Investor Presentaiton
effectively shutting off the possibility of genuine long-term social assimilation.”211 As Slezkine
notes, these identification cards solidified nationality as a “permanent label and one of the most
9212 The
important official predicators of admissions and promotions in the Soviet Union.”
identification cards and the Birobidzhan project are on one hand contradictory with the 1920's
assimilation efforts, but on the other hand, they are a direct result of the assimilation policies
because they produced more assimilation, and of a different kind, than was intended.
Jews in the Soviet Union, particularly their economic success, were seen by the Party as
"ideologically suspect" because, as a community, they were “at the same time an extra- territorial
national minority, a religious community in an atheist state, and an ethnic group on the brink of
"213
assimilation into Sovietism." However, unlike much of the Jewish community, Kaganovich
was not deemed "ideologically suspect" because of his Jewish roots - rather, it was his
unwavering, and apparently genuine dedication to Stalin and Communism that kept him safe
from any persecution he may have faced on the grounds of his Jewish heritage. While
Kaganovich was never attacked or exiled from the Party for being Jewish, he did receive
criticism and critiques, especially from abroad during the rise of WWII. Kaganovich was not
alone in this as during the late 1930s Jews began to face growing discrimination and rising
antisemitism in the Soviet Union. 214
During the Purges, Jews were not targeted specifically
because of their Jewishness, but they suffered along with the rest of the Union.2.
215
After the
211 Yuval-Davis, "Marxism and Jewish Nationalism," 102.
212 Slezkine, The Jewish Century, 285.
213 Vitale, 126.
214
Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, 305.
215 Slezkine, The Jewish Century, 273.
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