When the State of Israel was declared in the Middle East in 1948, it was dubbed the first independent Jewish state since the reigns of kings like Saul, David and Solomon in the 10th century. That’s because very few people, then or now, are aware of an area that, in August of 1936, was declared as the site where “For the first time in the history of the Jewish people, its burning desire for a homeland, for the achievement of its own national statehood has been fulfilled.”
Alina Adams explains.
A 1933 Soviet stamp depicting the Jewish people of Birobidzhan, available here.
How It Started
That site was and still is known as Birobidzhan, a strip of land between the Biro and the Bidzhan rivers, located on the border of Russia and China.
How did that happen? Well, it began as many Jewish stories begin….
In 1926, the still-fledgling government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was advised that “Jewish agricultural settlements (have) called forth a sharply heightened anti-Jewish mood.”
Translation: Communism took away land from Russian/Ukrainian/Slavic peasants and redistributed it among all Soviet citizens, which included Jews. Also, Jews who did not want to farm, came pouring into the cities, competing with other unskilled laborers for the already limited pool of menial work.
This annoyed both the farmers and the non-farmers. Since antisemitism had been officially outlawed by the newly formed workers paradise of the USSR, it annoyed those in charge that it still existed. It was an embarrassment to them. Something needed to be done!
The solution? Well, if you got rid of Jews, then you also got rid of Jew-hatred. Sure. Let’s pretend it works that way.
But where to get rid of them to?
The Committee for the Settlement of Toiling Jews on Land filed an 80 page report saying they would accept any piece of land the Soviet Union decided to put them on… except for Birobidzhan.
Why not Birobidzhan? Well, first, the territory was mostly swamp, covered in gadflies and mosquitos. Locals burned fires to keep insects away from the cattle, and covered themselves in repelling ointment and netting. Second, the area was populated by native Koreans who likely wouldn’t appreciate the newcomers, as well as Chinese warlords who periodically crossed the border to check on their poppy (opium) fields. Oh, and Cossacks. Did we mention Cossacks? After the revolution, many fled East. They likely wouldn’t appreciate the Jewish interlopers either.
Naturally, after reading the report, the Soviet government decided their newly created Jewish Autonomous Region would be… in Birobidzhan.
How It’s Going
In April 1928, 540 families and 150 single people made the trek to the Far East. There was no infrastructure for them. They literally lived in holes in the ground, dealing with the tail end of the rainy season. By May 1928, two-thirds of the settlers had turned back home.
Nonetheless, that same summer, Birofeld, the first Jewish collective farm in the East was established. It subsumed the Cossack village of Alexandrovka; the first recorded incident of a Jewish community overtaking a Russian one.
In May 1934, the Communist Party granted Birobidzahn its official status as the Jewish Autonomous Region.
And they all lived happily ever after.
Except they did not.
The 1930s were a most precarious time in the USSR. That was when Stalin unleashed his Great Terror Purges, arresting, exiling, and executing all those who he believed were against him. And he believed almost everyone was against him. Alliances could change on a whim, with no warning.
For instance, Lazar Kaganovitch, secretary of the Central Committee, Commissar of Communications, and colloquially known as the most powerful Jew in the USSR, visited Birobidzhan in February of 1936. He had dinner with the local party head, and praised his wife’s delicious Jewish cooking.
Where It Went Wrong
By August of 1936, that same party head was removed on charges that he’d been “unmasked as untrustworthy, counterrevolutionary, and a bourgeois-nationalist conspiring to create a murderous, Bundist, Nazi-Facist organization.”
Oh, and his wife had tried to poison Kaganovitch. With gefilte fish. Possibly the most Jewish criminal charge ever filed.
In 1940, after The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that partitioned Central and Eastern Europe between the Soviet Union and Germany, the USSR found itself overseeing a portion of the over three million Jews living in Poland. Officials visited Birobidzhan to investigate whether it might be a good option for deporting them to, before opting to go with their tried and true destination of Siberia.
In the run-up to World War II, Birobidzhan’s Korean population was also exiled to Siberia, for fear they might prove a fifth column more loyal to Japan than to the Allies powers. After the war, Birobidzhan saw a slight uptick in population, as Jewish survivors, unable to face returning to the villages and cities where their own neighbors turned them over to the Nazis and Rumanians, trickled into what they hoped might prove a safe haven.
However, those truly dedicated to the cause of an independent Jewish state made their way to Israel by the end of the decade, and the Jewish population of Birobidzhan continued shrinking. Currently, they number around 4,000 people, roughly 5% of Birobidzhan’s 75,000 citizen population.
However, the buildings and street signs still bear the traces of Hebrew letters spelling out Yiddish place names. Officially, Birobidzhan is still The Jewish Autonomous Region, whether the Jews of the world know it or not.
Alina Adams is the NYT best-selling author of soap opera tie-ins, figure skating mysteries, and romance novels. Her latest historical fiction, “My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region” chronicles a little known aspect of Soviet and Jewish history. Alina was born in Odessa, USSR and immigrated to the United States with her family in 1977. Visit her website at: www.AlinaAdams.com.
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