shofar breaking through the sounds of gunfire, but the following peculiar scene: before being hanged, the grandson refuses to spit on the Torah scroll and his rabbi grandfather refuses to spit on . . . a portrait of Lenin! This literary construction, composed by Der Nister’s experienced hand, can serve as an excellent example of the labored symbiosis between the Soviet and the Jewish ethoses forced upon Jewish literary figures in the USSR. The Tel Aviv–based Hebrew language publicist Yitzhak Yatsiv, speaking in that period about engagement and conformism in the later works of David Bergelson, called this phenomenon “Soviet-Jewish devekut,”23 which may be translated in this context as “Soviet-Jewish hybridization.” Ironically using the Hasidic concept of constant cleaving (virtually gluing) oneself to the Divine,24 Yatsiv meant the quasi-religious adherence of Soviet Jews to the regime. As a matter of fact, Der Nister never expressed opposition to the Soviet regime, even though it was undoubtedly alien to him. Rather, he tried to find a way to live with it. According to Emiot’s memoirs, more than the present-day authorities, Der Nister feared—as someone who had lived through pogroms in the Ukraine during the Russian civil war soon after the Bolshevik revolution—a rebirth of the spirit of the Black Hundreds. This spirit, he felt, was deeply embedded in the Russian 22 Shloyme Klagsbrun, Melitser yidn (Tel Aviv: Nay-lebn, 1979), 198–208. 23 Yitshak Yatsiv, “Hahevel haavtonomi,” Davar, August 23, 1946. 24 For the concept of devekut, see Joseph Weiss, Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 56–57; and also Harry M. Rabinowicz, Hasidism: The Movement and Its Masters (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1988), 87.

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people and was only waiting for the right moment to emerge from its place of concealment.25 At the same time, he quite honestly loved Russian culture. In his library, books by Graetz and Buber, the Zohar, and tkhines (women’s prayers in Yiddish), and a certain booklet of kabbalistic content (according to Yosef Kerler, the latter two were seen on Der Nister’s little table on the migrant train bringing him to Birobidzhan26), peacefully adjoined Chekhov, whom the writer tried to read daily. For Emiot, as a native of Poland, it was also difficult to accept this, if not “Soviet-Jewish,” then at least “Russian-Jewish” “gluing together.” With a trace of bewilderment he tells about his effort to surprise Der Nister by showing him that the Birobidzhan library had a copy of the prewar Polish Union of Yiddish Writers and Journalists’ anthology, Varshever shriftn. Of special interest here was the critical essay written by Emiot’s friend from youth, the Warsaw poet and publicist Isroel Shtern (1894–1942). Like Emiot, Shtern came from deeply religious circles. His thoughts on the creative works of Y. L. Perets—whom Der Nister viewed as his spiritual mentor27—reflected Emiot’s own esthetic position: Not novelty of form, not distinctiveness of style, not uniqueness of motif, not the justification of Hasidism, not the apotheosis of Kabbala. All this appears naturally. But all past stages were only for the sake of the achievement of that which is essential, in which it is possible to believe and which testifies about itself: I am the whole world, everything created is only for my sake. And if you want, ladies and gentlemen, if you want, precisely here there is already art. Here there is already the beginning of something greater than art.28 25 Emiot, In mitele yorn, 11. 26 Kerler, “Der Nister (1884–1950),” 112. 27 For Der Nister’s controversial relationship with Perets, see Bechtel, Der Nister’s Work, 32–34. 28 Yisroel Shtern, “Kroynen tsum kop fun der yidisher kritik,” in Varshever shriftn, ed. Sholem Ash et al. (Warsaw: Literatn-klub baym fareyn fun yidishe literatn un zhurnalistn, 1926–1927), 56:32.

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82

To Emiot’s surprise, Der Nister, having looked at this voluminous anthology before going to sleep, returned it to him the next morning with a sour expression. What probably irritated him was Shtern’s naive theorizing, as seen, for example, in the following passage on the topic of religion and revolution: “Religiosity at its root is revolutionary. Genuine fear of God is a windstorm that destroys beaten paths and even ritual laws.”29 Characterizing Shtern’s essay on the whole, Der Nister remarked depreciatingly that the author “becomes confused by too much pathos; he had evidently not read Belinsky.”30 In the context of the writings of Shtern, who perished in Treblinka, Der Nister’s mention of the Russian literary critic and thinker Vissarion Belinsky— who was highly praised by Soviet literary criticism as the universally recognized theoretician of realism in art—could not but irritate Emiot. At the same time—in distinction to Fridman-Elyashiv, who characterized Der Nister as a person who repressed his national feelings—Emiot must have perceived that for Der Nister the postwar renewal of migration to Birobidzhan was not at all merely a generous gesture by the authorities to the Jews (as the writer’s colleagues had perceived the Birobidzhan project in the 1930s). Rather, for Der Nister the present movement was a small victory in the constant struggle against assimilation, even under the conditions of the Soviet Far East Jewish autonomy, which in practice existed almost in name only. In Emiot’s opinion, with all his “deep inner purity and integrity,”31 or, most likely, just because of these, Der Nister did not understand the nature of the Soviet system very well. He scolded Emiot in regard to the meager Jewish content of Birobidzhaner shtern—as if Emiot, who was not much more than an ordinary employee, could change anything: Well, they in the [Party] Regional Committee understand very little about Jewish matters, but where are you? Why don’t you react? You are not only a correspondent, but a Yiddish culture activist!32 29 30 31 32

Ibid., 56:37. See Emiot, In mitele yorn, 11. Emiot, CAHJP, 83. Ibid., 42.

Russian Jewish “Hybridization”

Naively, according to Emiot, in the manner of the shtetl, Der Nister thought that traditional Jewish shtadlones, that is, the force of personal advocacy or lobbying, could be relied upon, and he also believed in the possibilities available to the local authorities. The following incident served as an expression of his naivety, in Emiot’s view. The first secretary of the Party Regional Committee, Bakhmutski, assured Der Nister that Jewish parents did not want to send their children to Yiddish classes. In response, following Der Nister’s suggestion, people at the regional center began collecting parents’ signatures in support of schools with Yiddish as the language of instruction. However, it is clear that Emiot drew his conclusions about Der Nister’s naivety retrospectively, since at the time the writer’s efforts proved to be rather effective, which Emiot must surely have known. Thus, Bakhmutski, despite pressure from Propaganda Secretary Brokhin, and energetic hints from the “organs” of state security, decided not to shelve the matter of Yiddish culture. To all appearances, it was just about this time that a green light was given to the “JAR Publishing House” to move ahead with preparations for the publication of two collections of poetry in Yiddish.33 Also, on August 18, 1947, the JAR leadership turned directly to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Ukraine, Lazar Kaganovich, with a request to support the continuation of mass migration to Birobidzhan.34 At the same time Bakhmutski laid out in detail, in the Moscow Yiddish newspaper Eynikayt, a program for education in Yiddish as “one of the most important tasks in the development of Soviet Jewish culture.” In this remark one clearly senses the behind-the-scenes presence of Der Nister, who was still in Birobidzhan at that time. The program proposed broadening the network of national schools, establishing an institute of higher education “in the native language,” bringing in 33 See Khaim Maltinski, Der moskver mishpet iber di birobidzhaner (Tel Aviv: Nay-lebn, 1981), 22. See also Yisroel Emiot, Ufgang (Birobidzhan: Farlag fun der Yidisher avtonomer gegnt, 1948), and Itsik Bronfman, Af likhtike vegn (Birobidzhan: Farlag fun der Yidisher avtonomer gegnt, 1948). 34 See Mitsel, Evrei Ukrainy v 1943–1955 gg, 111.

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Yiddish teachers and students from all over the country, and transferring to Birobidzhan the Office of Yiddish Culture of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences.35 Preparations for carrying out this program— which was exceptional for the USSR, where by that time almost all the Yiddish-language educational institutions had been closed— began immediately. During the coming school year, Bakhmutski personally authorized the introduction of Yiddish lessons for Jewish and non-Jewish children in the basic primary school at the Birobidzhan Pedagogical Seminar, and in the primary school of the Valdheim village36 (for which he subsequently “paid a price”). For adults, an evening school providing Yiddish language and literature instruction was opened in the city of Birobidzhan.37 It is quite conceivable that these and other very concrete measures were discussed in Bakhmutski’s contacts with Der Nister. The writer, of course, knew perfectly well where he lived and the risk he was taking by directly challenging the authorities. As Moishe Belenki recalled, in his presence Der Nister once answered Perets Markish’s question—How must one serve one’s people?—with a Hasidic style parable: In a certain country there lived a ruler. A large number of Jews were in his power. The ruler was wicked and cruel. Only one person, Menakhem, enjoyed the trust of this ruler, who usually fulfilled Menakhem’s requests. Once, when the ruler became enraged, he ordered the hanging of a certain Jew for some trifle. At the same time, he declared that anyone who came to plead on behalf of the unfortunate man would also be hanged. When news of this reached Menakhem, he dressed in burial shrouds and went to the ruler to ask him to repeal the sentence . . . 35 Aleksandr Bakhmutski, “Kardinale tog-fragn,” Eynikayt, August 28, 1947. 36 State Archive of the Jewish Autonomous Region (GAEAO), f. 1-P, op. 1, ed. khr. 382, l. 182. See also “Af der birobidzhaner shtotisher lerer-konferents,” Birobidzhaner shtern, August 28, 1947. 37 See Birobidzhaner shtern, September 4, 1947 (announcement).

Russian Jewish “Hybridization”

“Dos lebn darf men zayn greyt opgebn dem folk”—“It is necessary to be prepared to give your life for your people,” said Der Nister, concluding his allegorical answer.38 However, Der Nister did not go so far as to call for challenging the powers that be to the extent of provoking retribution. Thus, in a conversation with the dean of Birobidzhan literary figures, Ber Slutski, he led the talk around to a mutual acquaintance, the Kiev poet Itsik Kipnis. The latter had been ostracized and expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers in connection with a publication in which he called upon Jewish war veterans to proudly wear a Magen David (Star of David) along with their wartime military decorations. A bowdlerized version of Kipnis’s article was published in Eynikayt. Dissatisfied with this, Kipnis published the full version in May 1947 in the Polish Yiddish newspaper Dos naye lebn.39 Although he considered Kipnis to be his “brother in misfortune and misery, and with almost the same literary fate,” Der Nister nevertheless characterized the poet’s act as an impractical foolishness.40 Der Nister also knew with whom he was dealing when he associated with the Birobidzhan leadership. “Gib got, az der penkher zol nit platsn”—“May God grant that this bubble not burst,” was the way he reacted rather cynically in Kerler’s presence to Bakhmutski’s promises.41 Der Nister’s atypical behavior—his “non-Soviet method,” as certain cautious Birobidzhaners rebuked him42—was not evidence of his understanding or misunderstanding of the nature of the regime, but rather a manifestation of his unwillingness or genuine inability to play by the 38 See Moyshe Belenki, “Der Nister (eynike shtrikhn fun zayn kharakter un shafung),” Yerusholaymer almanakh 22 (1992): 213. 39 Itsik Kipnis, “On khokhmes, on khezhboynes,” Dos naye lebn, May 17, 1947. For this case, see Mordekhai Altshuler, ed., Yahadut Brit-hamo’atsot be-aspaklaria shel ’itonut yidish be-Polin (bibliografia, 1945–1970) (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, 1975), 12–13 (in Hebrew) and 26 (in Yiddish). 40 See Der Nister’s letter to Kipnis, in Shmeruk, “Arb’a igrot shel Der Nister,” 244. For the original letter, see RGALI, f. 3121, op. 1, d. 38, l. 1–4. 41 Kerler, “Der Nister (1884–1950),” 119. 42 Emiot, CAHJP, 144.

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generally accepted rules, to which the absolute majority of Soviet Jewish kulturtraegers submitted. Initially Der Nister differed by tenaciously distancing himself from any type of public activity. But now he displayed a new, uncharacteristic “hyperactivity,” the explanation of which must be sought in the idea of a Jewish renascence, which, like the “ashes of Klaas,” beat incessantly in his heart.

Comfort Ye My People

Der Nister’s travel notes—which constitute a kind of intermediate genre, part short story, part newspaper report—complete a cycle of several works of this type written earlier in Moscow after the writer returned from the wartime evacuation to Central Asia. The first of the Moscow essays, “Hate” (“Has,” 1944), was inspired by a meeting with a teenaged Jewish partisan who had, by a miracle, survived the destruction of the Jewish population of Volhynia. The essay, “Hate,” published for the first time in the newspaper Eynikayt on June 29, 1944, begins as follows: Before me sits Shloimke Olitski, a sixteen-year-old youth in a fur hat with a red ribbon, the distinctive sign of a partisan. He had all the touching habits and gestures of a child who, before his time, was torn from his parents and schooling and thrown into a whirlpool of such events that his head remained on his shoulders only by a miracle . . . . He tells how, before his eyes, they slaughtered the whole shtetl of Jews, his father among them . . . When he recalls this word, his lips break open, as if kissing the dead man, so dear to his heart. The word “father,” sacred to him, gets stuck in his throat, like an unsung song . . . His father, it seems, always stands before his eyes, and he still frequently feels that he is the child of this man, whom he wants to snuggle up to, as if he were a living person. He tells how he escaped together with his nine-year-old little brother; how they moved together up and down the whole rear of the enemy, and how they lived, and what they endured together until they separated.

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When the talk turned to his little brother, he, Shloimke, suddenly broke off . . . He was surely killed. Here he casts a glance at me, full of sorrow and bitter experience, as well as youthful contentiousness, and says: —So, are you older than me? Not so! I am older than you! One day of mine is like three years of someone else. Do the math! Almost 1,100 days of fighting—I got into it from the very first day—multiplied by three years . . . Well, aren’t I older than Methuselah? —Yes, dear Shloimke, you are older, older than him, and, certainly, older than me, older than my grey head, than many grey heads, insofar as it fell to your lot, to your generation, and onto your young shoulders to go through something that no Jeremiah, nor any other witness to the numerous catastrophes of our much-tried-and-tested and much-suffering people, would have the strength to lament or complain about. But . . . let us be comforted, Shloimke. You have learned: Whoever has seen jackals on the ruins of our mountain will yet see how they build there. You, yourself, are the comfort: one in a thousand, like you, saved, two in ten thousand—in order to tell the coming generations that it is impossible to kill a people.1

“Host dokh gelernt”—“You have learned,” the writer says to his companion, the sixteen-year-old youth from the shtetl Ratno, near Kovel, alluding to the Jewish education the boy received along with his contemporaries in prewar Poland, an education denied to Jewish children in the USSR. What was Shloimke supposed to understand from these words? “Lomir zikh treystn”—“Let us be comforted,” exclaims Der Nister, alluding here to the Prophet Isaiah’s well-known declaration, read in synagogues on the “Sabbath of Comfort” for the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which is the Sabbath immediately following the Fast of the 9th of Av: “Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,” declares   1 Der Nister, “Has,” in A shpigl oyf a shteyn, ed. Shmeruk, 218–19.

Comfort Ye My People

Isaiah (40:1). With these words we have the key to understanding the essay of Der Nister, who is speaking here by quoting multiple voices— in “a multivocal register,” to use Harriet Murav’s phrase.2 Later in the essay the author plainly invokes another prophet—“the witness to the numerous catastrophes of our much-suffering people,” Jeremiah—with these words: “Ver s’hot gezen di shakaln oyf di khurves fun undzer barg, der vet oykh zen, vi men vet dort boyen”—“Whoever has seen jackals on the ruins of our mountain will yet see how they build there.” Here Der Nister is paraphrasing a verse from the Book of Lamentations (Eikha), also known as The Lamentations of Jeremiah, which is read in synagogues on the Fast of the 9th of Av: “Because Mount Zion has become desolate; foxes prowl over it” (Eikha 5:18). Thereby Der Nister is saying to his reader outright that Mount Zion, or the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, is “our mount.” One might explain this phrase as a metaphor built upon a universalistic biblical perspective. However, the mention in Der Nister’s text of the Mediterranean city of Alexandria (“Here recently stood the enemy at the gates of Alexandria, and now, after his long retreat, to the African coast of the Middle East, through Sicily, he is already on his way to return all of Italy”), where the British won a victory over the advancing Nazi forces and thus prevented them from moving further east, to the Land of Israel, points to a different interpretation. Dov Sadan, an authoritative scholar of Yiddish literature, wrote in his time that Der Nister worked under the influence of two “complexes,” one based upon his “priestly” Kahanovitsh/Cohen family origin and the other based upon his perception of the Jewish poet’s social role. It seems also that the first “complex” significantly surpassed the second.3 These “complexes,” which it would be more accurate to call “predominators” of his creative activity, are clearly described in the short story “New Spirit” (“Nay-gayst,” 1920).4   2 Harriet Murav, Music from a Speeding Train: Jewish Literature in Post-Revolution Russia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011), 148.   3 Sadan, “Pirhey no’ar,” 115; see also David Roskies, A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 218–20.   4 Der Nister, “Nay-gayst,” in Geyendik, ed. Der Nister, Leyb Kvitko, Moyshe Livshits (Berlin: Lutze & Vogt, 1923), 5–30.

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The story’s autobiographical hero, the poet Pinkhas son of Menakhem Cohen, is commanded by the High Priest (HaCohen HaGadol) Ishmael to rebuild the Tabernacle of the Covenant, not in the heavens, but on earth. The image of a young fox roaming on ruins appears in this short story,5 but Der Nister revealed the meaning of this image clearly only twenty years later, in the essay “Hate.” As Sadan wrote in another article, “As soon as he, Pinkhas Cohen, remembers and reminds others about the foxes on the ruins of the Temple, then immediately the parable about Rabbi Akiva arises before him.”6 And this is what this famous Babylonian Talmud story of Rabbi Akiva says (Makot 24a): Once again they [Rabban Gamaliel, Rabbi Eleazar ben ‘Azariah, Rabbi Joshua and Rabbi Akiva] were coming up to Jerusalem together . . . and just as they came to the Temple mount they saw a fox emerging from the Holy of Holies. They fell to weeping, and Rabbi Akiva seemed merry. Wherefore, said they to him, are you merry? Said he: Wherefore are you weeping? Said they to him: A place of which it was once said “And the common man that draws nigh shall be put to death,” is now become the haunt of foxes—and should we not weep? Said he to them: Therefore am I merry; for it is written, “And I will take to Me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest and Zechariah the Son of Jeverechiah.” Now what connection has this Uriah the priest with Zechariah? Uriah lived during the times of the First Temple, while Zechariah lived during the Second Temple; but HolyWrit linked the [later] prophecy of Zechariah with the [earlier] prophecy of Uriah. In the prophecy in Uriah’s days, it is written, “Therefore shall Zion for your sake be ploughed as a field” etc. In Zechariah it is written, “There shall yet old men and old women sit in the broad places of Jerusalem.” So long as Uriah’s prophecy had not had its fulfillment, I had misgivings lest Zechariah’s prophecy might not be fulfilled; now that Uriah’s prophecy has been   5 See Sabine Boehlich, “Nay-gayst”: Mystische Traditionen in einer symbolistischen Erzählung des jiddischen Autors “Der Nister” (Pinkhas Kahanovitsh) (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 65.   6 Dov Sadan, “’Al kokhav hageula,” Orhot u-shvilim, 126.

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fulfilled, it is quite certain that Zechariah’s prophecy also is to find its literal fulfillment.

The parable’s presence in the subtext of the essay “Hate” is confirmed when Der Nister addresses Shloimke with the words: “Du bist aleyn di treyst”—“You, yourself, are the comfort,” just as the abovementioned story ends: “’Akiva nihamtanu, ’Akiva nihamtanu”—“Akiva, you have comforted us! Akiva, you have comforted us!” Thus, the semantic field of the essay—constructed around the mourning for the destroyed Temple and at the same time a pervasive hopefulness regarding the national revival—conveys Der Nister’s sense of tragedy and pathos, which the Birobidzhan essays also “inherited.” Looking at the orphan children on the echelon, over and over he speaks about being comforted: . . . you feel and are certain that, no—the last line of our life-account has not yet been drawn. Undzer kval—nokh nit oysgetriknt, un az ot di farvorlozt-gevezene, talantfule kinder, fun velkhe mir veysn yo, un di, fun velkhe mir veysn nit, un bikhlal kinder zaynen di treyst, der tsuzog un di garantye af undzer kinftiker viderufboyung un nokhamol uflebung—“Our spring has not yet dried up, and these previously abandoned, talented children whom we know, and those we don’t know,—children in general, are our comfort, our promise and guarantee of our future rebuilding and renaissance . . . ” Woe to the Hitlers—those that have disappeared, those that still exist, and those that may possibly rise up in the future . . . Amen, woe to them . . .

Der Nister met Shloimke Olitski, the protagonist of “Hate,” in May 1944. The youth’s real name was Shloime Perlmutter, but he had been represented to the partisans as Semen Olitski, using his mother’s surname. (Later, with the help of the poet Itsik Fefer, he found his only surviving relative, his mother’s cousin, the Yiddish poet Leib Olitski.) When he met Der Nister he was studying at the Moscow State Jewish Seminar of Theater (MGETU). He had come to the seminar from the special boarding school for orphan children in the town of Leninskie Gorki, outside Moscow, where he had resided for a short time thanks

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to the efforts of General Aleksei Fedorov, former commander of the Chernigov-Volynsk partisan unit.7 The young partisan was honored with such care in connection with his exposure of Ivan Lukianiuk, a Nazi policeman and later an officer in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), who had been dispatched to Fedorov’s forest camp on a mission of espionage, sabotage, and murder.8 This is how Fedorov described a meeting at his headquarters in the forest with someone whom he calls “Senia Galitzky,” in his memoirs, The Last Winter (Posledniaia zima), written in Russian: A tall, dark-haired roughneck of about 28, he repeated what he had already told the others. He was a simple soldier in the units of Bandera but saw that everything there was falsehood and lies, and so here he was, he defected to the partisans . . . Is he happy here with us? Yes, very! This Lukianiuk did not utter an extra word, as much as I questioned him . . . Ten minutes hadn’t passed from the time he left when my personal assistant entered and said with an expression of secrecy on his face: —Senia wants to speak with you. He has something to say. —Which Senia? —Galitzki Semen, the orderly from the unit named after [the Russian Civil War Red Army general Grigori] Kotovsky . . . —What does he want? —He doesn’t say! He’s just shaking all over.   7 For the Chernigov-Volynsk partisan unit, see John Armstrong and Kurt DeWitt, “Organisation and Control of the Partisan Movement,” in Soviet Partisans in World War II, ed. John A. Armstrong (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964), 114–16.   8 Ivan Lukianiuk (1916–44) is mentioned in Helmut Wagner, Rechte in der Rada: Swoboda,’ Nationalismus und Kollaboration mit den Faschisten in der Ukraine und in Europa (Berlin: Verlag am Park, 2013), passim. He began his service with the Nazis immediately after they invaded the Kovel region, in the beginning serving in the auxiliary police. Afterwards he graduated the Secret Field Police School in Kiev and was given the rank of instructor in charge of mass executions, particularly of Jews. In May 1943 he moved to UPA and was commissioned an officer. In February 1944 he was sent to the partisan regiment of General Fedorov and exposed by Shloimke.

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The youth who entered afterwards was indeed trembling. His face was pale, and his eyes darted. —Comrade General! Do you know who just came to see you now? That was a German policeman, an executioner and murderer! He commanded the policemen when they carried out a massacre in Ratno, murdering right and left . . . He shot my mother and father . . . —Are you making a mistake, Senia? —How could I make a mistake, General, when I was there, hiding in the attic and I saw everything! I will remember him for the rest of my life . . . There are other Jews in the civilian camp who will never forget this fiend. Oy, how much blood is upon him, how much blood!9

When Ivan Lukianiuk (Van’ka, as Shloimke scornfully called him) realized that he had been identified, he cynically began to enumerate all of the communities where he had actively participated in massacres, pogroms, destruction, and other crimes as a participant and as commander. Among other things, he related the details of the murder of Shloimke’s younger brother, Shaike.10 Lukianiuk was hanged by sentence of a court-martial headed by Fedorov, in the presence of partisans and the residents of the civilian camp. This execution was captured on film by the famous Soviet   9 Aleksei Fedorov, Posledniaia zima (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1981), 119. On the basis of these memoirs, the serial movie The Underground Regional Party Committee Acts (Podpol’nyi obkom deistvuet, 1978, dir. Anatoly Bukovsky), and its continuation, the serial movie In the Woods near Kovel (V lesakh pod Kovelem, 1984, dir. Iury Tupitsky), were filmed by the Dovzhenko Film Studio of Kiev. The latter film preserved an allusion to the Lukianiuk incident, in the form of a field court-martial of a cowardly fighter. A black-eyed boy named Sashka also appears in the film as an orderly. He surely must have reminded viewers who had participated in the real events of the little Jewish boy “Senia Galitzky.” The reason for such “masking” could be either the general omission of Jewish themes from Soviet cinema as a whole, or the fact that perhaps the producers of the film had learned about Perlmutter’s emigration to Israel. 10 Shlomo Perlmutter, video interview, Yad Vashem, Documentation Project of Holocaust Survivers, No. 3562306 (Hebrew).

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cameraman Mikhail Glider, producer of the documentary film about the partisans Popular Avengers (Narodnye mstiteli, 1944). Glider also left memoirs, With a Movie Camera in the Rear of the Enemy (S kinoapparatom v tylu vraga), in which he relates the story of Semen-Shloimke and the Lukianiuk incident: The partisans met the sentence with applause. The traitor was brought to a tree on which a rope with a looped end had already been thrown. The partisans were silent, only Semen cried: not for the traitor, of course, but for those whom the traitor had killed. And there was no partisan that day who did not say a tender word to Semen.11

As the Red Army advanced westward, partisan units were disbanded. Most of the fighters were sent to regular units, except those who had not reached eighteen years of age. Glider, having documented the life of the partisans, returned to Moscow, taking Shloimke with him. Through Fedorov he arranged a place for Shloimke in the highly esteemed Leninskie Gorki boarding school for war orphans and partisan youth. However, the boy did not remain there for long. On his first day of vacation, Shloimke went for a walk in Moscow and by chance bought three booklets in his native tongue, Yiddish, written by Itsik Fefer, Perets Markish, and David Bergelson. Apparently his dorm mates had not given much thought to the nationality of their comrade from the western Ukraine who was called Semen, but the books in Yiddish made his status clear, and at night the Jewish lad was subjected to a serious “hazing”: he was covered with a blanket and beaten and kicked. The battered boy managed to escape their hands and in the morning left for Moscow. A short time before that he took part in a festive reception held in Moscow at the Russian Theater Company building for the partisan commanders who had operated in the German backlines in occupied Soviet territory—Sidor Kovpak, Petr Vershigora, Vladimir Druzhinin, and Aleksei Fedorov, who introduced Shloimke (as Semen Olitski) to the audience. Shloimke mounted the stage together with the older fighters. Decades later, in his memoirs he recalled that 11 Mikhail Glider, S kinoapparatom v tylu vraga (Moscow: Goskinoizdat, 1946), 112.

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instead of telling the audience about the feats of valor of the partisans . . . I told . . . of the fate of Jewish children during the war, as I recounted how I, as a Jewish boy, found my way to the partisans. When I finished speaking, a hush fell over the crowd and many people in the audience came over to me, introduced themselves, left me their address and telephone number, and asked me to contact them and come to visit. Among those to approach me were Ilya Ehrenburg, Shloime Mikhoels, and Professor [Yakov] Ettinger.12

Having the addresses of these celebrities, Shloimke took himself now to the Hotel Moscow, where Ilya Ehrenburg lived. Ehrenburg received the youth warmly, fed him, and put him in contact with Mikhoels, director of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater, who referred him to Moishe Belenki, director of the State Jewish Seminar of Theater at the Moscow GOSET. Thus, even though he was still younger than the entry age, Shloimke became a student and, in addition, became the general favorite. A local Jewish family that had lost a son at the front took the boy in. At the end of May 1944, Der Nister invited Shloimke to visit him and his wife, Lena Sigalovski, formerly an actress at the Ukrainian GOSET.13 They lived in a small room in the theatrical hostel located at Malaia Bronnaia 4, right in the courtyard of the Moscow GOSET. Shloimke had been keeping a diary in Hebrew, which he knew well from his prewar studies at the Kovel Hebrew gymnasium, and this is what he wrote on May 31, 1944: In the morning I visited the home of the writer Der Nister. His name is Pinkhas Kahanovitsh but here everyone calls him by this nickname. He invited me to his house, and I finally went to visit him. He lives in a room at the Jewish theater “Goset.” The room is 12 Shlomo Perlmuter, “Pirkey Moskva 1944–1946: miyomano shel partizan yehudi ts’ayir,” Yalkut moreshet 33 (1982): 9. 13 On Lena Sigalovski’s work at the Ukrainian GOSET, see Moisei Loyev, Ukradennaia muza: vospominania o Kievskom gosudarstvennom evreiskom teatre imeni Sholom-­ Aleikhema, Kharkov–Kiev–Chernovtsy, 1925–1950 (Kiev: Dukh i Litera, 2004), 15, 28, 37.

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small and narrow—a bed, a table, and an old closet. That is how a great author lives, the author of “Di mishpokhe Mashber.” I loved him from the first moment that I met him. His face looks like Perets—deep, black eyes bordered by thick eyebrows. He is thoroughly modest, wise, and goodhearted. Speaks ever so quietly. He kept asking me what I had been through and how I feel in Moscow, how are they treating me, and if I need any kind of help. He apparently had heard about the beating at the dormitory and wanted to know why they were harassing me. I felt that I could confide in him. I told that I had not yet found security and peace of mind, and I probably never would, although I did find a warm and good Jewish family. Der Nister understood that I had many more dreams that I intend to realize. He asked me to come back and visit, and I promised that I would. My escape from the boarding school had apparently kindled not just my “glowing embers.” Maybe something happened to Der Nister?!14

That day the boy and the writer spoke at length about the sufferings of Jewish children during the war and about the Jewish victims of Nazism as a whole. Shloimke told about his project for the perpetuation of the memory of his fellow townsmen from the shtetl Ratno. It turned out that he had written down, insofar as his memory allowed, the fate of each family. The result was an entire booklet in Yiddish, My Destroyed Shtetl Ratno, which he had given over to the Der Emes publishing house. However, he complained to Der Nister, the publishing house had thoroughly revised the manuscript and placed the emphasis on the role of the Ukrainian people in the rescue of Jews. “Shloimele,” Der Nister said tenderly, “do not allow to them to print it in such a form!”15 The mention of “glowing embers” was not coincidental either. That is what Shloimke had once called a gang that he organized of his childhood friends in his hometown of Ratno in 1939 when the Soviets 14 Perlmuter, “Pirkey Moskva,” 18. 15 Perlmutter, video interview; also Oral History Division, Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), interview with Shlomo Perlmutter 12(93).

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came there and prohibited the study of Hebrew and Tanakh in school. In the memorial book Ratno: The Story of a Jewish Community That Was Destroyed, written in Hebrew, Shlomo Perlmutter mentions his Hebrew teacher at the Hebrew Gymnasia in Kovel where he studied, Yosef Avrech, whose interpretation of this definition in Psalm 120:4, “glowing embers, or burning coals of broom,” gikhley retamim in Hebrew, was engraved in his memory. “Glowing embers,” Avrech taught according to a well-known midrash, has a special quality: the fire is stored inside, although dimmed, and any chance wind may fan the embers into flames.16 This was what Shloimke meant when he said, “We the young will also keep in our hearts the fire (the spirit of Zionism) until the right time comes.” His friends, former pupils at the Tarbut School and activists in HaShomer HaTza’ir, ceremoniously swore an oath next to the Holy Ark in front of the synagogue of the Shtefanesht Hasidim in Ratno never to reveal the existence of the gang, to continue studying Hebrew language and literature (Torah, Bialik and Tshernichovsky), and to prepare for aliyah to Israel.17 All of this Shloimke told Der Nister at their meeting. He told him also about his attempt in 1939 to flee to the still independent Lithuania (but his mother did not allow it), and about how his family was almost sent to Siberia due to a denunciation (which, if it had happened, would have saved their lives!), and about the brutal pogrom the Ukrainians carried out in July 1941 even before the Germans arrived, and about the hard work on road construction for a German company. About his parents, who were shot to death. About his little brothers, Shaike and Motl, who were also murdered. About his great-grandfather Shlomo Aharon Olitski, for whom he was named, who was a descendant of the founder of the Karlin Hasidism. He told of his arrival at the partisan camp, how he beat Lukianiuk with a stick in front of his fellow fighters, and how with his own hands, as he recited Shehecheyanu (a Jewish blessing said on special occasions, which means, in Hebrew, “He who has granted us life”) he tied a noose around the 16 See [David Altshuler], Metsudat David on Psalm 120. 17 Shlomo Perlmuter, “Gihley retamim, ”in Ratna: sipura shel kehila yehudit shehushmeda, ed. Nahman Tamir (Tel Aviv: Irgun yotsey Ratna be-Yisrael, 1983), 161–65.

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murderer’s neck, and after the hanging, how he wept bitterly as he remembered the innocent victims. He also told the writer about his dream to get to the Land of Israel as soon as possible.18 All of this became the basis for Der Nister’s essay, “Hate.” One month later, on June 29, 1944, Shloimke made another entry in his diary: A great surprise today . . . Der Nister published an article in the newspaper Eynikayt whose title is “Hate,” where he tells about me and also gives me some advice . . . good advice. At school they all congratulated me and I didn’t know why. I read the article again and again, and every time I am moved afresh . . . . My dear Der Nister, many thanks for your blessings-prophecies! I will do everything that you might see me among the builders of the ruins of our beloved past . . . I am filled with hope.19

Thanks to the fact that he had studied in the “Tarbut” Hebrew school network, the boy was easily able to grasp between the lines of Der Nister’s writing a message that the Soviet censors probably missed— the underlying biblical theme of the future revival of the Jewish people. About a year later, Shloimke left Moscow—after taking back, at Der Nister’s advice, his manuscript from the Der Emes publishing house20—and traveled to his destroyed native shtetl, Ratno, then to Kovel, and then to Lvov. At the beginning of 1946 he managed to leave for Poland, where he joined a group of illegal repatriates to Israel. He was caught by the British and interned in Cyprus, but by the end of the year he managed to complete his aliyah. He participated in Israel’s War for Independence in the “Moriah” battalion, completed his studies at the Biblical Studies Department of the Hebrew University 18 As Yosef Kerler noted, Der Nister knew very well about Shloimke’s plans. See Editor’s comment to Belenki, “Der Nister (eynike shtrikhn fun zayn kharakter un shafung),” 209. 19 Perlmuter, “Pirkey Moskva,” 19–21. 20 Some material from this manuscript he published a couple of years later in Hebrew: Shlomo Perlmutter, “Hem halkhu la’ir . . . ,” in Yatmut: dapey zikaron lekehilat Ratna, ed. Shlomo Perlmutter (Tel Aviv: Irgun yotsey Ratna, 1951), 11–15.

Comfort Ye My People

in Jerusalem, served as secretary of the Hebrew poet Jacob Fichman, worked in Jewish education in Buenos Aires, and then taught school the rest of his life.21 During his last years he lived in the small town of Givat Shmuel. He died in 1997 at the age of seventy, leaving children and grandchildren. The story of the young partisan undoubtedly stirred Der Nister’s heart.22 “Vehaya bayom hahu”—“And it shall come to pass in that day,” Der Nister concludes his emotional essay with a direct quote in Hebrew within the Yiddish text, and this returns to the prophecy of Isaiah (27:13) said as part of the Rosh Hashanah festive prayer: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that a great horn shall be blown; and they shall come that were lost in the land of Assyria, and they that were dispersed in the land of Egypt; and they shall worship the Lord in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.” Brilliantly and vividly, evoking the Book of Eikha’s mode of mourning, Der Nister urged his readers to rise up from the ruins and take an active part in the national revival: Here then (we very much hope for this and we live by this hope), we will see you among the builders and restorers of those ruins on our mountain, where earlier, not so long ago, jackals wandered; we will see you carrying clay and bricks for the national building, which will make us proud, just as any restored building makes everyone proud . . . We old, hoary-headed people, will help and take a hand as much as we can in this construction, and if we no longer have the strength for firsthand labor, we will stand and look, and our lips will utter a blessing: May this day be a day of deliverance, peace on earth, understanding between peoples, etc.23

Just what specifically did Der Nister have in mind when he summoned his readers to the restoration of “the national building”? Three years later, in the summer of 1947, he revealed the answer by both his 21 Perlmutter, video interview. 22 The same youth, it seems, reappears in Der Nister’s other essay, “Regrowth” (“Vidervuks,” 1946). 23 Der Nister, “Has,” 220.

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personal example and his Birobidzhan essays, in which the place sounded not so much like a specific geographical location as a kind of euphemism for “those ruins on our mountain.” “Haynt zol men zogn, vos fara binyonim lozt zikh mit azelkhe nit oysboyen”—“Today they should say, what kind of buildings don’t get built by such as these,” is how explicitly he characterized the new settlers.24 In his previously unknown notes, which will be discussed below, Der Nister speaks again about the erection of a national building (natsyonaler binyen)—that is, a unique national creative center (eygnartiker natsyonal-sheferisher tsenter). Among other things, he wrote: Furthermore, the main condition for a people to be considered as such is, first of all, soil, a place, where the given community should be in a position to form a concentrated majority and where all the forces and abilities given to it should find their fullest expression, sovereignly, without hindrances, without stoppages, without interruptions by anything or anyone . . . . your own soil for your own economy . . . is the foundation and basis of distinctive national characteristics and national forms, which were, for the reasons noted above, taken away from you, whether partially or completely, for a long time.25

Speaking about “national forms, which were taken away,” Der Nister hinted, of course, at the ancient Jewish statehood. However, he added immediately: “Is it necessary to say here that we are talking about Birobidzhan?”26 As Chone Shmeruk noted, such an original blending of Zionism and “Birobidzhanism” was based on what Der Nister considered to be the common premise of both movements—the nation’s revival on its own territory.27 In this context, Dov Sadan sarcastically sends those who would like to ask, “Where, then, was Der Nister’s heart, and where was he with all his heart?,” to the Talmudic 24 Der Nister, “Mit ibervanderer keyn Birobidzhan,” Heymland 1 (1947): 113. 25 Der Nister, “Birobidzhan,” RGALI, f. 3121, op. 1, d. 32. See Appendix, 255. 26 Ibid., op. 1, d. 32. See Appendix, 256. 27 Shmeruk, “Der Nister: hayav u-yetsirato,” 46.

Comfort Ye My People

principle of “Divine inscrutability”: do not try to judge that which is inaccessible to your understanding.28 This is what the Prophet Isaiah said to the Judean king Hezekiah: “Why do you try to gain access to the secrets of the Supreme One? What you have been commanded, do! And what the Holy One wishes to do, He will do!” (Babylonian Talmud, Brakhot 10a).

Der Nister with his son Iosif in the 1930s. Courtesy of the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art.

28 Sadan, “’Al kokhav hageula,” 128.

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Der Nister was not alone in his desire to put behind him post-­Hitler Europe, including the western part of the USSR, by means of ­Birobidzhan. Of like mind, for example, was Aleks Shtein, an actor and former director of the famous “Vilna Troupe” Yiddish theater and a person of rare talent, who, before the war, had performed brilliantly on European stages. In November 1946 he came to Birobidzhan to head the Birobidzhan State Yiddish Theater. According to his wife, the actress Julia Flaum, Shtein accepted the invitation to assume this post because he did not want to “breathe the stinking air of the West” any more.1 Der Nister’s decision, like Shtein’s, was not fortuitous. Although his Birobidzhan essays are permeated with an air of wishful thinking, as if he were trying to pass off the “desired” as the “real,”2 his journey to Birobidzhan was, indeed, a “real action.” As he himself formulated it: “Just now—the striving for real action; everywhere an awakening is now taking place, in all lands where there is any Jewish life.” Der Nister’s calls for the preservation of the Jewish character of the JAR were also meant as a real action and not empty slogans. As the writer Mishe Lev told me in a private conversation, Der Nister came to view Birobidzhan (which at that time was still being considered legitimate by the authorities) as the fragile “last thread” of hope for the survival of Jewish culture in the USSR. Did Der Nister really hold on to such a hope?   1 Maurice Carr, “The Julia Flaum Story,” Israel Magazine 2, no. 11 (1970): 31.   2 See Mikhail Krutikov, “In Search of a Soviet Yiddishland: The Poetics of Absence in Shmuel Gordon’s Travelogue,” Aschkenas 24, no. 1 (2014): 135. Krutikov mentions Der Nister and his trip to Birobidzhan in the context of an imaginary Yiddishland, which, he says, has characterized Yiddish literature since the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Real Action

The Yiddish writer Yitzhak Yanasovich (like Emiot, a refugee from Poland) recalled over a decade later how Der Nister, in confidential conversations with him in postwar Moscow, was extremely candid: In relation to the Jews, the Talmudic expression, “Compel him until he says, ‘I want it,’” [Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 47b] found concrete expression. At first I did not believe in the Jewish Autonomous Region. Now, however, when the matter has reached the point where the authorities intend to send Jews to Birobidzhan, I will embrace it lovingly. I know that it will cause the Jews much suffering, but that is worth it in order to preserve the Jewish nation. Being concentrated in one place, among their own, the Jews will be able to preserve their own character and survive hard times . . . I would even be prepared . . . to glorify this place for the Jewish migrants, in order to strengthen their desire for resettlement . . . Earlier the Jews were called upon to go to Birobidzhan in order “to build socialism.” Today, perhaps, they have come to understand that they should go to Birobidzhan in order to save their national soul.3

Be that as it may, Der Nister’s Birobidzhan statements, after long years of silence, became his original protest against the conformism of those whom he called, in a conversation with Emiot, “modern Jews.” Whom did he have in mind? Judging by his own categorical remarks, as preserved in his personal papers, it seems that he considered the overwhelming majority of Soviet Jewish writers and journalists to be in the grips of “pessimism and cowardice” and to have reconciled themselves “with their own nothingness.”4 To his interlocutor, Isroel Emiot, who was able to understand his figurative language, he declared, “It is necessary to be able to die in the tent of Torah!”5 Against the background of increasing defection and equivocation, Der Nister called for real action as a counterweight to pretense and endless compromises: whoever   3 Itskhok Yanasovitsh, “Der Nister,” Mit yidishe shrayber in Rusland (Buenos Aires: Kiyem-farlag, 1959), 237–38.   4 RGALI, f. 3121, op. 1, d. 32, l. 8. See the text of the document and the image on p. 108.   5 Emiot, In mitele yorn, 10.

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really wants Jewish culture must be prepared to fight for it to the end, for, as stated previously, “What is said in the Torah will only be realized for the person who is prepared to do away with himself for its [the Torah’s] sake” (Babylonian Talmud, Brakhot 63b). The interrogation files of the Birobidzhan writers arrested two years later, published in Part Two of this book, and certain other sources, contain references to a number of steps taken by Der Nister in Birobidzhan, in addition to parents’ signatures in support of Yiddish schools. There was nothing particularly revolutionary in these steps, insofar as the value of Jewish (Yiddish) culture as the basis and meaning of the existence of the JAR was perceived at the time as the norm, and if there were any differences of opinion, they were limited to the question of the character of this culture. Thus, Der Nister took the step of “scolding” the workers of Birobidzhaner shtern publicly for the fact that their newspaper, being overly focused on industry and agriculture, wrote very little about the elements of Jewish life in the JAR. In another step, at a meeting with theater people, members of the press, and educators, the writer put the public to shame for paying insufficient attention to the Jewish schools (see Interrogation Records of Miller, August 5, 1949). At a teacher’s conference held on the eve of the new 1947–48 school year, Der Nister urged the teachers “to cultivate a love and appreciation for the Yiddish language in the children and to train active builders of the ‘socialist in content and nationalist in form’ Soviet Jewish culture.”6 His address was so emotional that, in the words of Yosef Cherniak, who worked for the Regional Department of Education as a methodologist and participated in that conference, even the thick-skinned bureaucrats who were carrying out assimilationist policies felt that he was cutting them to pieces. He pierced them with his terse and well-measured words, accompanied by the knifesharp look of his heavy eyebrowed eyes, as if in a Hasidic parable: “The rebbe was silent, and I felt as if he had cut me to pieces.”7   6 “Af der birobidzhaner shtotisher lerer-konferents,” Birobidzhaner shtern, August 28, 1947.   7 See Cherniak’s manuscript Zikhroynes vegn Der Nister, 2, Avrom Sutskever archive, National Library of Israel, Arc. 4* 1565/1/845.

Real Action

In private conversations, Der Nister spoke about the necessity of introducing in the region’s schools teaching in Yiddish, what today would be called “affirmative action.” “The school teacher is the key figure in the development of Jewish culture,” the writer insisted, hinting at the complete disappearance of Yiddish schools in the western part of the USSR, and he called upon the writers and journalists of the JAR “to subordinate to this all their work.” In essence, these modest declarations about how extremely important it was for the national culture to educate properly the generation now growing up merely pointed to the most basic element needed if the JAR was to be preserved as a yidishe heym, “a cozy and comfortable home for the Jews”—as Der Nister romantically expressed it in a meeting with Bakhmutski, according to Kerler’s testimony.8 Here was the boundary line, he argued. If they were to take this “trifle” away (which, in fact, happened a year later), then it would be the end of the whole enterprise. On a September evening in 1947, just as Der Nister was about to depart from Birobidzhan, a banquet was held at the apartment of the writer Buzi Miller. This affair was Der Nister’s last meeting with the local intelligentsia—writers, journalists, actors, and even a few “responsible workers” (that is, senior officials). Despite the optimistic toasts, an atmosphere of melancholy and depression prevailed at the banquet. We are also informed about this by the interrogation records, which were mainly based (according to Emiot) on information from three “voluntary assistants”: the Birobidzhanskaia zvezda newspaper’s photographer, who photographed the guests at the banquet continuously, and two neighbors invited by the hostess. All three wrote detailed reports about what had occurred at the gathering. The participants drank a lot that night, and, as became clear a couple of years later, they spoke too candidly. Der Nister set the tone that evening by proposing the first toast: “To the much-suffering Jewish people.” Expressing all the bitterness that had accumulated in his heart, he at the same time referred to the “special role of Birobidzhan in Jewish history” and to some new vistas. Trying to encourage those present, who were deeply yearning for “Yiddishkeit,” he called upon them not to give in to the   8 Kerler, “Der Nister (1884–1950),” 118.

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pressure exerted by Brokhin and others like him and to do everything possible for the development of Jewish culture in the region.9 However, the atmosphere was permeated with a heavy feeling that behind these words lay the realization that apart from the JAR, whose autonomy was almost nominal, there was no place left in the country where one could still openly express identification with the Jewish people and discuss the problems of Jewish national development. Der Nister departed Birobidzhan that very night, but the topic of the JAR continued to occupy his thoughts even in Moscow. At the beginning of November he participated in one of the traditional writers’ “Mondays” at the editorial offices of the newspaper Eynikayt and gave a detailed account of his trip to the JAR. The JAFC press office found the information important enough to be sent to the Jewish press abroad.10 However, just a month later, in a letter to Itsik Kipnis, he complained: “There are those who would gladly see me, not only not writing, but even not breathing.”11 It is possible that he was already feeling that he had gone too far in his excessive activity in Birobidzhan. Further on in the letter, Der Nister mentioned the editor in chief of the new Moscow literary and journalistic almanac Heymland, Aron Kushnirov, whose threshold he now did not want to cross: “I am not able any more. No matter what I suggested, they wanted to take the guts out of it.”12 It is noteworthy that Heymland ignored completely the first, more philosophical part, of Der Nister’s Birobidzhan essays and published only the second part, which became the only work of his ever to appear in that almanac.13 In January 1948, Der Nister, like everyone else, took the death of Solomon Mikhoels, with whom he had shared close and friendly relations, very hard. He refused to come close to the coffin, exposed for leave-taking in the Moscow State Yiddish Theater building on Malaya Bronnaya Street. “This was beyond my strength; neither my heart nor   9 Emiot, CAHJP, 47–48. 10 See “Der Nister vegn Birobidzhan,” Naylebn 3 (1948): 14. 11 Der Nister’s letter to Kipnis, in Shmeruk, “Arb’a igrot shel Der Nister,” 244. 12 Ibid. 13 Der Nister, “Mit ibervanderer keyn Birobidzhan,” Heymland 1 (1947): 108–18.

Real Action

my nerves could not take it,” he wrote in the obituary. “I looked upon him from afar, being completely under the illusion that I was seeing him alive, but playing the role of a dead person.”14 Was this Der Nister’s way of hinting at the quickly spreading rumors that the actor had been liquidated by order of the authorities, though according to the official version, Mikhoels was killed in an automobile accident?15 A month later, quite unexpectedly, he published in Eynikayt his prewar translation into Yiddish of Leo Tolstoy’s short and frightful fable “The Sparrow and the Swallows.”16 In this tale, a sparrow flies into the empty nest of a swallow. The returning swallow calls its friends, and together they seal up the exit from the nest with mud, leaving the sparrow to die inside. It would seem that everything now signaled the end of Der Nister’s dreams about the future of Jewish culture in the USSR. However, from a letter Der Nister wrote in February or March 1948 to Nachman Mayzel in New York, we learn that he was still planning a new piece about Birobidzhan, about thirty pages long, which he proposed to publish in the United States.17 A short sketch of what seems to be this very essay was found among the writer’s papers in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI) in Moscow. The sketch contains eleven points. The author intended to give an account of the main reasons for his decision to set out on the long trip to the JAR; he intended to describe briefly the special migrant train (echelon), his first impressions, and his conversations with official representatives of Birobidzhan; he intended to analyze thoroughly the influence of the wave of new settlers on the leaders of the JAR; and he intended to discuss future possibilities and vistas. Among the most interesting points in the sketch were the measures Der Nister proposed for 14 Der Nister, “Di umfargeslekhe aveyde,” in Mikhoels 1890–1948, ed. Eli Falkovitsh (Moscow: Der Emes, 1948), 13, also in Yidishe kultur 1, no. 20 (1958): 25. 15 On the murder of Mikhoels in a secret operation in Minsk, see Grigori Kostyrchenko, Tainaia politika Stalina: vlast’ i antisemitizm (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, 2001), 388–95; Veidlinger, Moscow State Yiddish Theater, 258–59; Rubenstein and Naumov, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, 1–2, 39–40; Redlich, War, Holocaust, and Stalinism, 442–50. 16 Der Nister, “Der shperling un dos shvelbele,” Eynikayt, February 7, 1948. The translation was initially published in the collection L. N. Tolstoy, Dertseylungen vegn khayes (Odessa: Kinder-farlag fun USRR, 1935), 33–34. 17 Der Nister’s letter to Mayzel, in Shmeruk, “Arb’a igrot shel Der Nister,” 242.

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the Yiddishization of the JAR (unfortunately, he did not provide details) and the sharp criticism he leveled at the “nishtike rol”—“pitiful role” in the advancement of the Birobidzhan project played by the authors and journalists who wrote in Yiddish, caused by their “nakhlozikayt, pesimizm, pakhdones un sholem zayn mit der eygener nishtikayt”—“connivance, pessimism, cowardice, and reconciliation with their own nothingness.” The conclusion, as contemplated by Der Nister, consisted in the necessity for writers to make more A sketch of Der Nister’s unwritten essay about Birobidzhan, 1948. Courtesy of the Russian State frequent trips to Birobidzhan, Archive of Literature and Art. “oyb nit af bazetsn zikh, az al-kol-ponem gastrolirn. M’tor di gegnt nit lozn on inteligents, on kontrol”—“if not to settle there, then at least to go there on tour. It is impossible to leave the region without an intelligentsia and without supervision.”18 To all appearances, Der Nister’s critical attitude was well known in Yiddish literary circles. The Yiddish prose writer Shmuel Gordon published a semidocumentary novel, In Memoriam (Yizker), which recreates the atmosphere of those days. Der Nister, appearing there under the name Pinkhas Mashberg, explains the meaning of his trip to Birobidzhan as follows: Vibald m’hot undz gegebn a yidishe oytonomye, iz darfn tsuzamen mitn folk zikh dort bazetsn oykh di yidishe shrayber. Azoy hob ikh demlt gehaltn.

18 RGALI, f. 3121, op. 1, d. 32, l. 8.

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Since they have given us a Jewish autonomy, then Yiddish writers should also settle there together with the people. That is what I thought then.19

The RGALI material also contains several rough drafts by Der Nister under the general heading “Birobidzhan.” However, these have no direct relationship to the sketch described above. Some passages are repeated in them two or even three times, with variations. It is quite possible that these writings started out as notes for speeches the author delivered before the people in Birobidzhan, which he later intended to revise into an essay or article. In any case, these fourteen pages of handwritten notes can be considered to be a genuine “Birobidzhan manifesto” of Der Nister’s views and aspirations. After mentioning in one breath the revolutionary events in France in the nineteenth century, the first Russian revolution of 1905, the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and the adoption of the first Soviet constitution in 1918, Der Nister passes on to the question of the right of peoples to self-determination. The possibility of exercising this right, he says, had now also been given to the Jews, who, by taking advantage of this opportunity, could prove their viability as a nation. Just as he did in his travel notes, here too Der Nister speaks about the erection of a national structure and the construction of a unique national creative center.20 There is much more pathos in the tone of these notes, and even anguish, emotions more appropriate for a mass meeting than for a publication in the press. This text, representing the quintessence of Der Nister’s territorialism, had, in a paradoxical way, much in common with the Stalinist theory of what constituted a nation. “What is a nation?” Stalin asked rhetorically in his famous 1913 article, “Marxism and the National Question,” which was republished numerous times in both the USSR and abroad and became the ideological basis of Soviet nationalities policy: 19 Shmuel Gordon, Yizker: di farmishpete shrayber (Jerusalem: World Council for Yiddish Culture, 2003), 143. 20 Der Nister, “Birobidzhan,” RGALI, f. 3121, op. 1, d. 32. See Appendix, 243–56.

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A nation is formed only as a result of lengthy and systematic intercourse, as a result of the fact that people live together from generation to generation. But people cannot live together for lengthy periods unless they have a common territory. . . . Thus community of territory is one of the characteristic features of a nation. But this is not all. Community of territory in itself does not create a nation. This requires, in addition, an internal economic bond which welds the various parts of a nation into a single whole. . . . Thus community of economic life, economic cohesion, is one of the characteristic features of a nation. But even this is not all. Apart from the foregoing, one must take into consideration the specific spiritual complexion of the people constituting a nation. Nations differ not only in their conditions of life, but also in spiritual complexion, which manifests itself in peculiarities of national culture. . . . Thus community of psychological make-up, which manifests itself in a community of culture, is one of the characteristic features of a nation. We have now exhausted the characteristic features of a nation. A nation is a historically evolved, stable community of language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture. . . . It must be emphasized that none of the above characteristics is by itself sufficient to define a nation. On the other hand, it is sufficient for a single one of these characteristics to be absent and the nation ceases to be a nation. It is possible to conceive people possessing a common “national character,” but they cannot be said to constitute a single nation if they are economically disunited, inhabit different territories, speak different languages, and so forth. Such, for instance, are the Russian, Galician,

Real Action

American, Georgian and Caucasian Highland Jews, who do not, in our opinion, constitute a single nation. . . . It is only when all these characteristics are present that we have a nation.21

Der Nister diligently ignored Stalin’s reservations about the Jews being a single unified nation. He did, however, use Stalin’s rhetoric and terminology to good effect, especially his notion of “community of territory.” He used it to give a firm foundation to his own vision of the (Soviet) Jewish people of the future having an indissoluble bond with territory they could call their own. Without this, Der Nister said, the Jewish people were like “a soul without a body or a body without a soul, and in either case, always a cripple”: What is necessary is a passionate appeal to the masses to recognize their place, time, strength, mission, and historically creative role, the role which they are able and obligated to play both for the sake of their own welfare and for the sake of the welfare of the whole world, for which they serve as an example. We, one might say, were given . . . a lecture on national rights, on the code of human rights, according to which equality in general and as a whole means guaranteeing the rights of individuals as individuals, while the claim to national rights can be made only by those who possess all the characteristics and attributes that verify the very essence of a people as a people, without which [they are] like a soul without a body or a body without a soul, and in either case, always a cripple [vi a neshome on a guf, oder vi a guf on a neshome un in beyde faln altseyns kalike] . . . Furthermore, the main condition for a people to be considered as such is, first of all, soil, a place, where the given community should be in a position to form a concentrated majority and where all the forces and abilities given to it should find their fullest expression,

21 Joseph Stalin, “Marxism and the National Question,” Marxism and the National and Colonial Question (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1942), 6–9; emphasis added by Stalin.

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sovereignly, without hindrances, without stoppages, without interruptions by anything or anyone. In a word, that soil which until now we did not have, and which right now, after a new page in history has been turned, we are able to receive without any delay; on the contrary, it has been allotted and offered warmly by the rich land owner, whose territorial resources allow him to be so generous. —Look—we were told—don’t miss the opportunity to receive that, without which you are nothing, like chaff before the wind (vi a pukh afn vint)22—namely, your own soil for your own economy, which is the foundation and basis of distinctive national characteristics and national forms, which were, for the reasons noted above, taken away from you, whether partially or completely, for a long time . . . . . . . Besides all the rights of individuals as individuals, we will have achieved that which should make us no worse than others— provided, however, as already stated, that we show our good will and our ability to make the efforts needed for the realization of the national cause, which is vitally important, and which should become a blessing we bequeath to future generations (a brokhe af doyres). Is it necessary to say here that we are talking about the Jewish Autonomous Region, which could, today or tomorrow, with our good will, turn into a republic, the seventeenth, in addition to the sixteen that already exist? Is it necessary to say here that we are talking about Birobidzhan?23

Surprisingly, Der Nister devotes no attention whatsoever to the issues of language and culture in these lines, issues that had always been the main basis of “Yiddishist” rhetoric. As Yanasovich observes: He complained about the fact that the Jews are not able to live according to their national will as much as about the fact that Yiddish 22 Comp.: “Let them be as chaff before the wind, the angel of the Lord thrusting them” (Psalm 35:5). 23 See Appendix, 254–56.

Real Action

books and Yiddish newspapers were not being published in sufficient numbers . . . He constantly recalled that not only Yiddish was vanishing in Russia, but also something more important—the Jewish people. He reacted painfully to the decline of Yiddish literature, but it was much more painful for him to see the decline of the Jewish people.24

His position was absolutely unequivocal: once the Jews had their own territory, they would have all the rest, including the other characteristics needed—according to Stalin—in order to be considered a “genuine” nation, that is, a shared economy and a shared culture. These notes, the last that have reached us from Der Nister’s creative legacy, were written shortly before the State of Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948. That act made his call for Jews “to find their fullest expression” (gefinen zeyer shleymesdikn oysdruk) in Birobidzhan meaningless. What is more, after May 1948 the writer’s words already sounded like poorly veiled propaganda for the idea of Jewish independence. Der Nister spent the summer of 1948, his last summer as a free man, in the village of Il’inskoye near Moscow, where he and his wife rented a dacha together with the Markish family. Esther Markish’s memoirs state that at that time Der Nister no longer “harbored any illusions about the future of Jewish culture and of Jewry itself in the Soviet Union.”25 Judging by these remarks, it appears that he did not speak in favor of Birobidzhan anymore, and if he did do so, then it was merely in the spirit of Shmuel Gordon’s reconstruction: “Tsu nisht un tsu shpot gemakht di groyse hofenung, vos hot zey aropgebrakht ahin”—“He ridiculed the great hope that brought them [Jews] over there.”26 In the autumn of 1948, his Moscow friends and colleagues began to disappear, one after the other, into the Lubyanka (MGB headquarters and affiliated prison). Der Nister, according to his wife, Lena Sigalovski, became a nervous wreck and suffered from insomnia. “Do they 24 Yanasovitsh, “Der Nister,” 225. 25 Markish, The Long Return, 148. 26 Gordon, Izker, 143.

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really want to exclude me from the community of writers?” he asked sarcastically, wondering why they had not yet come for him. He met his arrest in Moscow on February 19, 1949, with a bitter grin: “Finally!”27 Der Nister, of course, could not have known that two weeks earlier a report about the state of Yiddish literature had lain on Stalin’s desk, and in it Der Nister’s essay “With the New Settlers to Birobidzhan” was singled out and accused of developing “thoughts of a Zionist character.” In support of this conclusion, Agitprop (the CPSU Department for Agitation and Propaganda) quoted Der Nister’s daring wish: “May the House of Israel be rebuilt.”28

27 See Sheyne-Miryem Broderzon, Mayn laydns-veg mit Moyshe Broderzon (Buenos Aires: Tsentral-farband fun poylishe yidn in Argentine, 1960), 88. This scene was reconstructed in the novel by Dara Horn, The World to Come (New York: Norton & Co., 2006), 251–53. 28 See the note to Stalin sent by Dmitry Shepilov, head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Communist Party Central Committee, regarding the closing of Yiddish-language almanacs, February 3, 1949, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 118, d. 305, ll. 21–22.

Der Nister Affair

During his trips around the Jewish Autonomous Region in the summer of 1947, Der Nister visited the village of Valdheim, not far from the city of Birobidzhan, where he talked with Iosif Baskin, a kolkhoz member. Baskin had lived in Mandatory Palestine for about ten years, but in 1928 he was expelled by the British authorities for engaging in communist activities. Naturally, the conversation turned to the Jewish state-to-be. According to Baskin, Der Nister expressed the wish that the Jews of Palestine would construct whatever pleased them and said, “For them—theirs, for us—ours. They are there, and we are here!”1 Baskin had lived in Birobidzhan since 1932. In 1938 he was arrested and accused of espionage, as were many other Jewish settlers from abroad. When he was released in 1946 he was threatened with exile to Kazakhstan unless he became a secret informer for the state security services. He was personally supervised by the head of the MGB Department for the JAR, Lieutenant Colonel Iosif Branzburg, to whom he reported Der Nister’s words. Branzburg was very happy to receive this information, which Baskin considered to be neutral and nonincriminating. “For the first time . . . I have received important political material from you,” the official told his informant, and instructed him to write down the whole conversation in detail. As Baskin later understood, the lieutenant colonel’s words indicated that what he saw here was striking evidence of the existence of nationalist sentiments among the Jewish intelligentsia. To him, Der Nister’s remarks signified: “We here and they there will act in concert, insofar as we and they are one people.”2 Later Baskin was summoned as a witness in Investigation   1 Iosif Baskin, Saliuty i rasstrely. Zapiski utselevshego (Tel Aviv: Starlight, 1999), 158.   2 Ibid., 158–60.

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Case No. 68 (see Bill of Indictment), and in the autumn of 1950 he was arrested and banished to the Krasnoyarsk Territory in Siberia. Der Nister was clearly of interest to the organs of state security during the time he was in the JAR, and so they began to gather “compromising materials” against him. According to Emiot, Matvei Pesin, employee of the Party Regional Committee, who worked as an instructor for the Agitation and Propaganda Department overseeing Yiddish literature, was diligently engaged in tracing the nationalist deviations in Der Nister’s articles. He also tried to ban their publication in local newspapers, but the editor in chief of Birobidzhaner shtern, Miller, as the interrogation records inform us, accused him of ignorance, of simplification, and even of politicizing Der Nister’s writing (see Interrogation Records of Rabinkov, July 23, 1949). Pesin was, it later became clear, an undercover agent for the MGB, informing both Secretary for Propaganda Brokhin and his behind-the-scenes commanders.3 Rather soon after Der Nister’s departure from Birobidzhan, the “organs” began to “crank up” actively the case against Der Nister, which ensnared Der Nister’s Birobidzhan “Hasids” (that is, his admirers) as well, namely, Isroel Emiot, Buzi Miller, Heshl Rabinkov, Luba Vasserman, and Ber Slutski. Later his case also played a role in the charges brought against Faivish Arones, Yosef Kerler,4 Yosef Cherniak, Chaim Maltinski, Nokhem Fridman (editor in chief of Birobidzhaner shtern, who had replaced Miller in this post), Mikhail Fradkin (editor in chief of the Birobidzhanskaia zvezda newspaper), and, at the end, Bakhmutski, Zilbershtein, Levitin, Brokhin, and others.5 Towards the spring of 1948, Der Nister began to be mentioned in Birobidzhan unfavorably. This coincided with the onset of “political freezes” in every aspect of life in the JAR. Historians have concluded   3 Emiot, CAHJP, 44.   4 See interview with Yosef Kerler 9(93), Oral History Division, Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.   5 See Vladimir Zhuravlev and Iosif Brener, comps., Kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskikh repressii na territorii Evreiskoi avtonomnoi oblasti (Birobidzhan: Izdatel’skii dom “Birobidzhan,” 2011), passim.

Der Nister Affair

that the “freezes” began with the February 1948 visit to Birobidzhan of the Personnel Department Commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU), headed by Dmitry Poliansky. This Commission claimed to have “exposed” ideological, personnel, economic, and other mistakes and abuses by the first secretary of the Party Regional Committee, Bakhmutski, and his subordinates, and a disproportionate representation of Jews in the leadership of the region.6 Emiot’s reminiscences, meanwhile, indicate that something was already stirring at the very beginning of 1948. It seems that at that time, immediately after Bakhmutski’s departure for Moscow in order to study at the CC CPSU Higher Party School, Secretary for Propaganda Brokhin convened the special Commission for the Exposure of the Nationalist Elements in the Writings of Der Nister. The writer and former frontline soldier Chaim Maltinski was appointed as one of the members of the Commission. Since he had arrived in Birobidzhan from Minsk at Bakhmutski’s invitation after Der Nister’s departure, he was the only local man of letters who had not attended the farewell evening given for Der Nister at the home of Buzi Miller. Maltinski, who highly valued Der Nister’s creative works, tried, according to Emiot, to tone down the Commission’s findings. However, what became the decisive factor was the report prepared by the abovementioned Matvei Pesin, who brought very serious charges of nationalism, Jewish chauvinism, and even Bundism against Der Nister. As a result of the work of the Commission, a special hearing was held at the offices of the Party Regional Committee, to which Birobidzhan men of letters were summoned.7 Yet another result, which remained unknown to the wider public, was a confidential letter to the CC CPSU written by Brokhin and the second secretary of the Party Regional Committee, Filipp Klimenko,   6 See Grigori Kostyrchenko, Stalin protiv “kosmopolitov.” Vlast’ i evreiskaia intelligentsia v SSSR (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2010), 198–200; and also Robert Weinberg, “Birobidzhan after the Second World War,” Jews in Eastern Europe 3, no. 49 (2002): 31–46.   7 See Emiot, CAHJP, 47–52.

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who was temporarily acting in place of the absent Bakhmutski. This letter analyzed the “political mistakes of a nationalist character” in the Moscow Yiddish-language publications Eynikayt and Heymland. Apparently, it was based upon Pesin’s reports and basically amounted to a direct denunciation of Der Nister. To supplement their letter, the authors sent to Moscow a complete Russian translation of Der Nister’s two Birobidzhan writings that were published in Moscow: “With the Second Echelon” and “With the New Settlers to Birobidzhan.”8 The passages from this letter, eventually published by the former Birobidzhan city administration employee David Vaiserman, speak for themselves: The writer Nister . . . approaches the question of the migration of Jewish working people to Birobidzhan from completely incorrect ideological and political positions; proceeding from the bourgeois-nationalist conception of the Jewish people as an “eternal martyr,” he in essence draws analogies between the migration of the toiling Jews to the JAR and the biblical legend about the exodus from Egypt. The concept of the “eternal martyr” is most clearly expressed in the following words: “ . . . The Jewish masses received an historical lesson and SOS signal so as to compel placing the question of consolidation urgently on the agenda for the quickest solution, from-today-­untiltomorrow.” As is well-known, SOS signifies a distress signal calling urgently for rescue. The question arises, what distress or disaster is the author talking about? Who needs to be rescued or saved? Well, it is workers of the Soviet Union more than two years after the Great Victory of the Soviet people over fascism in the [Great] Patriotic War of 1941–1945. Thus, the author does not see the difference between the Jews of the Soviet Union and the Jews of the capitalist countries; for both these and those he considers consolidation as the only “means of saving the Jews.”   8 Der Nister, “Mitn tsveytn eshelon (bildlekh un ayndrukn),” Eynikayt, August 30, 1947, and Der Nister, “Mit ibervanderer keyn Birobidzhan,” Heymland 1 (1947): 108–18.

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. . . Nister completely ignores the radical transformations that have taken place during the thirty years of the Soviet state’s existence in the economic conditions, way of life, and culture of the Soviet Jewish population . . . The author writes about the necessity of “putting an end to the historical silliness” that always forced the Jewish masses to be “suspended in mid-air, without soil, and so poorly rooted that a light breeze could blow them away from their old familiar habitats.” . . . The author is clearly held captive by religious-nationalist ideas. He even portrays our Soviet children in no other way than in the light of biblical images: “At first sight, simply a child, but when you look more carefully you are able to find in it the traces of a deep, ancient, thousands of years old type—the grandchild of those who came out of Egypt.” It is clear that such biblical designations are defective. . . . A certain 50-year-old “Palestinian patriot,” a Zionist, son of a rich man, is presented as the main organizer of this migration . . . In his youth, it turns out, he had a “flaming passion for the colonization of Palestine,” but now he sees “his new enterprise in progress, in bloom,” now he is “in a position . . . to become an organizer, in order to draw after himself thousands from this migrant train, and still more thousands from future migrant trains.” . . . Nister idealizes and sings the praises of old Jewish religious rites. For example, he describes with great affection a religious wedding on a migrant train, a marriage ceremony with the participation of a ritual slaughterer, “the only representative of Jewish clericalism available.” The wedding, conducted according to the old religious customs, brings the author to a state of indescribable rapture, and along with this his nationalist conception of the “eternal martyrdom” of the Jews is developed once again. Completing his description of the wedding, the author exclaims in the ancient Hebrew language, in the style of speech of the biblical prophets, the following words: “Yes, a house is built in Israel—Let a house of the people be built once again for the children and their children.”

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. . . Describing a young new settler who, before his journey to Birobidzhan, was able to repulse an attack by a gang of hooligans, Nister raises him to the rank of a national hero and compares him to the legendary biblical hero David.9

It would seem that this letter is precisely the document the writer Rabinkov was talking about in his testimonies during the investigation. He stated that the Party Central Committee passed it on to the Moscow Writers’ Jewish Section for examination. They in their turn reported that nothing nationalist was to be found in Der Nister’s works (see Interrogation Records of Rabinkov, July 23, 1949). There is no doubt that this “analysis” was stored in the papers of the CPSU’s Agitation and Propaganda Department and later played a role in the charges against Der Nister, and subsequently it must have served as a guide for action in the fabrication of the “Birobidzhan Affair.” Meanwhile, events developed with the rapidity of an avalanche. In March 1948, at a meeting of the Bureau of the Party Regional Committee, it was the head of the local MGB department, Branzburg, who expressed his critical opinion regarding Der Nister’s writings.10 At the regional Party conference held on March 27, both Klimenko and Brokhin were already leveling outright accusations with great zeal. They charged that Der Nister’s writings were “imbued with the spirit of bourgeois Jewish nationalism and an anti-Russian spirit” and that they amounted to “nationalist sabotage.” According to the speakers, Der Nister interpreted the reasons for Jewish resettlement incorrectly. Thus, while foreign Jews viewed Birobidzhan as a safe haven, Soviet Jews resettled there exclusively in the framework of building socialism.11 Brokhin, once again having Der Nister in mind, consistently charged “Jewish nationalists from Moscow” with exerting a pernicious influence on local men of letters and theater actors. This influence consisted   9 GAEAO, f. 1-P, op. 1, ed. khr. 382, l. 114. Cf. Vaiserman, Birobidzhan: mechty i tragedia, 184–86. 10 Ibid., 189. 11 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 48, d. 2741, ll. 62–68 and d. 2743, ll. 152–153. Cf. Weinberg, “Birobidzhan after the Second World War,” 36.

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in exaggerating the role of the JAR in the life of Soviet Jews, which led to “national narrow-mindedness.” The writer had called fervently for the study of the Yiddish language, and now it too came under attack. This resulted in a decision being taken to the effect that only with the written permission of their parents would pupils be allowed to attend Yiddish lessons in the schools of the JAR.12 Very soon Buzi Miller was discharged from the position of editor in chief of Birobidzhaner shtern and removed from the leadership of the local writers’ organization. On April 9, in the editorial office of Birobidzhaner shtern, his political errors were subjected to criticism, and “admiration for Der Nister” became just about the main one. Thus, the new editor in chief of the newspaper, Nokhem Fridman, declared that Miller, as editor, “was obligated to correct Der Nister’s articles, and some of them should not have been printed altogether because of the bourgeois nationalism contained in them.” And the JAR chief censor, Gorokhovski, recalled with indignation: I suggested to Comrade Miller that he remove certain statements from Der Nister’s articles, but Comrade Miller did not agree. I consider that I did not manifest adherence to principle in this matter. I did not report it to the Party Regional Committee, for which I received a justified reprimand from the Regional Committee.13

Luba Vasserman, who worked in the Jewish (Yiddish) department of the local radio station, was also dismissed from her job, because she had broadcast one of Der Nister’s pieces. Isroel Emiot was removed as editor of the literary pages of Birobidzhaner shtern. The formal reason given was that a non-Party journalist could not hold a responsible position in the press organ of the Party Regional Committee. Yosef Kerler, who worked as a translator at Birobidzhaner shtern, fell into disfavor after he publicly condemned the assimilationist tendencies in the country that had led to the situation “that only in the synagogue were 12 RGASPI, f. 17, op. 48, d. 2741, l. 179 and d. 2743, ll. 150–151. Cf. Weinberg, “Birobidzhan after the Second World War,” 36–38. 13 Drabkin, Zachem mne eto vsio . . . , 43–45.

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Jews able to use their Jewish language.”14 Kerler soon resigned from the newspaper and left Birobidzhan, at the advice of a certain MGB officer who, it seems, was somehow connected with the case being prepared against the Yiddish writers.15 Meanwhile, throughout the USSR the situation of Jewish culture as a whole deteriorated drastically. The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, the newspaper Eynikayt, and the publishing house Der Emes were closed and Jewish activists began to be arrested in the autumn of 1948. Finally, as noted above, on February 19, 1949, Der Nister was arrested in Moscow.16 A week later, when the Birobidzhan Section of the USSR Writers Union was compelled to state its official position (publicized the statement in the name of the Section by Heshl Rabinkov, executive secretary of Birobidzhaner shtern), people in Birobidzhan already knew about the arrest of Der Nister. The statement of the Birobidzhan Writers Section read: For a long time now a group of rootless cosmopolitans and bourgeois nationalists (Fefer, Hofshtein, Nister, Kipnis, and others) has been active in the sphere of Soviet Jewish writers. The critics, in the person of Y. Dobrushin, I. Nusinov, N. Oislender, and some others, and also the leadership of the Moscow Section and the Kiev Group of Soviet Jewish Writers, proved to be so politically blind and unprincipled that “they did not notice” the clearly hostile anti-patriotic character of these writers’ works.17

In light of the “hostile” and “unprincipled” activity of the best representatives of Soviet Jewish literature, the name of Rabinkov’s opus, “Toward a New Rise in the Multi-National Soviet Literature,” sounded 14 See the report on ideological work in the JAR presented to Stalin by Afanasy Dedov, Deputy Head of the Department of Party, Trade Union, and Komsomol Organs of the Communist Party Central Committee, June 25, 1949, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 163, d. 1527, ll. 64–73. 15 See Yosef Kerler, 12-ter oygust, 1952 (Jerusalem: Eygns, 1978), 30–32. 16 Maggs, The Mandelstam and “Der Nister” Files, 9. 17 H. Boyder [Rabinkov], “Tsu a nayem ufsteyg fun der filnatsionaler sovetisher literatur,” Birobidzhaner shtern, February 26, 1949.

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like a sad paradox. Sometime later, Rabinkov was compelled to deliver a penitential speech before the local Party activists, and once again its main theme was Der Nister. Rabinkov acknowledged his own “cosmopolitan” and “nationalist” errors, which led him to accept as fact such concepts as “the ‘united stream,’ the solidarity of world Jewry, the shared character of the historical destinies of the Jewish world,” and “cringing before ‘the venerable Muscovite.’” Rabinkov continued: I often ascribed to Nister, in an outburst of enthusiasm, qualities that (as it turned out) could not be present in a person like him. But to say now that at that time I regarded Nister in this way would be a lie. This was inexcusable political blindness on my part. I also bear responsibility for the appearance of Nister’s articles in our newspaper. However, D. N. is not only a nationalist; he is also a cosmopolitan; and it is not just a matter of the fact that he published his vile chauvinist book in America, that is, in that place where such books should be published, but it is also a matter of the fact that in his creative works themselves D. N. is a most genuine cosmopolitan. For me, I must confess, this became clear when I thought more deeply about his “creative works” (not long ago I wrote an article about the second volume of his novel, The Family Mashber, where I demonstrate the true face of the double-dealer and enemy Nister). If we examine his books of that period, when he was still a symbolist, who turns out to be the main hero in them? A person without kin, without a name, a “man-in-general” outside of time and space, abstract humanity. Nister’s creative works serve for me as a graphic illustration of how extreme bourgeois nationalism and cosmopolitanism can live together peacefully in one ideology, that this is one medallion with two faces, but this has now become clear to me.18 18 GAEAO, f. 1-P, Rabinkov files. See the whole speech in Boris Kotlerman, “Geshl Rabinkov: ‘Mutnaia volna natsionalizma zasorila mne mozgi’,” Novosti nedeli— Evreiskii kamerton, May 12, 1995.

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The harsh attacks on the already-jailed Der Nister were a clumsy attempt to distance their instigators from the anti-Jewish wave sweeping over the USSR. However, by this time the fate of the Birobidzhan writers had already been predetermined. Maltinski, who clearly felt uncomfortable about the part he had played in the work of the anti-Nister commission, describes in his memoirs the frightening meeting he had in the winter of 1949 with the representative of the USSR MGB for the Far East, Colonel-General Sergo Goglidze. The latter, who was spreading terror over the whole huge territory from Vladivostok to Chita, received the Jewish writer on a siding of the Birobidzhan train station in his personal railroad car, the furnishings of which were incredibly luxurious for that time, and said something to the following effect: “You understand literary questions, and it seems to us . . .”19 It is not difficult to guess that they proposed to Maltinski, as a Party member and former frontline soldier, that he voluntarily help the agencies in their work of “exposing nationalism” among the Birobidzhan men of letters. Goglidze’s involvement in this case indicates once again the broad scale of the campaign to destroy Jewish culture in the country. It seems that Maltinski did not justify the faith placed in him, and later, almost two years after the first arrests, his turn also came. The literary pogrom in Birobidzhan was advanced by an unsigned article published at the beginning of April 1949 in the Birobidzhaner shtern entitled “On Criticism and Bibliography in the Literary Almanac Birobidzhan.” Now every single creative force in Birobidzhan had been subjected to criticism.20 This article became the local equivalent of the harsh treatment meted out to the “unprincipled and apolitical” journals Zvezda and Leningrad by the CC CPSU(b) and Stalin personally two and a half years earlier.21 19 Maltinski, Der moskver mishpet iber di birobidzhaner, 29. 20 “Vegn der kritik un bibliografie inem almanakh ‘Birobidzhan,’” Birobidzhaner shtern, April 7, 1949. 21 See Denis Babichenko, comp., “Literaturnyi front.” Istoria politicheskoi tsenzury, 1932–1946 gg. Sbornik dokumentov (Moscow: Entsiklopedia rossiiskikh dereven’, 1994), 221–25.

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On April 12, 1949, a testimonial meeting of the local intelligentsia was held in the city of Birobidzhan, which, in essence, turned into a shameful anti-Semitic event. Its “pogromist” spirit was clearly evident in the heading of the newspaper item reporting the meeting: “To Crush Completely the Cosmopolitans and Bourgeois Nationalists.” A representative of the Party Territorial Committee Department of Cultural Affairs came to the meeting from Khabarovsk and dictated the tone the local activists were to take in their penitential speeches. In his address he accused both Moscow and Far Eastern literary critics, whose “real” Jewish names he revealed in passing, of rootless cosmopolitanism and nationalist narrow-mindedness, and with this he thoroughly intimidated the Birobidzhan men of letters.22 After this meeting, as the records of the interrogations show, the ostracized Buzi Miller told his wife that today he had been present at an “auto-da-fé,” that he had not imagined such an “execution,” that it was an “Inquisition” (see Interrogation Records of Rabinkov, July 23, 1949). On July 25–26, 1949, a periodic Party conference took place in the JAR. Since the whole leadership of the region had been dismissed a month earlier, the recently appointed first secretary of the Khabarovsk Party Territorial Committee, Aleksandr Efimov, came to conduct the conference. Colonel-General Goglidze was present in order to oversee the process of the emasculation of Birobidzhan personally. The event resulted in a series of charges against the dismissed first secretary of the Party Regional Committee, Bakhmutski, the chairman of the Regional Executive Committee, Levitin, his predecessor, Zilbershtein, and other high-ranking JAR officials. According to these accusations, the former leadership of the region, among other things, had arranged luxurious meetings for the nationalists who came to Birobidzhan from Moscow . . . . In honor of the arrival of the inveterate nationalist Nister a meeting was held at the train station . . . For many days Bakhmutski would not receive anyone, since he was 22 “Tsegromirn bizn sof di kosmopolitn un burzhuaze natsionalistn,” Birobidzhaner shtern, April 16, 1949.

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busy “holding conversations” with him . . . With authorization from the CPSU Regional Committee, the bourgeois-nationalists met with the intelligentsia of the city of Birobidzhan, their nationalist works were widely publicized in newspapers and literary anthologies, and considerable state funds were expended by the Regional Executive Committee on maintaining them and seeing them off.23

The leaders of the JAR, it was charged, manifested a conciliatory attitude towards manifestations of bourgeois nationalism, as a result of which a group of nationalists was enabled to take charge of the newspaper Birobidzhaner shtern, the literary almanac Birobidzhan, the regional radio committee, and other ideological institutions for a long time and propagandize Zionist nationalist views in the region.24

The members of the “group of nationalists” mentioned—Miller, Rabinkov, and Vasserman, in particular—had been arrested at the beginning of July 1949. Thus, at the time of the accusations they had already been detained for three weeks in the inner prison of the MGB in Khabarovsk. Material compromising them had already been gathered: for example, the investigation presented testimony by Itsik Fefer in Moscow, who allegedly had drawn Buzi Miller into “nationalist activity” in the JAR (see Interrogation Records of Fefer, June 30, 1949), and testimony by the “Zionist” Grigori Frid (arrested and shot in the 23 See information given by representatives of the Communist Party Central Committee about the denunciation of the former heads of the Region by the delegates to the JAR Party Conference, August 5, 1949, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 118, d. 494, ll. 152–158. 24 See the resolution of the Communist Party Politburo regarding the replacement of the JAR leadership, June 25, 1949, RGASPI, f. 17, op. 118, d. 428, ll. 31–33. See also the protocols of the 7th Regional Party Conference, GAEAO, f. 1-P, op. 1, ed. khr. 432, sviazka 35, l. 7; Organizatsia KPSS Evreiskoi avtonomnoi oblasti: 1934–1985 gody (Khabarovsk: Knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1990), 103; Grigori Kostyrchenko, comp., Gosudarstvennyi antisemitizm v SSSR: Ot nachala do kul’minatsii, 1938–1953 (dokumenty) (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi fond “Demokratia”/Materik, 2005), 212–13.

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late 1930s in Minsk), who allegedly had enlisted Luba Vasserman (see Testimony by Frid, April 4, 1938). But it was just the beginning. At the end of August the authorities arrested Shimen Siniavski-Sindelevich, former employee of the JAR Regional Executive Committee Resettlement Department (that same figure who had been a “Palestinian patriot” in his youth and about whom Der Nister wrote with noticeable pathos), and two other Yiddish writers, Ber Slutski and Isroel Emiot. The “Birobidzhan Affair” gained momentum rapidly. The investigators acted brutally in their efforts to break the spirit of the accused, using various types of physical coercion, such as punishment cells and nighttime interrogations, as well as putting pressure on their children and relatives. Thus, in his memoirs Emiot describes how, out of despair after five days in a punishment cell, he tried to cut his veins with a piece of glass.25 Today, in the court of history, the “confessions” and mutual recriminations beaten out of these exhausted, intimidated, and humiliated persons by no means reflect badly upon them. They reflect, rather, the inhumanity and cruelty of the Stalinist system, which tried to conceal its immorality behind a farcical imitation of legality, and in doing so spawned a countless multitude of innocent victims. The records of the interrogations of the Birobidzhaners have also a clearly anti-Semitic tone that underlines all the more distinctly the perversity of that system, whose prosecutors turned both the leading cultural figures of the “Soviet Jewish Statehood” (the regime’s own creation) and Jewish culture in general into outlaws. Furthermore, this was done at a time when the Holocaust and the war against Nazi Germany were fresh and painful memories. At the very same time Soviet investigators were beating confessions of criminal activity out of the Birobidzhan Yiddish writers, Western Jewish organizations supporting the Birobidzhan project, such as Ambijan and the American Committee of Jewish Writers, Artists, and Scientists, were actively publishing these writers’ works on the pages of their publications—the English language Ambijan Bulletin, the 25 Emiot, CAHJP, 83–84.

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Yiddish Naylebn, and its successor, the “progressive non-Party” periodical Di velt—and they continued to do so until 1951. In its October 1951 publication, the Canadian Birobijan Committee’s Vokhnblat even stated that the current reports to the effect that Birobidzhan was “abandoned” are a fabrication.26 Despite the fact that from the end of 1948 no new materials were received in the West from the JAFC, no one ever raised the question of the fate of the Birobidzhan writers. However, this is not so surprising when one considers the world’s silence in regard to the disappearance of the much better known Moscow Yiddish writers.27 The Birobidzhan writers were arrested much later than their Moscow colleagues who were charged in the JAFC case. However, the indictment against the former was formulated much more quickly and their sentence was handed down more than two years earlier by the Special Council of the USSR MGB without any court proceedings. One gets the impression that the interrogations of the Birobidzhaners did not lead to the expected results. In October 1949, the actor and director of the Birobidzhan State Yiddish Theater, Faivish Arones, was placed behind bars. He became the last participant in Investigation Case No. 68, which the investigators worked up into an affair involving a whole group of accused, that is, into a much more serious matter than separate, individual cases. By developing the case into the prosecution of a group, the investigators were able to find a basis for revising the charge, which they did in December (see Resubmission of Indictment against Miller, December 15, 1949). Now the accused were charged, not with Part 1 of Article 58–10 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (Anti-Soviet Agitation), but with Part 2, which had in view a great increase in the severity of the punishment. The “utilization of the religious or national prejudices of the masses,” stipulated in this part of the Article, was put 26 “Dovid Biderman un Perl Vedro brengen a bagaystertn grus fun Sovetn-farband,” Vokhnblat, October 18, 1951. See Henry Felix Srebrnik, Jerusalem on the Amur: Birobidzhan and the Canadian Jewish Communist Movement, 1924–1951 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008), 217. 27 See Rubenstein, “Introduction,” in Rubenstein and Naumov, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, 47–50.

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on the same footing as “armed revolt” (!), and could lead to a death sentence.28 However, even when the investigators threatened the Birobidzhaners with execution, it was to no avail, and they could not establish any direct link between them and high treason (attributed to the JAFC), the Zionist movement, or American Jewish organizations. Thus, Arones categorically denied that Miller had any connection with Ambijan (see Interrogation Records of Arones, November 21, 1949), and Vasserman stubbornly refused to confess that she was guilty of espionage on the basis of Frid’s testimony relating to events a decade before (see Interrogation Records of Vasserman, July 12, 1949). As a result, the investigation basically had to settle for “exposing” merely the “anti-Soviet nationalist activity” of the accused. The words and acts of Der Nister were to be among the main arguments in the accusations made against the Birobidzhaners. Thus, already in the decree to arrest Miller, the first and foremost charge was that Miller had been in contact with Der Nister and published his works in Birobidzhaner shtern. According to Emiot’s reminiscences, the MGB obtained dozens of photographs from the farewell evening held on behalf of Der Nister at Miller’s apartment, taken by Birobidzhanskaia zvezda’s photographer. Every participant in that evening fell under suspicion. Sooner or later they were arrested or at least called in for interrogation as witnesses. The Der Nister investigation in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison ended on August 17, 1949. A month later he was sentenced by the Special Council of the USSR MGB to ten years in labor camp. This conviction was based upon Articles 58–10, Part 1, and 58–11, “for criminal ties with nationalists and anti-Soviet agitation.”29 At this time Case No. 68 was just beginning to be fabricated, and the investigators took active steps in order to make use of Der Nister in getting it to “stick.” According to Emiot, the investigators’ questions in connection with

28 See the section entitled “Counter-Revolutionary Crimes,” Criminal Code of the RSFSR, with revisions of October 1, 1934—Ugolovnyi kodeks RSFSR (s izmeneniami na 1 oktiabria 1934 goda) (Moscow: Sovetskoe zakonodatel’stvo, 1934), 22–27. 29 Maggs, The Mandelstam and “Der Nister” Files, 26, 30, K-21.

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Der Nister’s stay in Birobidzhan were especially exhausting and provocative. Just what was the “Der Nister Affair” all about in the Birobidzhan context? As Emiot remembered it, according to the investigating officer of the Khabarovsk MGB Directorate, First Lieutenant Ozersky, everything occurred as follows: Der Nister (Kahanovitsh) came from the [Jewish] Anti-Fascist Committee with a special mission. This was after I [Emiot] organized a thirty minute telephone conversation between Fefer and Bakhmutski. During this conversation Fefer, by his own testimony, . . . reprimanded Bakhmutski, saying that America was dissatisfied with the cultural activity of Birobidzhan, that there were too few national distinctions, and that the region was too dependent on the higher Soviet leadership and was not pursuing its own special path, in which America was especially interested. Nister, having come to Birobidzhan, was supposed to prepare the soil for implanting nationalist tendencies among the Birobidzhan Jews, using both the spoken and the written word. The claims and demands regarding a Jewish school and increasing the format of the newspaper were only a cover for further and deeper conspiratorial aims, bordering upon the severance of the region from the Soviet Union. The “natural” processes of the assimilation of the Jews in Russia and Birobidzhan were especially disrupted, in order to create a fifth column by means of artificial linguistic and cultural differences. Everyone who visited Nister in his hotel received special instructions. I, as a correspondent of the Anti-Fascist Committee, did not carry out so faithfully all of those instructions that I supposedly received orally from Mikhoels when I was in Moscow (since all the correspondence of the Anti-­ Fascist Committee, both telegrams and letters, was such that it could not “compromise” me, they pinned everything on the oral instructions I supposedly received). Der Nister presented to me a whole program of nationalist activity.30 30 Emiot, CAHJP, 81–82.

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Der Nister’s allegedly “special mission” was clearly connected to the accusations against Fefer and other JAFC members as “CIA secret agents,” who passed on confidential information about Birobidzhan to the Americans. Later, in 1952, at the trial of the JAR leadership all this imagined activity was explained as an attempt “to establish a Jewish state in the Far East with the help of spies from the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Moscow.”31 The Yiddish writer Der Nister was cynically chosen to play the fabricated role of organizer and catalyst sent by the JAFC to set up what the MGB called the “anti-Soviet nationalist grouping in Birobidzhan”—whose existence the investigation ostensibly aimed to prove. In testimony given by Fefer, the latter said that Der Nister “was sent out to Birobidzhan on assignment by me and Mikhoels for the purpose of developing nationalist activity” (see Interrogation Records of Fefer, June 30, 1949). In testimony given by Der Nister himself (it was read to Emiot), the writer “admitted” that he had come to Birobidzhan on the instructions of the JAFC for the purpose of strengthening Jewish culture and that he was indeed a nationalist. Emiot, basing himself on his own prison experience, wrote, “All the evidence indicates that the investigator brought the aging, ill, worn out, and broken writer to a condition of total apathy.”32 The timetable of Der Nister’s interrogations (compiled by Peter Maggs of the University of Illinois on the basis of fifty-nine summonses) reflects vividly the investigators’ efforts to break the writer’s morale. During the first three months, interrogations were conducted almost daily, mainly at night.33 However, gathering the remnants of his strength, Der Nister persistently asserted that none of his Birobidzhan colleagues shared his “nationalist views.”34 The folklore scholar Yosef Cherniak, who was arrested simultaneously with Emiot, but in connection with another case, recalled how Der Nister responded when questioned about himself (it was read to him). Der Nister not only refused to acknowledge that Cherniak “conducted 31 See Redlich, War, Holocaust, and Stalinism, 150. 32 Ibid., 83. 33 Maggs, The Mandelstam and “Der Nister” Files, 22–25. 34 Emiot, CAHJP, 83.

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nationalist conversations,” which were impossible, he stated, because of Cherniak’s poor enunciation (!), but Der Nister also even refused to acknowledge that Cherniak ever even visited him in his hotel.35 However, as Maggs writes when giving his evaluation of the procedure followed in the arrest and sentencing of Der Nister, all the documents gathered by the investigation did not aim to find the truth “because they are based on what George Orwell called ‘THE BIG LIE’ . . . They give no hint as to the real reason why . . . writers were sent to labor camps.”36 On May 31, 1950, all the figures in Case No. 68 were convicted in absentia by the Special Council of the USSR MGB in Moscow. The charge was anti-Soviet nationalist activity based upon Articles 58–10, Part 2, and 58–11 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. The convicted men were sentenced to ten years deprivation of freedom and sent as prisoners to “Ozerlag” Prison Camp in the Irkutsk region, Eastern Siberia. The only exception was the aged Slutski, who was sent to the infamous, since tsarist times, “Aleksandrovsky Central Prison” near the city of Irkutsk. Just several days after that, on the evening of June 4, Der Nister died in the “Minlag” Prison Camp hospital—according to the official certificate of his death, as a result of “growing inadequacy of heart activity.” Minlag was a special camp for political prisoners, located in the Komi Autonomous Republic (Komi ASSR), about fifty kilometers from the Arctic Circle. The burial “ceremony” for the Jewish writer was held three days later, in the best tradition of the Soviet prison camp system. Dressed in his underwear, Der Nister was placed in a plank coffin and buried under a standard wooden stake with the short notation, B-4. To the deceased’s left leg was tied a small bred with his real name. Only representatives of the guards, the special unit of the MGB, and the hospital were present during the burial.37

35 Tshernyak, “Der Nister un zayn gvies-eydes,” 215. 36 Maggs, The Mandelstam and “Der Nister” Files, 3. 37 See Maggs, The Mandelstam and “Der Nister” Files, K-29 (“Certificate of Death”) and K-30 (“Certificate of Burial”). On Minlag, see Anne Applebaum, Gulag: A History (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), 654, 677.

Der Nister Affair

Yitzhak Yanasovich wrote that he got the impression that Der Nister had prepared himself all his life for death. . . . So, when death came to him, he was ready, ready not only for the Soviet executioner, but also for the Heavenly Court (beys-din shel male), to which he was returning his “bond” (pikadon)—his Jewish soul, pure, bright, and unblemished.38

Contemporaries felt keenly his deep and unwavering devotion to the Jewish tradition. This is how the last moments of the writer’s life were reconstructed by Shmuel Gordon, who was also in the Gulag during those years: Er iz geshtorbn farakhtogn . . . In barak nokh an operatsye. Ikh bin tsufelik geven bay zayn betl, ven er iz oysgegangen. Ir veyst, vos er hot mikh gebetn farn toyt? Kh’zol khotsh etlekhe teg zogn nokh im kadish . . . He died a week ago . . . In the camp barracks after an operation. I happened to be by his bed when he died. Do you know what he asked me before his death?—That for several days at least I should say kaddish for him . . . 39

Thus, quite literally, Der Nister fulfilled that very biblical maxim—“A man dieth in a tent” (Numbers 19:14)—that he had discussed, not at all simply in theory, in his conversations with Emiot.

38 Yanasovitsh, “Der Nister,” 250. 39 Gordon, Yizker, 633.

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Faivish Arones (Faivish L’vovich Arones; b. 1893, Dvinsk, d. 1982, Bnei Brak, Israel)—actor, director, playwright. Began his career as an actor in 1907 in the Yiddish troupe of Yakov Guzik. Participated in World War I, awarded the Cross of St. George. In 1918–21, performed at the Kharkov-Minsk Yiddish theater “Unzer vinkl.” In 1921–23, lived in Poland, then returned to the USSR illegally. In 1926–33 was an actor at the Belorussian GOSET; in 1935–49 was an actor and director of the Birobidzhan GOSET. Arrested on October 5, 1949, released in January 1956, and soon rehabilitated. Settled in Riga, then, from 1972, in Israel. Isroel Emiot (Izrail’ Natanovich Emiot, given name, Isroel Yanovski-Goldvasser; b. 1909, Ostrów Mazowiecka, d. 1978, Rochester, NY, USA)—poet. Grew up in a Gerer Hasidic family. Began to publish in Yiddish and Hebrew in 1926. In 1939, fled from Nazi-occupied Poland to the USSR. Lived in Bialystok, and in 1941 was evacuated to Alma-Ata. Was a correspondent for the Yiddish newspaper Eynikayt. In Birobidzhan from 1944. Was an employee of Birobidzhaner shtern, and a deputy of the City Council. Arrested on August, 31, 1949, released in February 1956, and soon rehabilitated. At the end of 1956, repatriated to Poland. From 1958, lived in the USA. Buzi Miller (Boris Izrailevich Miller, given name, Ber Srulevich Meiler; b. 1913, Kopai, Podolia guberniia, d. 1988, Birobidzhan)—prose writer and playwright. Began his career as a factory grinder in Kharkov. Was a member of the “Foygl-milkh” (“Bird’s Milk”) circle of young Yiddish writers. Gave private Yiddish lessons to the Ukrainian poet and future People’s Commissar of Education of the Ukraine, Pavlo Tychyna. Already having authored two collections of prose in Yiddish, entered the Kharkov Pedagogical Institute in 1932, and the Jewish Department of the Language and Literature Faculty of the Moscow

Accused in the Case

Pedagogical Institute (the Bubnov MGPI, later the Lenin MGPI) in 1934, and after finishing there in 1936 was assigned to Birobidzhan. Worked there as a school teacher, then as a journalist. Edited Birobidzhaner shtern in 1941 and in 1944–48, was a member of the editorial board of the literary almanac Birobidzhan in 1947–48. Until 1948 was chairman of the Birobidzhan branch of the USSR Writers’ Union, and a deputy of the Regional Council. Arrested on July 4, 1949, released in January 1956, and soon rehabilitated. Spent the rest of his life in Birobidzhan, where he served as deputy editor in chief of Birobidzhaner shtern until his retirement. Heshl Rabinkov (Gesel’ Berkovich/Grigori Borisovich Rabinkov; b. 1908, Sosnitsa, Chernigov guberniia, d. 1981, Moscow)—prose writer, literary and theater critic, playwright. Grew up in a Chabad Hasidic family. Was the nephew of Rabbi Zalman Barukh Rabinkov of Heidelberg, who influenced the development of the psychologist and philosopher Erich Fromm. At the beginning of the 1920s was employed as a construction worker in Moscow. Began publishing in 1927. In 1930 entered the Jewish Department of the Language and Literature Faculty of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, and when he finished there in 1935 was assigned to Birobidzhan. Was secretary of the City Council, then a teacher at the Jewish school, and an employee of Birobidzhaner shtern. After the war, was a member of the editorial board of the literary almanac Birobidzhan. Arrested on July 6, 1949, released in January 1956, and soon rehabilitated. After release he taught aesthetics, the history of art, and German language at the Birobidzhan Pedagogical College. Shimen Siniavski-Sindelevich (Semen Borisovich Siniavsky-Sindelevich; b. 1893, Khorol, Poltava guberniia, d. ?)—office worker. In 1912–14, lived in Palestine. In 1917–22 was a member of the “Poale Zion” movement. Came to Birobidzhan from Moscow in 1947. Was an employee of the Resettlement Department of the Regional Executive Committee, in charge of resettlement of Jews from the Ukraine. After this he was a supply agent for a furniture factory. Arrested on August 20 (or 29), 1949, released in 1956, and soon rehabilitated. Ber Slutski (Ber Aizikovich Slutski; b. 1877, Horodishche, Kiev guberniia, d. 1955, Aleksandrovskoe)—writer, philologist, translator.

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Published in Hebrew and Yiddish from 1903, was a correspondent for the Warsaw Haynt, and later for the New York Morgen-frayhayt and the Buenos Aires Di prese. In the 1920s and 1930s was an employee of the Kiev Institute of Jewish Proletarian Culture. During the war was evacuated to Alma-Ata. In Birobidzhan from 1946. Worked at the regional radio; managed the Jewish Department of the Museum of Local Lore. Arrested on August 29, 1949, died in prison hospital near Irkutsk, posthumously rehabilitated in 1956. Luba Vasserman (Lubov’ Shamovna Vasserman; b. 1907, Slavatyche, Siedlce guberniia, d. 1975, Kishinev)—poetess. During the second half of the 1920s until the beginning of the 1930s lived in Palestine. Expelled on political grounds. In the USSR from 1931, studied at the Moscow Jewish Rabfak (Faculty for Working Youths), and from 1934 was in Birobidzhan. Worked as secretary of the District Court, as a representative of OZET (the Society for Settling Toiling Jews on the Land), as an employee of the Yiddish-language editorial staff of the regional radio station, and as manager of the Yiddish collection of the regional library. Arrested on July 5, 1949, released in January 1956, and soon rehabilitated. In 1973, moved to Kishinev.

Accused in the Case

Fingerprints of Arrestee Buzi Miller, Investigation Case No. 68

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Detention Order /regarding arrest/1 /JAR UMGB Seal/       /Khabarovsk UMGB Seal/ June 6, 1949 City of Birobidzhan

Having examined the materials received by the UMGB [Ministry of State Security Directorate] of the JAR regarding the criminal activity of MEILER, who is MILLER, Ber Srulevich, born in 1913, native of the shtetl of Kopai, Vinnitsa region, Ukrainian SSR; Jewish; a member of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party since 1941, excluded in April 1949 by the primary Party organization and the City Committee of the Communist (Bolshevik) Party, as a nationalist; university educated, teacher and writer by trade, currently unemployed, residing in the city of Birobidzhan, Sovetskaia Street No. 25, Apartment 3,—

HAS FOUND

MEILER-MILLER, B. S., being a convinced Jewish bourgeois nationalist, has been engaged in anti-Soviet nationalist activity for a number of years, by disseminating in his literary works, among the people around him, anti-Soviet nationalist ideas and by providing the pages of the newspaper he edited, Birobidzhaner shtern, to rabid bourgeois nationalists for the purpose of publishing anti-Soviet nationalist literary works. As early as 1934, while studying in Moscow at the Jewish Department of the Pedagogical Institute, MEILER-MILLER came under the influence of Jewish nationalists-Bundists, as a result of which he manifested nationalist tendencies in his literary works.   1 State Archive of the Khabarovsk Territory, Khabarovsk, RF (GAKhK), Former KGB Archive of the Khabarovsk Territory, Investigation Case No. 68 (hereinafter: Investigation Case No. 68), vol. 1, ll. 16–17. Translated from Russian by Irwin Michael Aronson, edited by Ber Kotlerman.

Detention Order

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In 1936–1937, and also in 1947, meeting in Birobidzhan with BERGELSON and KAGANOVICH (DER NISTER), writers who came from Moscow—who have now been exposed and arrested as bourgeois nationalists—he shared completely the anti-Soviet nationalist views of the latter. In 1947 he published in the press the story “Birobidzhan,”2 and the play He Is from Birobidzhan,3 in which he contrasts the Jewish Autonomous Region with other regions of the Soviet Union, and advocates “ideas” of national narrow-mindedness and chauvinism. In May 1946, while editor in chief of the newspaper Birobidzhaner shtern, he published a feuilleton by G. RABINKOV with maliciously nationalist content, and in September and October 1947, contrary to the direct instructions of the censorship organs, he placed in the newspaper several clearly nationalist essays of the rabid Jewish nationalist KAGANOVICH (DER NISTER). For a number of years, beginning in 1938 and up to the present time, anti-Soviet nationalist views have been expressed in his circle, and policies being followed by the Party and the government have been slandered, policies touching questions of the construction of the Jewish Autonomous Region, the development of Jewish socialist culture, and measures taken to defeat anti-patriots and bourgeois cosmopolitans on the ideological front. They have also spoken hostilely and slanderously about inner-party democracy. Having been exposed by party organs as a militant Jewish bourgeois nationalist, he plays a double game, formally recognizing his errors, while among his closest circle continuing to defend hostile, nationalist views. The criminal acts of MEILER-MILLER, B. S., specified above are proved to be true by the testimonies of the persons arrested by the organs of the MGB, KAGANOVICH, P. M., and BERGELSON, D. P., and also by the witnesses, FRIDMAN, N. M., RABINKOV, G. B., and GOROKHOVSKI, B. E., and by the partial confession of   2 Buzi Miler, “Birobidzhan,” Birobidzhan 1–2 (1946): 3–86, also Birobidzhan (Moscow: Der Emes, 1948).   3 Buzi Miler, “Er is fun Birobidzhan,” Birobidzhan 3 (1947): 7–67.

Detention Order

MEILER, B. S., himself, in his statements to the City Committee and the Communist Party Regional Committee, and by other materials and documents. On the basis of what has been stated,—

HAS DECREED

MEILER-MILLER, Ber Srulevich, residing in the city of Birobidzhan on Sovetskaia Street No. 25, is subject to search and arrest.

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INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Rabinkov, Gesel Borisovich1 July 23, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The interrogation took place with a break from 01:45 to 13:00 The interrogation was completed at 17:00

QUESTION:  Tell us more precisely, who were among the local writers with whom you had conversations in which they reflected their nationalist views? ANSWER:  Miller, Emiot, Slutski, and the actor Arones are among the local writers who shared my nationalist views and with whose views I agreed. QUESTION:  Tell us, what conversations of a nationalist character did you conduct with the persons listed? ANSWER:  Our conversations dealing with the development of Jewish national culture came down to this, that we all focused our attention on this, that in every possible way to promote the development of Jewish culture and the Yiddish language, without connecting this with the reality, since, as is known, most of the inhabitants of the Jewish Region are Russians, with part of the population being persons of other nationalities. In this respect we were following in the steps of the Moscow nationalist writers, who demanded that a special Birobidzhan coloring, that is, read—nationalist—should be felt in our works. We agreed that it was necessary to conduct agitation for Birobidzhan among the working Jews, that Birobidzhan should, in the immediate future, become the largest and even the only center of Jewish national culture in Soviet Union. With that end in view we tried in every way possible to achieve the daily publication on four pages of the Yiddish newspaper 1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 3, ll. 68–72.

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Birobidzhaner shtern, as a means through which to carry on agitation, both inside the region and outside of it, among working Jews, for resettlement in the Jewish Autonomous Region. But when all of this failed to be implemented, we displayed discontent in relation to the workers of the Party Regional Committee and were of the opinion that the workers of the Propaganda and Agitation Department were far from Jewish national culture and undervalued it. Our conversations in a nationalist spirit dealing with Jewish national culture and the development of the Jewish Autonomous Region became especially lively after the arrival in Birobidzhan in 1947 of the bourgeois nationalist writer Der Nister and Lumkis, who introduced a new spurt of nationalism into the milieu of the Jewish writers. QUESTION:  Concretize individually the nationalist activity of the Birobidzhan writers listed by you above? ANSWER:  The one who expressed political views and advocated among us most effusively, as Secretary of the Group of Writers, and struggled for the implementation of nationalist ideas, was Miller, who is Meiler. This is evident from his literary activity, oral presentations, and also his private conversations with me and other writers. Miller struggled especially actively for the introduction of Yiddish as a subject of study in the Russian-language basic primary school at the Birobidzhan Pedagogical Seminar. In 1947 Miller wrote a lead article in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper in which, in sharp tones, he attacked the former head of the Regional Department of Education Drisin and the Director of the Pedagogical Seminar Sapozhnikov, for delaying the introduction of Yiddish into [the curriculum of] the basic primary school, and threatened them with removal from their jobs.2 In 1947–48 Miller published the story “Birobidzhan,” in which he reflected his nationalist views and portrayed Soviet reality in a perverted manner. Miller reflected his nationalist views in a number of other works, like, for example, in the play, “He Is from Birobidzhan.” 2 See “Af der birobidzhaner shtotisher lerer-konferents,” Birobidzhaner shtern, August 28, 1947.

Interrogation Records

Miller is the only one in Soviet Jewish literature who commemorated in a big way the jubilee of the poet, . . . exposed as a bourgeois nationalist, Perets Markish, by devoting a lengthy admiring article to him. In 1947, during the stay of the bourgeois nationalist Jewish writer Der Nister in Birobidzhan, Miller placed a story and several essays with bourgeois-nationalist, and in essence, anti-Soviet, content, in the pages of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper edited by him, and when workers of the Party Regional Committee pointed this out to Miller, he defended Der Nister in every way possible and accused the Party Regional Committee workers Pesin and Volfovskaia of ignorance, of simplification, and of approaching Der Nister’s writing as if it were some kind of political pamphlet. In that same Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, in 1946, Miller placed the fallacious feuilleton written by me, “Sholem Aleichem Characters,” the theme of which was agreed upon by us together, and he gave a positive review of this feuilleton, stressing that it came at just the right time, that this topic was timely. And in 1947 he edited and gave the name to my story “On Birobidzhan Earth.” The story is not free of nationalist narrow-mindedness, and Miller not only edited and published it in the newspaper, but he also gave the story a positive evaluation, and me too personally at a briefing in the editorial office. As Secretary of the Group of Writers of Birobidzhan and as Editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper he often spoke before an audience and the working Jews, giving lectures about various literary topics, in which he also reflected his nationalist views, that is, everything that found circulation among the local writers, actors, and other representatives of the Birobidzhan intelligentsia. Thus, in 1947, at the club of the garment factory, Miller delivered a report about the work of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, in which he reproached his listeners for the fact that so few of them subscribed to the Yiddish newspaper, and he proclaimed the slogan that every Jew should read the Yiddish newspaper and subscribe to it, and in this same speech he stated that if the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper were to close down, the Jews would then regret it. Miller did not say a word

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about the Birobidzhanskaia zvezda newspaper or the rest of the Soviet press, as if there were nothing else in Birobidzhan apart from the Yiddish-language Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper. When the new Jewish settlers from the western regions of the USSR arrived in Birobidzhan in 1947–1948, Miller himself personally addressed the settlers. He spoke in lofty tones about the Jewish Autonomous Region, about the Jewish statehood that was being constructed in Birobidzhan, about the development of Jewish national culture. [He called upon them] to subscribe to the local Yiddish newspaper and to read Yiddish writers. In July or August, I do not remember precisely which month, 1938, on the instructions of the Party Regional Committee Secretary Sukharev,3 I prepared a lecture in Russian on the Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem. Miller at this time was in Moscow on an official trip. When he arrived back from Moscow and learned that I had given a lecture on Sholem Aleichem in Russian before an audience made up mostly of Jews, Miller made fun of me and declared: “They are able to compel you to do this, to give a lecture on Sholem Aleichem in Russian before such an audience; me, however, as Miller expressed it, they could not compel.” And in fact, in 1946, on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of Sholem Aleichem’s death, at the “Birobidzhan” movie theater, where there was a mixed audience, Miller gave a lecture in Yiddish on Sholem Aleichem’s works. Miller, as he told me, gave the lecture in Yiddish in order to demonstrate that in the Jewish Autonomous Region, lectures about Yiddish writers should be presented only in the Yiddish language. In 1947, when the writer Der Nister, who has now been exposed as a bourgeois nationalist, came to Birobidzhan, Miller arranged an enthusiastic reception for him. Very often he visited Der Nister in the hotel where the latter was staying while in Birobidzhan. In conversations with acquaintances he never ceased exalting Der Nister; he supported 3 Hirsh Sukharev (1900–?) was first secretary of the JAR Party Regional Committee in 1937–1941.

Interrogation Records

and shared his bourgeois-nationalist views, that it was necessary to support the Yiddish school in Birobidzhan in every way possible and to create a privileged position for it in relation to the city’s other schools, in order to attract pupils to it. He supported Der Nister’s negative attitude toward Jewish assimilation and was enraptured with the Jewish settlers arriving in Birobidzhan from other regions of the Soviet Union. He paid Der Nister a large fee for placing his articles and stories in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper. Even after Miller was removed from the post of editor in chief of Birobidzhaner shtern, he continued to assert that the local Regional Committee workers had made a mistake in subjecting him to reprimand by the Party, and that there was nothing nationalist in the essays and story published by Der Nister in the newspaper. When Miller returned from Moscow, where he had gone after his removal from the post of editor of the newspaper, he told me and others, that, so he claimed, at the Party Central Committee, where the accusation about Der Nister’s nationalist essays had arrived, they laughed about it and handed these essays and Der Nister’s story over to the Jewish Section of Moscow Writers for examination, and that there, so he claimed, they did not find anything nationalist in Der Nister’s writings. In personal conversations with me, Miller repeatedly expressed himself in regard to the development of Jewish national culture in the same spirit as Der Nister, that is, he supported his nationalist ideas. When articles appeared in the newspapers exposing the anti-Party activity of the cosmopolitans-critics, among whom there were a large number of Jews, he said in a conversation with me on this question that “ . . . This is the beginning of the expulsion of Jews from all areas of ideology,” and that “now cosmopolitan and Jew have become almost synonyms.” After the meeting of the intelligentsia at which the local writers were criticized for allowing nationalist errors in their works,4 Miller, at 4 The meeting of the town’s intelligentsia being referred to took place in the city of Birobidzhan on April 12, 1949. There a representative of the Territorial Department of Culture called for struggle with rootless cosmopolitanism and nationalist

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his apartment, told me that when he had come home from this meeting he said to his wife that today he had been present at an “auto-da-fé,” that he had not imagined such an execution, that this was an inquisition. It must be said that Miller also made statements of a cosmopolitan character. Thus, in May of this year he gave a lecture on Pushkin’s life and works before the workers and clerical employees of the regional newspapers’ printing house, in which he characterized the pre-Pushkin period of Russian literature as one of sheer imitation of French classicism, which is fundamentally wrong. The protocol with my words has been recorded correctly and signed by me personally /Rabinkov/

narrow-mindedness. See “Tsegromirn bizn sof di kosmopolitn un burzhuaze natsionalistn,” Birobidzhaner shtern, April 16, 1949.

INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Meiler (Miller), Ber Srulevich1 August 5, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The interrogation took place: August 5—from 21:45 to 01:15 and August 6—from 12:15 to 17:00

QUESTION:  During the interrogation on July 4, this year, you testified that when you were the editor of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper you authorized the publication of bourgeois-nationalist anti-Soviet articles by Der Nister in the newspaper. Tell us, in what else besides this did your nationalist anti-Soviet activity find expression? ANSWER:  Indeed, during the interrogation on July 4, this year, I admitted, and I confirm it now, that as editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper I authorized for publication, and they were printed in the newspaper, articles by Der Nister, which, as it later became clear to me, had the character, and in a number of the features they contained, were anti-Soviet. I consider this to be a gross political error by me. I was not engaged in nationalist anti-Soviet activity. However, in my work at the post of editor of the newspaper, several other errors of a nationalist character were allowed by me. QUESTION:  What, in particular, as you say, were the other “errors of a nationalist character” that were allowed by you? ANSWER:  In the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper and in the Birobidzhanskaia zvezda newspaper also, the term “Jewish autonomous statehood” is used too often, in the general sense of these words, to the detriment of a detailed and concrete portrayal of the development of industry and agriculture in the region. The Birobidzhaner shtern   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 1, ll. 102–18.

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Interrogation Records

newspaper, when portraying the foremost workers of industry and agriculture and the representatives of the intelligentsia, gave space in a large measure to those who were Jewish and in a lesser measure to those representing other nationalities. Few propaganda articles illuminating the friendship of the Soviet peoples and the role of the Great Russian people in building socialism in our country were placed in the newspaper. After the decision was taken in 1947 regarding the teaching of the Yiddish language to Russian children in the basic primary school at the Birobidzhan Pedagogical Seminar and in the Valdheim school, I placed a note in the newspaper by the Birobidzhan Regional Inspector, Kademi, which illuminated positively the course of these studies at the Valdheim school and thereby promoted the implementation of the decision that had been taken. QUESTION:  Did you really not yourself write anything in the newspaper regarding the introduction of the teaching of the Yiddish language in the schools? ANSWER:  That same year, 1947, after this decision was taken, in one of the lead articles I wrote that [the Head] of the City Board of Education Dvorkina, and also the Director of the Pedagogical Seminar Sapozhnikov, were delaying the introduction of the teaching of the Yiddish language in the basic primary school. And I criticized them severely for not carrying out the decision that had been taken. QUESTION:  By whom and at whose initiative was this decision taken? ANSWER:  The decision about teaching Russian children the Yiddish language was taken by the Bureau of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the JAR, at the initiative of the First Secretary Bakhmutski. QUESTION:  Continue your testimonies. ANSWER:  I did not allow other errors of a nationalist character during the time of my work at the newspaper. QUESTION:  You let all these materials pass into publication consciously?

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ANSWER:  Consciously. In general, I do not imagine it to be possible to do something unconsciously. QUESTION:  If you let particular materials of a nationalist character pass into publication consciously, then why do you try to assert that this is an error, and not the consequence of your nationalist sentiments? ANSWER:  I admit that at that time when these materials were printed I had nationalist sentiments. The errors of a nationalist character committed by me are a consequence of my nationalist sentiments, called forth by the fact that at that time, from the side of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party, not only were there no instructions regarding the incorrectness of these sentiments, but, on the contrary, the very same sentiments appeared in all the press of the JAR (the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, the almanac Birobidzhan), and also in the speeches of the region’s leaders, in particular, Bakhmutski, the former Chairman of the Regional Executive Committee Zilbershtein, and others. QUESTION:  At that time when Der Nister’s articles were being prepared for publication in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, were you warned about the fact that the articles contain bourgeois-nationalist assertions, which it is prohibited to print? ANSWER:  From the side of Obllit [the Regional Office for Matters of Literature], which provides the censorship for materials placed in the newspaper, it was declared necessary to remove one paragraph from Der Nister’s first article2 on account of its bourgeois-nationalist character. QUESTION:  Did you carry out these instructions of Obllit? ANSWER:  I did not carry out these instructions of Obllit, and this paragraph was not removed from the article. At that time I did not perceive a bourgeois-nationalist character in this paragraph, and when I expressed to Obllit, more precisely, to Gorokhovski, my thoughts concerning this paragraph, he agreed with me, and therefore this paragraph was not removed from the article.   2 Der Nister, “Mitn ibervanderer-eshelon keyn Birobidzhan,” Birobidzhaner shtern, September 4, 1947.

Interrogation Records

QUESTION:  You have not answered the question to the point and have not explained why you printed Der Nister’s bourgeois-nationalist articles in the newspaper, when you had direct instructions regarding the fact that there is a paragraph in the article of a bourgeois-nationalist character. Answer! ANSWER:  Besides the reasons I stated, my personal nationalist sentiments, which I had at that time, played a fundamental role. QUESTION:  Which means that the placing of Der Nister’s bourgeois-nationalist articles in the newspaper should not be considered as an error made unconsciously, but as the consequence of your personal nationalist sentiments? ANSWER:  I have already stated that my nationalist sentiments played a fundamental role in the fact that I permitted Der Nister’s bourgeois-nationalist articles to be printed in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper. QUESTION:  When and under whose influence did you begin to have nationalist sentiments? ANSWER:  I began to have nationalist sentiments in 1946, under the influence of the following reasons: first, such nationalist sentiments appeared in the oral and printed speeches of the heads of the JAR, and, secondly, under the influence of the Eynikayt newspaper, which was considered to be the only official press organ in the Yiddish language, where these nationalist sentiments were expressed by the most prominent figures of Yiddish literature and art, in particular: Mikhoels, Bergelson, Markish, Fefer, Der Nister. All these persons had indisputable authority, as the initiators and the most prominent figures of Yiddish literature and art. QUESTION:  Tell us, who shared your nationalist sentiments? ANSWER:  A number of other writers and journalists of the region had the same nationalist sentiments as I, to one degree or another. Rabinkov, Vasserman, Fridman, Slutski, Emiot, Maltinski, and Fradkin belong to the number of such persons. Although the persons enumerated by me had nationalist sentiments, however, I cannot say that they were my like-minded associates, because both I and they—together we were

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under the influence of various figures of Yiddish literature and art, who were published in the Eynikayt newspaper, about which I spoke earlier, and also under the influence of the chief workers of the region, Bakhmutski and Zilbershtein. QUESTION:  From what source did you learn about the nationalist sentiments of these persons? ANSWER:  I learned about the nationalist views of Rabinkov, Vasserman, Slutski, Emiot, Fridman, and Maltinski from their works, in which their nationalist views found their reflection. In 1945 Rabinkov handed over for release on radio, and they were broadcast, a series of articles called “From the History of the Jews in Russia.” The history of Jews in these articles was illuminated with nationalist positions in isolation from the history of the other peoples of our country. Rabinkov wrote in these articles about bourgeois Jewish figures and said nothing about the Jews who took part in the general revolutionary movement. In one of the articles of this series, “Petersburg-Petrograd-Leningrad,” Rabinkov devoted all his attention to the pre-revolutionary period, and said nothing about revolutionary Leningrad. In 1946 Rabinkov wrote a feuilleton under the heading “On the Themes of Sholem Aleichem,” which I printed in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper. This feuilleton is ambiguous in its content and gives the possibility of interpreting it as a work of bourgeois-nationalist character. Being under the influence of nationalist views, I saw how it ridiculed those persons who do not want to speak Yiddish, even though they know the language, and did not see its orientation against those who want to speak Russian, that is, I did not see in this feuilleton its bourgeois-nationalist character. When Der Nister came to Birobidzhan in 1947, Rabinkov printed in the Birobidzhanskaia zvezda newspaper an article lauding Der Nister, in which he not only covered up the bourgeois-nationalist character of his works, but even asserted that in the novel, The Family Mashber, Der Nister illuminates historical events from Marxist positions.3 In 1948 nationalist articles by Dobrushin about one of Bergelson’s books,   3 G. Rabinkov, “Vydaiushchiisia master khudozhestvennogo slova,” Birobidzhanskaia zvezda, July 13, 1947.

Interrogation Records

whose title I do not remember now, were printed in the almanac Birobidzhan, No. 4.4 In his review of this issue of the almanac, which appeared in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, not only did Rabinkov not reveal the nationalist character of Dobrushin’s article, but he also praised it. Vasserman, while working for the Radio Committee in the town of Birobidzhan, was simultaneously engaged in literary activity: she wrote essays, stories, and verses. In one of her essays about an immigrant collective farm worker from the Crimea, Vasserman wrote that from the German occupation only the Jews suffered. Besides this, in a number of Vasserman’s poems devoted to Birobidzhan, the latter was considered separately from the other parts of the Soviet Union, in isolation from them, instead of showing that Birobidzhan is an integral part of the Soviet Union. The poem, “Three Gifts,” which later entered a collection of verses, was written by Emiot in 1944–1945. In this poem Emiot, unjustifiably and baselessly, compares the feat of a Soviet girl partisan during the Great Patriotic War with the Jewish girl martyr in the Middle Ages described by the writer Perets in his short story “The Three Gifts,” absolutely omitting the difference between the factors motivating the medieval girl and the girl partisan. Besides this, at about the same time, the long poem “Birakan” was written by Emiot, in which, when describing a Jew who moved from Siberia to Birobidzhan, Emiot makes a digression to the distant past, and describes in idealistic tones various religious traditions of the Jews. This passage was removed from the poem “Birakan” by Obllit. Regarding the nationalist sentiments of Fradkin, Fridman, and Maltinski, I found out about these from the following. Regarding Fradkin—a series of materials of a nationalist character was placed in the Birobidzhanskaia zvezda newspaper, which he edited. For example: in about August 1947, an article by Rabinkov about Der Nister’s works was printed in the newspaper, and not only was the bourgeois-nationalist   4 Y. Dobrushin, “Loytere mentshn,” Birobidzhan 1, no. 4 (1948): 61–64. Yekhezkel Dobrushin (1883–1953) was a Moscow Yiddish writer and literary critic. He was arrested in late 1948 and sent to a prison camp, where he died in 1953.

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character of his works not exposed in it, but on the contrary, Der Nister was praised in every way possible as the author of the novel, The Family Mashber, and he was declared to be a Marxist artist.5 At this same time a laudatory article about the poet Kerler by Fridman was printed in the newspaper, and in it nothing was said about Kerler’s nationalist sentiments, which found their reflection also in one of his poems printed in the same issue of the newspaper. Articles by Tsirkel and Fridman were placed in the newspaper in April–May 1947, and in them, in particular, my story “Birobidzhan” was highly praised, and nothing was indicated about the nationalist manifestations that appeared in the story. Regarding Maltinski—as editor of a little book of verses by Emiot (Goldvasser),6 Maltinski permitted a number of verses of a nationalist character to be placed in this book, “Three Gifts,” and part of the poem “Birakan” that was later removed by Obllit. The book of Emiot’s verses edited by Maltinski was published in 1948. As editor in chief of the almanac Birobidzhan from the end of 1947, Maltinski placed in the almanac Rabinkov’s review of Emiot’s little book of verses, in which not only was the nationalist character of various verses in this book not exposed, but on the contrary, these verses were praised. Dobrushin’s nationalist article about Bergelson’s book, the name of which I do not remember now, was placed in issue No. 4 of the almanac Birobidzhan. In this article, Dobrushin, speaking about the history of the Jewish people, views it as a unified whole, without making any distinction between Jews living in the USSR and in the capitalist countries; the history of the Jewish people is considered as an unbroken chain of suffering, and so on. Regarding Fridman’s nationalist sentiments, I already said earlier: Fridman, as a member of the editorial board of the almanac Birobidzhan, just like Maltinski, undersigned the nationalist articles I mentioned earlier for publication.   5 See Grigori Rabinkov, “Vydaiushchiisia master khudozhestvennogo slova,” Birobidzhanskaia zvezda, July 13, 1947.   6 Emiot, Ufgang.

Interrogation Records

QUESTION:  How did the nationalist sentiments of Kerler and Dobrushin that you mentioned earlier find expression? ANSWER:  A number of Kerler’s verses testify to his nationalist sentiments, especially the poem that was printed in the Birobidzhanskaia zvezda newspaper, where, speaking about his return from the front, he writes that he was on the Spree River in order to then have the possibility of being on the Bira River.7 Kerler’s nationalist convictions were expressed especially clearly in a speech he made at one of the meetings of the intelligentsia of Birobidzhan, it seems, in September 1947, where he spoke about some kind of militant assimilationists and about the necessity of contending with them. I know Dobrushin just a little and seldom met him. He is an old writer and critic who permitted nationalist expressions in many of his works about Yiddish theater and literature. QUESTION:  Did you really learn about the nationalist sentiments of the persons you listed only from literary works and official speeches? ANSWER:  I learned about the nationalist sentiments of Rabinkov, Vasserman, Slutski, Der Nister, and Emiot not only from literary works, but also from personal conversations with them. Regarding the other persons I listed—Fradkin, Fridman, Maltinski, Kerler, and Dobrushin—I learned about their nationalist sentiments from their literary works, public speeches, and everyday practical activity, about which I already testified. QUESTION:  From what you have said, it is possible to draw the conclusion that during your personal encounters with Rabinkov, Vasserman, Slutski, Der Nister, and Emiot, from both your side and theirs, the expression of your nationalist sentiments to each other took place. Is this correct?

  7 For the Yiddish original of the poem, see Yoysef Kerler, “Zayt gebentsht,” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 3, 1947.

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ANSWER:  In general this is correct, although the conversations did not have the same character with all persons listed. QUESTION:  Tell us with whom specifically you conducted conversations of a nationalist character and which conversations exactly? ANSWER:  Conversations of a nationalist character gathered momentum among the persons I listed especially after Der Nister’s arrival in Birobidzhan in July 1947. Der Nister stayed in Birobidzhan about two and a half—three months. While in Birobidzhan, Der Nister, without hesitating, expressed his nationalist views. I cannot testify about all of Der Nister’s nationalist statements, since I returned to Birobidzhan from a tour of duty a month after Der Nister’s arrival there. In my presence Der Nister expressed the following nationalist views. In his speech at the evening held in August 1947 at the regional library, dedicated to Der Nister, he spoke about the JAR having some kind of special role in the history of the Jews, about the circumstance that only in the JAR was a dawn of Jewish culture and literature possible, and that for this, first of all, every kind of increase in the quantity of Jewish schools was necessary. Similar statements were made by him at the meeting of theater workers, writers, and teachers of the Jewish school that took place on the premises of the theater (in the rehearsal hall) at about the end of August 1947. In this speech Der Nister accused the writers of Birobidzhan, the cultural and art workers, and the journalists of having done nothing to expand the network of Jewish schools or improve the work of the existing Jewish school. Der Nister accused the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper of writing very little about Jewish life and of paying much attention to general questions of the work of the region’s industry and agriculture. In the few conversations that I personally had with Der Nister, usually in the presence of someone from among those listed earlier, Der Nister mainly spoke about the necessity of developing the Jewish schools in every way possible, asserting that the Jewish teacher should be the main figure in the question of the development of Jewish culture,

Interrogation Records

that the main task is to increase the quantity of Jewish schools, and that the work of both the writers and the press of the region should be subordinated to this. I personally did not hear any other nationalist statements from Der Nister. QUESTION:  Who was present at the meetings you are talking about? ANSWER:  Present at the meeting held in the library at the beginning of August 1947 were all the writers, without exception, all (a majority of) the actors of the Yiddish theater, teachers of the Jewish school, representatives of the intelligentsia, and representatives of the Regional Committee and the Party City Committee. Among the representatives of the Regional Committee and the Party City Committee, insofar as I remember, were Berdichevski and Zubernik. Who else was present at the moment, I do not remember. At the second meeting, at the end of August 1947, which took place in the theater, all the theater workers, all the writers, workers of the Radio Committee, and teachers of the Jewish school were present. From the Party Regional Committee, Berdichevski was present. QUESTION:  At these meetings did anyone come forward with an exposure of Der Nister’s nationalist essence? ANSWER:  No, no one came forward. QUESTION:  Tell us, how did they greet Der Nister at these meetings? ANSWER:  When Der Nister arrived at the meeting in the library, everyone present greeted him with cheers, while rising to their feet. The presidium rose as well. QUESTION:  Continue testifying about those nationalist conversations in which you participated. ANSWER:  I had no conversations in general with Der Nister. Both during Der Nister’s stay in Birobidzhan and after his departure, questions touched upon by Der Nister were discussed repeatedly with Vasserman, Slutski, and Emiot, who shared Der Nister’s nationalist views. These conversations took place in various places.

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QUESTION:  And you personally shared Der Nister’s nationalist views? ANSWER:  I did not at all share Der Nister’s nationalist views. In particular, I did not share his views about the JAR having some kind of special role in the history of the Jews or about the tasks of the Jewish press. Regarding the question of the need to develop the Jewish schools, here I agree with Der Nister, but with the reservation that it is necessary to do this to that degree for which there is a real need for this. QUESTION:  Did you speak to anyone about your disagreeing with Der Nister’s nationalist views? ANSWER:  Regarding the question of the Jewish schools, I spoke about my disagreement both to Der Nister himself and Vasserman, Slutski, Emiot, and Rabinkov, with whom this question was discussed. Regarding Der Nister’s other nationalist positions, about which I have indicated, well, I did not speak to anyone about my disagreement with him. I had a conversation with [First Party Secretary] Bakhmutski during which he told me that Der Nister had been at his place and during a two-hour long conversation they spoke only in Yiddish, putting forward and developing those nationalist positions about which I have indicated earlier. In the conversation with Bakhmutski, I told him my negative attitude to Der Nister’s positions; however, neither I nor Bakhmutski gave these positions of Der Nister a positive evaluation, and considered them simply an eccentricity of the old man. I left Bakhmutski with the impression that in relation to Der Nister, the previous relation, that is, the atmosphere of admiration, praise, and so on, should be kept. QUESTION:  Were the nationalist views of Vasserman, Emiot, Rabinkov, and others subjected to discussion in the group of writers? ANSWER:  The nationalist views of Vasserman, Emiot, Rabinkov, and others were not subjected to any discussion and condemnation in the group of writers, and no question about this was raised, although at the 1946 meeting of the Birobidzhan intelligentsia devoted to the discussion of the resolution of the Communist Party Central Committee about the

Interrogation Records

Zvezda and Leningrad magazines,8 the nationalist manifestations in the works of Vasserman and Rabinkov were pointed out. QUESTION:  Why didn’t you, as head of the group of writers in Birobidzhan, put up for discussion questions about the nationalist manifestations in the works of Vasserman, Emiot, and others? ANSWER:  This question was not put up for discussion because I did not give due significance to the necessity of struggle against nationalist manifestations, since I myself personally was under the influence of nationalist sentiments. QUESTION:  Tell us, in Birobidzhan, apart from Jewish writers, were there other writers? ANSWER:  There were no more-or-less-mature writers of other nationalities in the region. However, there were quite a few beginning poets, writing various works in Russian, about which I had occasion to give advice. QUESTION:  The group of writers you headed in Birobidzhan, what work did it carry out with the aspiring writers and poets of other nationalities? ANSWER:  The group of writers in Birobidzhan did not carry out any organized work with the aspiring writers and poets of other nationalities, if you do not take into consideration various consultations I held, which were of a sporadic character. QUESTION:  Why? ANSWER:  This was brought about by the national narrow-mindedness of the approach to this question. QUESTION:  Speak more precisely and more clearly. ANSWER:  I thought, just like other leading workers of the region, that since there was a branch of the Union of Soviet Writers in Khabarovsk   8 For the CC CPSU resolution about Zvezda and Leningrad, see Babichenko, “Literaturnyi front,” Istoria politicheskoi tsenzury, 221–25.

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Territory, then the task of the group of Jewish writers in Birobidzhan was only to work with the Jewish [Yiddish] writers and develop Jewish [Yiddish] literature in the region. QUESTION:  From your answer it follows that you isolated the work with the Jewish writers from the work with writers of other nationalities? ANSWER:  I have already testified that there were no more-or-less-mature Russian writers in the region, but there were only beginners. However, I admit that we did not carry out work with the aspiring Russian writers, and in this sense we isolated it from work with the Jewish [Yiddish] writers. QUESTION:  Thus, your nationalist views found their expression in this question. Do you admit this? ANSWER:  I admit that the isolation that took place in the work of the group of Jewish [Yiddish] writers in Birobidzhan was a consequence of my nationalist sentiments. QUESTION:  An excerpt has been presented to you from the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, dated June 1, 1946, where Heroes of the Soviet Union from among the Jews are listed, under the general heading, “The Honor and Glory of the Jewish People.” Do you consider the placing of this material in the newspaper as correct? ANSWER:  I consider the placing of Jewish Heroes of the Soviet Union in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper to be correct. The general heading, “The Honor and Glory of the Jewish People,” under which this list was placed, is nationalist. I should add that this whole list, together with the heading, was reprinted from the Eynikayt newspaper. QUESTION:  Tell us, do the persons mentioned in the list mentioned earlier have any connection with Birobidzhan, with the JAR? ANSWER:  None of the persons mentioned in the list, except for one Iosif Bumagin, have any connection with Birobidzhan, with the JAR, in the sense that they never lived or worked here. Iosif Bumagin lived

Interrogation Records

in Birobidzhan for a long time, worked in the wagon factory, was a Stakhanovite, and from here left for the army.9 QUESTION:  Do you admit that the publication of this list under the general heading, “The Honor and Glory of the Jewish People,” contradicts those principles of nationality policy put into practice by the Party and the Soviet government? ANSWER:  Yes, I admit that the wording, “the Jewish people,” involves a contradiction with the definition of “nation” and “people” given by Marxist-Leninist science, and thereby this wording runs counter to the principles of nationality policy put into practice by the Party and the Soviet government. QUESTION:  Why did you place this material in the newspaper? ANSWER:  My having nationalist sentiments prevented me from grasping the nationalist character of the material from the newspaper Eynikayt in question. QUESTION:  During the interrogation of July 18 this year, admitting that you expressed nationalist views in conversations with your acquaintances, you testified: However, I was not engaged expressly in the dissemination of anti-­ Soviet nationalist views. Do you stand by this assertion of yours? ANSWER:  I confirm that I was not engaged expressly in the dissemination of anti-Soviet nationalist views, even though, in conversations   9 Iosif Bumagin (1907–45) moved with his family to the city of Birobidzhan from Vitebsk in 1937. During World War II he served in the Soviet Far East, but in April 1945 he was sent to the Western Front. On April 24 advancement of his regiment in Breslau (Wrocław) was halted by the fire of two German machine guns located in the concrete cellar of a demolished building. Bumagin reached the cellar and managed to silence one machine gun with his last hand grenade, but the other continued to fire. Then he threw his body against the embrasure and succeeded in silencing the second machine gun. On June 27, 1945, Bumagin was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

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with my acquaintances, I expressed the nationalist views of mine, about which I testified. QUESTION:  Do you admit that during the time of your work as editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, nationalist materials were printed in it repeatedly? ANSWER:  Yes, I admit that during the time of my work as editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, various materials of a nationalist character were printed in it repeatedly. QUESTION:  For whom did you print these materials in the newspaper? ANSWER:  The materials of a nationalist character, like all the materials in general that were printed in the newspaper, I printed so that working Jews could read them. QUESTION:  Consequently, printing nationalist works in the newspaper, you were thereby engaged in the dissemination of nationalist views. Is that not so? ANSWER:  Yes, I admit that in printing nationalist works in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper I was thereby engaged in the dissemination of nationalist views among the readers of the newspaper. QUESTION:  From what has been said, it follows that the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper trained the readers in a nationalist spirit. Do you admit this? ANSWER:  I admit that in those cases when nationalist materials were printed in the newspaper, the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper trained its readers in a nationalist spirit. QUESTION:  Tell us, is it really so, that as editor of the newspaper, responsible for the contents and political direction of the newspaper, you were given the task of training the readers in a nationalist spirit? ANSWER:  Of course not.

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QUESTION:  Consequently, your actions, as editor of the newspaper, were directed against the nationality policy put into practice by the Party and the government. Do you admit this? ANSWER:  I admit that in those cases when I, as editor of the newspaper, permitted the printing in the newspaper of materials of a nationalist character, propagandizing nationalist views, my actions were directed against the national policy put into practice by the Party and the government. QUESTION:  If your actions, about which you have just testified, were directed against the national policy put into practice by the Party and the government, then how should they be classified? ANSWER:  My actions, which were expressed in the printing of nationalist materials in the newspaper, which propagandized nationalist views, are anti-Soviet. /Miller/

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INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Meiler (Miller), Ber Srulevich1 August 29, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The interrogation began at 11:30 The interrogation was completed at 15:00

QUESTION:  During one of the previous interrogations you testified that you began to have nationalist views in about 1946. Do you insist on this statement? ANSWER:  No, I do not insist, since my testimony was not completely precise. When I stated the date 1946, I had in mind the publication of my story, “Birobidzhan.” QUESTION:  State, when and under what influence did you form nationalist views? ANSWER:  I began to have nationalist views and began to develop them a long time ago, as early as the period of my studies at school. I studied at a Jewish school, which I finished in 1927. When studying Yiddish literature, the works of the Yiddish writers Bergelson, Hofshtein, Markish, Fefer, and Kvitko, nothing was said in the textbooks about the nationalist character of these works. On the contrary, they were written about as if they were the initiators of Soviet-Yiddish literature. In the Yiddish press they were characterized only positively. The writers named above occupied a leading place in the Yiddish newspapers published in Moscow (Der emes), in Kharkov, and then in Kiev (Der shtern) and Minsk (Oktyabr), and in the Yiddish literary and artistic journals that came out in Moscow, Minsk, and Kiev. I, of course, read all this press and thus, almost from childhood, got used to

  1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 1, ll. 140–48.

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perceiving as correct and necessary everything that was written by these writers and about them. In 1929 I came to Kharkov, where I began to work at a factory. I began to write even then, hoping to get close to the literary circles. I often visited the club, “Third International,” where almost all the writers named appeared frequently at the literary evenings and read their works. In many of these works, these appearances, nationalist views were expressed, insofar as the Jewish people were considered to be a unified whole, no matter what countries they lived in. The history of the Jews was looked upon as a single stream constituting “a chain of suffering,” beginning with ancient Judea. These “sufferings” were greatly exaggerated and isolated from those experienced by other peoples. It was supposed that the Jews deserved some kind of special treatment on account of all this, and everything that the Soviet power did for the Jewish population of the country was looked upon in this— narrowly nationalist—manner (the creation of the Jewish national regions in the Ukraine, in Crimea, and so on). These nationalist views were expressed and advocated in the works of Markish and Bergelson, and also by the critics Dobrushin and Nusinov,2 who lauded and exalted the nationalist works of Bergelson, Markish, and others. When I lived in Kharkov I was not personally acquainted with any of the Yiddish writers, except for Kvitko and Kaganovich-Der Nister. Kaganovich-Der Nister edited my first book, entitled The Shifts Change, which was published at that time.3 At that time I met with Kaganovich-Der Nister once or twice. Yiddish literature was taught in that same nationalist spirit at the Kharkov Pedagogical Institute, where I took my first courses in 1932, and also at the Literature Faculty of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, where I continued my studies from 1934 to 1936.

  2 Isaac Nusinov (1889–1950)—Russian and Yiddish literary critic and historian. He taught European and Russian literature at various Moscow universities. He was a member of the JAFC. He was arrested in 1949 and died during interrogations in November 1950.   3 Miler, Mishmoyres baytn zikh.

Interrogation Records

Here the writers and critics whose works I had read earlier served as teachers. Thus, for example, Dobrushin taught a course on Yiddish folklore, and Nusinov a course on Western European literature. The writers Bergelson, Markish, Kvitko, and others came to the literary evenings held at the Faculty. Bergelson, with whom I became personally acquainted at that time, ran the literary circle at the Yiddish Faculty of the Institute. I valued Bergelson’s literary ability very highly, tried to become his student, and both his creative works and association with him had a great influence on me as a young writer. In about 1935 it became known that many of us, after finishing the Institute, would be sent to work in the JAR. Already at that time the Jewish Autonomous Region was looked upon by the Yiddish writers in Moscow from nationalist positions, as the place allocated for building Jewish statehood, and that Birobidzhan should become the center of Jewish culture and literature. All this was told to and inculcated in the students who were designated to go to work in the Region. Bergelson spoke about this in the same manner. In numerous conversations with me he emphasized that all writers should go to the JAR, that he himself would go there in order to settle. I also went to Birobidzhan with such views in 1936, after finishing the Institute. Bergelson arrived there at the end of the year, and I often met with him.4 In Birobidzhan I met the writers Rabin,5 Klitenik,6 Kazakevich,7 Rabinkov, and Vasserman, whose views on the Jewish Autonomous   4 On Bergelson in Birobidzhan, see Kotlerman, “Why I Am in Favour of Birobidzhan,” 222–35.   5 Yosef Rabin (1900–87)—Yiddish prose writer, born in Grodno. He lived in Birobidzhan from 1936 to 1937 and headed the local Writers’ Organization. He was arrested at the end of 1937 and released in 1943. He joined the army and left for the front as a private. After the war he lived in Moscow.   6 Shmuel Klitenik (1904–40)—Yiddish literary critic and teacher, born in Vilna. He came to the USSR from Poland in 1929 and lived in Birobidzhan from 1936 to 1937. He served as correspondent for the New York Yiddish newspaper, Morgen-frayhayt. He was arrested at the end of 1937 and perished in the camps.   7 Emmanuil Kazakevich (1913–62)—Yiddish poet and Russian prose writer, born in Kremenchug, Ukraine. He lived in Birobidzhan from 1931 to 1938. During World War II he volunteered for the army. After the war he lived in Moscow. His short Russian-language novel about the war, The Star (Zvezda), was awarded a Second Degree Stalin Prize in 1948, which opened his way into Soviet literature at large.

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Region, presented in the Jewish Autonomous Region’s newspaper, were no different from the nationalist views I absorbed from the Yiddish press and Yiddish writers in Moscow. Here they also held that the Jewish Autonomous Region was the place allocated for building Jewish statehood, and the center of development of Yiddish literature, and all of this was considered in isolation, outside the wider context of the friendship of peoples of the USSR. In the press and the literary works of the writers, the building of Birobidzhan was portrayed mainly as the work of Jews only; very little was shown about the participation of representatives of other peoples in the building of the Region. The Birobidzhan writers about whom I spoke held the opinion, which Bergelson supported, that all the Yiddish writers, and first of all, those who lived in the Jewish Autonomous Region, should limit their creative works just to portraying the Region, and mainly the Jews living in the Region. Thus, the nationalist views on the development of the Jewish Autonomous Region, taken up by me during my studies, not only did not meet any opposition from anyone after my arrival in Birobidzhan, but, on the contrary, here there was a situation encouraging the strengthening of such nationalist views. When I arrived in the Region, the significance of the Yiddish theater, which was very young then and not very firmly established, was being inflated here in every possible way. Much was said about the idea that a conference of Yiddish linguists should be held in Birobidzhan, where they would discuss important questions concerning Yiddish grammar, syntax, and other problems.8 Already from the very beginning of the Region being assigned the role of the center of Jewish culture, this was considered a factor. The role and significance of the Region, and its still not very big economic and cultural success, were inflated in the same way in general. Much was said about the necessity for the rapid development of the Region into the Jewish Republic. Bergelson spoke a great deal   8 For this conference, see Gennady Estraykh, “Yiddish Language Conference Aborted,” East European Jewish Affairs 25, no. 2 (1995): 91–96.

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indeed about this in public speeches and personal conversations with writers, including myself. The attitude to Bergelson in Birobidzhan was enthusiastic; his role in Yiddish literature in general, and the fact of his being in Birobidzhan in particular, were emphasized in every possible way. He was honored in an indescribable way: they even intended to build a separate private residence for him. Therefore, I and other writers heeded Bergelson, and considered his views to be correct, and tried to adopt them in our works. Thus, for example, I personally, being under the influence of the nationalist views advocated by Bergelson, decided that I too should now write only about the JAR, and mainly about the Jews living and working in the Region. This also brought me to those nationalist manifestations contained in my story “Birobidzhan” and in the play He Is from Birobidzhan. Nationalist views found their reflection also in my work as editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper and as the head of the [Group of] Yiddish Writers in Birobidzhan. In the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, at the time that I edited it, much was written about Jewish statehood, about the Region—also about the center of development of Soviet Yiddish literature. Light was shed on the life and work of the workers of the Region in general terms only. The main thing shown in the newspaper was the work of Jewish Stakhanovites, cultural workers, and so on. A number of nationalist works were published in the newspaper: various articles by Rabinkov, various verses by Emiot, and Kaganovich-Der Nister’s bourgeois-nationalist essays. All of this could take place only because I myself had, as I spoke about this earlier, nationalist views about the development of the Jewish Autonomous Region. In my work as head of the Group of Writers in Birobidzhan these nationalist views were expressed in the fact that I considered my task to be mainly work with the Jewish [Yiddish] writers, I did not conduct work with the beginning Russian writers, and I also did not combat the nationalist manifestations of particular writers of Birobidzhan, like, for example, Rabinkov, Vasserman, and Emiot.

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The newspaper Eynikayt, which began to appear in Moscow in 1941, played a big role in strengthening my nationalist views. QUESTION:  What does Eynikayt mean when translated into Russian? ANSWER:  “Eynikayt” translated into Russian means “Unity.” Its very name indicates its nationalist and cosmopolitan character. Eynikayt viewed the Jews all over the world as one whole, without making the essential distinction between the Jews who live in the Soviet Union and those Jews who live in the capitalist countries. During the war the view of Jewish history as an “indivisible chain of suffering” found wide reflection in the newspaper, and the newspaper tried to revive ancient Jewish traditions, going back to the time of Judea and having nothing in common with the Jews of the Soviet Union. Jews who were Soviet soldiers were often compared to Bar Kokhba—one of the soldiers of ancient Judea who fought for a national Jewish state. This comparison gave a nationalist character to the participation of Jews in the Great Patriotic War. Eynikayt paid much attention to the Jewish Autonomous Region, had a special correspondent there, and received much material about the Region. However, life in the Region was illuminated by the newspaper from nationalist positions, separately from the friendship of Soviet peoples. This type of nationalist propaganda was especially intensified on the pages of Eynikayt in connection with the mass resettlement of Jews in the Region. The newspaper published big articles by Bakhmutski, in which he wrote frankly about the building of Jewish statehood in the Region. Eynikayt also published the bourgeois-nationalist anti-Soviet essays of Kaganovich-Der Nister, before they were published by me in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper. In this way the newspaper Eynikayt, for a number of years, carried nationalist views on its pages. QUESTION:  When did you become acquainted with Fefer? ANSWER:  I learned about Fefer in about 1930–1931, while I was still in the city of Kharkov, although at that time I did not know him personally. I got to know Fefer more closely in 1939. As editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, I received verses and articles from him

Interrogation Records

several times with the request to publish them in the newspaper. I carried out Fefer’s request and published his verses and articles in the newspaper. QUESTION:  And were you personally acquainted with Kvitko? ANSWER:  Yes, I was personally acquainted with Kvitko from 1930–31 on, I got to know him in Kharkov. QUESTION:  Did you know Feldman?9 ANSWER:  Yes, I knew him. I became acquainted with Feldman at the same time as with Kvitko, in 1930–31, in Kharkov. Feldman wrote short stories in Yiddish, and in Ukrainian he appeared as a critic. QUESTION:  Did you take part in any nationalist groupings when you lived in Kharkov? ANSWER:  While living in Kharkov I did not take part in any nationalist groupings, but I was in the literary group that included myself (Miller), Emmanuil Kazakevich, Dobin,10 Diamant,11 and Gen.12 Henekh Kazakevich,13 Kvitko, and, partly, Feldman were closely involved in the work of this literary group. There were no nationalist manifestations in   9 David Feldman—party functionary, translator, and editor in chief of the literary magazine Di royte velt (The Red World) in 1925–26. Being opposed to the proletarian line in Yiddish literature, he organized the literary group Boy (Yiddish for “Construction,” and Russian for “Fight”) in the winter of 1926–27 in Kharkov. Its members were subjected to ostracism in 1932, allegedly for Trotskyite tendencies in literature, called “Boyism.” Feldman was subjected to repression in the late 1930s. 10 Hirsh Dobin (1905–2001)—Yiddish prose writer, born in Zhlobin, Belorussia. From 1932 to 1938 he lived in Birobidzhan. He was imprisoned from 1938 to 1940, then lived in Minsk, and was in the city’s ghetto after the German occupation. Then he joined the partisans. After the war, he lived in Moscow and in 1992 moved to Israel. 11 Hershl Diamant (1911–43)—Yiddish poet, born in Volhynia. In the early 1930s he lived in Birobidzhan. He died on the front during World War II. 12 Tevye Gen (1912–2003)—Yiddish writer, born in Lithuania. From 1934 to 1935 he lived in Birobidzhan. During World War II he fought on the front. After the war, he lived in Moscow and in 1997 moved to Israel. 13 Henekh Kazakevich (1883–1935)—Yiddish publicist and editor, born in Yelovka, Ukraine. He was the oldest among the Birobidzhan Yiddish writers. He left Kharkov in 1932 to became the editor in chief of Birobidzhaner shtern.

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the group’s work, and the group’s work was limited to discussing and critiquing the literary works of the group’s participants. QUESTION:  Did this group have a name? ANSWER:  Our group did not have a name. In jest, Emmanuil Kazakevich called the group “Bird’s Milk.”14 QUESTION:  You testify incorrectly to the character and direction of the activity of the literary group you refer to. It is known to the investigation that the activity of the group named by you had a nationalist character. Tell us. ANSWER:  I am testifying correctly. The group’s work had a purely literary-creative character, although I suppose that certain works of one or another of the participants in the group, which at the moment I do not remember precisely, could contain various nationalist manifestations. QUESTION:  Fefer says that the literary group specified by you was nationalist, as he testified during interrogation in June of this year: I met Miller in 1930 in the city of Kharkov, where he began his literary activity. Insofar as I remember, Miller even then was connected with the nationalist grouping “Boy,”15 headed by the Trotskyite Feldman, who was later subjected to repression for anti-Soviet activity, and the Jewish poet-nationalist Kvitko.

14 For the Kharkov literary group Bird’s Milk (Foygl-milkh), see Miler, “Emke,” 53–56. 15 The reference is to the Kharkov literary group Boy, founded in the winter of 1926–27. The young participants in the group—Hirsh Smoliar, Emmanuil Kazakevich, Faivl Sito, Hirsh Dobin, and others, were grouped around the journal Yunger boy-klang (The Clang of Youth’s Construction), a supplement to the newspaper for youth, Yunge Gvardye (Young Guard). See Gennady Estraikh, “The Kharkiv Yiddish Literary World, 1920s–Mid-1930s,” East European Jewish Affairs 32, no. 2 (2002): 74–75, 79–80, and Estraikh, In Harness: Yiddish Writers’ Romance with Communism (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005), 125–27; also David Shneer, Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture: 1918–1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 167–78.

Interrogation Records

Why are you concealing the nationalist character of the literary group you named? ANSWER:  Fefer’s testimony is not quite precise. The group Boy really did exist in Kharkov in about 1927–1929. Emmanuil Kazakevich took part in this group and perhaps Dobin. Insofar as I know, Feldman led this group. By the time I got to know Kazakevich and Dobin, the literary group Boy had ceased to exist, and I personally, and also Diamant and Gen, had no connection with this group, since the group Boy did not exist in 1930–31, and Feldman, who had led it earlier, had no connection with it at this time. Regarding Kvitko’s connection with the group Boy, I know absolutely nothing. As to the nationalist character of our group, our training as beginning writers went in the direction that existed in general in Yiddish literature, and in that sense it was nationalist. QUESTION:  In previous interrogations you named a number of persons— Rabinkov, Vasserman, Emiot, Slutski, Kaganovich [Der Nister], and Bergelson—who also, like you, had nationalist views. And these views found expression in discussions and conversations between you. Do you agree with this? ANSWER:  Yes, I agree. QUESTION:  It turns out, then, that you created a commonality of nationalist views with these people. Is that not so? ANSWER:  Yes, it is so. But here I should introduce a certain addition. If in regard to Rabinkov, Vasserman, Slutski, Emiot, and other Birobidzhan writers, one can speak about a commonality of nationalist views in the full sense of this term, then in regard to Bergelson and Kaganovich it is not possible to say so completely, since there were certain nationalist views of Bergelson and Kaganovich that I did not share, although in general I did share their nationalist views, especially on the Jewish Autonomous Region and its development. QUESTION:  Since you, and also the persons mentioned by you previously, Rabinkov, Vasserman, Emiot, Slutski, Kaganovich, and Bergelson

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were engaged in certain nationalist activities, about which you have already testified, then it is possible to say that the nationalist activities of both you and the persons you named had an organized character. Do you admit this? ANSWER:  I admit that it had an organized character, in the sense that all of us, working in different areas, were engaged in nationalist activities to some extent or other. However I assert that this organized-ness was not expressed in any conspiracy. The protocol with my words has been recorded correctly and read by me /Miller/

Yiddish writers in Kiev, 1927: sitting (from left to right): Leib Kvitko, Der Nister, Shakhne Epshtein, Perets Markish; standing (from left to right): Avrom Kahan, David Feldman, Meir Daniel (Ester Markish, Stol’ dolgoe vozvrashchenie, 211).

INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Meiler (Miller), Ber Srulevich1 September 17, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The interrogation began at 14:20 The interrogation was completed at 17:05

QUESTION:  During the last interrogation, you named the actress Karlos2 as being among those present at the New Year’s Eve party at Vasserman’s. Tell us in detail everything that you know about Karlos and about her opinions and attitudes. ANSWER:  I have known Karlos as an actress since 1936, ever since I arrived in Birobidzhan. I got to know her personally at the end of 1937. I know that she was the leading actress of the Birobidzhan Theater; she arrived with the first group of actors of this theater, who had studied at the theatrical school in Moscow under the direction of Mikhoels. She worked at the theater until 1940 and was very popular in the city and the region as an actress. When her husband, Gross, who was also an actor at this theater, took up with another actress,3 Karlos left the theater and went to Kiev, where she joined the Kiev State Yiddish Theater. She worked at the Kiev Theater until 1948. In 1948 [should read: 1947] she returned to Birobidzhan and did some work there until January or February 1949. I did not have occasion to meet Karlos prior to her departure from Birobidzhan in 1940, so I cannot say what her convictions and attitudes were. The only meeting I had with her after her arrival in Birobidzhan took place at the New Year’s Eve party at Vasserman’s, about which I have already testified.   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 1, ll. 158–63.   2 Mania (Miriam) Karlos (1911–9?) acted on the BirGOSET stage in 1934–40 and 1947–49.   3 The reference is to BirGOSET actors Yosef Gross (Shtofenmakher) and Leah Kolin (Kovels).

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Interrogation Records

QUESTION:  Where is Karlos now? ANSWER:  I know that she left in January or February 1949, and they said that she left without telling anyone about her plans. I do not know where Karlos is now. QUESTION:  Of those who know Karlos well, whom do you know? ANSWER:  The workers at the theater know Karlos well. I cannot say precisely, but I did hear that Goldvasser [Emiot] knew Karlos and sometimes met with her. QUESTION:  During the last interrogation you declared that you would tell us in detail about the nationalist statements you had occasion to hear from various persons, and also that you would tell us about the nationalist opinions you expressed personally. Tell us about this. ANSWER:  The closing of the Eynikayt newspaper and the Der Emes publishing house, the struggle against cosmopolitism that was taking place, and the arrest of a number of Yiddish writers in Moscow that followed provoked many conversations among the writers of Birobidzhan. It is difficult for me to say precisely what, when, and where they spoke about these matters, however, I can say something about the general spirit of the statements on these questions made by a number of persons. I personally had occasion to speak about these topics, mostly with Rabinkov, Slutski, and Vasserman, and, partially, with Goldvasser. I can also testify about what these persons said. I personally voiced the following nationalist statements in connection with the unfolding struggle against cosmopolitism. When—following the appearance of the editorial articles about the antipatriotic group of theater critics in the newspapers Pravda and Kultura i zhizn’—articles began to appear in our press, especially Literaturnaia gazeta, about the cosmopolitans and their harmful activity in the Ukraine, Belarus, and other republics, I said that since almost all the cosmopolitans exposed were Jews by nationality, and this was being emphasized in a certain way, then this, with all the necessity to struggle against cosmopolitism, could

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lead to some negative results. Certain representatives of the more backward strata, both among the Jews and the non-Jews, might understand the words “Jew” and “cosmopolitan” to be synonyms of a sort, which is especially undesirable, since certain elements of anti-Semitism have still not been eliminated. QUESTION:  Continue your testimony about the nationalist opinions that you had occasion to hear from other persons. ANSWER:  As I have already testified, I spoke about these questions mostly with Rabinkov, Slutski, and Vasserman. In Birobidzhan, Rabinkov was the first to report some details about the closing of Eynikayt and Der Emes, since he was in Moscow just at the time of the closing. Rabinkov talked about the state of panic in which the Yiddish writers of Moscow perceived this event. He also talked about a meeting of Yiddish writers he attended and at which he spoke, and said that the panic was also felt there. Talking about this, and also during conversations regarding this later on, when the arrest of the Yiddish writers in Moscow had become known, Rabinkov expressed the conviction that it was necessary to look upon all this as the end of Yiddish literature and any possibilities for its further development. At the same time he referred to statements he had been uttering for some time, which he had stated in conversations with me and with other persons, and at the same time added: So you see, it turned out the way I thought it would. In answer to my rejoinder that such views were baseless and despite the closing of the Moscow publications and the arrest of the Yiddish writers in Moscow, all the possibilities for the further development of Soviet Yiddish literature were still available, especially in Birobidzhan, Rabinkov, expressing annoyance, brushed me aside and said that there was nothing like that in Birobidzhan and there was nothing to expect. This essentially summarizes Rabinkov’s statements. Slutski expressed the same attitudes about these matters, although not in such a categorical manner. He also viewed the closing down of the Yiddish publications in Moscow and the arrest of the several Yiddish writers as signifying the suspension of any possibility for the further development of Yiddish literature.

Interrogation Records

He expressed skepticism in relation to the statement that Soviet Yiddish literature would develop in Birobidzhan, and in this regard he noted that the almanac Birobidzhan had in practice ceased to be published, the Yiddish newspaper [Birobidzhaner shtern] came out in issues of only two pages three times a week, and it had no distribution outside the JAR. He also said that he had written a new story, but had recently stopped working on it since he did not see any prospects of its being published.4 Vasserman’s reaction to the news about the closing of Eynikayt and Der Emes and the arrest of the Yiddish writers was panicky. In this connection she expressed the thought that Yiddish literature and culture, so she alleged, would not develop any further in the Soviet Union. She tried to support this thought of hers by noting that the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper does not come out so frequently (three times a week) and is poorly distributed and the almanac Birobidzhan had almost ceased being published. She viewed the dismissal of her actor husband,5 on account of a staff cutback at the Birobidzhan theater, as a step that would reduce the possibilities for the development of Yiddish theater. Apart from this, Vasserman was very pained by the fact that Jewish surnames often appeared in the articles about the struggle against cosmopolitism, and she considered this to be wrong. QUESTION:  Apart from Vasserman, Rabinkov, and Slutski was there really no one else with whom you had occasion to conduct conversations on these topics? ANSWER:  I had conversations with Goldvasser about this. However, since by this time I was no longer working at the newspaper, it turned out that I met Goldvasser only infrequently, so these conversations had a sporadic character. Insofar as I can remember, in our conversations   4 The reference is to Slutski’s unfinished historical novel, For Land, For Freedom (Far erd, far frayhayt), about the Bar-Kokhba revolt.   5 Vasserman’s husband Moishe Bengelsdorf (1900–71) immigrated to the USSR from Argentina in 1931 and acted in BirGOSET in 1934–48. After the theater was closed, he worked as a skilled craftsman at the Birobidzhan clothes factory. From 1967 to 1971 he directed the Yiddish Folk Theater in Birobidzhan.

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Goldvasser mainly complained about the fact that his income had been sharply reduced as a consequence of the closing of Eynikayt, whose Birobidzhan correspondent he had been. He also said that he had written a number of letters to the editorial office of the newspaper Eynikayt—to Zhits6—wishing to find out the reasons for the closing of the newspaper, but the official answer he received said nothing. QUESTION:  Where and when did these conversations take place? ANSWER:  I cannot say precisely. They took place where we usually met, either on the street or at someone’s home. QUESTION:  Who was present during these conversations? ANSWER:  The persons named by me were present at the New Year’s Eve party at Vasserman’s. The conversations with Rabinkov took place either on the street or at my home. No one was present during the conversations with Rabinkov. I know that Rabinkov, in conversations with Goldvasser, made approximately the same statements as those I stated before. This is especially so for the period when I was still working at the newspaper. There were also conversations with Slutski, either during meetings on the street or at my home, when he sometimes came there. The protocol with my words has been recorded correctly and read by me /Miller/

  6 Gershon (Grigori) Zhits (1903–54)—journalist, editor in chief of Der shtern (Kharkov) in 1935–37 and of Eynikayt in 1945–48. He was arrested in 1949 and died in prison.

INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant FEFER, Isaak Solomonovich1 June 30, 1949 City of Moscow

QUESTION:  Name these connections. ANSWER:  For a number of years I corresponded with Miller, Ber Srulevich, former chairman of the Birobidzhan Regional Branch of the Union of Writers and editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper. QUESTION:  When did you establish a connection with him? ANSWER:  I met Miller in 1930 in the city of Kharkov, where he began his literary activity. Insofar as I remember, Miller even then was connected with the nationalist grouping “Boy,” headed by the Trotskyite Feldman, who was later subjected to repression for anti-Soviet activity, and the Jewish poet-nationalist Kvitko. Several days [should read: years] before the beginning of the Patriotic War, Miller left Kharkov for Birobidzhan. In 1940 he sent a letter to me in Kiev, where I was then living, with a request to send verses for publication in the Birobidzhan almanac [Forpost], which I did periodically. In 1942, after the creation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, I began a regular correspondence with Miller, with the aim of getting him to work for the Committee. QUESTION:  As a person known to you for his nationalist views? ANSWER:  Yes. Based upon his creative works and views, Miller is a convinced Jewish nationalist, and I considered him to be completely suitable for the hostile nationalist activity conducted under the cover of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Miller’s nationalist tendency found reflection in several of his literary works. Thus, in the play, I am [should read: He Is] from Birobidzhan,   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 5, ll. 6–10.

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Interrogation Records

written by Miller in 1948, the play’s hero’s love for Birobidzhan is shown to be stronger than his love for the socialist fatherland. In speeches he gave at meetings of writers in Birobidzhan and in the press, Miller placed at the forefront mainly nationalist Jewish writers. In one of his articles, published in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, devoted to Yiddish literature of the post-October [Revolution] period, Miller literally exalted the Yiddish poet Markish, known for his nationalist tendencies. Miller wrote in his article that if one were to put Markish’s creative works on one side of the scale, and all the rest of Yiddish literature on the other side, Markish’s creative works would outweigh them. Therefore, it is not surprising that the literary almanac [Birobidzhan] published by the Birobidzhan Branch of the Union of Writers completely ignored themes about the present time. Thus, for example, the whole critical section of the first issue of the almanac, which was published in 1946, was devoted to the history of Yiddish theater, and not one line was written about contemporary Yiddish literature and cultural construction in Birobidzhan. Working as editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, Miller did not mobilize it for the struggle against manifestations of bourgeois nationalism. On the contrary, he gave the pages of the newspaper obligingly to nationalist writers. In 1946 [should read: 1947], Miller published in Birobidzhaner shtern nationalist essays by the Yiddish writer Kaganovich [Der Nister], who was sent out to Birobidzhan on assignment by me and Mikhoels for the purpose of developing nationalist activity. At the beginning of 1948, Miller was removed from the post of editor for nationalist perversions in the newspaper, after which he came to Moscow and called on me at the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. QUESTION:  For what purpose did Miller come to you? ANSWER:  Miller complained to me about the injustice allegedly perpetrated in relation to him by the Party organs of Birobidzhan, when they removed him from the post of editor of Birobidzhaner shtern.

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In addition, Miller uttered slander against the heads of the Party and declared that the [second] secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Jewish Autonomous Region Klimenko had arranged, allegedly, the “destruction” of Jewish culture in Birobidzhan, by considering any measure taken in the field of Jewish culture to be a manifestation of bourgeois nationalism. With the same purpose, Miller called on the [first] secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Jewish Autonomous Region, Bakhmutski, who was then studying at the [CC CPSU] Higher Party School. Miller expressed his dissatisfaction regarding the campaign against Jewish culture in Birobidzhan, but Bakhmutski, as Miller told me, calmed him down, and, having suggested that he return to Birobidzhan, declared that when he himself finished his studies, he would come there and “put everything in place.” QUESTION:  What role did Miller play in the work of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee? ANSWER:  By employing Miller at the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee I intended to use him as a source of information on Birobidzhan, which the Americans were demanding from us. However, Miller mainly sent the Committee his stories of a nationalist character about the life of the Jews in Birobidzhan. Thus, for example, in 1948, when Miller came to Moscow, he handed me a nationalist story he had written about a Jew, a soldier, who returned from the front and did not find a better life in the Soviet Union than in Birobidzhan.2 This story of Miller was sent to America. /Fefer/

  2 The reference here is to Miller’s story “Birobidzhan.”

INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Meiler (Miller), Ber Srulevich1 October 1949 City of Khabarovsk

ANSWER:  . . . these letters dealt with his [Fefer’s] works, which he sent to Birobidzhan two or three times for publication in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper. As I have already testified, I wrote one letter to Fefer, wishing to find out about the fate of his essay. I had no other correspondence with Fefer, nor did I have a close acquaintance with him. QUESTION:  Tell us about the correspondence you had with Fefer regarding your participation in the work of the Jewish [Anti-Fascist] Committee. ANSWER:  I do not remember that Fefer ever addressed a letter to me proposing that I take part in the work of the committee or asking me to do so. In 1942 I received a letter from the former editor in chief of Eynikayt, Epshtein,2 in which he asked me to become a correspondent of the newspaper dealing with the Jewish Autonomous Region, but I turned down this offer. I do not remember any other instances when they turned to me. QUESTION:  At the interrogation held on June 30, 1949, Fefer testified: In 1942, after the creation of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, I began a regular correspondence with Miller, with the aim of getting him to work for the Committee.

Tell us about this correspondence with Fefer.   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 1, ll. 180–81.   2 Shakhne Epshtein (1883–1945)—Yiddish journalist, born in Iwye, Belorussia. From 1909 to 1917 and 1921 to 1929 he lived in New York. From 1942 to 1945 he was the editor in chief of Eynikayt.

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ANSWER:  The only correspondence I had with Fefer was the one about which I testified before. I cannot repeat it systematically. I do not know what aims Fefer had set for himself. It cannot be ruled out that Fefer might have asked me to send some materials for the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, but precisely which, I do not remember. QUESTION:  You are being dishonest, and you are hiding the true character of your correspondence with Fefer. Stop being defensive and tell us about your connections with the Jewish [Anti-Fascist] Committee for nationalist and hostile activity. ANSWER:  I cannot testify to anything more than what I have already stated about my connections with the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, since there were no other connections. I am testifying honestly, and there is no refusal on my part to confess my guilt. QUESTION:  At that same interrogation held on June 30, 1949, Fefer testified: Based upon his creative works and views, Miller is a convinced Jewish nationalist, and I considered him to be completely suitable for the hostile nationalist activity conducted under the cover of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.

Tell us about your hostile nationalist activity, which you carried out on the instructions of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. ANSWER:  I have already testified in detail during the previous interrogations about my nationalist activity and its character. It is possible that Fefer considered me suitable for hostile activity, but nothing was known to me about this. I did not receive any assignments from the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, and I was not connected with it in this sense. The protocol with my words has been recorded correctly and read by me /Miller/

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RECORDS OF CONFRONTATION between Defendant Rabinkov, Gesel Borisovich, and Defendant Meiler (Miller), Ber Srulevich1 Deputy Head of the Investigation Department of the MGB Directorate for the Khabarovsk Territory, Lieutenant Colonel Timofeev, and Assistant Head of the Investigation Department of the MGB Directorate for the Khabarovsk Territory, First Lieutenant Rubtsov, on the basis of Article 137 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, conducted a confrontation between the defendants Rabinkov, Gesel Borisovich, and Meiler (Miller), Ber Srulevich October 28, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The confrontation began at 23:50 The confrontation ended at 02:00

The defendants Miller and Rabinkov declared that they have known each other since 1934, having studied and worked together, and that they have good relations and no personal disputes. /Miller, Rabinkov/ QUESTION TO THE DEFENDANT RABINKOV:  During previous interrogations you testified that you, Miller, Vasserman, Goldvasser, and others joined together among yourselves in a commonality of nationalist views. Tell us, in what did the commonality of nationalist views consist? ANSWER:  The commonality of nationalist views of myself, Miller, Vasserman, Slutski, and other literary and artistic figures was expressed in the following: first, all of us supported and shared various nationalist positions advocated by the Yiddish writer Kaganovich-Der Nister when he came to Birobidzhan in 1947. None of us rebuffed Kaganovich-Der Nister’s nationalist preaching, but on the contrary, he   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 5, ll. 216–22.

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was given the possibility not only to express his nationalist views, but also to advance them on the radio and in the press. Second, all of us looked upon the development of the Jewish Autonomous Region from the point of view of the center of Jewish national culture, literature, art, and so on possibly developing here, and starting from this, in our works, and also in the press, we in essence illuminated only these questions, without giving sufficient attention to the development of the economy in the Region. In the press and on the radio we in essence depicted the life of the Jewish population. We all considered it necessary to develop Yiddish schools in the Region, including even the artificial inculcation of the Yiddish language into the children. Apart from what has been said, we all spoke excessively about what we alleged to be the anti-Semitism developing in the Ukraine, and we worried “oversensitively” without sufficient basis for it. QUESTION TO THE DEFENDANT RABINKOV: Tell us, in the work of the Group of Yiddish Writers in the city of Birobidzhan, was the friendship of the peoples and the role of the Great Russian people in building the Jewish Autonomous Region illuminated adequately? ANSWER:  Not enough attention was given to these questions, and this happened owing to our nationalist narrow-mindedness, and the commonality of our nationalist views also found its expression in this. QUESTION TO THE DEFENDANT MILLER:  Do you agree with Rabinkov’s testimonies? ANSWER:  I agree with Rabinkov’s testimonies, and in essence he testifies correctly. To make various points in these testimonies more precise, I can add the following: at the point where Rabinkov says that we shared various nationalist views of Kaganovich-Der Nister, well, I attribute it and consider that this had to do with his nationalist views on the development of the Jewish Autonomous Region; second, I consider that sufficient attention was paid by the newspaper to the question of the development of the economy in the Region; third, I admit that I promoted the artificial preservation of Yiddish School

Interrogation Records

No. 2 [since there were few Yiddish speaking pupils], which already existed in Birobidzhan, but I was not in agreement with Kaganovich-Der Nister’s conviction about the necessity of creating new Yiddish schools in the Region artificially. In regard to conversations about the allegedly developing anti-Semitism, it should be said that these excessive conversations and an oversensitive reaction really did take place. Stories told by Jewish immigrants who came from the Ukraine and others were the source of these conversations. In regard to the rest of Rabinkov’s testimony, about the commonality of our nationalist views, I agree. QUESTION TO THE DEFENDANT RABINKOV:  Tell us, how in particular was Meiler’s nationalist activity expressed? ANSWER:  Before I speak about Meiler’s concrete nationalist activity, I want to tell about his nationalist views, which, as I know, were engendered as early as 1934–1935, during our studies at the Jewish Department of the Faculty of Literature and Language of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute. Prominent Yiddish writers, literary critics, and specialists in the study of literature taught in our Department—Dobrushin, Nusinov, and others—and Bergelson led the literary circle. These persons, having nationalist views, preached them in their literary works, which were nationalist and nationally narrow-minded. This, their nationalist influence, was spread over us as well, in particular, over me and Meiler. Meiler was closely acquainted with Bergelson and visited him at his home. Even later, while working in Birobidzhan, Meiler was always at Bergelson’s when he had to be in Moscow; he valued him very highly as a writer, heeded his pronouncements, and was under his nationalist influence. Naturally, the nationalist views Meiler developed at the time of his studies at the Institute found their reflection in his practical activities in Birobidzhan. Meiler’s nationalist activity was expressed concretely in the following: first, in his personal literary creations. The literary works written by him, like, for example, the story “Birobidzhan,” and the play He Is from Birobidzhan, are nationalist owing to their nationally narrow-minded character. The national narrow-mindedness or nationalist character of these works consists in the fact that Meiler attaches excessive significance to

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Birobidzhan in them and exaggerates its role in the life of the Jews of the Soviet Union. Birobidzhan is looked upon as a historical national category, and idealized and turned into a kind of symbol. As an example of this, there is the declaration of the hero of the story “Birobidzhan,” made by him to his mother at the beginning of the book, about the fact that—we are able to meet with you only in Birobidzhan. Second, Meiler, as a public figure and cultural activist, tried to develop Jewish national culture, literature, and art artificially . . . even though it was clear that there was no sufficient structure for the development of Jewish culture and literature in the Jewish Autonomous Region, since the Jews themselves were not very interested in this, did not feel any vital necessity for it, did not speak Yiddish, and did not see any need for strengthening its development. Even of those who knew Yiddish, the vast majority of them preferred to speak Russian. Therefore, the vast majority of the Jewish population did not want to teach their children the Yiddish language or send their children to Jewish [Yiddish] schools in particular, and so on. Meiler, like me, tried to develop and support this artificially. In short, Meiler’s practical activities, like mine, amounted to us trying to artificially hold back the natural historical process of the Jews’ assimilation, as a counterweight to the natural strivings of the great mass of the Jewish population to achieve this assimilation. In confirmation of this, I cite the following examples: Miller, as one of the leading public figures of Birobidzhan, took active measures for the artificial preservation of Jewish School No. 2, even though the natural course of events indicated the unreality of its existence, since the number of children at the school was decreasing sharply from year to year, and ultimately reached a state where just 5 or 6 persons were being taught in each class or group. Despite this, Miller and I considered the continued existence of this school to be necessary, and we spoke out making such demands at various meetings called by the head of the Communist Party Regional Committee and the head of the Regional Executive Committee, Bakhmutski and Zilbershtein, to deal with this matter. In September 1947 Meiler wrote a lead article in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, in which he severely criticized the head of the City

Interrogation Records

Board of Education, Dvorkina, and the former director of the Pedagogical Seminar, Sapozhnikov, for delaying the introduction of the study of the Yiddish language as a subject in the basic primary school, even though a decision had been taken on this question by the Communist Party Regional Committee, at the initiative of Bakhmutski. In this lead article, Miller severely criticized Dvorkina and Sapozhnikov for not understanding the importance of this decision and for not implementing it, and he threatened them with removal from their jobs. In general, it should be said that in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper much too much attention was given to the Yiddish school. The second example: the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper had almost no readers; in this connection, artificial measures were taken for its dissemination. Bakhmutski gathered together the workers of the editorial staff, criticized them severely, and obligated them to go to institutions and homes and, literally, by force, to disseminate the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper and obtain subscriptions to it. The following fact is also characteristic: the almanac Birobidzhan was published in an edition of 5,000, but only a very small number was disseminated, 30 copies. This once more underlines the fact that all our actions directed at advancing the development of Jewish culture and literature had an artificial and nationalist character. Third: from 1940 Meiler was the secretary of the Group of Yiddish Writers of the city of Birobidzhan and actually guided the activity of the work of this group. Meiler’s nationalist views were also reflected in the work of the Group of Writers led by him. The writers’ work was isolated from the surrounding reality and carried out only among the Jewish audience. There was no instance in which the Group of Yiddish Writers stepped out beyond the framework of the Jewish audience. No struggle was conducted against the nationalist manifestations of the members of the Group of Yiddish Writers. On the contrary, encouragement of these nationalist manifestations emanated from Meiler’s side, such as happened, in particular, in connection with the feuilleton, “Sholem Aleichem Types,” written by me. In conversations Vasserman uttered nationalist expressions clearly and unambiguously, and she glorified Palestine in verses that had a nationalist character. Even though Meiler and I spoke with each other

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about Vasserman’s nationalism, this question was not examined in the Group of Writers; Vasserman’s views were not rebuffed; no conclusions were drawn; and Vasserman continued to be reckoned as a writer. In precisely the same way, the nationalist manifestations uttered by Goldvasser and Slutski in their works received no rebuff. Fourth: Meiler, as editor in chief of Birobidzhaner shtern, made its pages available for the placement of bourgeois-nationalist works. In particular, the newspaper published the bourgeois-nationalist essays of Kaganovich-Der Nister, whose nationalist views on the development of the Jewish Autonomous Region Meiler and I shared. Besides that, in almost everything Meiler tried to imitate and copy the newspaper Eynikayt, which was nationalist in its line. Even though Meiler and I had doubts about the correctness of certain nationalist positions taken by Eynikayt, no attention was paid to this. In the newspaper they in essence wrote only about the Jews living in Birobidzhan and did not pay sufficient attention to other nationalities, even though they were the overwhelming majority in the Jewish Autonomous Region. Meiler always emphasized and pointed out that we should depict mainly the Jews of the Region, which we did. Fifth: I and Meiler had many conversations of a nationalist character about anti-Semitism and cosmopolitism, about which I testified previously. It should be noted that such nationalist conversations took place among Arones, Vasserman, Slutski, Fridman, and others. Here it should be noted that all this nationalist activity was carried out under the influence of the nationalist Yiddish writers of Moscow, Fefer, Bergelson, and others, on the one hand, and under the influence of Bakhmutski, Brokhin, and Zilbershtein, on the other hand, who, proceeding from their nationalist positions, exercised leadership. QUESTION TO THE DEFENDANT MILLER: Do you confirm Rabinkov’s testimony? ANSWER:  Yes, I confirm Rabinkov’s testimonies. However I want to make certain points in these testimonies more precise. /Rabinkov/ /Miller/

INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Vasserman, Luba Shamovna1 July 12, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The interrogation was completed at 01:40

QUESTION:  You were engaged in espionage and nationalist activity. Tell us about this. ANSWER:  I deny this. Frid2 never gave me any assignments having to do with the carrying out of nationalist activity, and during the period of my acquaintance with him I was not engaged in it. QUESTION:  You received directions from Frid to urge the study of the Hebrew language. Why are you concealing this? ANSWER:  Frid never gave me any such directions to engage in urging the study of the Hebrew language. QUESTION:  It is known to the investigation that you, on the instructions of [Frid, were engaged in gathering and transmitting espionage] information. Give truthful testimony about this. ANSWER:  I deny this categorically. I never gathered espionage information, and I did not transmit such to anyone. QUESTION:  We will read to you Frid’s testimonies about your espionage and nationalist activity. Will you now testify to the truth? ANSWER:  Frid’s testimonies have now been read to me, but I deny them categorically. I was not engaged in espionage and nationalist activity on   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 3, ll. 204–5.   2 Grigori Frid (1902–38)—commissioner for distribution of literature at the Belorussian Academy of Sciences. Arrested on March 9, 1938, and sentenced to capital punishment for anti-Soviet activity and espionage. He was shot on July 9, 1938, in Minsk. He was rehabilitated in 1989.

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Interrogation Records

Frid’s instructions. I never was in Leningrad, I do not know Shteinson-Lenski3 or Raize,4 and I did not pass on any information to them. The protocol with my words has been recorded correctly and was read aloud before me /Vasserman/ Interrogation conducted by Captain S. Ginzburg, Senior Investigator of the MGB Directorate for the Khabarovsk Territory

  3 Chaim Lenski (1905–43)—one of the most important poets in the USSR writing in Hebrew. He lived in Leningrad, where a circle of Hebrew literary figures formed around him. He was arrested in 1934, released in 1939, and arrested again in 1941. He died in prison.   4 Chaim Raize (1904–70)—folklore specialist, poet, and translator. He was arrested in 1929 and sent to the Solovki Prison Camp for three years. He then lived in Leningrad, where he was a member of Lenski’s Hebrew circle. He was rearrested in 1934 and sentenced to three years, but released a year later, thanks to a petition submitted by Maxim Gorky. He was arrested once more in 1947 and condemned to ten years in prison camp. He was released in 1955.

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EXCERPT FROM TESTIMONY of Arrestee Frid, Grigori Mikhailovich1 April 4, 1938 City of Minsk

My trip to the city of Birobidzhan at the beginning of 1935 was closely connected with my Zionist-counterrevolutionary activity, because I hoped to meet like-minded persons there. In fact, I did meet the writer Luba Vasserman there. She was residing in the KOMZET (Committee for the Settlement of Toiling Jews on the Land) House on Postyshev Street. Luba Vasserman came to Birobidzhan from Palestine, and although she said that she had been a housemaid, she was in fact the daughter of a merchant and an inveterate Zionist herself. I gave her an assignment that when speaking before a meeting of the Birobidzhan [Branch of the] Union of Soviet Writers, she should propagandize in favor of the study of the Hebrew language by Soviet Jewish authors. She did this in the autumn of 1936 at one of the regular writers’ gatherings. At another meeting, on her own initiative, she read a story about the life of the Jews in Palestine, in which, as if depicting the exploitation of the workers in Palestine, she glorified with all her might the beauty and abundance of everything in the homeland of the Zionists-counterrevolutionaries. . . . Returning to Birobidzhan. Hirshl Dobin was in the Union of Soviet Writers of the city of Birobidzhan at the same time as Luba Vasserman. I do not remember his patronymic. Regarding him as labile, I began to explain to him the tasks of the writer from the point of view of a Zionist-counterrevolutionary. I did not have to work for very long in order to recruit him. In a month he had written his first story in Hebrew, which I sent to Raize for forwarding and publication in Palestine. I did not manage to verify whether this was done by Raize. Beyond this, I did not manage to expand the recruitment work in Birobidzhan   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 5, ll. 192–95.

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to any great extent, because, given the relatively small number [of members in the collective of the local writer’s organization and] its promiscuity, it was necessary to observe strict secrecy. From the words of Luba Vasserman I learned that her husband [Moishe Bengelsdorf]—an actor in the Birobidzhan Yiddish Theater— whose surname I do not remember, was also a Zionist, recruited by her. At the Birobidzhan Yiddish Theater he tried to foster an interest in the nationalist plays of the old Yiddish repertoire, and if he did not succeed in this, it was only thanks to the party stratum existing at the theater. In 1936 the Yiddish writer Rabin and the critic Klitenik came to Birobidzhan. I already knew their surnames from their writings, but I do not remember their given names and patronymics. In the city of Birobidzhan they resided on Postyshev Street, next door to the KOMZET House, where Luba Vasserman lived. Straight away Rabin and Klitenik took up the leadership of the Birobidzhan [Branch of the] Union of Soviet Writers and began to imbue it with a nationalist spirit, while deriding the works of the young beginning writers and lauding the old nationalist authors. Thus, by our common efforts we, Zionists-counterrevolutionaries, wrecked the measures taken by the Party and the government in regard to the preparation of cadres of young writers. This was done with the aim of enlisting these cadres of young writers in our counterrevolutionary Zionist activity. Actually, it is a fact that the young writer I enlisted, Hirshl Dobin, who resided in the city of Birobidzhan at the Doctors’ House on Postyshev Street, brought me, before my departure, a second story in Hebrew, intended for Palestine. The second story, like the first, I forwarded to Raize in Leningrad, at the address, 3rd of July Street, No. 50. Besides that, I sent him and Lenski, at their insistence, my impressions of the Jewish Autonomous Region. The intention was to send these impressions to Palestine, for the information of the Palestinian Zionist counterrevolutionary public. I do not know if these impressions were sent, but I confess that by sending these impressions, as well as literary works to Palestine, we committed a grave espionage counterrevolutionary act with the aim of discrediting and wrecking the measures taken by the Party and the government in regard to the population of Birobidzhan. This was done with the aim of enticing the settlers who wished to go to Birobidzhan, to go to Palestine.

Interrogation Records

When I returned to my family in Minsk in the middle of June 1936, I did not stop my counterrevolutionary nationalist Zionist activity. I began by speaking at the Writers House on Sovetskaia Street and at the Yiddish Theater on Volodarski Street during debates about literary and theatrical questions. I propagandized for blatantly nationalist art and called for a return to the repertoire of the old prerevolutionary Yiddish theater, to such plays as Bar-Kokhba,2 which is filled with calls for Zionist activity. These speeches, I confess, had a harmful character, insofar as I was trying to use them to wreck the measures taken by the Party and the government in regard to the creation of art that is national in form and socialist in content, and insofar as I was trying to turn this art in a direction useful to us, Zionists-counterrevolutionaries. I confess that by this I committed a harmful act, and I have become aware of all of its harmfulness and counterrevolutionary character. Returning to the transmission of information to Palestine—such information was transmitted by members of our Leningrad circle, and then by members of the implementation committee at various times, to the periodical Ksuvim,3 and to Matov,4 Sosenski,5 and the Central Library in Palestine. The following is information that I remember. Sosenski, who worked at a cooperative metal-working factory—I do not remember its name, situated in Leningrad—I do not remember the street name, informed Sosenski [his brother] in Palestine about the   2 Bar-Kokhba (1882)—heroic operetta by Avrom Goldfaden. The motif of the play is the Jews’ revolt against the Romans in 132–36 CE.   3 Ksuvim (Ktuvim; Writings)—literary weekly in Hebrew. It was initiated by Chaim Nahman Bialik and published in Tel Aviv from 1926 to 1933, edited by Eliezer Shteinman, and later also by Avraham Shlonsky. At first it was the organ of the Union of Hebrew Language Writers. However, in 1927, for ideological reasons, the Union created an alternative organ, Moznaim (Libra).   4 Yosef Matov (Saaroni, Iosefon, 1901–90)—translator and Hebrew prose writer. He was one of the editors of the first literary collection to be published in Hebrew in the USSR, Tsiltselei Shama (Ringing Cymbals) (Kharkov, 1923). He later lived in Leningrad and led the literary group “Bereshit” (“Beginning”). He was arrested at the end of 1927, together with Sosenski, and exiled to Siberia. In 1929 he was expelled from the USSR and went to Palestine.   5 Shlomo Sosenski (Sh. Rusi, 1903–57)—translator and Hebrew prose writer. He lived in Minsk, then in Leningrad, and served as secretary of the literary group “Bereshit.” He was arrested at the end of 1927, together with Matov, and exiled to Siberia. In 1929 he was expelled from the USSR and went to Palestine.

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frame of mind of the youths working at this factory, about the routine of the working day, and about the remuneration, both the actual and the piece-work payment. I know about this because he showed me this information, and I read it through. I will also report the espionage counterrevolutionary information that I transmitted from the city of Birobidzhan at the end of 1935 and the beginning of 1936. I transmitted the information through Raize— whose given name and patronymic I do not know, who lived in Leningrad on 3rd of July Street, No. 50; I do not know where he lives now—and through Chaim Lenski-Shteinson—whose patronymic I do not remember, who lived in Leningrad on Vasilevsky Ostrov 4, Line No. 45, Apartment 11, who is now in exile. The information was handed over to the persons specified for dispatch to Palestine. The information was of the following character: it was about the state of mind of the actors and writers with whom I was acquainted through my work on the Radio Committee of the Jewish Autonomous Region, about the work of the Radio Committee itself, about its broadcasts, and also about the condition of the streets and roadways of Birobidzhan, about the work of the peasant-settlers in the Jewish kolkhozes, about the wages of the collective farmers, and about the existence of factories in Birobidzhan. This information was forwarded to Leningrad, through Luba Vasserman, who had gone there, though she was living in Birobidzhan at the time. She went to Leningrad in order to connect with Raize and Shteinson-Lenski. When she returned from Leningrad, Luba Vasserman informed me that the information had been given to Raize and Shteinson-Lenski and would immediately be handed over to some member of the “Heholuts” organization6—whose surname I do not know—who intended to go to Palestine in an illegal way, that is, by stealing across the border. I will also add that I supplied information about the existence of the following factories in Birobidzhan: the garment factory, the wagon factory, and the furniture factory. /Frid/   6 “Heholuts” (“Hehaluts”; “The Pioneer”)—a leftist-oriented socialist Zionist organization, created by Joseph Trumpeldor in Petrograd in 1919 and operated legally in the USSR until 1928. Its aim was to prepare youth as laborers living in the Land of Israel.

INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Vasserman, Luba Shamovna1 August 17, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The interrogation was completed at 02:30

QUESTION:  Still another poem was seized at your place during the search. Did you write this poem? ANSWER:  Yes, the poem that was shown to me just now was in fact seized at my place during the search, and it was written by me personally. In about 1947 or 1948. QUESTION:  Is this poem nationalist? ANSWER:  Yes. This poem is nationalist, since I made the error of permitting in the poem such a nationalist expression as “I love my land, Birobidzhan.” QUESTION:  Do you now admit that you preached nationalism in your poems being fully conscious of what you were doing? ANSWER:  No, I do not admit this, since I did not publish anywhere the poem shown to me, and no one read it. QUESTION:  Do you admit that in this written [by you] nationalist poem, which was shown to you, your nationalist views were expressed? ANSWER:  I do not deny the nationalist character of the poem, but when I wrote it I did not have any nationalist views. QUESTION:  Then explain: How is it possible to write a poem in a nationalist spirit without having nationalist views?   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 4, ll. 109–10.

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Interrogation Records

ANSWER:  When I wrote the nationalist poem shown to me today during the interrogation, I did not understand that it was nationalist in content. The protocol with my words has been recorded correctly and signed by me personally /Vasserman/

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INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Siniavski-Sindelevich, Semen Borisovich1 SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, SEMEN BORISOVICH, born in 1893, native of the town of Khorol, Poltava Region, Jewish, a citizen of the USSR, born into a family of merchants, not a Party member, lived in the city of Birobidzhan before his arrest. October 25, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The interrogation started at 21:30 The interrogation was completed at 03:30

QUESTION:  During the preceding interrogations you testified that, together with Gershkov,2 you dealt with the resettlement of Jews from the Ukraine in the Jewish Autonomous Region. Tell us, what do you know about Gershkov’s nationalist activity? ANSWER:  Basically, Gershkov was engaged in the same nationalist work as I. I can substantiate my testimonies by mentioning the following facts. In 1947, when the echelon bringing new Jewish settlers from Vinnitsa to the Jewish Autonomous Region was being organized, Gershkov, in a conversation with Tulchinski, Roikis, Likakh,3 Gerzon, and others who were preparing to go to Birobidzhan, expressed the idea that the basic motive for the resettlement of Jews from the Ukraine   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 3, ll. 296–97.   2 Abram Gershkov (1904–1974)—head of the Resettlement Department of the JAR Executive Committee. He went to the Ukraine in order to organize Jewish resettlement, including the transportation of orphan children. In 1949 he was removed from his post and went to work as Chairman of the Furniture Cooperative. He was arrested on March 24, 1950, and sentenced to twenty years in prison camp, released at the end of 1955, and soon rehabilitated.   3 Israel (Srul) Likakh (1912–?)—lived in Birobidzhan from 1947, served as inspector of the Settlement Department of the JAR Regional Executive Committee. He was arrested in 1950 and sentenced to imprisonment for ten years, released at the end of 1954, and rehabilitated.

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was, so he claimed, the anti-Semitism that had assumed a mass character there, against which no struggle was being carried out. I reckon that it was from nationalist motives and at the initiative of Gershkov that the groups of Jewish orphan children reared in Vinnitsa orphanages were resettled in the Jewish Autonomous Region. The main objective of their resettlement, according to a statement made by Gershkov, was their placement in the Birobidzhan orphanage and their education in the Yiddish language. We, I, Gershkov, and the Eynikayt newspaper correspondent Lev4 began to conduct such work with these children from the very first day in the echelon. We sang Yiddish songs with them and conversed in the Yiddish language, urging, in every way possible the use of Yiddish when speaking, since the majority of them did not know the Yiddish language at all. I remember that Gershkov regretted not having enough time to collect the Jewish children from the other Vinnitsa orphanages, as he had planned. In 1947, when he was in Moscow, Gershkov, together with Shifra Kochina,5 went to the American representative Novik,6 whom he asked to give aid to Birobidzhan in the form of prefabricated houses and even foodstuffs. In 1948, when several prefabricated houses and a certain quantity of grain arrived in Birobidzhan from America, Gershkov declared during an encounter with me that the grain had arrived most opportunely and proved to be very useful. In conversations with me, Gershkov often expressed his annoyance that the Birobidzhan theater was becoming less and less Jewish.   4 Mishe Lev (1917–2013)—Yiddish writer, born in Pohrebysche, Ukraine. During World War II he fought in the Red Army, was taken prisoner, escaped, and joined the partisans. After the war he worked for Eynikayt. In the summer of 1947 he accompanied the second echelon to Birobidzhan from Vinnitsa to Moscow. He later lived in Moscow and in 1996 moved to Israel.   5 Shifra Kochina (1896–1970)—collective farmer from Valdheim, JAR, expert in growing vegetables at the “Zavety Ilicha” (“Ilich’s Legacy”) collective farm. She served as a deputy in the USSR Supreme Soviet from 1946 to 1950.   6 Pesakh (Paul) Novik (1891–1989)—journalist and public figure. From 1939 to 1988 he edited the New York Yiddish-language Communist newspaper Morgen-frayhayt. On his Birobidzhan contacts, see Rubenstein and Naumov, Stalin’s Secret Pogrom, 30–31.

Interrogation Records

The Yiddish repertoire is being replaced more and more often by Russian works, he said. And people are showing interest in them, while the Yiddish productions have no success. On the journey from Vinnitsa to Birobidzhan the immigrants related to Gershkov as a Jew who was truly involved with his whole soul in the improvement of the Jews. In the echelon Gershkov often talked with the writer Kaganovich (Der Nister). The essence of these conversations amounted to this, that it was necessary to develop Jewish culture in the Jewish Autonomous Region in every way possible, to create Yiddish schools, and to teach the children the Yiddish language. Gershkov shared the nationalist views of Kaganovich (Der Nister). At the moment I do not remember any other concrete facts regarding Gershkov’s nationalist displays. The protocol has been recorded with my words correctly, read and signed by me /Siniavski-Sindelevich/

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INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Arones, Faivel’ L’vovich1 November 1949 City of Khabarovsk

. . . ANSWER:  Regarding Vasserman, we also have other facts testifying to her anti-Soviet nationalist manifestations, but at the moment I do not remember them. Miller, as I have already testified at previous interrogations, also had nationalist views. He shared completely the anti-Soviet nationalist opinions expressed by me, Maltinski, Rabinkov, and others, and was himself engaged in hostile nationalist activity . . . . In the play, He Is from Birobidzhan, Miller propagandized nationalist views, . . . “Jewish statehood.” When the rabid nationalist Kaganovich (Der Nister) arrived in Birobidzhan in 1947, Miller was the person closest to him, lauded him in every possible way, and organized evenings that brought together Der Nister (Kaganovich) and the intelligentsia of the city of Birobidzhan. I myself was present at two such evenings, one of which took place on the premises of the regional library, and the other in the rehearsal hall of the theater. Miller presided in both cases. At these evenings Der Nister came out with straightforwardly anti-Soviet slogans. Thus, at the evening in the theater Der Nister declared that, allegedly, “the primary objective of the Jewish intelligentsia is the opening of a network of Yiddish schools, in which Jewish children should be taught in Yiddish.” At this moment I do not remember fully the questions about which Der Nister spoke, but the sense of his speech reduced itself to this, that in the Jewish Autonomous Region, in essence, Judaization should be carried out forcibly (nasil’stvennaia evreizatsiia), and his basic thought was the thesis, “Birobidzhan for Jews.” Miller spoke next and supported Der Nister and his nationalist line completely. /Arones/   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 3, ll. 296–97.

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INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Arones, Faivel’ L’vovich1 November 21, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The interrogation began at 14:00 with a break from 17:15 to 22:00 The interrogation was completed at 02:00

QUESTION  In what period did your acquaintance with Meiler (Miller), Boris (Ber) Srulevich, begin? ANSWER:  I have known Miller since 1937. I got to know him in Birobidzhan, after he published a review in the newspaper of the play Boytre, which was being performed by our theater.2 We became more closely acquainted in 1946–47, when our theater selected for staging Meiler’s (Miller’s) play, He Is from Birobidzhan. We kept in contact with each other from the moment we became acquainted, although our acquaintance did not have a close, I would say, “intimate,” character, since Meiler is by nature a somewhat reserved and haughty person. QUESTION:  Consequently, your mutual relations with B. S. Meiler (Miller) were normal. Is this the way you should be understood? ANSWER:  Just so. There were not, and are not, any personal accounts or hostile relations between us. QUESTION:  Did you meet with Meiler (Miller) only in official circumstances, or did you also socialize in private life? 1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 4, ll. 325–30. 2 See Buzi Miler, “An ernster zig,” Birobidzhaner shtern, May 7, 1937. The premiere performance of Moishe Kulbak’s Boytre (director Moishe Goldblat) took place in Birobidzhan on April 10, 1937. Arones played one of the leading roles in the play— the wedding jester (badkhen) Mairim.

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ANSWER:  Besides official circumstances, we also socialized in private life. Both I and Miller visited each other’s apartment. QUESTION:  Earlier you characterized Miller as a person having bourgeois-nationalist views and carrying out anti-Soviet work in Birobidzhan. Specifically, how did B. S. Meiler’s (Miller’s) nationalist activity find expression? ANSWER:  As I testified earlier, our theater selected for staging Miller’s play, He Is from Birobidzhan, and it did so.3 Apart from the fact that this was a weak play, from the literary point of view, and poorly received by the public, it was clearly nationalist, false, and contrived in its contents. Miller refashioned this play from the story he published in the almanac Birobidzhan, of the same name as the almanac. I read passages from this story on the radio. In both the story “Birobidzhan” and the play He Is from Birobidzhan, Meiler (Miller) preached—from anti-Soviet, nationalist positions—his claim that the Jewish Autonomous Region is being built by the hands of Jews, and in the story he absolutely denied that Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, and other nationalities of the multinational Soviet state took part in building the JAR. As head of the Group of Yiddish Writers in Birobidzhan, and being himself infected with nationalism, Meiler (Miller) saw to it that works by other authors, like Rabinkov, Emiot (Goldvasser), Vasserman, and others, for example, were published in the press. When the rabid Jewish bourgeois nationalist Kaganovich (Der Nister) arrived in Birobidzhan, in the summer of 1947, together with the new settlers’ echelon, Meiler (Miller) received him with honors and even gave over the pages of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, which he edited, for the publication of Der Nister’s nationalist essays. During this same period Meiler (Miller) presided over two evening gatherings, one of which was held on the premises of the regional library, and the other in the theater building. Kaganovich (Der Nister) spoke at these evenings, delivering outright anti-Soviet, nationalist sermons. After Der Nister,   3 The premiere performance of Miller’s He Is from Birobidzhan (director Aleks Shtein) took place in Birobidzhan on November 7, 1947.

Interrogation Records

Miller also spoke. Just now I do not remember exactly what he said, but the overall tenor of his speech gave support to Der Nister’s positions. I remember this fact: In the autumn of 1948 (I do not remember the exact date), I was present at a meeting of the Bureau members of the Communist Party City Committee, conducted by Bakhmutski. This meeting was devoted to the question of strengthening the work in the Yiddish language among the Jews living in the JAR. I was invited to this Bureau meeting in connection with the fact that I, on the instructions of the Communist Party City Committee, read from Yiddish newspapers before the people in workshops and lodgings and other public places, and I also made public appearances to read literary works before an audience. At this Bureau meeting, in my presence, Miller spoke and made harsh accusations against Drisin,4 who was working at that time as head of the Regional Department of Education, for “allowing” such a situation that the Yiddish school was standing on the verge of liquidation. It should be stipulated that neither the parents nor the children wanted to study at the Yiddish school. However, this was imposed upon them artificially. I think that this too was a nationalist manifestation. The situation was just the same in regard to subscriptions to the newspaper Birobidzhaner shtern and the almanac Birobidzhan, published in Yiddish. Almost no one wanted to subscribe to them, and they were read by very few people. However, people, literally under compulsion, [were forced to subscribe to the newspaper and the almanac]. At the same Bureau meeting, Meiler (Miller) called upon the Communist Party City Committee to require the primary Party organizations to meet the quota of subscriptions allotted to them. As a result, the Communist Party City Committee issued instructions “to obligate every Jewish communist to subscribe to the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper.” It should be said that Meiler’s (Miller’s) nationalist activity was supported, and directed to a certain degree, by Bakhmutski. The story of how Miller’s nationalist play, He Is from Birobidzhan, was selected for staging by our theater might serve as an example of this.   4 Aleksandr Drisin (1915–?) was administrative director of BirGOSET in 1943 and head of the JAR Regional Department of Education in 1944–49.

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I have already testified previously that apart from its obviously nationalist content, this play was inferior from an artistic point of view. When it was read for the first time in our theater, it was not accepted for production and was considered unsuitable for the stage. However, in 1947, when the new artistic director, Shtein,5 arrived at the theater, Miller once again raised the question of his play being accepted for production, and with the assistance of Bakhmutski and Brokhin, he got it accepted for production. QUESTION:  How do you know that Miller’s play, He Is from Birobidzhan, was accepted for production at the instructions of Bakhmutski and Brokhin? ANSWER:  Shtein did not want to put on this play. He told me and other actors repeatedly that the play was bad. However, as Shtein said, he was compelled to produce it since he had received instructions to this effect from the Communist Party City Committee. In addition, the plan for the repertoire was approved by the Communist Party City Committee. QUESTION:  Continue your testimony about Miller’s nationalist activity. ANSWER:  Miller kept up his connection with the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in Moscow. In the spring of 1948 he traveled to Moscow, and when he returned to Birobidzhan he told me that in Moscow the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee had organized a report by him and the place “was packed full of people.” Miller, as he told us, devoted his report to Birobidzhan, with the aim of attracting Jewish settlers to Birobidzhan. Miller also told me that his stories had been accepted for publication by the Der Emes publishing house. QUESTION:  How else was Miller’s connection with the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee expressed?   5 Aleks (Aleksei, Eliyahu) Shtein (1894–1950)—Yiddish theater actor and director. He started his career in the “Vilna Troupe” in 1916 and then performed in Poland, Latvia, Romania, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. In 1939, he fled from Nazi-occupied Poland to the USSR and joined the Belorussian GOSET in Minsk. He was director of BirGOSET in 1946–48.

Interrogation Records

ANSWER:  I do not know what other connection Miller had with the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. QUESTION:  With whom in particular among the workers of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee did Miller have a connection? ANSWER:  I also cannot answer this question, since I do not know. QUESTION:  Did Miller maintain contact with foreign countries? ANSWER:  I do not know anything about Miller’s connections with foreign countries. QUESTION:  Did Miller tell you whether correspondence was sent by him through the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee for publication in the press abroad? ANSWER:  No, Miller did not say anything to me regarding this. QUESTION:  What connection did Miller have with “Ambijan” [The American Birobijan Committee]?6 ANSWER:  I do not know anything about connections with “Ambijan.” QUESTION:  At the beginning of the interrogation you testified that you socialized with Miller not only in public places but also in each other’s home. What anti-Soviet nationalist opinions were expressed by Miller in your presence? ANSWER:  I have already testified previously that Miller is by nature a reserved and somewhat haughty person. He considered himself far “above” me and in conversations limited himself to two or three phrases. I do not remember Miller making any statements of an anti-Soviet nationalist character in those instances when we were together. QUESTION:  Is that so? ANSWER:  I am stating the truth.   6 On Ambijan, see Henry Felix Srebrnik, Dreams of Nationhood: American Jewish Communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan Project, 1924–1951 (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2010), passim.

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QUESTION:  Did Miller really not state his nationalist views in the conversations with you? ANSWER:  This cannot be ruled out, but I do not remember any concrete anti-Soviet nationalist statements made by Miller in private when he was with me. QUESTION:  Did you express anti-Soviet nationalist opinions during these conversations with Miller? ANSWER:  I do not remember. QUESTION:  You are not giving a truthful answer to the question posed. ANSWER:  I am not concealing anything from the investigation. I admit that I could have expressed anti-Soviet opinions in the presence of Miller, for, as I have already testified at previous interrogations, anti-Soviet nationalist opinions were openly expressed by me, but what precisely I said to him, I do not remember. The protocol with my words has been recorded correctly and read by me fully /Arones/

RECORDS OF CONFRONTATION between Defendant Arones, Faivel’ L’vovich, and Witness Drisin, Aleksandr Izrailevich I, Head of the Second Section of the Investigation Department of the MGB Directorate for the Khabarovsk Territory, First Lieutenant Ozersky, on this date, in Investigation Room No. 429 of the Khabarovsk Territory MGB Directorate Building conducted a confrontation between the defendant ARONES, Faivel’ L’vovich, and the witness DRISIN, Aleksandr Izrailevich.1 November 29, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The confrontation began at 13:00 The confrontation was completed at 16:45

The witness Drisin, A. I.—is warned about the legal liability for giving false testimonies and for refusal to testify according to Articles 92 and 95 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. /Drisin/ In answer to the questions of the investigation, the defendant Arones and the witness Drisin declared that they know each other, that they have been acquainted since 1943 through their joint work at the Birobidzhan State Yiddish Theater, that they have normal mutual relations, and that they did not and do not have any personal rivalries or hostile relations. QUESTION TO THE WITNESS DRISIN:  What do you know about the anti-Soviet, nationalist activity of the defendant Arones? ANSWER:  I had occasion to associate closely with Arones in 1943, when I worked as director of the Theater. In conversations, which took place mostly on the premises of the Theater, Arones repeatedly, in my presence, expressed various opinions of a nationalist character. Thus,   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 5, ll. 269–73.

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Interrogation Records

Arones made statements to the effect that it is necessary to build Jewish statehood and create a Jewish republic on the territory of the Jewish Autonomous Region. Similar opinions bore a nationalist character, since there were no prerequisites for the creation of a republic, since a negligible number of Jews live in the Jewish Autonomous Region, having come there from other regions of the Soviet Union, and likewise, there were no other prerequisites for the creation of a Jewish republic. Arones said that it was necessary to strive to create conditions that would encourage more Jews living on the territory of the USSR to come and settle in Birobidzhan and turn the Jewish Autonomous Region into the “center of development of Jewish national culture.” QUESTION TO THE DEFENDANT ARONES:  Do you confirm this part of the testimonies of the witness Drisin? ANSWER:  Yes, I confirm completely this part of the testimonies of the witness Drisin. I actually expressed such views, and the witness Drisin illuminated the sense of my statements correctly. QUESTION TO THE WITNESS DRISIN:  Continue your testimonies about the concrete facts of the nationalist activity of the defendant Arones, F. L. ANSWER:  During the period of my work at the Theater, the question of repertoire stood out very sharply. There were no plays ready to be performed at that time. The reports indicated clearly that audience attendance at the theater was extremely low. I raised the question once more (it had also been raised before my arrival at the theater) about the necessity of creating a Russian troupe at the theater, since there was no Russian theater of drama in Birobidzhan. Non-Jewish spectators did not come to see plays performed in Yiddish, and I thought that the theater should serve the population with plays in Russian and Yiddish. This, in my opinion, would contribute to improving the financial situation, since the theater would get a large base of spectators. Furthermore, I thought in general that it was inappropriate for our theater to put on only Yiddish things, when there was no Russian theater in Birobidzhan.

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Arones came out against this categorically. He declared that the Yiddish theater should only put on things in Yiddish. He said that our theater “could not” put on Russian plays, that it should only put on plays depicting the history of the Jews, their culture, and life, and, as Arones declared, the theater should be “the heir and transmitter of the best traditions of Yiddish theater.” In particular, Blue Kerchief (from the time of the Patriotic War) was supposed to be the first play performed in Russian.2 Arones, as I have already testified, objected to the production of this play. Regarding the play, Arones declared: “Let Russian theaters put on Blue Kerchief, we have our own native works to put on.” QUESTION TO THE DEFENDANT ARONES:  What opinions did you express about the repertoire of the theater? ANSWER:  I was never an opponent of the creation of a Russian troupe at the theater,3 just as I did not come out against the production of the play, Blue Kerchief. I did, though, declare that for me personally, as a Yiddish actor, it was difficult to play in Russian, since I do not have good command of the language. QUESTION TO THE WITNESS DRISIN:  Do you stand by this part of your testimonies? ANSWER:  Yes. I stand by my testimonies. I spoke the truth. Repeatedly Arones declared to me, as director of the theater, that the theater should only put on Jewish things (that is, plays in Yiddish only), and he came out against the production of plays in Russian.

  2 Valentin Kataev’s military comedy, Blue Kerchief (Sinii platochek), was produced by BirGOSET in Russian in May, 1943, and later removed from the repertoire for “flippancy.” This play was not by any means BirGOSET’s first production in Russian.   3 A Russian troupe was created at BirGOSET at the beginning of 1939, based upon a decision of the USSR Committee for the Arts. However, it was shut down on July 29, 1941. During the prewar period its repertoire consisted of traditional classics of the theater and topical Soviet works. From the beginning of the war, the reduced Yiddish troupe also put on plays in Russian.

Interrogation Records

QUESTION TO THE WITNESS DRISIN:  What other nationalist manifestations did Arones display in your presence? ANSWER:  He made slanderous statements about what he alleged to be the “persecution of the Jews” taking place in the USSR. Regarding that, he declared and alleged that anti-Semitism is developing strongly in the western regions of the country. They bully Jews there, humiliate them, and do not give them the possibility to live.

Arones declared that the Jewish settlers come to live in Birobidzhan because they are, he claimed, “doomed to hunger and unemployment” in the west [of the USSR]. I remember in this connection that Arones said that the director of the theater should take measures to encourage Jewish actors living in the western regions of the country to move to Birobidzhan, where they could work productively; otherwise, as Arones asserted, they will perish there. QUESTION TO THE DEFENDANT ARONES:  Is the witness Drisin testifying correctly in this part? ANSWER:  Yes, correctly, and I confirm completely this part of his testimonies. I expressed such views, and the witness Drisin has recalled them correctly. QUESTION TO THE WITNESS DRISIN:  What else do you know about Arones’s nationalist activity? ANSWER:  Arones expressed ideas to the effect that the Jewish people is, so he claimed, “an especially gifted people.” I remember a fact such as this: I and Arones were present at a traditional examination recital of pupils of the children’s music school, where, naturally, children of different nationalities were being taught. When the children came out to perform, Arones declared: “Now you see how gifted the Jewish children are, there is no comparison between them and the children of

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other nationalities.” Nevertheless, many capable and talented children of other nationalities performed in that recital. Arones also fought for the creation of Yiddish schools. When I worked as head of the Regional Department of Education, he happened to meet me on the street and asked me with especially great interest: “How do matters stand with the Yiddish school?” To my answer that there were none who wished to send their children to Yiddish schools, Arones began trying to convince me that, as he claimed, “organizing the teaching of Yiddish to the children—this is the most important question, since otherwise, there will be no further basis for the development of Jewish national culture.” QUESTION TO THE DEFENDANT ARONES:  Do you confirm this? ANSWER:  Yes, I also completely confirm this part of the testimonies of the witness Drisin. It reveals the truth. I did make such statements. In answer to the investigator’s question, the defendant Arones and the witness Drisin declared that they did not have any questions for each other, nor any remarks or additions regarding the substance or the course of the confrontation. The protocol with our words has been recorded correctly and read by us /Arones, Drisin/

Yiddish actor Faivish Arones playing himself as a Gulag prisoner, Israel, the 1970s In the author’s possession

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RESUBMISSION OF THE INDICTMENT INTERROGATION RECORDS of Defendant Meiler (Miller), Ber Srulevich1 December 15, 1949 City of Khabarovsk The interrogation began at 15:15 The interrogation was completed at 15:30

QUESTION:  You have just familiarized yourself with the ruling regarding the resubmission of the indictment based upon Articles 58–10, Part 1, and 58–10, Part 2, of the RSFSR Criminal Code.2 Is the essence substance of the indictment presented clear to you? ANSWER:  Yes. It is clear. QUESTION:  Do you plead guilty to the charge presented? ANSWER:  I plead guilty to the charge presented based upon Article 58–10, Part 2, of the RSFSR Criminal Code. At previous interrogations I testified in detail about both my own criminal activity and the criminal activity of Rabinkov, Slutski, Goldvasser, Siniavski, Vasserman, and Arones, with whom I was connected by the shared character of our nationalist views. These testimonies I confirm completely. The protocol with my words has been recorded correctly and read by me /Miller/   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 1, l. 237.   2 The resubmission of the indictment based upon Article 58–10 (Anti-Soviet Agitation) had in view a great increase in the severity of the punishment. The “utilization of the religious or national prejudices of the masses,” stipulated in the second part of the article, was put on the same footing as “armed revolt,” and could lead to a death sentence. See the section entitled “Counter-Revolutionary Crimes,” Criminal Code of the RSFSR, with revisions of October 1, 1934—Ugolovnyi kodeks RSFSR (s izmeneniami na 1 oktiabria 1934 goda) (Moscow: Sovetskoe zakonodatel’stvo, 1934), 22–27.

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BILL OF INDICTMENT (Excerpts)1 /Khabarovsk UMGB Seal/ In accordance with Investigation Case No. 68, on a charge of: MEILER, Ber Srulevich (who is MILLER, Boris Izrailevich), RABINKOV, Gesel Berkovich, GOLDVASSER (EMIOT), Izrail’ Natanovich, SLUTSKI, Ber Aizikovich, VASSERMAN, Luba Shamovna, SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, Semen Borisovich, and ARONES, Faivel’ L’vovich, all of whom are accused of the crimes provided for by Articles 58–10, Part 2, and 58–11 of the RSFSR Criminal Code . . . suggesting a measure of punishment for each of them of 10 years corrective labor camp Procurator /signature/ April 6, 1950

MEILER (MILLER), B. S., RABINKOV, G. B., GOLDVASSER (EMIOT), I. N., SLUTSKI, B. A., VASSERMAN, L. Sh., SINIAVSKI-­ SINDELEVICH, S. B., and ARONES, F. L., were arrested in July–­October 1949 by the Directorate of the Ministry of State Security of the Khabarovsk Territory, for anti-Soviet bourgeois-nationalist activity. It was established by the inquiry into the case that MEILER (MILLER), B. S., RABINKOV, G. B., GOLDVASSER (EMIOT), I. N., VASSERMAN, L. Sh., ARONES, F. L., SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, S. B., and SLUTSKI, B. A., were convinced bourgeois Jewish nationalists. The accused SLUTSKI and SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, owing to their bourgeois-nationalist convictions, greeted the Great October   1 Investigation Case No. 68, vol. 6, ll. 236, 262, 287.

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socialist revolution with hostility and immediately began conducting active anti-Soviet nationalist work. Systematically, right up to 1928, SLUTSKI sent articles and essays to foreign (American and German) bourgeois Jewish newspapers, in which he slandered the condition and the life of the Jews in the Soviet Union, asserting that it was as if the Jews were being subjected to persecution and various types of oppression, and he discredited Soviet power and defended capitalist elements. . . . The convicted [should read: accused] SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, has been exposed by the testimonies of the witnesses KOGAN, Ia. Z., BASKIN, I. M., TVERSKI, K. G., GOKHFELD, K. A., and VOLODARSKAIA, S. D. All these witnesses characterize SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH as a Jewish nationalist. The witness BASKIN testified that SINIAVSKI-­ SINDELEVICH explained cosmopolitism and the struggle against it as follows: Communism is not popular now among the masses of the people, and so the greatness of the Russian people, its priority, etc., are emphasized, but the Jews can be fervent supporters of these ideas [that is, Communism], since the Jews have their own history and are not deeply connected with the history of the Russian people.

The witness GOKHFELD testified that in a conversation with her SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH said that he would leave Birobidzhan for the Ukraine only when L. M. KAGANOVICH would be there, and not N. S. KHRUSHCHEV. The witness VOLODARSKAIA, S. D. (former wife of SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH), testified that SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, who came from merchant stock, lived in Palestine from 1912 to 1914, was in a Zionist organization in Kiev in 1919, and later he tried to flee

Bill of Indictment

to Poland together with her, VOLODARSKAIA, but on the way to the border they were robbed and returned to Gomel, and then to Moscow. SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH pleading guilty, testified that when he was in charge of the resettlement of Jews from the Ukraine in Birobidzhan he spread rumors, that popular anti-Semitism takes place in the USSR and that this was an official phenomenon, since it is as if state organs are not carrying out any struggle with it.

Being connected with the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, he asked the American representative Novik, through Fefer, to send [standardized prefabricated houses and foodstuffs]. . . . [The accused MEILER (MILLER) called for] developing Jewish culture only, despite the fact that Russians, Ukrainians, and other non-Jewish nationalities constitute the absolute majority of the population of the Jewish Autonomous Region. The accused MEILER (MILLER) testified [on August 18, 1949] regarding this: I asserted that in Birobidzhan it was necessary to create a Jewish state entity . . . Such nationalist conversations, and in particular, about the creation of a Jewish state in Birobidzhan and the transference to there of the center of Jewish national culture, actually took place, not only with KAGANOVICH (DER NISTER) and RABINKOV, but also with a number of other persons, like, for example, EMIOT, VASSERMAN . . .

Using their official position, the former heads of the editorial staff of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, the accused in the case, MILLER (MEILER) and RABINKOV, having strongly urged the nationalistically inclined writers GOLDVASSER (EMIOT), I. N., SLUTSKI, B. A., and others, to participate in the newspaper, took a line that did not

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correspond with the policy of the Communist Party and the government on the national question. The materials published in the newspaper were selected tendentiously and one-sidedly, the Jews were artificially separated from the other peoples of the Soviet Union, and set in opposition to them, which led to the distortion of the newspaper’s political line and the utilization of the pages of the newspaper for political propaganda. Admitting his hostile work in this direction, MEILER (MILLER) testified [on August 4, 1949]: During the time of my work as editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, various materials of a nationalist character were printed in it repeatedly. Publishing nationalist works in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, I was thereby engaged in the dissemination of nationalist views among the readers of the newspaper and trained them in a nationalist spirit . . . My actions, manifested in the publishing of nationalist materials in the newspaper, which propagandize nationalist views, are anti-Soviet . . .

[Carrying on] work among the population (the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, the Radio Committee, the group of writers, and the Museum of Local Lore), these persons used their official position for carrying out hostile anti-Soviet nationalist work. The criminal nationalist activity of each consisted in the following: MEILER, B. S. (he is MILLER, B. I.), as early as 1934– 1935, at the time of his studies in Moscow at the Jewish Department of the Pedagogical Institute, fell under the influence of persons teaching there, the Jewish bourgeois nationalists-Bundists NUSINOV and DOBRUSHIN, and also the head of the literary circle, the nationalist BERGELSON, adopted their nationalist views, and, when he came to the city of Birobidzhan in 1936, together with his like-minded associates, RABINKOV and VASSERMAN, and later, also GOLDVASSER and SLUTSKI, began to be engaged in hostile anti-Soviet nationalist activity.

Bill of Indictment

In 1936–1937, and also in 1947, meeting in Birobidzhan with the writers who came from Moscow, the now unmasked BERGELSON and KAGANOVICH (DER NISTER) fully shared the anti-Soviet nationalist views of the latter. Working as editor in chief of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, which comes out in the Yiddish language, using his official position for hostile aims, from 1944 to 1948 MEILER (MILLER) repeatedly published in the newspaper articles, essays, and poems of anti-Soviet bourgeois-­ nationalist content like, for example, essays of KAGANOVICH (DER NISTER), the feuilleton of RABINKOV, “On the Themes of Sholem Aleichem,” the section of the newspaper called “Do You Know?” and a number of others, and thereby propagandized anti-Soviet nationalist ideas about the Jewish Autonomous Region standing apart from the other regions of the USSR and a Jewish state entity being created, and tried to train the readers in the spirit of national narrow-mindedness and chauvinism. As leader of the group of Jewish writers in Birobidzhan, MEILER (MILLER) conducted all the work among the writers from 1944 to 1947 in a nationalist direction, isolating the work with the Jewish writers from the work with beginning writers and poets of other nationalities, covering up and concealing the facts of nationalism in the works of his like-minded associates, RABINKOV, VASSERMAN, and GOLDVASSER. In his literary works (the story, “Birobidzhan,” and the play, He Is from Birobidzhan) he preached nationalist ideas. From 1947 to 1949 among his circle he expressed anti-Soviet nationalist views, cast aspersions on measures taken by the Party and the government to destroy the antipatriots and bourgeois cosmopolitans on the ideological front, and also expressed himself slanderously in regard to inner-Party democracy. Being united with RABINKOV, VASSERMAN, GOLDVASSER, SINIAVSKI-SINDELEVICH, SLUTSKI, and ARONES by the shared character of their hostile nationalist views, and being under the influence of the bourgeois Jewish nationalists now arrested by the USSR MGB, BERGELSON and KAGANOVICH (DER NISTER), MEILER (MILLER) exerted a leading and directing influence on the hostile nationalist activity of his like-minded associates.

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The accused RABINKOV, G. B., who studied together with MEILER (MILLER) at the Jewish Department of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute, also fell under the influence of the Jewish nationalists-Bundists who taught there. Living in the city of Birobidzhan from 1935, RABINKOV entered into a criminal relation with MEILER (MILLER), ARONES, and other nationalists, and, having taken up hostile positions, engaged in anti-Soviet nationalist activity. Working as the executive secretary of the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper and being engaged in literary activity, RABINKOV disseminated among his circle anti-Soviet nationalist views, which he dragged into his literary works. In 1945 he wrote a series of essays, “From the History of the Jews in Russia,” permeated with nationalism, which were broadcast by the Birobidzhan Radio Committee. In May 1946 he published a nationalist feuilleton in the Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper under the heading “On the Themes of Sholem Aleichem,” in which he maliciously ridiculed Jews who consider Russian to be their native language. In 1947, in the same newspaper, he lauded the “creative work” of the notorious nationalist KAGANOVICH (DER NISTER), who has now been arrested by the USSR MGB and convicted for anti-Soviet nationalist activity. . . .

While the Birobidzhan writers are in jail, Albert Einstein praises the American Birobijan Committee (December 1949) for "making a contribution to keep alive the principle of mutual assistance in a world subject to so much antagonism and conflict… cementing of international understanding and friendship, and furthering of world peace."

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THE SENTENCE EXCERPT FROM RECORD No. 22 of the Special Council at the USSR Minister of State Security May 31, 1950 [Moscow]

HEARD § 208. Case No. 68 of the Directorate of the Ministry of State Security (UMGB) of the Khabarovsk Territory charging— MEILER, Ber Srulevich (who is MILLER, Boris Izrailevich), born in 1913, native of the Vinnitsa Region, Ukrainian SSR, Jewish, a citizen of the USSR, not a Party member, accused on the basis of Articles 58–10, Part 2, and 58–11 of the RSFSR Criminal Code.

DECIDED

MEILER, Ber Srulevich (who is MILLER, Boris Izrailevich), for anti-Soviet nationalist activity, is to be confined in a corrective labor camp for a period of TEN years, calculating the term from July 4, 1949. Assignment to the camp OL [Ozerlag] No. 7 of the MVD of the city of Bratsk, Irkutsk Region Investigation Case No. 337577 /USSR MGB Special Council Seal/ /signature/

THE EARLY RELEASE Top secret          Copy No.   I

EXCERPT FROM record No. 80 Session of the Central Commission for Reexamination of Cases of Persons Convicted of Counterrevolutionary Crimes, who are being detained in camps, colonies, and prisons of the USSR MVD or who are in exile in settlements held on December 27, 1955 [Moscow]

HEARD § 50. Case No. P-337577 charging MEILER, Ber Srulevich, who is MILLER, Boris Izrailevich, born in 1913, native of the shtetl of Kopai, Vinnitsa Region, who was sentenced by the Special Council of the USSR MGB on May 31, 1950, for anti-Soviet nationalist activity, on the basis of Part 2, Article 58–10 and Article 58–11 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, to 10 years corrective labor camp.

DECIDED Amending the ruling of the Special Council of the USSR MGB on May 31, 1950, in the case of MEILER, Ber Srulevich (MILLER, Boris Izrailevich), [it is resolved] to drop the charges specified in Article 58–11 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, and Part 2, Article 58–10 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, to reduce his prison term to the time already served, and to release him from custody.

Head of the Secretariat of the Central Commission /signature/

APPENDIX

Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto”1

  1 RGALI, f. 3121, op. 1, d. 32.

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Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto”

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Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto”

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Broken Heart / Broken Wholeness

Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto”

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Broken Heart / Broken Wholeness

Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto”

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Broken Heart / Broken Wholeness

Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto”

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Der Nister’s “Birobidzhan Manifesto”

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Bibliography

ARCHIVAL SOURCES Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, Jerusalem (Haarkhion hamerkazi letoldot ha’am hayehudi, CAHJP)   Collection “Israel Emiot” Ru-1467 Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (Hamakhon leyahadut zemanenu ’al shem Avraham Harman)   Oral History Division   Interview with Yosef Kerler 9(93)   Interview with Shlomo Perlmutter 12(93) IDC Publishers, Leiden, Holland   The newspapers Birobidzhaner shtern and Birobidzhanskaia zvezda (microfilms) Mordechai Anielewicz Memorial Holocaust Study and Research Cen­ter, Givat Haviva, Israel (Beyt ’edut ’al shem Mordekhay Anilevitsh)   Archive “Moreshet,” collection “Shlomo Perlmutter” Musée d’Orsay Archives, Paris, France (Fonds d’archives du musée d’Orsay)   Max and Rosy Kaganovitch Collection of Documents (Fonds Max et Rosy Kaganovitch) ODO 2007.3 National Library of Israel, Jerusalem (Hasifriya haleumit)   Archive “Avrom Sutskever” Arc. 4* 1565, file “Yosef Tsherniak” 1/845   Archive “Yed’a ’am,” collection “Yosef Tsherniak” Arc. 4* 1765/3.5   Autograph collection, series 19, file “Kahanovich, Pinchas” Schwad 01 19 27 Russian National Library, St. Petersburg, RF (Rossiiskaia natsio­nal’naia biblioteka)   Department of the Literature in the languages of Asia and Africa

258

Bibliography

  The newspapers Birobidzhaner shtern and Eynikayt Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, Moscow (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva, RGALI)   Collection “Pinkhas Kaganovich” f. 3121   Collection “Moscow GOSET” f. 2307 Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, Moscow (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial’no-politicheskoi istorii, RGASPI)   Collection “Agitprop” (the CPSU Department for Agitation and Propaganda) f. 17 State Archive of the Jewish Autonomous Region, Birobidzhan, RF (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Evreiskoi avtonomnoi oblasti, GAEAO)   Former Communist Party Archive of the Jewish Autonomous Region f. 1-P   Collection “Birobidzhan GOSET” f. 148 State Archive of the Khabarovsk Territory, Khabarovsk, RF (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Khabarovskogo kraia, GAKhK)   Former KGB Archive of the Khabarovsk Territory, Investigation Case No. 68 State Regional Museum of Local History and Lore, Birobidzhan, RF (Gosudarstvennyi oblastnoi istoriko-kraevedcheskii musei)   Collection “Buzi (Boris) Miller” Yad Vashem—The Jewish people’s memorial to the Holocaust, Jerusalem (Yad Vashem—rashut hazikaron lashoa ulagvura)   Holocaust Survivors Documentation Project, video interview with Shlomo Perlmutter No. 3562306 YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York (Yidisher visnshaftlekher institut)   Collection “Julia Flaum”

PRIVATE COLLECTIONS

Photo collection of Rimma Lavochkina, St. Petersburg, RF Private archive of Ber Kotlerman, Neve Tsuf, Israel

INTERVIEWS BY THE AUTHOR Sergo Bengelsdorf, Nahariya, Israel Feliks Gershkov, Ashdod, Israel

Bibliography

Mishe Lev, z”l, Rehovot, Israel Esther Markish, z”l, Or Yehuda, Israel Mark Miller, z”l, Kiryat Bialik, Israel Sofia Miller-Strashnaia, Karmiel, Israel Maks Riant, z”l, Bnei Ayish, Israel

PERIODICALS Yiddish and Hebrew

Birobidzhan, Birobidzhan Birobidzhaner shtern, Birobidzhan Davar, Tel Aviv Di goldene keyt, Tel Aviv Di prese, Buenos Aires Di royte velt, Kharkov Di velt, New York Dos naye lebn, Łódź Eynikayt, Moscow Eynikayt, New York Forpost, Birobidzhan Heymland, Moscow Hulyot (Ringen), Haifa/Merhavia Ktuvim, Tel Aviv Morgen-frayhayt, New York Moznaim, Tel Aviv Naylebn, New York Sovetish heymland, Moscow Vokhnblat, Toronto Yalkut moreshet, Givat Haviva YKUF-almanakh, New York Yidishe kultur, New York Yunger boy-klang, Kharkov Yunge gvardye, Kharkov Zamlbikher, New York

Russian and Ukrainian

Birobidzhanskaia zvezda, Birobidzhan

259

Bibliography

260

Birobidzhaner shtern, Birobidzhan (the Russian part of the newspaper, since September 1990) My zdes’, Jerusalem Novosti nedeli—Evreiskii kamerton, Tel Aviv Vinnytska pravda, Vinnitsa

English

Ambijan Bulletin, New York Israel Magazine, Tel Aviv/New York

DER NISTER’S WORK

Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian, English

“A briv tsu Dovid Bergelson.” Forpost 2–3 (1940): 34–38. Beit Mashber: roman histori, I–II. Translated into Hebrew by Haim Rabinzon, Shimshon Nahmani, and Eliyahu David Shafir. Merhavia: Sifriyat po alim, 1947–1951. Dertseylungen un eseyen. New York: YKUF, 1957. Der zeyde mitn eynikl. New York: YKUF, 1943. Di mishpokhe Mashber: roman. New York: YKUF, 1943. Di mishpokhe Mashber: roman, tsveyter teyl. New York: YKUF, 1948. “Di umfargeslekhe aveyde.” In Mikhoels 1890–1948, edited by Eli Falkovitsh, 6–13. Moscow: Der Emes, 1948; also in Yidishe kultur 20, no. 1 (1958): 23–25. “Di vunder-shtot.” Birobidzhaner shtern, September 6, 1947. The Family Mashber. Translated into English by Leonard Wolf. London: Fontana Paperbacks, 1989. “Flora.” Birobidzhaner shtern, August 3, 1947. Gedakht. Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1929. Gedanken un motiven: lider in proze. Vilna: Yugend, 1907. Gezang un gebet. Kiev: Kunst-ferlag, 1912. Hanazir ve-hagdiya: sipurim, shirim, maamarim. Translated into Hebrew by Dov Sadan. Jerusalem: Mosad Byalik, 1963. “Has.” Eynikayt, June 29, 1944; also in A shpigl oyf a shteyn, edited by Khone Shmeruk, 218–20. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press/The Hebrew University, 1987. Hekher fun der erd. Warsaw: Progres, 1910.

Bibliography

Heshl Ansheles: dertseylung vegn eynem a fal inem itstikn okupirtn Poyln. New York: YKUF, 1943. Korbones (dertseylungen). Moscow: IGIZ/Der Emes, 1943. “Mayn ersht vort vegn Birobidzhan.” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 3, 1947. “Mir.” In A shpigl oyf a shteyn, edited by Khone Shmeruk, 127–33. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press/The Hebrew University, 1987. “Mitn eshelon keyn Birobidzhan.” Naylebn 10 (1948): 9–11. “Mitn ibervanderer-eshelon keyn Birobidzhan.” Birobidzhaner shtern, September 4 and September 9, 1947. “Mit ibervanderer keyn Birobidzhan.” Heymland 1 (1947): 108–18. “Mitn tsveytn echelon.” Eynikayt, August 30, 1947. “Nay-gayst.” In Geyendik, edited by Der Nister, Leyb Kvitko, and Moyshe Livshits, 5–30. Berlin: Lutze & Vogt, 1923. “Oyfn veg keyn Birobidzhan.” Eynikayt (New York), November 4, 1947, 18–20. Regrowth: Seven Tales of Jewish Life Before, During, and After Nazi Occupation. Translated into English by Erik Butler. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2011. Sem’ia Mashber. Translated into Russian by Mikhail Shambadal. Moscow: Knizhniki, 2010. “Unter a ployt.” In Gedakht, 272–312. Kiev: Kultur-lige, 1929. “Vidervuks.” Birobidzhaner shtern, July 19, 1947. Vidervuks: dertseylungen, noveln. Mosow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1969.

BOOKS

Yiddish and Hebrew

Alberton, Meir. Biro‑Bidzhan. Kharkov: Tsentrfarlag, 1929. Broderzon, Sheyne-Miryem. Mayn laydns-veg mit Moyshe Broderzon. Buenos Aires: Tsentral-farband fun poylishe yidn in Argentine, 1960. Bronfman, Itsik. Af likhtike vegn. Birobidzhan: Farlag fun der Yidisher avtonomer gegnt, 1948. Buber, Martin. Gog u-Magog: megilat yamim. Jerusalem: Tarshish, 1943/4. Dimanshteyn, Shimen, ed. Di yidishe avtonome gegnt—a kind fun der oktyaber-revolyutsye. Moscow: Der Emes, 1934.

261

262

Bibliography

Elyashiv, Shmuel. Hasifrut hasovyetit hehadasha. Tel Aviv: N. Tverski, 1953. Emiot, Yisroel. Der birobidzhaner inyen (khronik fun a groyliker tsayt). Rochester, NY: Sol Bogorad, 1960. ___. In mitele yorn: eseyen, dertseylungen, lider. Rochester, NY: Jewish Community Council in Rochester, 1963. ___. Ufgang. Birobidzhan: Farlag fun der Yidisher avtonomer gegnt, 1948. Falkovitsh, Eli, ed. Mikhoels 1890–1948. Moscow: Der Emes, 1948. Gordon, Shmuel. Yizker: di farmishpete shrayber. Jerusalem: The World Council for Yiddish Culture, 2003. Kerler, Yoysef. 12-ter oygust, 1952. Jerusalem: Eygns, 1978. Klagsbrun, Shloyme. Melitser yidn. Tel Aviv: Nay-lebn, 1979. Lvavi (Babitski), Ya’akov. Hahityashvut hayehudit be-Birobidzhan. Jerusalem: The Historical Society of Israel, 1965. Miler, Buzi. Birobidzhan. Moscow: Der Emes, 1948. ___. Mishmoyres baytn zikh. Kharkov: Literatur un kunst, 1931. Maltinski, Khaim. Der moskver mishpet iber di birobidzhaner. Tel Aviv: Nay-lebn, 1981. Nahman mi-Bratslav. Sefer likutey moharan. Warsaw: Halter, 1917. Pedaya, Haviva. Halikha shemi’ever letrauma: mistika, historia veritual. Tel Aviv: Resling, 2011. Perlmuter, Shlomo, ed. Yatmut: dapey zikaron lekehilat Ratna. Tel Aviv: Irgun yotsey Ratna, 1951. Sadan, Dov. Orhot u-shvilim: sofrey yidish. Tel Aviv: ’Am ’oved, 1979. Shmeruk, Khone, ed. A shpigl oyf a shteyn. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press/The Hebrew University, 1987. Tamir, Nahman, ed. Ratna: sipura shel kehila yehudit shehushmeda. Tel Aviv: Irgun yotsey Ratna be-Yisrael, 1983. Tolstoy, L. N. Dertseylungen vegn khayes. Translated into Yiddish by Der Nister. Odessa: Kinder-farlag fun USRR, 1935. Ungar, Yitzhak Zvi. Sefer yemot olam: uvdot vesipurei kodesh mitsadikei ukdoshei elyon shenishme u mipi . . . rabi Yitzhak me-Amshinov. Jerusalem: H. M. Ernster, 2000. Vays, Yosef. Mehkarim behasidut Braslav. Jerusalem: Mosad Byalik, 1974.

Bibliography

Russian

Baskin, Iosif. Saliuty i rasstrely. Zapiski utselevshego. Tel Aviv: Starlight, 1999. Drabkin, Aleksandr. Zachem mne eto vsio . . . Khabarovsk: Khabarovskaia kraevaia tipografia, 2012. Fedorov, Aleksei. Posledniaia zima. Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1981. Glider, Mikhail. S kinoapparatom v tylu vraga. Moscow: Goskinoizdat, 1946. Kostyrchenko, Grigori. Stalin protiv “kosmopolitov.” Vlast’ i evreiskaia intelligentsia v SSSR. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2010. ___. Tainaia politika Stalina: Vlast’ i antisemitizm. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnoshenia, 2001. Loyev, Moisei. Ukradennaia muza: Vospominania o Kievskom gosu­dar­ stven­nom evreiskom teatre imeni Sholom-Aleikhema, Khar­kov–­­­­­­­ Kiev–Chernovtsy, 1925–1950. Kiev: Dukh i Litera, 2004. Markish, Ester. Stol’ dolgoe vozvrashchenie . . . Vospominania. Moscow: E. Markish, 1989. Miller, Boris. Iasnost’: Povesti, rasskazy, novelly. Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1974. Mitsel, Mikhail. Evrei Ukrainy v 1943–1955 gg.: Ocherki dokumentirovannoi istorii. Kiev: Dukh i Litera, 2004. Naumov, Vladimir, ed. Nepravednyi sud: poslednii stalinskii rasstrel: Stenogramma sudebnogo protsessa nad chlenami Evreiskogo antifashistskogo komiteta. Moscow: Nauka, 1994. Vaiserman, David. Birobidzhan: Mechty i tragedia. Khabarovsk: RIOTIP, 1999. Vovsi-Mikhoels, Natalia. Moi otets Solomon Mikhoels (vospominania o zhizni i gibeli). Tel Aviv: Yakov Press, 1984.

English, German, French

Abramowich, Shalom Jacob (Mendele Mocher Seforim). The Travels and Adventures of Benjamin the Third. Translated by Moshe Spiegel. New York: Schocken Books, 1949. Applebaum, Anne. Gulag: A History. New York: Anchor Books, 2003.

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Bibliography

Arad, Yitzhak. The Holocaust in the Soviet Union. Lincoln/Jerusalem: University of Nebraska Press/Yad Vashem, 2009. Armstrong, John A., ed. Soviet Partisans in World War II. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964. Bechtel, Delphine. Der Nister’s Work, 1907–1929: A Study of a Yiddish Symbolist. Berne: Peter Lang, 1990. Biale, David. Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979. Boehlich, Sabine. “Nay-gayst”: Mystische Traditionen in einer symbolistischen Erzählung des jiddischen Autors “Der Nister” (Pinkhas Kahanovitsh). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008. Buber, Martin. For the Sake of Heaven. Translated by Ludwig Lewisohn. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1945. Emiot, Israel. The Birobidzhan Affair: A Yiddish Writer in Siberia. Translated by Max Rosenfeld. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1981. Estraikh, Gennady. In Harness: Yiddish Writers’ Romance with Communism. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2005. Estraikh, Gennady, Kerstin Hoge, and Mikhail Krutikov, eds. Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister. Oxford: Legenda, 2014. Gitelman, Zvi, ed. Bitter Legacy: Confronting the Holocaust in the USSR. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. Graetz, Heinrich. Geschichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart. Leipzig Leiner, 1897–1911. Horn, Dara. The World to Come. New York: Norton, 2006. Kotlerman, Ber. In Search of Milk and Honey: The Theater of ‘Soviet Jewish Statehood’ (1934–49). Bloomington, IN: Slavica, 2009. Kuchenbecker, Antje. Zionismus ohne Zion. Birobid an: Idee und Geschichte eines jüdischen Staates in Sowjet-Fernost. Berlin: Metropol, 2000. Maggs, Peter B. The Mandelstam and “Der Nister” Files: An Introduction to Stalin-era Prison and Labor Camp Records. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996. Mark, Zvi. The Scroll of Secrets: The Hidden Messianic Vision of R. Nachman of Breslav. Translated by Naftali Moses. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2010.

Bibliography

Markish, Esther. The Long Return. Translated by D. I. Goldstein. New York: Ballantine Books, 1978. Murav, Harriet. Music from a Speeding Train: Jewish Literature in Post-­Revolution Russia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011. Pinkus, Benjamin. The Soviet Government and the Jews, 1948–1967: A Documented Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Rabinowicz, Harry M. Hasidism: The Movement and Its Masters. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1988. Redlich, Shimon. War, Holocaust, and Stalinism: A Documented History of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR. Luxembourg: Harwood, 1995. Roskies, David G. A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. Rubenstein, Joshua, and Vladimir Naumov, eds. Stalin’s Secret Pogrom: The Postwar Inquisition of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press/The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2001. Sherman, Joseph, and Gennady Estraikh, eds. David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism. Oxford: Legenda, 2007. Shneer, David. Yiddish and the Creation of Soviet Jewish Culture: 1918– 1930. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Sholem Aleichem. The Great Fair: Scenes from My Childhood. Translated by Tamara Kahana. New York: Noonday, 1955. ___. The Old Country. Translated by Julius Butwin and Frances Butwin. New York: Crown, 1946. Srebrnik, Henry Felix. Dreams of Nationhood: American Jewish Communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan Project, 1924–1951. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2010. ___. Jerusalem on the Amur: Birobidzhan and the Canadian Jewish Communist Movement, 1924–1951. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008. Stalin, Joseph. Marxism and the National and Colonial Question. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1942.

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Stegmaier, Werner, and Daniel Krochmalnik, eds. Jüdischer Nietzscheanismus. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997. Urban, Martina. Aesthetics of Renewal: Martin Buber’s Early Representation of Hasidism as Kulturkritik. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Wagner, Helmut. Rechte in der Rada: Swoboda,’ Nationalismus und Kollaboration mit den Faschisten in der Ukraine und in Europa. Berlin: Verlag am Park, 2013. Weinberg, Robert. Stalin’s Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland—An Illustrated History, 1928–1996. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Weiss, Joseph. Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism. Edited by David Goldstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985. Wisse, Ruth. The Modern Jewish Canon: A Journey through Language and Culture. New York: Free Press, 2000.

ARTICLES

Yiddish and Hebrew

Belenki, Moyshe. “A vort vegn Dem Nister.” In Vidervuks: ­dertseylungen, noveln, by Der Nister, 5–16. Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1969. ___. “Der Nister (eynike shtrikhn fun zayn kharakter un shafung).” Yerusholaymer almanakh 22 (1992): 208–20. Emiot, Yisroel. “Der Nister in Birobidzhan (a bintl zikhroynes).” Di goldene keyt 43 (1962): 77–83. Fridman, Shmuel. “Hamitkahashim lilvavam (‘im sifro shel D. Bergelson ‘’Al gdot ha-Dnyepr’).” Moznaim 19 (1945): 111–15. ___. “Birkat Bil’am (‘im sifro shel Nister ‘Beyt Mashber’).” Moznaim 19 (1945): 248–51. Golomb, Avrom. “Fun zeyer onheyb: zikhroynes.” Zamlbikher 8 (1952): 249–56. Kerler, Yoysef. “Der Nister (1884–1950).” In Geklibene proze (eseyen, zikhroynes, dertseylungen), by Yoysef Kerler, 109–24. Jerusalem: Yerusholaymer almanakh, 1991.

Bibliography

“Kh’ Kalinins rede afn ufnem fun der moskver arbeter-delegatsye, vos hot im bazukht dem 28/V 1934.” In Di yidishe avtonome gegnt—a kind fun der oktyaber-revolyutsye, edited by Shimen Dimanshteyn, 39–44. Moscow: Der Emes, 1934. Lvovski, Yankev. “Der Nister in zayne yugnt-yorn.” Sovetish heymland 3 (1963): 106–9. Mayzil, Nakhmen. “Der Nister (1884–).” In Forgeyer un mittsaytler, by Nakhmen Mayzil, 342–60. New York: YKUF, 1946. ___. “Der Nister—mentsh un kinstler.” In Dertseylungen un eseyen, by Der Nister, 9–29. New York: YKUF, 1957. Miler, Buzi. “Birobidzhan.” Birobidzhan 1–2 (1946): 3–86. ___. “Emke.” Sovetish heymland 8 (1971): 49–58. ___. “Er is fun Birobidzhan.” Birobidzhan 3 (1947): 7–67. Niger, Shmuel. “Der Nister.” Zamlbikher 8 (1952): 64–75. Novershtern, Avraham. “Der Nister.” In The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, edited by Gershon David Hundert, 2:402–4. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. ___. “Igrotav shel Der Nister el Shmuel Niger.” Hulyot/Ringen 1 (1993): 159–244. Okrutni, Yosef. “Der dikhter Yisroel Emiot (tsu zayne zekhtsik yor).” Di goldene keyt 71 (1970): 133–43. Perlmuter, Shlomo. “Hem halkhu la’ir . . . ” In Yatmut: dapey zikaron lekehilat Ratna, edited by Shlomo Perlmuter, 11–15. Tel Aviv: Irgun yotsey Ratna, 1951. ___. “Pirkey Moskva 1944-1946: miyomano shel partizan yehudi ts’ayir.” Yalkut moreshet 33 (1982): 7–44. ___. “Gihley retamim.” In Ratna: sipura shel kehila yehudit shehushmeda, edited by Nahman Tamir, 161–65. Tel Aviv: Irgun yotsey Ratna be-Yisrael, 1983. Sadan, Dov. “’Al kokhav hageula: beyn reshito shel Der Nister leaharito.” Davar, September 16, 1977, 15. ___. “’Al kokhav hageula.” In Orhot u-shvilim: sofrey yidish, 116–28. Tel Aviv: ’Am ’oved, 1979. ___. “Mai Der Nister?” Hulyot/Ringen 9 (2005): 305–11.

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268

Bibliography

___. “Pirhey no’ar.” In Orhot u-shvilim: sofrey yidish, 108–16. Tel Aviv: ’Am ’oved, 1979. Shmeruk, Hone. “Arb’a igrot shel Der Nister: letoldot sifro ‘Di mishpokhe Mashber’ vehadpasotav.” Behinot 8–9 (1980): 223–46. ___. “Der Nister: hayav u-yetsirato.” In Hanazir ve-hagdiya: sipurim, shirim, maamarim, by Der Nister, 9–46. Jerusalem: Mosad Byalik, 1963. Shtern, Yisroel. “Kroynen tsum kop fun der yidisher kritik.” In Varshever shrift, edited by Sholem Ash et al., 56:1–42. Warsaw: Literatn-klub baym fareyn fun yidishe literatn un zhurnalistn, 1926–1927. Tshernyak, Yoysef. “Der Nister un zayn gvies-eydes.” Di goldene keyt 53 (1965): 214–15. Yanasovitsh, Itskhok. “Der Nister.” In Mit yidishe shrayber in Rusland, by Itskhok Yanasovitsh, 213–50. Buenos Aires: Kiyemfarlag, 1959.

English, Russian, German

Armstrong, John A., and Kurt DeWitt. “Organisation and Control of the Partisan Movement.” In Soviet Partisans in World War II, edited by John A. Armstrong, 73–140. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1964. Caplan, Marc. “Watch the Throne: Allegory, Kingship and Trauerspiel in the Stories of Der Nister and Reb Nakhman.” In Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister, edited by Gennady Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge, and Mikhail Krutikov, 90–110. Oxford: Legenda, 2014. Carr, Maurice. “The Julia Flaum Story,” Israel Magazine 2, no. 11 (1970): 21–41. Estraikh, Gennady. “The Kharkiv Yiddish Literary World, 1920s– Mid-1930s.” East European Jewish Affairs 32, no. 2 (2002): 70–88. ___. “Yiddish Language Conference Aborted.” East European Jewish Affairs 25, no. 2 (1995): 91–96. Finkin, Jordan. “Der Nister’s Hebrew Nosegay.” In Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister, edited by Gennady

Bibliography

Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge, and Mikhail Krutikov, 27–40. Oxford: Legenda, 2014. Kotlerman, Ber. “If There Had Been No Synagogue There, They Would Have Had to Invent It: The Case of the Birobidzhan Religious Community of the Judaic Creed’ on the Threshold of Perestroika.” East European Jewish Affairs 42, no. 2 (2012): 87–98. ___. “‘We Are Lacking ‘A Man Dieth in a Tent’: Der Nister’s Search for Redemption in the Summer of 1947.” In Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister, edited by Gennady Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge, and Mikhail Krutikov, 174–84. Oxford: Legenda, 2014. ___. “‘Why I Am in Favour of Birobidzhan’: Bergelson’s Fateful Decision.” In David Bergelson: From Modernism to Socialist Realism, edited by Joseph Sherman and Gennady Estraikh, 222–35. Oxford: Legenda, 2007. Kotlerman, Boris. “Geshl Rabinkov: ‘Mutnaia volna natsionalizma zasorila mne mozgi.’” Novosti nedeli—Evreiskii kamerton, May 12, 1995. Krochmalnik, Daniel. “Neue Tafeln. Nietzsche und die jüdische Counter-­ History.” In Jüdischer Nietzscheanismus, edited by Werner Stegmaier and Daniel Krochmalnik, 53–81. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1997. Krutikov, Mikhail. “In Search of a Soviet Yiddishland: The Poetics of Absence in Shmuel Gordon’s Travelogue.” Aschkenas 24, no. 1 (2014): 129–43. ___. “Turning My Soul Inside Out: Text and Context of The Family Mashber.” In Uncovering the Hidden: The Works and Life of Der Nister, edited by Gennady Estraikh, Kerstin Hoge, and Mikhail Krutikov, 111–44. Oxford: Legenda, 2014. Lumkis, Ilia. “With the New Contingent of Birobidjan Settlers.” Ambijan Bulletin 6, no. 5 (1947): 8–10, 15. Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben.” In Deutsche Geschichtsphilosophie von Lessing bis Jaspers, published by Kurt Rossmann, 330–65. Bremen: Carl Schünemann, 1959. ___. “On the Utility and Liability of History for Life.” In Unfashionable Observations, Vol. 2 of The Complete Works of Friedrich

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Bibliography

270

Nietzsche, translated by Richard T. Gray, 83–167. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. Stalin, Iosif. “Marksizm i natsional’nyi vopros.” In Sochinenia, by Iosif Stalin, 2:290–367. Moscow: OGIZ, 1946. Roskies, David G. “The Re-education of Der Nister, 1922–1929.” In Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union, edited by Yaacov Ro’i, 201–11. Ilford, Essex: Frank Cass, 1995. Weinberg, Robert. “Birobidzhan after the Second World War.” Jews in Eastern Europe 3 (49) (2002): 31–46. ___. “Jewish Revival in Birobidzhan in the Mirror of Birobidzhanskaya zvezda, 1946–49.” East European Jewish Affairs 26, no. 1 (1996): 35–53.

ENCYCLOPEDIAS, DOCUMENT COLLECTIONS, ANTHOLOGIES Yiddish and Hebrew

Altshuler, Mordechai, ed. Pirsumim rusiim bevrit hamo′atsot ′al yehudim veyahadut, 1917–1967. Jerusalem: Aguda leheker tfutsot Israel, Hahevra hahistorit haisraelit, 1970. ___. ed. Yahadut Brit hamo’atsot beaspaklaria shel ’itonut yidish be-Polin, 1945–1970. Jerusalem: The Hebrew University in Jerusalem/Institute of Contemporary Jewry/Center for Research and Documentation of East-European Jewry, 1975. Cohen, Berl, ed. Leksikon fun yidish-shraybers. New York: R. IlmanCohen, 1986. Oyerbakh, Efraim, Yankev Birnboym, Eliyohu Shulman, and Moyshe Shtarkman, eds. Leksikon fun der nayer yidisher literatur. Vols. 1–8. New York: Alveltlekher yidisher kultur‑kongres, 1956–1981. Reyzen, Zalman, ed. Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur, prese un filologye. Vols. 1–4. Vilna: B. Kleckin, 1926–1929. Shmeruk, Khone, ed. A shpigl oyf a shteyn. Antologye: poezye un proze fun tsvelf farshnitene yidishe shraybers in Ratn-farband. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press/The Hebrew University, 1987. ___. ed. Pirsumim yehudiim bevrit hamo’atsot, 1917–1960. Jerusalem: The Historical Society of Israel, 1961.

Bibliography

Zamlung: fun shafungen fun yidishe shrayber un dikhter in Ratnfarband. Rio de Janeiro: Tsentral-Komitet YKUF in Brazil, 1956. Zilbertsvayg, Zalman, ed. Leksikon fun yidishn teater. Vols. 1–6. New York: Elisheva, 1931–1969.

Russian

Babichenko, Denis, comp. “Literaturnyi front.” Istoria politicheskoi tsenzury, 1932–1946 gg. Sbornik dokumentov. Moscow: Entsiklopedia rossiiskikh dereven’, 1994. Branover, Herman, ed. Rossiiskaia evreiskaia entsiklopedia. Moscow: Rossiiskaia academia estestvennykh nauk/Rossiisko-­ izrail’skii entsiklopedicheskii tsentr “Epos,” 1994–2000. Kostyrchenko, Grigori, comp. Gosudarstvennyi antisemitizm v SSSR: Ot nachala do kul’minatsii, 1938–1953 (dokumenty). Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi fond “Demokratia”/Materik, 2005. Organizatsia KPSS Evreiskoi avtonomnoi oblasti: 1934–1985 gody. Khabarovsk: Knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1990. Ugolovnyi kodeks RSFSR (s izmeneniami na 1 oktiabria 1934 goda). Moscow: Sovetskoe zakonodatel’stvo, 1934. Zhuravlev, Vladimir, and Iosif Brener, comps. Kniga pamiati zhertv politicheskikh repressii na territorii Evreiskoi avtonomnoi oblasti. Birobidzhan: Izdatel’skii dom “Birobidzhan,” 2011.

English and German

Gordon Mlotek, Eleanor, Joseph Mlotek, and Tsirl Waletzky, comps. Pearls of Yiddish Song: Favorite Folk, Art and Theatre Songs with Yiddish Texts and Music, Parallel Transliterations, Translations, Historical Background, Guitar Chords. New York: Education Dept. of the Workmen’s Circle, 1988. Hundert, Gershon David, ed. The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Klatzkin, Jacob, ed. Encyclopaedia Judaica: Das Judentum in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Berlin: Verlag Eschkol, 1928–1934. Rossmann, Kurt, publ. Deutsche Geschichtsphilosophie von Lessing bis Jaspers. Bremen: Carl Schünemann, 1959.

271

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Bibliography

Spector, Shmuel, and Geoffrey Wigoder, eds. ‫‏‬The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust. Foreword by Elie Wiesel. Jerusalem/New York: Yad Vashem/New York University Press, 2001. Vinkovetzky, Aharon, ed., and Sinai Leichter, comp. Anthology of Yiddish Folksongs. Jerusalem: Mount Scopus Publications by Magnes Press, 1983–1985.

Index

A

Alberton, Meir, 10 Alexandria, 89 Aleksandrovskoe, 137 Aleksandrovsky Central Prison, 134 Ambijan Bulletin, 12, 76, 129 anti-Semitism, 5, 182, 194–195, 198, 212, 227, 235 “anti-Soviet nationalist activity” of Der Nister, 117–135 arrest of Der Nister, 113–114, 124 “Der Nister Affair” according to the Khabarovsk MGB Directorate, 132–134 “anti-Soviet nationalist grouping” in Birobidzhan (Case No. 68), 139–243 bill indictment, 233–238 charges, 130, 134 detention order, 140–144 interrogation records, 145–192, 199–202, 207–222, 231 records of confrontation, 193–198, 223–230 sentence, 241–243 statement of the Birobidzhan Writers Section, 124 testimony, 203–206 Argentina, 77 Arones, Faivish, xv, 118, 130–131, 136, 145, 198, 215, 217–228, 233, 237–238 Avrech, Yosef, 97

B

badchen, 3 Bakhmutski, Aleksandr, 10, 15, 17–18, 21n8, 76, 83–84, 105, 118–120, 127, 132, 153–154, 156, 162, 174, 188, 196–198, 219–220

Bar Kokhba, 174, 183n4, 205 Baskin, Iosif, 117–118 Baikal, 3 Belarus (Belorussia), 175n10, 181, 189n2, 199n2 Belenki, Moishe, 6, 84, 95 Belinsky, Vissarion, 82 Bengelsdorf, Moishe, 183n5, 204 Bengelsdorf, Sergo, 18n47 Berdyczewski, Micha Yosef, 68, Bergelson, David, xvi, 9–10, 59, 80, 94, 142, 155–156, 158, 169–173, 177, 195, 198, 236–237 Bershad, 7, 30–32 Biale, David, 68 Bialik, Chaim Nachman, 56, 56n5, 205n3 Bialystok, 136 Birobidzhan, 5–6 First Regional Congress of Soviets, 9 Jewish writers in, 131, 237 Markish’s pessimism about, 9 new migrants at, 14–19, 35–54 Soviet Jewish cultural construction in, 15 “Birobidzhan Affair,” xivn6, xvi, 122, 129 Birobidzhaner shtern newspaper, 16, 76, 104, 123, 131, 146–149, 151, 155–160, 164, 166, 173–174, 183, 185, 187, 189, 196–198, 218–219, 235–238 Birobidzhanism, 100 Birobidzhan manifesto, xvii–xviii, 109, 243–256 Birobidzhan project, 6, 10, 82, 108, 129 Birobidzhan Radio Committee, 238 Birobidzhanskaia zvezda newspaper, 105, 118, 131 Birobidzhan State Yiddish Theater (Birobidzhan GOSET), 78, 102, 130, 179, 183, 204, 219, 220, 223, 226

Index

274 Birobidzhan Writers Section, 124 Black Hundreds, 80 Bolshevik revolution of 1917, 109 Book of Eikha, 99 Branzburg, Iosif, 117, 122 Breslau (Wrocław), 165n9 Breslov, 57n9, 60, 64 Brokhin, Zinovy, 18, 76, 83, 106, 118–119, 122, 161, 198, 220 Buber, Martin, 57 Gog and Magog (Gog u’Magog), 58 Budenny, Semen, 36 Buenos Aires, 99, 138 Bumagin, Iosif, 164, 165n9

C

Chagall, Marc, 8 Chechelnik, 7 Chekhov, Anton, 81 Cherniak, Yosef, 75, 104, 118, 133–134 converts to Judaism, 36 Crimea, 5, 7, 11, 20, 36–37, 157, 170 Cyprus, 98

D

Daniel, Meir (Mordechai Meerovich), 178 Davar newspaper, 58 Dedov, Afanasy, 76, 124 Der Emes Moscow publishing house, 6, 56, 96, 98, 124, 169, 181–183, 220 Der Nister (Pinkhas Kahanovitsh), 3–4 about Jewish people, 111–112 Aron (older brother), 64 arrival at Birobidzhan, 14–18 biography, 62–64 “Birobidzhan Manifesto,” 109, 243–256 charges against writings of (Case No.68), 117–135 Commission for the Exposure of the Nationalist Elements in the Writings of Der Nister, 119 concern for the needs of new settlers, 18 death, 134 descriptions of the Breslov Hasidim, 60–61 development of Jewish (Yiddish) culture, 102–114

The Family Mashber (Di mishpokhe Mashber), 56–57, 56n3, 58, 65–66, 74–76, 78, 156, 158 “Grandfather and Grandson” (“Der zeyde mitn eynikl”), 78–79 “Hate” (“Has”), 87–89, 91–101 historical silliness, 68–69 idea of Jewish independence, 113 influence of two “complexes,” 89 Iosif (his son), 101 “New Spirit” (“Nay-gayst”), 89–91 open letter to Bergelson, 9–10 phenomenon of Jewish “wandering,” 66–70 restoration of “the national building,” 99–100 Stories and Essays (Dertseylungen un eseyen), 22 symbolist parable “Under a Fence” (“Unter a ployt”), 71 teaching of Yiddish language, 104–105 with the new settlers to Birobidzhan, 20–22, 35–54, 120 Der tsveyter eshelon wall newspaper, 11 Diamant, Hershl, 175, 175n11, 177 Dobin, Hirsh, 175, 175n10, 176n15, 177, 203–204 Dobrushin, Yekhezkel, 9, 124, 156–159, 170–171, 195, 236 Drisin, Aleksandr, 146, 219, 223–228 Druzhinin, Vladimir, 94

E

Egypt, 31, 57n12, 99, 120–121 Efimov, Aleksandr, 127 Ehrenburg, Ilya, 95 Emiot, Isroel (Isroel Yanovski-Goldvasser), 15–16, 55–56, 61–62, 75, 80–82, 103, 118–119, 123, 129, 131–132, 135–136, 145, 155–157, 159, 161–162, 173, 177, 231–233 Epshtein, Shakhne, 178, 189, 189n2 Ettinger, Yakov, 95 Eynikayt newspaper, 6, 12, 45, 83, 85, 87, 106–107, 120, 124, 155–156, 164–165, 174, 181–184, 212 Eynikayt (New York), 21–22

Index

F

Far Eastern Motion Picture Newsreel Studio, 15 Fedorov, General Aleksei, 92, 94 The Last Winter (Posledniaia zima), 92, 93n9 Fefer, Itsik, viii, xvi, 6, 9, 22, 91, 94, 124, 128, 132–133, 155, 169, 174–177, 188–189, 191, 198, 235 Feldman, David, 175, 175n9, 176–178 Fichman, Jacob, 99 Finland, 46n12 Flaum, Julia, 102 Forpost, 9, 185 Fradkin, Mikhail, 118, 155, 157, 159 France, 77, 109 Frid, Grigori, 128, 131, 199, 199n2, 201 Fridman, Nokhem, 118, 123, 142, 155–158, 198 Fridman, Shmuel (Shmuel Elyashiv), 59, 59n18–19, 82

G

Gen, Tevye, 175, 175n12 Gershkov, Abram, 8, 211–213, 211n2 Glider, Mikhail, 94 Glik, Hirsh, 17 Godiner, Shmuel, 9 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 74 Goglidze, Colonel-General Sergo, 126–127 Gokhfeld, K. A., 234 Goldblat, Moishe, 218 Goldfaden, Avrom, 33, 205n2 Gordon, Shmuel, 102n2, 108, 113, 135 Gorky, Maxim, 201n4 Gorokhovski, B. E., 123, 142, 154 Graetz, Heinrich, 57, 81

H

Hasidim Breslov, 57n9, 60 Gerer, 62, 62n26 Korostyshev (Karshev), 63 Shtefanesht, 97 Heymland, 106, 120 Haysin, 7, 37 Hofshtein, David, xvi, 9, 124, 169

Holocaust, xiii, xvii–xix, 4, 17, 72, 129 Horodishche, 137

I

Ikor commune, 76–77 Irkutsk, 12, 134, 138, 241 Israel Historical Society, 56

J

Japanese prisoners of war, 12, 50 JAR Publishing House, 83 Jerusalem, xiv, 58, 88–90, 99 Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAFC), 6, 10, 20, 22, 55, 58, 106, 124, 130–133, 170, 185, 187–189, 191, 220–221, 235 Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR), 6, 8–10, 13–16, 21, 24–25, 74, 76–77, 83, 102, 104–108, 117–118, 120, 123, 127–129, 133, 140, 142, 146, 148, 153–155, 160, 162, 164, 171–173, 183, 188, 206, 211, 215, 218 Jewish “wandering,” phenomenon of, 66–70 Judean Kingdom, 31

K

Kademi, 153 Kagan, Matvei, 8 Kaganovich, Lazar, 17, 83, 234 Kaganovitch, Max (Motl), 63 Kahan, Avrom, 178 Kahanovitsh, Pinkhas (Kaganovich, P. M.). See Der Nister Kalinin, Mikhail, 25n2, 74 Karlin Hasidism, 97 Karlos, Mania (Miriam), 179, 181 Kazakevich, Emmanuil, 171, 171n7, 175–177, 176n15 Kazakevich, Henekh, 175, 175n13 Kazakhstan, 55, 117 Kazatin, 7 Kerler, Yosef, xv, 6–7, 12–13 17, 55, 74–75, 81, 85, 98n18, 105, 118, 123–124, 158–159 Kharik, Izi, 9 Khabarovsk, xv, xvi, xix, 15, 127–128, 132, 140, 145, 151, 163, 169, 179, 189, 193, 199, 201, 207, 211, 215, 217, 223, 231, 233, 241

275

Index

276 Kharkov, 8, 9, 55, 136, 169, 170, 174–177, 185 Khmelnik, 7, 13, 48 Khmelnik Jewish community, 48 Khorol, 137, 211 Kibel, Shmuel, 8, 13, 56n5 Kiev, 8, 9, 85, 92n8, 93n9, 124, 137, 138, 169, 178, 179, 185, 234, Kipnis, Itsik, 85, 85n39, 106 Kishinev, 3, 138 Klimenko, Filipp, 119 Klitenik, Shmuel, 171 Kochina, Shifra, 212, 212n5 Komi Autonomous Republic (Komi ASSR), 134 Komsomol members, 11 Kopai, 140, 243 Kovel, 88, 92n8, 93n9, 95, 97, 98 Kovpak, Sidor, 94 Kreiderman, Toivi, 11 Krivoruk, Simcha, 8 Krutikov, Mikhail, 102n2 Kryzhopol, 7 Kushnirov, Aron, 106 Kvitko, Leib, xvi, 6, 11, 169–171, 175–178, 185, 178

L

Lefortovo Prison, 131 Lenin, Vladimir, 15, 80, 137 Leningrad, 10, 56, 72, 156, 201, 204–206 Leninskie Gorki, 91, 94 Lenski, Chaim (Chaim Lenski-Shteinson), 201n3, 206 Lev, Mishe, ix, xviii, 5n5, 7, 102, 212n4 Levi Yitzhak, Rabbi, 63, 63n33 Levitin, Mikhail, xvi, 118, 127 Lithuania, 77, 97, 175n12 Litin, 7 Łódź, 13 Lukianiuk, Ivan, 92, 92n8, 93 Lumkis, Ilia, xiv, 6–7, 12, 15, 38n6, 146 Trains Are Going to Birobidzhan (Eshelonen geyen keyn ­Birobidzhan), 12 Luria, Shalom, xiii

M

Maggs, Peter, xvii, 133–134 Maizler, Borukh, 11, 11n24, 35n2 Malakhovka Jewish Children’s Colony, 8 Maltinski, Chaim, 118–119, 126, 155–159, 215 Mandatory Palestine, 8, 38, 55, 58, 117, 121, 137, 138, 197, 203–206, 234 Markish, Esther, 9, 113, 169–171, 187 Markish, Perets, xvi, 6, 9, 17, 20, 59, 84, 94, 147, 155, 178, 187 Uprising in the Ghetto (Ufshtand in geto), 17 Matov, Yosef (Saaroni, Iosefon), 205n4 Mayzel, Nachman, 64, 73, 107 migrant trains, 3, 5 arrival at Birobidzhan, 14–19 JAR, 13–14 Vinnitsa to Birobidzhan, 3, 5 Vinnitsa to Moscow, 6–7 wedding ceremony, 12–13, 15, 47–51 Mielec, 78–80 Mikhoels, Solomon, 6, 95, 106–107, 132–133, 155, 179, 187 Miller, Buzi (Ber Meiler), 21, 55, 105, 118–119, 123, 127–128, 131, 136–137, 140, 142–143, 145–150, 185, 187–188, 193, 195–196, 215, 217–222, 235 Minlag Prison Camp, 134 Miller, Mark, xv Minsk, 9, 107n15, 119, 129, 136, 169, 175n10, 199n2, 203, 205, 220n5 Mohilev-Podolski, 7, 41–43, 46 Moscow, 6–13, 16, 18, 21, 23–24, 26–28, 46, 55, 59, 78, 87, 94, 98, 103, 106–107, 113–114, 119, 124, 127–128, 131, 133–134 Moscow State Jewish Seminar of Theater (MGETU), 21, 91, 95 Moscow State Yiddish Theater (Mocow GOSET), 6, 95, 78, 106 Murafa, 7 Murav, Harriet, 89

N

Nachman of Breslov, Rabbi, 57n9, 61–62 Collected Teachings (Likutey Moharan), 57

Index Naumov, Vladimir, xvi Naylebn, 22, 130 Nemirov, 7 new settlers to Birobidzhan, 20, 35–54 New York, 12, 21, 22, 56n3, 60, 64, 73, 76, 107, 138, 171n6, 189n2, 212n6 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 68, 68n41–42 Niger, Shmuel, 60 Nikolayev, 41 Niyazi, Hamza Hakimzade, 78 Novik, Pesakh (Paul), 212, 212n6, 234 Nusinov, Isaac, 124, 170, 171, 195, 235

Rabinkov, Heshl (Rabinkov, G. B.), 55, 77, 118, 122, 124–125, 127–128, 137, 142, 155–157, 162–163, 173, 177, 181–184, 194–195, 231–233, 235 Rabinkov, Rabbi Zalman Barukh, 137 Raize, Chaim, 201n4 Ratno, 88, 93, 96–98 Reisen, Zalman, 64 resettlement of Jews in the JAR, 6 Riga, 136 Rochester, NY, 136 Russian revolution of 1905, 109 Russian Theater Company, 94

O

S

Obluchye, 13–14 Obodovka, 7 Odessa, 5, 37, 56 Oksenhoit, Lusia, 13 Olitski, Shloimke (Shloime Perlmutter), 91, 93–96 Ratno: The Story of a Jewish Community That Was Destroyed, 97 Olitski, Rabbi Shlomo Aharon, 97 Orwell, George, 134 Ozerlag Prison Camp, 134 Ostrów-Mazowiecka, 62n26, 136 Ozersky, First Lieutenant, 132, 223

P

Paris, xix, 63 Passover haggadah, 41n9, 57, 57n12 Pechera (Pechora) concentration camp, 42–43 Pedaya, Haviva, 73 Perets, Yitzhak Leibush, 56, 81 Pesin, Matvei, 118–120, 147 Pinchevski, Shmulik, 13 Plotsky, Rabbi Meir Dan, 62, 62n26 Pokrass brothers, 17 Poland, 8, 13, 15, 37n4, 55, 56, 59, 62, 77, 79, 81, 88, 98, 103, 136, 171n6, 220n5, 233 Poliansky, Dmitry, 119 Pushkin, Aleksandr, 150

R

Rabin, Yosef, 171, 171n5

Sadan, Dov, 58n17, 89–90, 100 Shepilov, Dmitry, 114 Shimeliovich, Boris, 6 Shlonsky, Avraham, 205n3 Shmeruk, Chone, 100 shokhet, 3, 35, 35n2, 49 Sholem Aleichem, 38, 42, 56, 147–148, 156, 197, 237–238 Shtefanesht Hasidim, 97 Shtein, Aleks (Aleksei, Eliyahu), 102, 218n3, 220, 220n5 Shtern, Isroel, 81–82, 81n28 Shternberg, Yankev, 3 Sicily, 89 Sigalovski, Lena, 95, 95n13, 113 Siniavski-Sindelevich, Shimen (Semen), xv, 8, 12, 38n7, 137 Slavatyche, 138 Slutski, Ber, xv–xvi, 55, 85, 118, 129, 134, 137–138, 145, 155–156, 159, 161–162, 177, 181–184, 193, 198, 231–237 Sobieski, Jan III, 37, 37n4 Solovki Prison Camp, 201n4 Sosenski, Shlomo, 205, 205n4–5 Sosnitsa, 137 Soviet Jewish Statehood, xiv, xvii, 6, 15, 21, 77, 129 Soviet nationalities policy, 109 Sovinformburo, 10 Stalin, Joseph, 111, 113 “What is a nation?”, 109–111 Strongin, Lev, 6 Sukharev, Hirsh, 148

277

Index

278

T

Tel Aviv, 58–60, 80, 205n3 Tolstoy, Leo, 107 Transnistria, 31 Trans-Siberian Railroad, 10 Trostianets, 7 Tsirkel, N., 158 Trumpeldor, Joseph, 206n6 Tverski, K. G., 234 Twersky, Rabbi Mordechai, 63n31, 63n32 Twersky, Rabbi Moshe, 63, 63n31 Tychyna, Pavlo, 136

U

Ukraine, xiii, 5–7, 20, 23, 31, 80, 83, 94, 136–137, 170–171, 181, 194–195, 211, 233–234 Uman, 57n9 Umari, Amin, 78 United States, 22, 77, 107, 125, 132, 212, USSR Ministry of Transportation, 11 USSR Writers Union, 10, 124, 137 Uzbekistan, 5

V

Vaiserman, David, 120 Valdheim, 84, 117, 153, 212n5 Vasserman, Luba, xv, xix, 18, 55, 118, 123, 129, 138 203–204 206 Vassershtrum, Rabbi Naftoli Meilekh, 79 Vershigora, Petr, 94 Vilna ghetto, 17

Vinnitsa, 7, 8, 23, 26, 27, 42n11, 48, 140, 211–213, 242 Volodarskaia, S. D., 234

W

Warsaw, 56, 81, 138 Warta, 62n26 Weiss, Joseph, 64

Y

Yaakov Yitzhak of Przyscha (“The Holy Jew”), Rabbi, 57–58 Yaakov Yitzhak Horowitz of Lublin (“The Seer of Lublin”), Rabbi, 57 Yampol, 7 Yanasovich, Yitzhak, 103, 112, 135 Yarmitski, Abram, 15 Yatsiv, Yitzhak, 80 Yashen, Kamil, 78 Yom Kippur prayers, 79

Z

Zaporozhye, 6 Zhits, Gershon, 6, 184 Zilbershtein, Mikhail (Moishe), 15, 76, 118, 127, 154, 156, 196, 198 Zionism, xiv, 56n5, 97, 100 Zhmerinka, 7 Zohar (Book of Splendor), 57, 62, 81 Zubernik, 161 Zunz, Leopold, 57 Zvezda and Leningrad, 126, 163

Ber Kotlerman is Associate Professor at the Department of Literature of the Jewish People, Bar Ilan University, where in 2011-14 he served as Academic Director of the Rena Costa Center for Yiddish Studies. His fields of interest include Jewish history in Russia, Eastern Europe, and Far East, Yiddish and Hebrew literature, Jewish theater and cinema. He is the author of Disenchanted Tailor in “Illusion”: Sholem Aleichem behind the Scenes of Early Jewish Cinema (Bloomington, IN, 2014), The Cultural World of Soviet Jewry (Raanana, 2014), In Search of Milk and Honey: The Theater of “Soviet Jewish Statehood” (Bloomington, IN, 2009), and Bauhaus in Birobidzhan (Tel Aviv, 2008); the editor of Mizrekh: Jewish Studies in the Far East, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main, 2009 and 2011), Yiddish Theater: Literature, Culture, and Nationalism (Ramat Gan, 2009); and the co-editor of Around the Point: Studies in Jewish Literature and Culture in Multiple Languages (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2014).