Editing Itzik Feffer (section)

==Soviet career==
In 1919 he joined the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]] and was a member of it until his death. He edited literary and art magazines in Yiddish and took an active part in the life of writers' organizations in Ukraine and Moscow. He was a member of the [[Presidium of the Supreme Soviet]] of the Ukrainian SSR and a member of the board of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Feffer was well known as an enthusiastic supporter of communist ideology. The communist anthem [[The Internationale]] appears in a Yiddish version that became very popular, in the songbook he edited with [[Moshe Beregovski]], which was published in Kiev in 1938. Moreover, his published books "mark the major historical events of Soviet Jewish and general Soviet history."<ref name="YIVO Biography - Itsik Fefer" />

Fefer was a prolific poet and essayist, but became better known both as a Communist poet and as an [[apparatchik]] when the [[Union of Soviet Writers]] was founded in 1934. He took leadership and was the main representative for Yiddish literature within the Union, having just finished editing the Almanakh fun yidishe sovetishe shrayber (Almanac of Soviet Yiddish Writers).<ref name="YIVO Biography - Itsik Fefer" /> He was prominent in Yiddish Communist circles in Ukraine, as editor from 1933 to 1937 of the Kiev periodical Farmest ("Challenge"; known as Sovetishe literatur [Soviet Literature] between 1938 and 1941).<ref name="YIVO Biography - Itsik Fefer" />

As an agent of the secret police on the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) during World War II, Feffer and the chair of the committee, [[Solomon Mikhoels]], traveled across the Americas and England to mobilize support for the Soviet Union's fight against Hitler. "For Feffer, solidarity with the Jewish people and allegiance to the Soviet Union were synonymous."<ref name="Jewish Currents Winter/Spring 2022" /> His poetry reflected pride in both his Jewish heritage and the Soviet Union, a good example being his poem “Ikh bin a Yid” (I Am a Jew).<ref name="YIVO Biography - Itsik Fefer" /><ref name="Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection - Fefer - Ikh Bin A Yid!">{{cite web |last1=Fefer |first1=Itsik |title=Ikh Bin A Yid! |url=https://yiddishsongs.org/ikh-bin-a-yid/ |website=The Yosl and Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection at the Workers Circle |publisher=The Workers Circle |access-date=21 September 2024 |ref=Mlotek-Song-Collection-Ikh-bin-a-yid}}</ref>