The Jews in Communist Bulgaria

The Bulgarian Jews survived the WWII but after the end of the war they found themselves at a crossroad, having to choose between two motherlands: the one that saved their lives during Holocaust, which however was moving fast towards a Soviet-type regime, and the newly established state of Israel. They made their choice and 90% of them left Bulgaria.

The Jews that remained in Communist Bulgaria had to face difficult dilemmas concerning their identity. On the one hand, they were ideologically Communists, participating actively in the construction of the new regime, with a substantial part of them working with the security apparatus, while others reached high positions in the party hierarchy. On the other, they were obliged to follow a policy against the State of Israel and often at the expense of Soviet Jews; a reality that generated conflicting feelings in many of them, to which we must add that although they were not persecuted by the regime, they were looked at with certain suspicion. Jews were allowed to participate in the social and political life, but never to reach the highest positions. The recurrent waves of Soviet anti-Semitic policy always had a negative effect upon them, although they never had the same force in Bulgaria. In practice they suffered a loss of rights that was never officially declared. This paper aims to examine the inconsistent policy followed by the Communist regime towards the Jews and its effect of them.