Balancing Acts: A Jewish Theatre in The Soviet Union

Moscow, January 1948. In the bitter cold, a large crowd gathers for the State Funeral of Solomon Mikhoels, the Yiddish actor and director. An official proclamation mourns the death of 'a great People's Artist of the Soviet Union.' What people are really mourning is the demise of the most popular Jewish theater in the Soviet Union, and the man who kept it alive for over twenty years. No doubt many suspected the truth: he had just been assassinated by Stalin's secret police.