Researching antisemitism in communist regimes is really weird. (I was bored, and kind of fell down a rabbit-hole of history.) Because especially in the cases of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the most enthusiastic antisemites and enablers of antisemitism, were Jewish communists. Like the Hungarian Matyas Rakosi or the Czech Rudolf Slansky.
In both countries these were Jews who became communists, changed their names to sound less Jewish, and then basically proclaimed that Jewishness was a bourgois poison, and that the only way Jews could be emancipated was to cleanse them of Jewishness as an identity.
The Hungarian Matyas Rakosi was the only Jew to become ruler of a communist regime. And once in charge he forced Hungarian Jews to swear a weird oath to the communist party in which they renounced Jewishness as a cultural identity and promised that it was only a religion.
The Czechoslovak general secretary Rudolf Slansky literally started a deranged antisemitic conspiracy that Jewish nationalist bankers were trying to destroy communism, and began a nation wide paranoid purge campaign in pursuit of those supposed conspirators.
Ironically or predictably (depending on who you ask) he was eventually himself accused of being part of the antisemitic conspiracy theory he had invented. Put on a show trial, was tortured into confessing that he had created Israel, and then hanged.
(This is not unusual at all in Jewish history. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the biggest advocates against the Jewish community were ethnic Jews who entered the Catholic Priesthood. One famous example was Nicholas Donin. Though he was far from the only one.)
The antisemitism of Communist Poland was the most cynical. The communist party was embaressed by the widespread anti-Russian attitudes of the Polish public. So the leadership decided to deliberately promote antisemitism as an alternative. This was enthusiastically supported by Jewish Poles in position of power within the Communist Party, who again, opted to distance their own connections to their Jewish origins.
Jews. Even other Jews hate them.
In both countries these were Jews who became communists, changed their names to sound less Jewish, and then basically proclaimed that Jewishness was a bourgois poison, and that the only way Jews could be emancipated was to cleanse them of Jewishness as an identity.
The Hungarian Matyas Rakosi was the only Jew to become ruler of a communist regime. And once in charge he forced Hungarian Jews to swear a weird oath to the communist party in which they renounced Jewishness as a cultural identity and promised that it was only a religion.
The Czechoslovak general secretary Rudolf Slansky literally started a deranged antisemitic conspiracy that Jewish nationalist bankers were trying to destroy communism, and began a nation wide paranoid purge campaign in pursuit of those supposed conspirators.
Ironically or predictably (depending on who you ask) he was eventually himself accused of being part of the antisemitic conspiracy theory he had invented. Put on a show trial, was tortured into confessing that he had created Israel, and then hanged.
(This is not unusual at all in Jewish history. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the biggest advocates against the Jewish community were ethnic Jews who entered the Catholic Priesthood. One famous example was Nicholas Donin. Though he was far from the only one.)
The antisemitism of Communist Poland was the most cynical. The communist party was embaressed by the widespread anti-Russian attitudes of the Polish public. So the leadership decided to deliberately promote antisemitism as an alternative. This was enthusiastically supported by Jewish Poles in position of power within the Communist Party, who again, opted to distance their own connections to their Jewish origins.
Jews. Even other Jews hate them.
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