Bernard Lecache

Bernard Lecache (1895–1968) was a French journalist. In 1927, he founded the League Against Pogroms, which the following year, became the International League Against Anti-Semitism, and in 1979, became the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism. He was the president from 1927 to 1968.

Lecache, was born in Paris, France in 1895, the son of Jewish emigrants from Ukraine.

He launched himself into journalism, contributing to La Volonté, the Journal du Peuple, one of the first French Bolshevik publications, and at Le Quotidien. An activist with the Human Rights League, he was equally close to the socialist movement and the future founders of the French Communist Party (French: Parti communiste français, PCF), such as Boris Souvarine. He frequented the home of anarchist journalist Séverine and married her daughter, Denise Montrobert. Lecache applauded the 1917 Russian Revolution and was an early member of the PCF, joining in 1921. He became the editor of L'Humanité where he provided the anti-miliarist section. Obliged to choose between the Freemasons and the Party in 1923, like all the communists, Lecache, who was close to the Masons, refused to choose and was expelled from the PCF. His ideas and his friends did not change, however, and he chaired a meeting for the 10th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in October 1927. The following year, he became a member of the Association of Friends of the Soviet Union.

In May 1926, in the heart of Paris, the Jewish anarchist Sholom Schwartzbard killed Symon Petliura, a nationalist Ukrainian he accused of starting pogroms that devastated his family. Working as a contributor to Le Quotidien, Lecache became interested in the case and asked the socialist lawyer Henry Torrès if he could support the assassin's defense. He was sent to Ukraine to investigate by Henri Dumay.

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