THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Friday, Sept. 13, 1974-67
GRIM REALITY
UP AND UP
It's easy enough to buy lux- Today eating is no longer
ury goods on time — the a matter of taste — every
trouble comes in paying on bite now becomes a matter
time. of cost.
Y evsektsia' Role i
evsektsia's
Effort to Convert
Moscow Synagogue Into Communist Club
By BORIS SMOLAR
(Editor-in-chief emeritus, JTA)
(Copyright 1974, JTA, Inc.)
Best Wishes for a Happy and Prosperous New Year
Mr. and Mrs. Asa Shapiro and Family
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Happy Holiday
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NEW YEAR
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Editor's Note: This is one
of the chapters from Boris
Smolar's forthcoming book
relating high points of his
journalistic experiences in
various parts of the world.
Jewish tourists from the
Americas — and those from
other countries as well—when
they visit Moscow now, make
it a point to see the Great
Choral Synagogue there, the
last citadel of Jewish tradi-
tionalism in the Soviet cap-
ital. Whether or not they are
religious, the Moscow syna-
gogue is for these Jews the
only attractive Jewish ad-
dress in the Soviet Union.
But none of these foreign
Jews knows that this impos-
ing synagogue, situated only
a few minutes walk from the
Kremlin, very nearly became
a Workers' Club in 1928 as a
result of demands that were
made by Moscow Jewish
Communists. The danger was
averted only after I suc-
ceeded in persuading Soviet
Vice President Piotr Smido-
vich and Commissar of Cul-
ture Anatole Lunacharsky to
take an interest in the matter.
Vice President Smidovich
was an exceptionally wonder-
ful person. One of the older
intellectual Communists, he
was a very good-natured in- -
dividual and very sensitive to
Jewish feelings. In addition
to being vice president of the
USSR, he was also commis-
sar for religious affairs as
well as chairman of the sov-
iet governmental committee
COMZET, which was con-
cerned with helping declassed
Jews settle on the land as
farmers. Actually, my friend-
ship with him had its origin
in the contact which I, as
correspondent of the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency in Mos-
cow, developed with him as
a consequence of these two of
his various positions.
Of Commissar Lunacharsky
it is enough to recall that al-
though Hebrew was almost
entirely forbidden in t h e
Soviet Union as a result of
the influence of the "Yevsek-
tsia" — the Jewish Section of
the Communist Party — Lun-
acharsky nevertheless, in
1918, one year after the Com-
munist Revolution, helped or-
ganize the Hebrew" language
theater troupe, Ilabima,
with some of its original
members — among them the
famous actress Chana Rovina
— is now the State Theater
of I-rael. With the aid of
Lunacharsky it was even pos-
sible for the Habimah group
to go abroad for guest per-
formances and then to return
to the Soviet Union. This was
true until 1925, when the
troups became permanent res-
idents of Palestine.
Were it entirely up to Lun-
acharsky, who was a highly
cultured person, Hebrew
would have remained a living
language in the Soviet Union.
But Lunacharsky was under
a considerable amount of
pressure from leaders of the
Yevsektsia, who regarded
Hebrew as an expression of
Zionism, which they strongly
opposed. Nevertheless, he
wept one eye closed to the
fact that even as much as ten
years a f ter the revolution
Hebrew religious books were
being printed in various cities
of the Soviet Union such as
Berdichev, Zhitomir, Minsk,
Slutsk and Bobroisk.
To this day I have in my
archives a small volume by
the rabbi of Slutsk, Ezekiel
Abramski. It is printed in
Hebrew and is entitled Yigdal
Torah. It was published in
Bobroisk in 1927 at the Ko-
munatrost Press and with the
permission of the area censor.
The volume treats of "Torah
and Casuistry" could not
have appeared without the
consent of Lunacharsky, since
he was commissar of cul-
ture.
As late as April 17, 1928—
more than ten years after the
Bolshevik Revolution—while
Lunacharsky was still the
"boss" over culture, the
Moscow newspaper Emes,
leading Yiddish Communist
organ, published an angry
article alleging that Hebrew
books were still being printed
in Bobroisk and Berdichev.
The article related that in
Bobroisk a printing establish-
ment had put out 85,000
copies of Hebrew books-
"which received wide distri-
bution." Berdichev, the
article complained, 100,000 re-
ligious volumes had been
printed. Although his name
was not mentioned in the
article, the charge was, of
course, aimed at Lunachar-
sky for permitting such
things to occur. Emes did
not dare come out openly
against Lunacharsky per-
sonally.
In 1928, when this was
about to happen, the Moscow
Jewish community still
counted many thousands of
traditionalist Jews who were
members of synagogues.
Many of them were not ex-
actly Orthodox, but in the
Soviet Union all the syna-
gogues are still Orthodox-
ust as they were in the Czar-
ist times. Russian Jewry has
no knowledge of Reform
Judaism or of Conservative
synagogues. If anyone is a
member of any synagogue he
can only follow services con-
ducted in the Orthodox tradi-
tion.
The traditional elements of
the Jewish community of Mos-
cow — not only the very re-
ligious, but also those who
had little contact with the
synagogue except on holidays
expressed great indignation
when it became known that
at the end of June, 1928, the
Yevsektisia — the Jewish sec-
tion of the Communist Party
—had applied to the Munici-
pal Soviet of Moscow with a
request that it order the con-
version of the Great Choral
Synagogue into a Workers'
Club. Such acts of turning
synagogues into clubs were
being executed in many Sov-
iet cities at that time, and
the Yevsektsia of Moscow
was determined to bring
about the same thing in Mos-
cow. It chose the city's larg-
est synagogue for its pur-
pose.
Although they knew it was
a dangerous thing for them
to do, some of the leaders of
the directorate of the Moscow
Choral Synagogue decided to
begin gathering signatures on
a petition to the Moscow
Soviet in which they ex-
pressed opposition to the de-
mand of the Yevsektsia.
In those years it was still
possible to obtain a consider-
able number of signatures,
since most of the Jews in
Moscow during that period
were not Communists, but
rather, persons who still fol-
lowed Jewish tradition. Mos-
cow still had two restaurants
serving kosher food — one of
them, near the Choral Syna-
gogue. These two restaurants
were managed as coopera-
tives, which was permissible
under Soviet law, as such
enterprises were not consid-
ered to Ile private enterprises.
During that year, I could
still obtain kosher salami,
'brought to Moscow from a
kosher meat products factory
in Kharkov operated as an
"artel," in cooperative fash-
ion.
The delegation from the
governing board of the Mos-
cow Choral Synagogue also
turned to Dr. Joseph Rosen,
head of the American "Agro-
Joint" in Moscow, which was
established by the Joint Dis-
tribution Committee in New
York to transfer declassed
Jews from various Russian
cities and towns to the Cri-
mea and to settle them in
Jewish agricultural colonies
there. Dr. Rose n" was an
American citizen and the So-
viet Central Government of-
ficials treated him with ex
treme courtesy.
F o r understandable rea-
sons, however, Dr. Rosen' —
who was of great help to the
Jews of the Soviet Union in
their most difficult years —
avoided becoming involved in
internal conflicts within the
rank_s of Soviet Jewry. He
was particularly reluctant to
do anything which might in-
terfere with the work of the
Agro-Joint. He simply did
not want to give the Moscow
Yevsekzia any opportunity to
attack the Agro-Joint.
I knew in advance that I
would not have any difficulty
persuading Smidovich a n d
Lunacharsky to oppose turn-
ing the Moscow Synagogue
into a Workers' Club. Smido-
vich, to whom I had frequent
access, never did believe, as
Commissar for Religious Af-
fairs, in violent attacks upon
religious institutions. I used
to meet Lunacharsky, who, as
commissar of culture had to
do with the workers' clubs—
which were considered cul-
tural institutions — at official
receptions which the govern-
ment gave for important for-
eign guests, as well as on
other occasions. We would
engage in pleasant conversa-
tions about the Jewish state
theaterse which were then in
existence not only in Moscow
but also in other Soviet cities
with large Jewish popula-
tions. He had studied abroad
and had a great love for mod-
ern art and for such modern
J e wish painters as Marc
C h a g a 11 Abraham Manie-
vitch, Isachar R y b a k and
others who had grown up on
Russian soil but left the So-
viet Union and were living
abroad.
Smidovich and Lunachar-
sky, who gave me definite as-
surances that they would in-
tercede against changing the
Moscow Choral Synagogue
into a Workers' Club, also re-
ceived the assistance of the
Soviet commissar for for-
eign affairs. I had advised
several. high-ranking officials
in the Commissariat of the
fact that the leaders of the
Moscow Choral Synagogue
were resolved to begin a
counter-campaign by collect-
ing no less than 60,000 signa-
tures to a petition opposing
the liquidation of their syna-
gogue and to hand the peti-
tion to the Moscow Municipal
Soviet. I emphasized that the
closing of the synagogue
would provoke violent Jewish
mass protests abroad.
On July 2, 1928, I cabled
the Jewish Telegraphic
Agency in New York that
Jewish community leaders in
Moscow had begun gathering
(Continued on Page 68)
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