Solomon (Shloyme) Mikhoels was a Soviet actor and the artistic director of the Moscow State Jewish Theater. Mikhoels served as the chairman of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee during World War II. However, as Joseph Stalin pursued an increasingly anti-Jewish line after the War, Mikhoels's position as a leader of the Jewish community led to increasing persecution from the Soviet state. He was assassinated in Minsk in 1948 by order of Stalin.

The Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee, abbreviated as JAC, was an organization that was created in the Soviet Union during World War II to influence international public opinion and organize political and material support for the Soviet fight against Nazi Germany, particularly from the West. It was organized by the Jewish Bund leaders Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter, upon an initiative of Soviet authorities, in fall 1941; both were released from prison in connection with their participation. Following their re-arrest, in December 1941, the Committee was reformed on Joseph Stalin's order in Kuibyshev in April 1942 with the official support of the Soviet authorities. In 1952, as part of the persecution of Jews in the last year part of Stalin's rule, most prominent members of the JAC were arrested on trumped-up spying charges, tortured, tried in secret proceedings, and executed in the basement of Lubyanka Prison. Stalin and elements of the KGB were worried about their influence and connections with the West. They were officially rehabilitated in 1988.