How the Soviet Union Created the Greatest Yiddish Repertory Theater, Used Its Director for Propaganda, and Then Murdered Him

In 1943, the Kremlin sent the lawyer-turned-actor Solomon Mikhoels, in his position as chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, to the U.S. to raise support, and money, for the Soviet war effort. Mikhoels was chosen for the job because he was a Jewish celebrity, the lead actor and artistic director of the state-sponsored Yiddish theater in Moscow, and also a Yiddish film star. Five years later, he was shot dead by the precursor to the KGB. Many other members of the Anti-Fascist Committee were eventually executed as well, along with other major figures of Jewish literary life. They were, as Dara Horn puts it in her recounting of Mikhoels’s remarkable story, “disposable Jews” who had served the regime’s purposes and were no longer necessary. (Audio, 54 minutes.)