The Jewish community of Kuibyshev today sent 10,000 rubles to Premier Joseph Stalin with a telegram of blessings containing the suggestion that the money be used for a tank named after Bar Kochba, Jewish hero who led the Jews in their last great struggle against Rome.
Simultaneously, the president of the Kuibyshev Jewish Community, Moshe Feigin, issued a call to all other Jewish religious communities in Russia to follow the example of the Kuibyshev Jews and raise special funds to be sent to Stalin with a view to having a Jewish tank column in the Red Army to be named “the Bar Kochba Tank Column.”
In his message to Stalin, Feigin said: “The Jewish religious community of Kuibyshev is praying for the health of our country’s leader. Joseph Stalin, and for the mighty unconquerable Red Army. Wishing to help in the sacred cause of a speedy victory over the German murderers, the community is contributing 10,000 rubles for the construction of a tank to bear the name of our immortal Jewish hero, Bar Kochba. At the same time it urges all other Jewish religious communities in the U.S.S.R. to collect funds for the construction of a Bar Kochba column of tanks. May these mighty tanks, bearing the name of our national hero, reap vengeance and death among the enemy troops. God bless you!”
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.
