Rumors about Expulsion to Birobidzhan, Anastas Mikoyan, and the American Jewish Establishment

Abstract

The events analyzed in this article took place in 1958 and 1959, when the situation around Birobidzhan became a cause of widespread anxiety among Jewish activists in the West. A rumor circulated that “the Soviet Jews appeared in peril of their lives”, because the Soviet government was purportedly considering their mass forced resettlement to the Jewish Autonomous Region, in the Far East of Russia. In January 1959, representatives of the American Jewish Committee had a meeting with Anastas Mikoyan, the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers. He had come to the United States to hold preliminary talks before Nikita Khrushchev’s historical visit in September 1959, and issues concerning the Jews were not on the agenda for his visit. However, after facing a barrage of questions about the alleged plan, he and his advisers decided that it would be unwise to avoid contact with representatives of the American Jewish establishment. The article draws attention to this meeting and the trace it left on the history of Soviet Jews.