KGB Oversight of the Kol Yaakov Yeshiva in the Soviet Era

During a period of strict control over religious life in the USSR, one remarkable exception was the Kol Yaakov (“Voice of Jacob”) yeshiva — the only Jewish religious educational institution officially permitted by the Soviet authorities before perestroika.

Opened in 1957 at the Moscow Choral Synagogue on Arkhipov Street, Kol Yaakov was an unusual phenomenon in an anti-religious Soviet state. It could not be called a full-fledged yeshiva in the traditional sense: its activities were subject to significant restrictions. Its main task was to train a limited number of shochtim, or ritual slaughterers, for the needs of Soviet Jewry, especially the Jewish communities of Georgia and Uzbekistan.

For many years, one of the teachers at the yeshiva was the former Odessa rabbi Yisroel Shvartsblat, whom Rabbi Natan Vershubsky described as “a complex but outstanding figure.” Shvartsblat was a graduate of the prestigious Slabodka yeshiva in Kaunas and possessed exceptional knowledge of the Talmud. According to those who knew him, he knew the Talmud “by the needle”: if a needle were passed through a page, he could name all the words it touched.

In his memoirs, Rabbi Vershubsky recalls an episode that captures the atmosphere inside the yeshiva. When he asked Rabbi Yisroel Shvartsblat to give him books from the Kol Yaakov library, Shvartsblat loudly refused — and then quietly told him when the library door would be open, warning him: “Make sure Frida doesn’t see you — she’s an informer.”

Frida Borisovna, the mikveh attendant and cleaner, whom Rabbi Vershubsky calls “a righteous woman,” also helped him gain access to books. But she gave him the opposite warning: “Make sure Reb Yisroel doesn’t notice you with the books — he collaborates with the authorities...”

Anecdotes aside, KGB documents available in the J-Doc digital archive clearly show how the Soviet security services intended to use Kol Yaakov. A top-secret document dated 17 October 1957, signed by Colonel P. Tikhonov, Deputy Chairman of the Committee for State Security under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, contains specific instructions concerning this educational institution:

“This circumstance [the opening of the yeshiva on 6 January 1957] should be used in such a way that experienced and trusted agents of the state security organs are included among the students of the Jewish higher religious school, so that in time they may become part of the leadership of Jewish religious communities and synagogues.”

It is especially striking that the document contains a direct instruction to place KGB agents in the yeshiva in order to establish future control over Jewish communities:

“...it would be advisable to select an experienced and trusted agent to be sent to study at the Jewish higher religious school, with the intention that, upon completion of the yeshiva, he could be appointed rabbi of one of the synagogues in the Ukrainian republic.”

Despite all the restrictions and surveillance, the Kol Yaakov yeshiva did play a role in preserving Jewish religious tradition at a time when the Soviet authorities obstructed the training of new rabbis. As a result of the Holocaust and mass repression, Jewish communities across the USSR faced an acute shortage of religious leaders, and even such a limited opportunity for study was significant for maintaining religious life.

The existence of Kol Yaakov is a vivid example of the complex relationship between the Soviet state and religious communities: control and supervision were combined with limited tolerance for certain religious practices, all within a broader policy of creating the appearance of religious freedom in the USSR.

Freddy Rotman