Between Socialism and Zionism: The Execution of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee

The Kruzhok-REEES Reading Group and the Jewish Studies Program present Wendy Z. Goldman, Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of History, Carnegie Mellon University, on "Between Socialism and Zionism: The Execution of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee" Abstract: The talk will examine the reasons for the elimination, arrests, and execution of members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) in 1952. It will explore the larger context -- the Holocaust, the creation of the state of Israel, Soviet nationality policy, the Cold War, and the role of the Ministry of State Security -- as well as the specifics of the arrests, the trial, and the subsequent exoneration of the victims. Bio: Wendy Z. Goldman, Paul Mellon Distinguished Professor of History, is a social and political historian of Russia. Her early work, "Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936" (Cambridge University Press, 1993) (awarded the Berkshire Conference Book Award) and "Women at the Gates: Gender and Industry in Stalin’s Russia Women" (Cambridge University Press, 2002) focused on family policy, women's emancipation, and industrialization. She wrote about Stalinist repression in "Terror and Democracy in the Age of Stalin: The Social Dynamics of Repression" (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and "Inventing the Enemy: Denunciation and Terror in Stalin’s Russia" (Cambridge University Press, 2011) (awarded Honorable Mention, Reginald Zelnik Book Prize in History.) She published (with Dr. Joe William Trotter Jr., co-editor) "The Ghetto in Global History. 1500 to the Present" (Routledge, 2018.) She focused on World War II in "Hunger and War: Food Provisioning in the Soviet Union During World War II" (Indiana University Press, 2015) (Donald Filtzer, co-editor). Her most recent work (with Donald Filtzer), "Fortress Dark and Stern. The Soviet Home Front during World War II" (Oxford University Press, 2021) (winner of the Society for Military History prize) is the first comprehensive study of the contribution of the Soviet home front to the victory in World War II. Her articles and books have been translated into Russian, Czech, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, and Japanese. She received grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies, Social Science Research Council, and National Council for Eurasian and East European Research. She directs a long-running faculty and graduate student exchange between CMU and Russian State University for the Humanities in Moscow, heads the Socialist Studies Seminar, focused on socialist and post socialist movements and states, and is the director of the CMU Prison Education Project. Open to the Public, all are welcome