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the Economically Ruined Jewish Masses in the Soviet Union)
visited Birobidzhan in 1929. These organizations, besides holding
meetings, issuing publications, and collecting money, also
propagandized the colonization of Birobidzhan by Jews from
abroad. Thus, about 1,400 Jewish immigrants from countries
outside the Soviet Union arrived in Birobidzhan in the early
1930s, emigrating from the United States, South America, Europe,
Palestine, and other places.
From the beginning of Jewish colonization in Birobidzhan,
and particularly in the mid-1930s, much was done to
promote the Jewish character of Birobidzhan. Jewish collective
farms were established and Jewish village councils organized.
Jews served in key positions of the region. Y. Levin, formerly
active in the party apparatus in Belorussia and in the secretariat
of Ozet, was appointed as first party secretary of the Birobidzhan
district in 1930. After the establishment of the J.A.D.
in 1934, another Jew, M. Khavkin, was appointed first secretary
of the regional party committee. Joseph Liberberg, head
of the Jewish section of the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences,
was appointed at the same time chairman of the regional executive
committee. He was one of those intellectuals, who, by
settling in Birobidzhan, inspired others in their pioneering efforts.
A number of resolutions were passed regarding the use
of Yiddish as the official language of the region, along with
Russian. Schools were established with Yiddish as the language
of instruction, and experiments were made to teach Yiddish
even in non-Jewish schools. Street signs, rail station signs, and
postmarks appeared in both Russian and Yiddish. A Yiddish
newspaper and periodicals were published. In 1934 a Jewish
state theater was established. A regional library, named after
Shalom Aleichem, containing a sizable collection of Judaica
and Yiddish works, was founded in the city of Birobidzhan.
The mid-1930s was a period of great expectations for Birobidzhan’s
development as a center of Jewish settlement and
culture in the Soviet Union. However, the purges of 1936–38
delivered a severe blow to the developing and rather weak
framework of the nascent Jewish statehood in the JAD Leading
Jewish personalities of the district, such as Liberberg, were
denounced as nationalists and Trotskyites, demoted from their
posts, and liquidated. The purges particularly affected the immigrants
from abroad. As a result, the late 1930s witnessed a
shattering setback in the development of the region. Despite
the optimistic plans for continuous settlement of Jews in Birobidzhan,
their number was only 13,291 in 1939 (18.57% of the
total population), with 10,415 (35.13% of the total) in the capital
city. The Soviet annexation of the Baltic states and parts of
eastern Poland and Bukovina in 1939–40 resulted in a sudden
increase in the Jewish population of the U.S.S.R. During that
period plans were initiated to transfer Jewish settlers from the
annexed territories to Birobidzhan. However, the outbreak of
the Soviet-German war in 1941 put a fast end to these plans.
Although the war years did not witness any sizable increase
in the Jewish population of the region, the very idea of Birobidzhan
as a center for Jewish statehood in the Soviet Union
received new meaning.
+3,000
+8,000
birobidzhan
Jewish population of Birobidzhan 1928–59. The lower graph shows the total
Jewish population, the upper one the immigration into the region.
The Holocaust and growth of antisemitism in the U.S.S.R.
during the war resulted in revived interest in the JAD among
Soviet Jews. The growth of national feelings and the difficulties
faced by Soviet Jews who had fled to the East, upon
their return to their prewar homes in the western parts of the
U.S.S.R., caused some to turn to Birobidzhan. Moreover, since
the hopes for a planned settlement of Jews in the Crimea did
not materialize, Birobidzhan remained the only alternative for
a compact Jewish settlement. Numerous requests for immigration
to Birobidzhan were received by the JAD authorities
in the postwar years, and a flow of new Jewish settlers reached
the region between 1946 and 1948. Articles in the Eynikayt, organ
of the Jewish anti-Fascist Committee, emphasized the idea
of Jewish statehood in Birobidzhan. The Soviet Jewish writer
*Der Nister, who accompanied a trainload of new settlers,
wrote: “There are some travelers whose intentions are only
materialistic, and there are others whose intentions are different,
of a national character … and there are also burning enthusiasts,
ready to give up everything in order to live there …
and among them a former Palestinian patriot…. Although
in his fifties, he hustles about during the day and is sleepless
at night, hoping to see his new enterprise come true….” The
short postwar migration to Birobidzhan increased the local
Jewish population by one-third, and by the end of 1948 it was
estimated at about 20,000, the largest ever in the district. The
postwar period witnessed an increase in the number of Jews
in the local administration and an intensification of Jewish
cultural activities. Among local Jewish writers active in the
“Soviet Writers’ Association of the JAD” were Buzi Miler, Israel
*Emiot, Ḥayyim Maltinski, Aaron *Vergelis, and others. Assistance
from Jews abroad was permitted once again. The revival
of Birobidzhan as a Jewish center came to a halt toward the end
of 1948, as a result of Soviet policy to suppress Jewish activities
ENCYCLOPAEDIA JUDAICA, Second Edition, Volume 3 719
50,000
40,000
30,000
20,000
+8,350
+5,250
+3,000
+9,000
19,000
18,000
14,000
+1,750*
20,000
+10,000*
30,000
14,269
10,000
+3,250
6,000
1,500
1,000 3,500
+900 2,600
400
1928 45 48 59
6,000
8,000
1,200
29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37