Stalin's suspicious death called "new miracle of Purim" by Russian Chabadniks
For our Soviet Purim!
03/06/2023
Purim begins today - the holiday of the deliverance of the Jewish people from the mortal danger hanging over them in Ancient Persia 25 centuries ago. But in many Jewish communities, in addition to this generally accepted Purim, “little Purim” is also celebrated in honor of the miraculous salvation of the local Jewish community from pogroms. It so happened that for Soviet Jews, the big and small Purim coincide.
March 5 marks exactly 70 years since the death of Joseph Stalin. All Soviet Jews, who were of a conscious age by 1953, remember well how rumors circulated in the cities and villages of the USSR in those days that a little more - and all Jews would be deported in wagons to Siberia, smashed and shot on the way. And those who are lucky enough to survive will be finished off in the barracks by cold and disease.
This happened against the backdrop of the "doctors' case" and the struggle against "rootless cosmopolitans", which were promoted in the media as a well-thought-out anti-Semitic campaign, declaring almost all Jews without exception as enemies of the people.
Almost every Jewish family has preserved memories of this time, full of horrifying details. A close relative of my wife, the famous chess player and chess composer Leonard Katsnelson, said that in February 1953 a policeman knocked on their Leningrad apartment. And when he entered, he began to go around, examining every corner. To the question of Father Leonard Ilyich - by the way, a captain of the first rank - what, in fact, is happening, the policeman replied:
- Yes, you are still being evicted in a month. I was offered your apartment. That's why I came to see.
After these words, Captain Katsnelson took the policeman by the collar and literally lowered him down the stairs.
In those days, throughout the former Soviet Union, there were mass dismissals of Jews who occupied one or another managerial position. In Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv and other large cities windows were smashed in Jewish apartments. It got to the point that a Jew could be thrown out of the queue, and sometimes at full speed from a tram or bus. Very precisely this atmosphere of January 1953 was “captured” in his famous poem by Boris Slutsky:
I boiled hard and stinking,
Like black asphalt in a boiler.
It was embarrassing. It was shameful.
It was sickening to walk on the ground.
It was sickening to ride the tram.
Everything seemed: tearing off the ticket,
Or passing the change,
Or just giving passage
And touching with shoulders,
Everyone looks with silent malice
And they are waiting for your excuses.
Justify yourself - go and try,
Where is that court and who is this court,
What will listen to our arguments,
Where will our merits be taken into account?
Everything seemed: the farewell was being prepared
And they would be taken in a wheelbarrow now.
No, I don't want to write.
It's all unnecessary and in vain.
After all, fate - an intelligent pilot -
Taxied us all out of January.
In my native Baku, everything was somewhat different. Firstly, because there has never been anti-Semitism as a phenomenon in Azerbaijan, and secondly, because the wife of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the republic, the almighty Mir-Jafar Bagirov, was Jewish. As, however, and the wives of many other party leaders, which, you see, reminds the story of Purim.
And the top leadership of the republic, on the one hand, tried to delay the execution of the instructions sent about the Jews from Moscow as long as possible, and on the other hand, informed their Jewish relatives about them. Well, they spread the news throughout the city and the republic. Many big bosses advised close Jews to leave for some distant region of Azerbaijan and hide there, posing as a German, Pole or Russian - depending on the last name.
At the same time, on the other side of the Caucasus Range, Mountain Jews, again on the advice of their relatives “from above,” began to change their passports en masse and register themselves as “tats,” whose language resembles Juuri, the language of Mountain Jews. This is how the confusion between the Tatami and the Mountain Jews arose, which continues to this day.
And as an old Baku printer told me already in the years of perestroika, in February 1953 he was instructed to print a pamphlet in the republic, which explained that the Communist Party and the Soviet government decided to evict the Jews solely for their benefit - "to save them from popular wrath." And a month later - after the death of Stalin - the entire circulation was put under the knife.
There are many purely Hasidic stories related to the death of Stalin. One of them is about the famous Makhnovist Rabbi Avrum Eshel of Tver. We already told you about it in one of the recent articles . He was the last hereditary Hasidic tzaddik who lived on the territory of the USSR. And until his departure to Israel in 1964, he led the synagogue in Cherkizovo. But then, in 1953, after returning from exile beyond the Yenisei, he was forbidden to live in large cities, and he settled in Kaluga.
A story from the life of his Hasidim of that time has been preserved, written down by one of them - Reb Aaron Hazan. “Berl Rabinovich shared a store with another Jew. Both were in the field of view of the NKVD, as a result of which Rabinovich's companion was arrested and ended up in Siberia, and he himself managed to escape, slipped out of their hands and found refuge in my house. Upon learning that the Rebbe had returned from Siberia, Berl Rabinovich decided to go to Kaluga to ask the Rebbe how much longer he would have to live like this and what should he do next? I tried to dissuade him from this trip, began to explain how dangerous it was: it would be enough for him to be asked to show his passport - and he would be arrested. However, Berl became stubborn and declared: “I never did anything without consulting the Rebbe, and now I have to meet him at all costs!”
Makhnovist Rebbe Avrum Eshel of Tver (second from left in the first row)
In general, he went. And having returned safely, he told Khazan about the words of the Rebbe, who ordered everyone to hold on and finally promised him: “Already on Pesach you will be at home again!” But to believe in such a prophecy of the Rebbe was then very difficult.
In his memoirs, Chazan records that the fear, in which the Jews constantly lived, “at that time reached its climax and turned into panic horror.” The trial of the "doctors-poisoners" was approaching, and no one doubted what the verdict would be. Even the Jews, who were considered "honest Soviet citizens", were disgusted. What then can be said about those who, for their views, religious beliefs or imaginary crimes, fell into the number of “enemies of the people”?! Or about Berl Rabinovich put on the All-Union wanted list?
“In my house, meanwhile, several families gathered for a festive meal in honor of Purim,” Hazan recalled that day. – The glass in the windows had been shattered shortly before by an anti-Semitic neighbor, and although tradition dictates that Jews rejoice and have fun on this day, everyone was not in a festive mood at all. And suddenly two children, who came to the holiday with their parents, put their hands on each other's shoulders and started a merry dance. And when looking at them, all those present also began to thaw their hearts and their spirits rose a little. “I think this is a sign from Above for all of us that a great miracle will be revealed to us!” exclaimed Berl Rabinovich. And the next day, they said on the radio that "the great Stalin is seriously ill." But since the health of the leader had never before been reported to the people, many Jews realized that in fact he was not sick, and already died - most likely, he died the night before, when the Jews celebrated Purim. And this was the “new miracle of Purim” revealed to the Jews of Russia.”
And a few days after Stalin's funeral, Soviet newspapers published hitherto unknown news - it turns out that the "doctors' case" was initially fabricated. Doctors doomed to death were fully acquitted and released, and their persecutors were arrested, which also serves as a certain allusion to the events of Purim.
Soon a mass amnesty of prisoners began. The case against Berl Rabinovich was also closed. And he met Passover 1953, as promised by the Rebbe, already at home.
And even though there are many versions around Stalin's death, including those from the field of conspiracy theories, we all know how it really happened - it clearly could not have done without intervention from Above! So let's celebrate two Purims at once - both the big and our small Purim of Soviet Jews. After all, if Stalin had not died, many of us simply would not have been born. Happy holiday, Jews!