Communism, Secularism and Jewish Schools

After the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks launched a harsh war on religious education throughout the Soviet Union, with devastating consequences for Judaism. To avoid accusations of anti-Semitism, Soviet attacks on traditional Jewish schools, known as cheders or yeshivas, were led by the Yevsektzia, the militant Jewish sections of the Communist Party, whose members were often more ideologically zealous than their gentile counterparts. In an effort to win Jewish hearts and minds, in January 1921 the Yevsektzia organized a particularly grotesque episode called the Trial of the Cheder.