During the first years of the Soviet regime, the Yiddish language did enjoy a period of true renaissance. By the 1930's there were more than 1,200 Yiddish schools and several teacher training institutions, as well as departments of Jewish studies and chairs of Yiddish language and literature at the Universities of Moscow, Kiev and Minsk. Three Yiddish daily newspapers, periodicals and repertory theaters flourished in the Russian, Ukrainian and Byelo‐Russian Republics.
Even Hebrew culture was encouraged for a time. The first Hebrew theater in the world, the Habimah, came into being in Moscow, where it made theatrical history with its production of S. Ansky's “The Dybbuk.” However, there was opposition to fostering Hebrew culture, which nurtured the dream of a Jewish State in the Holy Land. In the early 1920's, the entire Habimah company left the Soviet Union and established it self in Tel Aviv. A gradual liquidation of Jewish cultural institutions set in with Stalin's ascent to power. After World War II, close on the heels of the Nazi genocide, came the suppression of Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union.