Yevreyskaya Autonomous Oblast
Birobidzhan is the colloquial name of the district (oblast) in Russia, for which the official designation was the "Jewish Autonomous District" (Yevreyskaya Avtonomnaya Oblast or Okrug). Birobidzhan is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia, located on the Trans-Siberian Railway, near the China–Russia border.
The province has a complicated relationship with Israel as it is traditionally anti-Zionist. Moreover, the Jewish state has always regarded the province with suspicion, as if it were a competitor. While the idea of Birobidzhan was embraced by some Jews, many others were skeptical or simply found it difficult to move to such a remote and unfamiliar area. The voluntary nature of immigration meant that most Jews chose to remain in their communities.
Earlier attempts to settle the Soviet Jews on dedicated land in the Ukraine, and later in Crimea, had yielded partial success, most of all in turning “unproductive” Jews into productive tillers of land. The new understanding of nationality that arose in the 1930s sought more distinct tokens of identity. The “Jewish question” was complicated only slightly by the choice of a region where Jews had never lived, and a language that few wished to speak any more - one of the more bizarre Soviet attempts at national engineering.
How can Jewish culture be maintained in Birobidjan? This distant region in Siberia went through two purges: one in 1936-37 when Prof. Joseph Liberberg and his colleagues, the then leadership of Birobidjan, were arrested and executed and there was a second purge in 1948-49 in which the leadership was charged with treason and jailed. Since then Jews have been leaving Birobidjan. The Soviet census of 1979 revealed that in Birobidjan there were only 10,166 Jews and they constituted five percent of the entire population of Birobidjan. Five percent, as opposed to 95%! This is the kind of “Jewish Autonomous Region” that Birobidjan is today. Of the more than ten thousand Jewish people there only 2,268 indicated that Yiddish was their first or second language. Yet, this is supposed to be the center for the Yiddish culture in the Soviet Union.
According to Stalin's approach to the national question, a group needs a territory to be a nation. Jews have no territory and therefore are not entitled to national rights. Jewish communists argued that the way to solve the ideological dilemma was to establish a Jewish territory. The Soviets were interested in providing the Jews with A national home that would not be in the Land of Israel, as Zionism posed a certain threat. Judaism posed a threat to atheism, and Zionism, as a national movement, posed a threat to the Soviet internationalist vision. Another reason the Soviets established the region was to protect the border with China. At that time, these parts were uninhabited and the border was sensitive. Others argued that Stalin was motivated by anti-Semitism and wanted to keep the Jews away from possible centers of power.
The furore over the 2023 Israel-Hamas war reached all the way to Birobidzhan in Russia’s Far East, the world’s only autonomous Jewish territory outside Israel, after a local newspaper published its support for the Palestinian cause. "Remove this banner immediately or we – who were born in Birobidzhan – will make you pay," one comment threatened. "Several ex-members of the Israeli special forces will come with me to show you what the Israeli army is capable of," read another. Vladimir Sakharovski, Nabat’s editor-in-chief and a member of the regional Duma (legislature), said he is merely echoing the position of Russian President Vladimir Putin, "who has maintained that we must think of the people first". As a Socialist publication, Sakharovski said, "we must support civilians first and foremost".
The Jewish Autonomous Region was formed on May 7, 1934. The region is located in the southern part of the Russian Far East. In the west it borders with the Amur region, in the east with the Khabarovsk Territory, in the south its border along the Amur River coincides with the state border of Russia and China. Despite the difficulties faced by Birobidzhan, there have been efforts to foster a cultural revival and celebrate Jewish identity in the region. Yiddish, the traditional language of Eastern European Jews, was promoted and taught in schools. Cultural institutions, including theaters, newspapers, and music ensembles, were established to celebrate Jewish arts and traditions.
Birobidzhan maintains a unique Jewish presence in the region. The Jewish Autonomous District, the administrative division surrounding Birobidzhan, carries the legacy of its Jewish roots to this day. Jewish cultural events and institutions exist, and the Jewish community continues to contribute to the multicultural fabric of the area. However, Jews now make up fewere than 1,000 of the region's more than 160,000 residents.
The Jewish Autonomous Region is part of the Far Eastern Federal District of the Russian Federation. The area of the region is 36.3 thousand square meters. km. The permanent population as of January 1, 2014 is 170.4 thousand people. The Jewish Autonomous Region includes: 1 urban district, 5 municipal districts, 10 urban settlements, 18 rural settlements.
Jewish Autonomy differs from other national autonomies that are part of the Russian Federation by its unique history. In the early 1920s. Soviet authorities began to actively discuss plans for land management of working Jews and the exploration of territory for their compact residence. At first, a mass resettlement of Jews to the Crimea and the Azov region was planned. However, for a number of reasons, in the mid-1920s. government policy has changed. In 1927, the area of future colonization was determined - Biro-Bidzhansky. In August of the same year, he was visited by an expedition consisting of agricultural scientists, as well as representatives of KOMZET (Committee for the Land Management of Working Jews) and OZET (Society for Promoting the Land Management of Working Jews). The commission generally assessed the prospects for future colonization in a positive manner.
The materials of the expedition were summarized, and KOMZET decided to “ask the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR to assign the Birsko-Bidzhansky region to KOMZET and begin work there on the land arrangement of working Jews.” The resolution of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated March 28, 1928 satisfied the request prepared by KOMZET to assign to it approximately 4.5 million hectares of the Amur lands of the Far Eastern Territory and authorized the start of the mass resettlement of the Jewish population to the Amur strip. In April-May 1928, trains with the first Jewish migrants from cities and towns of Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, the central regions of Russia, regions of Siberia, the Far East, and also from abroad began to arrive at Tikhonkaya station. At the end of 1928 and the beginning of 1929, according to OZET, another 900 settlers arrived.
In the first years of resettlement, many of the settlers returned “to their places of origin.” The main reasons for the “return” were unpreparedness to receive immigrants, interruptions in the supply of goods and essential products, harsh climatic conditions, and others.
The resettlement region in the basin of the Bira and Bidzhan rivers, as a result of the settlement and economic revival of the lands, by a resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of August 20, 1930, was administratively organized under the name Biro-Bidzhansky with its center in the village of Tikhonkaya.
The increased influx of population, the strengthening of inter-district ties, the rapid pace of economic development in the period 1928-1934. created the conditions for the organization of the Jewish Autonomous Region, designed to independently carry out administrative and economic tasks of regional significance. By decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of May 7, 1934, the Biro-Bidzhansky district received the status of an autonomous Jewish national region. The first regional Congress of Soviets, held in December 1934, completed the formalization of autonomy.
In 1991, by the Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR, the Jewish Autonomous Region was separated from the Khabarovsk Territory into an independent subject of the Russian Federation. After the transformation of all other autonomous regions of Russia into republics in the early 1990s. The Jewish Autonomous Region remained the only autonomous region of the Russian Federation.
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