Description
Robert Weinberg and Bradley Berman's carefully documented and extensively illustrated book explores the Soviet government's failed experiment to create a socialist Jewish homeland. In 1934 an area popularly known as Birobidzhan, a sparsely populated region along the Sino-Soviet border some five thousand miles east of Moscow, was designated the national homeland of Soviet Jewry. Establishing the Jewish Autonomous Region was part of the Kremlin's plan to create an enclave where secular Jewish culture rooted in Yiddish and socialism could serve as an alternative to Palestine. The Kremlin also considered the region a solution to various perceived problems besetting Soviet Jews. Birobidzhan still exists today, but despite its continued official status Jews are a small minority of the inhabitants of the region. Drawing upon documents from archives in Moscow and Birobidzhan, as well as photograph collections never seen outside Birobidzhan, Weinberg's story of the Soviet Zion sheds new light on a host of important historical and contemporary issues regarding Jewish identity, community, and culture. Given the persistence of the "Jewish question" in Russia, the history of Birobidzhan provides an unusual point of entry into examining the fate of Soviet Jewry under communist rule.
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In 1934 the Soviet government established the Jewish Autonomous Region in a sparsely populated area some five thousand miles east of Moscow. Located along the Sino-Soviet border, the Jewish Autonomous Region, popularly known as Birobidzhan, was designated as the national homeland of Soviet Jewry. The creation of Birobidzhan was part of the Kremlin's effort to establish an enclave where secular Jewish culture rooted in the Yiddish language and socialist beliefs could serve as an alternative to Palestine and resolve a variety of perceived problems besetting Soviet Jews. Birobidzhan still exists today, but despite its continued official status Jews represent only a small minority of the inhabitants of the region.Drawing on documents from archives in Moscow and Birobidzhan, as well as photograph collections never seen outside Birobidzhan, this book explores both the Kremlin's efforts to create a socialist Jewish homeland and the reasons for the failure of the Birobidzhan experiment. The story of the Soviet Zion sheds light on a host of important historical and contemporary issues regarding Jewish identity, community, and culture. The history of Birobidzhan provides an unusual point of entry both to the "Jewish question" in Russia and to an exploration of the fate of Soviet Jewry under Communist rule.
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