American Jewish organizations intend to ask Soviet Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, who is now visiting the United States, to intervene for the restoration of Jewish cultural activities in the Soviet Union as well as for a halt to anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda over the Soviet radio, it was learned here today.
Simultaneously, it was pointed out that today marks two sad anniversaries for Soviet Jewry. It was on January 13, 1948, that actor-director Solomon Mikhoels of the Moscow Jewish Theatre and chairman of the liquidated Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee in the USSR, was assassinated on a street in Minsk by agents of the Soviet secret police. It was also on January 13, 1953, that Moscow published charges against leading Jewish physicians that they had plotted to assassinate, by medical malpractice, top figures in the Kremlin hierarchy.
The assassination of Mikhoels was followed by the liquidation of all Jewish cultural institutions in the Soviet Union and by the wholesale arrest of Yiddish writers and artists, many of whom perished later in Siberia or were executed. The charges against the Jewish physicians were branded as fraudulent by Soviet Premier Nikita S, Khrushchev immediately after the death of Stalin. He ordered the annulment of these charges, declaring that the so-called “doctors’ plot” was a frame-up by the Lavrenti Beria, chief of the Soviet Secret police, who was executed in Moscow following Stalin’s death.
Attention was drawn here to the fact that exactly eight days after these two sad anniversaries occur, the Soviet Communist Party is planning–according to authoritative reports–to raise the “Jewish problem” at its 21st Party Congress in Moscow. Fear was expressed that if the question is raised, it may result in a policy that will be even more draconic in nature, or a subterfuge to create a false impression of Soviet benevolence by offering the Jews resettlement tin Biro-Bidjan, This territory has harrowing associations for Soviet Jews because twice before, after having responded to offers of resettlement in that region, the settlers were tried for allegedly fostering “bourgeois nationalism” in Biro-Bidjan.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
