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Fefer, Robeson, and Mikhoels at the Soviet Consulate,
New York City, summer 1943
anti-Semites, pro-Fascists, and isolationist antiwar
factions who might welcome “proof” that the
American war effort in the European theater was
indeed the result of Jewish and “international Zionist”
instigation on behalf of European Jewry.
During the war, when some of the Soviet restrictions
against patently Jewish literary expressions were
relaxed, at least in part to facilitate Jewish cooperation
and support, Fefer wrote his poem “Ikh bin a yid”
(I Am a Jew), which has been described not only in
terms of expressing Jewish pride, but as a “sample of
Soviet Jewish patriotism.” In his 1946 poem “Epitaph”
he spoke of being buried in a Jewish cemetery, and he
articulated the hope that he would be remembered
as one who had “served his people.” These works,
together with Di shotns fun varshever geto, appear
to represent an awakening and intensification of
Fefer’s Jewish consciousness. The extent to which they
contributed directly to his persecution and eventual
execution is not entirely clear. It is known, however,
that “Ikh bin a yid” was quoted in 1952, in connection
with the prosecutorial proceedings against the Jewish
Anti-Fascist Committee, as evidence of his “nationalist
deviation.” In any case, by 1948, despite official
party line denials of anti-Semitism (and its technical
constitutional illegality in the U.S.S.R.), Stalin had
come to fear any thriving Soviet Jewish culture as a
serious threat—ranging from mere furtherance or
fertilization of the Yiddish language (now deemed far
less necessary to the party in view of the vastly reduced
Yiddish readership) to Jewish cultural preservation
or solidarity. And those who, like Fefer, had contact
with the West during the war were now suspected of
being irrevocably tainted potential recruits as enemies
of the state. Once the Soviet Union had prevailed in
the war, EAK, now no longer useful to the regime, was
considered a liability as a perceived representative of
Soviet Jewry. It was disbanded in 1948, and many of
its leaders were executed. Apart from concealed or
“mysterious” deaths, subsequent kangaroo trials of
fifteen people linked to EAK resulted in thirteen of
them being executed by firing squad in 1952.
By the time the State of Israel was established in
1948 and recognized by the Soviet Union, Fefer
had embraced the Zionist cause as an appropriate
concern of world Jewry; and he even credited Soviet
heroism during the war with contributing to the
ultimate realization of Zionist political aspirations.
This could only have magnified the precariousness of
his situation. As a foreign policy strategy, the U.S.S.R.
supported Israel’s founding as a reduction of British
imperial influence and as a potential ally. But within
the U.S.S.R., Zionist sympathy and enthusiasm for
the new state were read more clearly than ever as
dangerous Jewish nationalism and potential disloyalty.
Having already lost his benefit to the regime, Fefer’s
combination of Yiddishist cultural nationalism and
Zionist sympathy had to have signaled a sense of
Jewish particularity that might only impede the
mandated progress of accelerated assimilation.
Fefer was arrested in December 1948 and held at
the infamous Lubyanka Prison. When Paul Robeson,
the famous American black singer, actor, and social
activist, as well as avowed communist and Stalin
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