Yevsektsiya

The Yevsektsiya sought to draw Jewish workers into the revolutionary organisations; chairman Semyon Dimanstein, at the first conference in October 1918, pointed out that, "when the October revolution came, the Jewish workers had remained totally passive ... and a large part of them were even against the revolution. The revolution did not reach the Jewish street. Everything remained as before".Gilboa, Jehoshua A. [https://books.google.com/books?id=8RaS7tCRt20C A Language Silenced: The Suppression of Hebrew Literature and Culture in the Soviet Union]. Rutherford [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1982. p. 282

The Yevsektsiya remained fairly isolated from both the Jewish intelligentsia and working class.{{cite book|last1=Shindler|first1=Colin|title=Israel and the European Left|date=2012|publisher=Continuum|location=New York|page=30}} The sections were staffed mostly by Jewish ex-members of the Bund, which eventually joined the Soviet Communist Party as the Kombund in 1921, and the United Jewish Socialist Workers Party.

Former elements of the Bund and Faraynigte were historically hostile to Zionism. As they later joined Yevsektsiya, they deemed Russian Zionist organisations to be counter-revolutionary, and critiqued them. Delegates to a Zionist congress in March 1919 complained about administrative harassment of their activities - not from government agencies, but from Jewish communists. At the Yevsektsiya's second conference in July 1919, it demanded that the Zionist organizations be dissolved.{{cite book| author = Nora Levin| title = Jews in the Soviet Union Since 1917: Paradox of Survival| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=7emcMgEACAAJ&pg=PA61| date = 1991-01-01| publisher = NYU Press| isbn = 978-0-8147-5051-3| page = 89 }} After an appeal from the Zionists, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a decree in that the Zionist organisation was not counter-revolutionary and its activities should not be disrupted. The campaign continued, however. In 1920, the first All-Russian Zionist Congress was disrupted by members of the Cheka and a female representative of the Yevsektsiya.{{cite book |last=Rafaeli (Tsentsiper) |first=Aryeh |title=במאבק לגאולה Ba-ma'ava·k li-ge'ulah: sefer ha-Tsiyonut ha-Rusit mi-mahpekhat 1917 ad yamenu, In the Struggle for Redemption: Book of Russian Zionism from. 1917 until our times ] |year=1956 |publisher=Hotsaat Dvir ve-Iyonot, Tel Aviv|pages=211}} At its third conference in July 1921, the Yevsektsiya demanded the "total liquidation" of Zionism.

According to Richard Pipes, "in time, every Jewish cultural and social organization came under assault". The section in Rostov-on-Don persecuted local Jewish leaders, both Zionist and religious, and especially the sixth Chabad rebbe Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohnhttps://yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Rostov-on-Don "With the establishment of Soviet authority, the local Yevsektsiia in the 1920s promoted the closure of Jewish institutions; it also persecuted Zionist and religious leaders, above all, Yosef Yitsḥak Shneerson."

The Yevsektsiya attempted to use its influence to cut off state funds to Habima Theatre, branding it counter-revolutionary. The theatre left Russia to go on tour in 1926, before settling in Mandatory Palestine in 1928 to become Israel's national theatre.Politzer, Heinz (August 1948). "[https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/habimah-in-new-yorka-great-theater-enters-a-new-period Habimah in New York: A Great Theater Enters a New Period]". Commentary Magazine. Retrieved 2017-03-06.

The Yevsektsia were disbanded as no longer needed in 1929. Many leading members were murdered during the Great Purge of the late 1930s, including Chairman Dimanstein. Executed in 1938, he was posthumously rehabilitated in 1955, two years after the death of Joseph Stalin.

• History of the Jews in Russia
• Communist Party of the Soviet Union
• Bolsheviks
• Birobidzhan
• Komzet
• Jewish Communist Party (Poalei Zion)Leon, A., "The Jewish Question" 1970, Pathfinder Press, New York, p. 1 - 26Trotsky, L., "The Russian Revolution," 1959, Doubleday, New York
• Bundism
• Central Bureau of the Lithuanian Sections of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)

{{reflist}}

• Gitelman, Zvi. Jewish Nationality and Soviet Politics: The Jewish Sections of the CPSU, Princeton, 1972.
• Dubnow, Simon. History of the Jews in Russia and Poland from the earliest times until the present day in three volumes, updated by author in 1938.
• Дубнов, Семён Маркович. Новейшая история еврейского народа (1789—1914) в 3х томах. (С эпилогом 1938 г.). Иерусалим-Москва, Мосты культуры, 2002. (in Russian)
• Костырченко, Геннадий. Тайная политика Сталина. Власть и антисемитизм. Москва, 2001.
• Евреи в Советской России (1917—1967). Иерусалим, Библиотека-Алия, 1975. (in Russian)

• [http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/english/41.html Revolution and Emancipation], [http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/english/43.html The Yevsektsii] at [http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/beyond-the-pale/index.html Beyond the Pale] exhibition

{{Communist Party of the Soviet Union}}

{{Jews in the Soviet Union}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:Anti-Judaism

Category:Bodies of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

Category:History of Zionism

Category:Jewish anti-Zionism in Russia

Category:Jewish anti-Zionism in the Soviet Union

Category:Jewish anti-Zionist organizations

Category:Jewish atheism

Category:Jews and Judaism in the Soviet Union

Category:Secular Jewish culture in Russia

Category:Secular Jewish culture in the Soviet Union

Category:Soviet phraseology

Category:1918 establishments in Russia

Category:Auto-antisemitism