Tangled Loyalties: The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg

Front Cover
I.B. Tauris, 1996 - Authors, Russian - 482 pages
A biography of the Russian Jewish writer (1891-1967). During World War II, Ehrenburg was the USSR's most influential journalist, rallying the people to fight the Germans. After the war he served as a Soviet agent of influence with artists, intellectuals, and opinion-makers in the West. Pp. 200-220 deal with the Holocaust, Ehrenburg's involvement in compiling the "Black Book, " and the activities of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Ch. 11 (pp. 253-276), "Anti-Semitism and the Establishment of Israel, " describe how Stalin's paranoid fantasies, fed by the sympathy of Soviet Jews with Israel, resulted in an antisemitic campaign which included attacks against pro-Israel attitudes, the closure of Jewish institutions, the suppression and murder of Jewish artistic and intellectual leaders, the "Doctors' Plot, " and the plan to expel Soviet Jews to Siberia and Birobidzhan. Contends that Ehrenburg survived because he served as a decoy to mislead foreigners as to the existence of the antisemitic campaign. Describes Ehrenburg's role during Stalin's regime as essentially positive and courageous.

From inside the book

Contents

ONE From the Pale to Paris
9
TWO A Lapsed Bolshevik
23
THREE Revolution and Civil War
44
Copyright

9 other sections not shown

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

Bibliographic information