Investor Presentaiton
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instead "remained aloof from this body." In fact, it was actually Kaganovich who Stalin sent
to dispel what he called "Jewish California," but was really just another proposal by members of
the JAFC for a new Jewish territory to be formed in Crimea after the failures of the previous two
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attempts. The JAFC did not survive for long, however, and its existence spoke more about
Soviet efforts to gain international support during World War II than any popular movement on
behalf of the Jewish population. As Sebag Montefiore and Fitzpatrick both note, the
organization, though publicly headed by well-known Jewish figures, was actually set up by
Stalin as a tool for getting money from American Jews and publicizing the Soviet cause
internationally.
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226
In
Kaganovich was regularly spared from anti-Semitic attacks, and Stalin avoided making
anti-Semitic remarks around Kaganovich. Sebag Montefiore attributes Stalin's lack of anti-
Semitism towards Kaganovich to that fact that many of his enemies such as Trotsky, Zinoviev,
and Kamenev were Jewish, yet Kaganovich was a loyal supporter, from humble origins.2
other words, Stalin “hated the intellectual Trotsky but had no problem with the cobbler
Kaganovich.”227 Stalin's high regard for Kaganovich, and Kaganovich's own separation from his
Jewish past, ultimately saved him during the 1953 Doctor's Plot.
Ultimately, Kaganovich's rise to power was complete by the 1920s, and by 1930, he was
in the highest position in the Soviet Union, second only to Stalin. While serving as Stalin's
Deputy, Kaganovich's Jewish background affected him very little and his separation from the
223 Ibid.
224
Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, 546.
225 Fitzpatrick, On Stalin's Team, 200-201; Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, 545-546.
226 Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, 305.
227 Ibid.
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