ABSTRACT
During the Second World War, Jews in the USSR realized that this nationalities policy had failed them. Despite colonization efforts in Crimea, Birobidzhan and elsewhere, the Jews lacked the settled territorial base needed to win even minimal respect for their ethnic rights. At the war's end, returning home seemed a natural choice for those Jews who had evacuated into the interior. Wartime circumstances had stimulated latent anti-Jewish sentiment in the Soviet occupied and unoccupied populations. War-weary Jews received little support from local and union republic authorities for restoration of their cultural institutions. The Jews pinned their hopes on four war-related phenomena: a relaxation of political orthodoxy, moderation towards nationalities, an anti-Nazi ideological stance, and improved relations with the West. America had a large Jewish population, the USSR could win political points with the US government if it created a Soviet Jewish republic.
