Yiddish is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originates from 9th century Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages. Yiddish has traditionally been written using the Hebrew alphabet; however, there are variations, including the standardized YIVO orthography that employs the Latin alphabet.
The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest population of Jews in the world. Within these territories, the primarily Ashkenazi Jewish communities of many different areas flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also facing periods of antisemitic discriminatory policies and persecution, including violent pogroms. Some have described a "renaissance" in the Jewish community inside Russia since the beginning of the 21st century; however, the Russian Jewish population has experienced precipitous decline since the dissolution of the USSR which continues to this day, although it is still among the largest in Europe.
A Yevsektsiya was a Jewish section of the Soviet Communist Party. These sections were established in fall of 1918 with consent of Vladimir Lenin to carry communist revolution to the Jewish masses. The Yevsektsiya published a Yiddish periodical, der Emes.
The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, abbreviated as JAC, was an organization that was created in the Soviet Union during World War II to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany, particularly from the West. It was organized by the Jewish Bund leaders Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter, upon an initiative of Soviet authorities, in fall 1941; both were released from prison in connection with their participation. Following their re-arrest, in December 1941, the Committee was reformed on Joseph Stalin's order in Kuibyshev in April 1942 with the official support of the Soviet authorities. In 1952, as part of the persecution of Jews in the last year part of Stalin's rule, most prominent members of the JAC were arrested on trumped-up spying charges, tortured, tried in secret proceedings, and executed in the basement of Lubyanka Prison. Stalin and elements of the KGB were worried about their influence and connections with the West. They were officially rehabilitated in 1988.
The Birobidzhaner Shtern is a newspaper published in both Yiddish and Russian in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast of Russia. It was set up in November 1930 in Birobidzhan to cater for the newly arrived Jewish immigrants. It is the oldest national newspaper in the region.
OZET was the public Society for Settling Toiling Jews on the Land in the Soviet Union in the period from 1925 to 1938. Some English sources use the word "Working" instead of "Toiling".
Semyon (Shimen) Markovich Dimanshtein was a Soviet state official, publisher, and leading theorist of national issues in the USSR, and one of the founders of the Soviet Oriental studies. He was considered by the Soviet government to be a representative of Soviet Jews.
The Night of the Murdered Poets was the execution of thirteen Soviet Jews in the Lubyanka Prison in Moscow on 12 August 1952. The arrests were first made in September 1948 and June 1949. All defendants were falsely accused of espionage and treason as well as many other crimes. After their arrests, they were tortured, beaten, and isolated for three years before being formally charged. There were five Yiddish writers among these defendants, all of whom were part of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee.
Jewish Communist Party (Poalei Zion) (Russian: Еврейская коммунистическая партия (Поалей-Цион), Evreĭskaia kommunisticheskaia partiia (Poaleĭ-Tsion), abbreviated EKP) was a political party in Russia 1919-1922. The party was formed at a conference of communist dissident fractions of the Jewish Social Democratic Labour Party (Poalei Zion), held in Gomel August 10-15, 1919. Members of the party were nick-named 'EKOP-ists'. It was affiliated to the Jewish Communist Union (Poalei Zion).
Der shtern was a Soviet Yiddish newspaper, first published in Smolensk on November 7, 1918. Der shtern became one of the main Yiddish publications in the early Soviet period. Before the end of the year, as Minsk came under the control of the Soviets, the publication was shifted there. The first issue from Minsk was published on December 27, 1918. It was an organ of the North-Western Regional Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik). The editors of the newspaper at the time were M. Kalmanavich and Zalman Khaykin. The newspaper had four pages, in a 36x53 cm format.
Komunistishe fon, also known as Komfon, was a Soviet Yiddish newspaper published in Kiev 1919–1924. The newspaper was the result of the merger of two previously non-communist newspapers, Naye tsayt of the Fareynikte party and the Folkstsaytung of the Bund party. Kommunistishe fon was the organ of the Komfarband, and later became the organ of the Main Bureau of the Jewish sections of the Communist Party (bolshevik) of Ukraine.
The Organization for Jewish Colonization in Russia, commonly known by its transliterated acronym of ICOR, was a Communist-sponsored mass organization in North America devoted to supporting the settlement of Jews in new collective settlements, firstly in the newly established Ukrainian Soviet Republic and Southern Russia, and latterly in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Siberia. The organization was founded in the United States in 1924 and soon spread to Canada.
The Kultur Lige was a secular socialist Jewish organization established in Kiev in 1918, whose aim was to promote Yiddish language literature, theater and culture. The league organized various activities, including theater performances, poetry recitals, and concerts in Yiddish with the aim of disseminating Jewish art in Eastern Europe and Russia. Among some notable members of the organization were the scenic designer Boris Aronson, the artist and architect El Lissitzky, the writer David Bergelson, the sculptor Joseph Chaikov, the writer Peretz Markish, the poet David Hofstein, and artist Issachar Ber Ryback. Bergelson, Markish and Hofstein were later executed on Joseph Stalin's orders during the Night of the Murdered Poets, in 1952.
The Jewish left consists of Jews who identify with, or support, left-wing or left-liberal causes, consciously as Jews, either as individuals or through organizations. There is no one organization or movement which constitutes the Jewish left, however. Jews have been major forces in the history of the labor movement, the settlement house movement, the women's rights movement, anti-racist and anti-colonialist work, and anti-fascist and anti-capitalist organizations of many forms in Europe, the United States, Australia, Algeria, Iraq, Ethiopia, South Africa, and modern-day Israel. Jews have a history of involvement in anarchism, socialism, Marxism, and Western liberalism. Although the expression "on the left" covers a range of politics, many well-known figures "on the left" have been of Jews who were born into Jewish families and have various degrees of connection to Jewish communities, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, or the Jewish religion in its many variants.
Der royter shtern was a Yiddish-language newspaper published from the Soviet city of Vitebsk between 1920 and 1923. It was the organ of the Jewish Section of the Communist Party Committee of the Vitebsk Governorate. The first issue was published on August 19, 1920. It was published as a daily newspaper for about a year, and then became a weekly. Between the 9th and 10th congresses of the Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks), 268 issues of Der royter shtern were published. It had a circulation of around 4,000.
Der shtern was a Yiddish language daily newspaper published from Kharkov, Ukrainian SSR between 1925 and 1941. It was an organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (bolsheviks) of Ukraine and the All-Ukrainian Council of Trade Unions. M. Levitan served as editor in chief of the newspaper.
Esther Frumkin, born Malkhe Khaye Lifshitz and also known as Mariya Yakovlevna Frumkina, was a Belarusian Bundist revolutionary and publicist and Soviet politician who served as leader of the General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, and later of the Yevsektsiya in the Soviet Union. An ardent proponent of the Yiddish language, her political position on Jewish assimilation satisfied neither traditional Jews nor the Soviet leaders.
The history of the Jews in Moscow goes back from the 17th century, the city of Moscow held 175,000 Jews from the Nazis although Moscow did not become an important Jewish center until the late 19th century when more Jews were legally allowed to settle. Prior to the 19th century, Jews had arrived in the city as prisoners of the Russo-Polish war or after 1790, as merchants allowed one month stays. In the late 1800s, the Jewish population boomed, and then dramatically dropped after the 1891 expulsion of Jews from the city. The population grew once again following World War I, and was a Jewish and Zionist cultural center until the end of the revolution, after which it became a Soviet Jewish center for a period of time. The Moscow Jewish community experienced a number of highs and lows under the Soviet Union as Jewish identity became increasingly taboo in the eyes of the government. After the collapse of the Soviet government and the mass migration of a huge portion of Russian Jews from the country, Moscow has still maintained a sizable Jewish population.
The General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, generally called The Bund or the Jewish Labour Bund, was a secular Jewish socialist party initially formed in the Russian Empire and active between 1897 and 1920. In 1917 the Bund organizations in Poland seceded from the Russian Bund and created a new Polish General Jewish Labour Bund which continued to operate in Poland in the years between the two world wars. The majority faction of the Russian Bund was dissolved in 1921 and incorporated into the Communist Party. Other remnants of the Bund endured in various countries. A member of the Bund was called a Bundist.
Der Veker was a Yiddish language newspaper published from Minsk 1917–1941. Initially a Bundist publication founded in the midst of the 1917 revolutions, it continued publishing as a Communist Party organ until 1925.
