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Birobidzhan
Birobidzhan (Russian: Биробиджа́н, IPA: [bʲɪrəbʲɪˈdʐan]; Yiddish: ביראָבידזשאַן‎, Birobidzshan) is a town and the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia, located on the Trans-Siberian Railway, near the China–Russia border. As of the 2010 Census, its population is 75,413 and the national language is Yiddish. Birobidzhan is named after the two largest rivers in the autonomous oblast, the Bira and Bidzhan rivers. The Bira river, which lies to the east of the Bidzhan Valley, flows through the town. Both rivers are tributaries of the Amur.

History
Birobidzhan was planned by the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer and established in 1931. It became the administrative center of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in 1934 and town status was granted to in 1937. The 13,895 square miles of Birobidzhan were approved by the Politburo on March, 28, 1928. After the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviet regime had two organizations that worked with the Jews settling into Birobidzhan, the KOMZET and OZET. These organizations were responsible for distribution of land as well as domestic responsibilities, ranging from moving to medical assistance. During this time period, there was a multitude of Jewish Canadians that gave their support to the Soviet Union by becoming either members or sympathizers with the Communist Party of Canada. The Jewish communists believed that the Soviet Union's creation of Birobidzhan was the 'only true and sensible solution to the national question'. The Soviet government used the slogan, "To the Jewish Homeland!" to encourage Jewish workers to move to Birobidzhan. This slogan proved successful in convincing Soviet Jews as well as Jews from other countries. In 1935, Ambijan received permission from the Soviet government to aid Jewish families traveling to Birobidzhan from Poland, Romania, Lithuania, and Germany. Jewish workers and engineers traveled to Birobidzhan from Argentina and the United States as well. This campaign by the Soviet government was known as the Birobidzhan Experiment.

Factors behind the Birobidzhan Experiment
Although Birobidzhan was meant to serve as a home for the Jewish population, the idea struggled to become reality. There were no important cultural connections between the land and the Jewish settlers. The growing population was cultural diverse, with some settlers focused on being modern Russian citizens, some disillusioned by modern cultures with a desire to work the land and promote socialist ideals, with few interested in establishing a cultural homeland. Ulterior motives generated by the Soviet government were the primary reasons for the Jewish relocation to Birobidzhan. They were strategically relocated from their native areas of Ukraine, Belarus, and Crimea as Jewish settlement of these regions was highly resisted by the majority population. The placement of the Jews in Birobidzhan was meant to serve as a buffer to dissuade any Chinese or Japanese expansion. The region was also a link between the Trans Siberian Railroad and the Amur River Valley, and the Soviet government sought to exploit the natural resources of the area, such as fish, timber, iron, tin, and gold.

Complications during the Experiment
Before Birobidzhan was given to the Jews, they were forced to live in the Pale of Settlement, living a very bleak and harsh existence. As the Jews relocated to Birobidzhan, they had to compete with approximately 27,000 currently residing Russians, Cossacks, Koreans, and Ukrainians for property and land to develop new homes. This complicated the transition for the Jewish population, as there was no significant area to claim as their own.

Logistically and practically, settling Birobidzhan proved to be difficult. Due to inadequate infrastructure and weather conditions of the area, more than half the Jewish settlers who relocated to Birobidzhan after the initial settlement did not remain.

When the Stalinist purges began shortly after the creation of Birobidzhan, Jews there were likewise targeted. Following World War II, tens of thousands of displaced Eastern European Jews found their way to Birobidzhan from 1946 to 1948. Some of these displaced settlers were Ukrainian and Belarussian Jews who were not allowed to return to their original homes. However, Jews were once again targeted in the wake of World War II when Joseph Stalin embarked on a campaign against ″rootless cosmopolitans″ — a code name for Jews. Nearly all the Yiddish institutions of Birobidzhan were liquidated.

Notable supporters of Birobidzhan
Among Birobidzhan's proponents was Dudley Aman, 1st Baron Marley. After Lord Marley met with Peter Smidovich and Jacob Tsegelnitski in August 1932, Marley became a proponent of Birobizdhan as a new homeland for Jewish workers and refugees. His visit to Birobidzhan in October 1933 was organized by Smidovich himself. Marley's assessment of the area was positive, and he became a more avid supporter of the settlement of Birobidzhan.

Yiddish writer David Bergelson played a large part in promoting Birobidzhan, although he himself did not really live there. Bergelson wrote articles in the Yiddish language newspapers in other countries extolling the region as an ideal escape from anti-Semitism elsewhere. At least 1,000 families from the United States and Latin America came to Birobidzhan because of Bergelson. On his 68th birthday in 1952, Bergelson was among those executed during Stalin's campaign against the Jews.[17]

Canadian Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson was vice president of Ambijan, or the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan, which was a supplementary group that was combined with ICOR in 1946. His support of Birobidzhan as a new homeland for Jewish families consisted of appearing at meetings in support of the relocation of Jews to Birobidzhan as well as advocating for families who truly wished to travel rather than those who were the most fit for the journey.

Jewish and Yiddish culture (edit)
Between 1881 and 1914 roughly 2 million Jews emigrated to Russia creating the largest Jewish population in the world at the time. While thousands of Jews migrated to Birobidzhan, the hardship and isolation caused few to stay. In 1939 the Jewish population made up less than twenty percent of the overall population. Shortly after World War II, the Jewish population in the region reached its peak of about 30,000.[20] As of the mid-2010s, only about 2,000 Jews remain in the region, making up about one half of a percent of the population.[20]

According to Israeli Rabbi Mordechai Scheiner, the former Chief Rabbi of Birobidzhan and Chabad Lubavitch representative to the region, "Today one can enjoy the benefits of the Yiddish culture and not be afraid to return to their Jewish traditions. It's safe without any anti-Semitism, and we plan to open the first Jewish day school here."[21] Scheiner also hosted the Russian television show, Yiddishkeit in the region. His student, actually born in Birobidzhan, Rabbi Eliyahu Reiss, has taken over the reins since 2010.

The town's synagogue opened in 2004.[22] Rabbi Scheiner says there are 4,000 Jews in Birobidzhan, just over 5 percent of the town's population of 75,000.[23] The Birobidzhan Jewish community was led by Lev Toitman, until his death in September, 2007.[24]

The Jewish religious community in Birobidzhan was officially registered in 1946. The religious community suffered persecution in the early 1950's. Jewish culture was revived in Birobidzhan much earlier than elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Yiddish theaters opened in the 1970s. Yiddish and Jewish traditions have been required components in all public schools for almost fifteen years, taught not as Jewish exotica but as part of the region's national heritage.[25] The Birobidzhan Synagogue, completed in 2004, is next to a complex housing Sunday School classrooms, a library, a museum, and administrative offices. The buildings were officially opened in 2004 to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.[26]

Concerning the Jewish community of the oblast, Governor Nikolay Mikhaylovich Volkov has stated that he intends to "support every valuable initiative maintained by our local Jewish organizations.".[27] In 2007, the Birobidzhan International Summer Program for Yiddish Language and Culture was launched by Yiddish studies professor Boris Kotlerman of Bar-Ilan University.[28] The town's main street is named after the Yiddish language author and humorist Sholom Aleichem.[29]

Yiddish, being the national language of the Jewish community, was meant to help integrate the Jewish population into the Soviet population. The language would ensure 'national in form, socialist in content' was being followed by the Soviet Jewry. Many government officials in the Kremlin were under the impression that Birobidzhan was to become the new center for Soviet Jewish life, which is why Jewish migration to Birobidzhan was strongly pushed during the 1920's.

Rabbi Eli Riss has set out to return the Jewish culture to the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. The current slogan is "make Birobidzhan Jewish again". The people want this to include teaching Yiddish in the school systems again as well as celebrating the variety of Jewish holidays. Riss' parents were originally residents of Birobidzhan, but moved to Israel in the 90's along with a large majority of the Jewish population from the Oblast. He came back as the Chief Rabbi with plans of reinvigorating the Jewish culture. There are already plans for a kosher restaurant, supermarket, and mikveh. Riss is trying to make Birobidzhan a 'safe place for Jews' and has already stated that it is one of the only places he has been where he has not experienced any anti-semitism.

Economy, infrastructure and Transportation[edit]
The chief economic activity is light industry, including textile, footwear, saw milling and woodworking. The city also has a vehicle repair factory, a furniture factory, a quicklime production factory, several foodstuff factories and produces tractors. Khabarovsk is the closest major city to Birobidzhan and provides the closest major airport access to it, which is Khabarovsk Novy Airport(KHV / UHHH), 198 km from the center of Birobidzhan.