World Second in a Series BIROBIDJAN — About a day out of Vladivostok, the trans-Siberian express pulls into a medium-sized station where the nameboard reads in two languages: Russian and Yiddish. This is Birobidjan, the Jewish Autonomous Region, one of the most fascinating — ifinconclusive — social exp- eriments in Soviet history. Here, in the gentle mountain valleys along the Chinese border, a cultural renais- sance is cautiously beginning even as a socio-economic transformation goes into high gear. Birobidjan would seem an unlikely place fora Jewish homeland, but for a time in the 1930s it was the focus of intense post- revolutionary enthusiasm among socialist Jews to have a place of their own where Yiddish language and Jewish culture could flourish, and Jews could be farmers and factory workers — professions that had been closed to them under Czarist rules. In 1928, the Soviet government decreed that “spare lands in the Amur Basin of the Far Eastern Territory ... shall be allotted to the working people of Jewish nationality for their settlement needs.” During the early 1930s, thousands of Jews from the former pale of the settlement made the trek out to Birobidjan, fired by the dream. By 1934, the territory’s development was judged impressive enough to grant it the constitutional status of an autonomous region. A Cluster of Huts “In those days a lot of people would come and take one look at the taiga, the mosquitoes, the lack of facilities, and get right back on a train heading west,” says Faiga Feimann, who came out with her family from the Ukrainian city of Roma- novka at the age of three in 1931. “It was tough in the beginning. The land had to be cleared, everything had to be built. I remember when we arrived here there was just a cluster of huts and a little school.” Now, sitting in the den of her comforta- ble farmhouse on the Zavyete Ilicha kolk- hoz, she says she has no regrets. “We've had a good life. We’re still here to play with our grandchildren.” Fred Weir FROM MOSCOW In fact, very few Jews ever came and stayed in Birobidjan. Out of the region’s present population, barely 12,000, or five per cent, are Jewish. The high idealism of the 1930s was drowned in Stalin’s campaign against small nationalities: in 1948 the Yid- dish schools and most cultural facilities in Birobidjan were shut down, and the Jewish autonomous region became little more than an empty phrase. Today the Sholom Aleichem memorial library displays an impressive collection of Yiddish literature, but the staff admits that only a few elderly people ask to borrow these books. Faiga Feimann’s own children never had the opportunity to study Yiddish in school — though, as she notes with delight, from the beginning of 1988 her grandchildren have been learning it once again in the local kindergarten. “Back in the 1930s we had Yiddish schools,” says Feimann. ““We learned Rus- sian too, and the Russian students learned Yiddish. In those days no one could be a factory manager or kolkhoz director unless conversant in both languages.” 20 Pacific Tribune, December 19, 1988 A tentative revival in Birobidjan ct ke Be oo ou 1 a A a) * Jewish Cultural Revival Those days could be on their way back in Birobidjan, or at least the region could become the centre ofa Jewish cultural revi- val that is sweeping the country. ““Over the past year Jewish cultural organizations have appeared around the USSR, in Lvov, Kiev, Tashkent, Bukhara, Minsk, Ufa, Kishiniev, Odessa and Moscow,” says Leo- nid Shkolnik, editor of the Yiddish- language daily newspaper, Birobidjaner Stern. “Jewish cultural centres with clubs, libraries and regular courses in Yiddish — and also, for the first time, in modern Hebrew (Ivrit) — now exist in Moscow, Kiev and Lvov.” Attitudes of Soviet Jews are changing too, as many of the old and seemingly inflexible barriers begin to dissolve. The iso- ~Jation from the rest of the world Jewish community — including Israel — which has long rankled with many of them, is rapidly falling away. One dramatic testim- ony to this is the stack of Ivrit-language textbooks, received by mail from Israel, that the visitor is shown in Birobidjan’s small synagogue. Relations with Israel remain a compli- cated and delicate subject. There is no doubt that Israel’s economic crisis, perpetual war and the intifada have played a role in disen- chanting Soviet Jews with Zionism — of the 2,473 Jews who emigrated from the USSR in October, just 78 chose to go to Israel — but at the same time the Soviet government has clearly decided there is little wisdom in any policy that cuts people off from families, friends and cultural roots. People-to-People Direct diplomatic — state-to-state — and economic relations between the Soviet Union and Israel will not be possible until there is a full-scale Middle East peace set- tlement, including national self-determina- tion for the Palestinians, emphasizes Shkolnik, but there is no reason why people-to-people contacts should not go ahead. “So far this year, over 7,000 Soviet Jews have made family visits to Israel, and returned,” he says. “There is a very large Lenin Square in Birobidjan, the capital of the Jewish Autonomous Region, as it appeared in 1979. At left, planners discuss new building developments. on Soviet Jewish community in Israel, and they have recently given tremendous welcomes to a number of touring Soviet performers who have gone there, including the Spi- vakov violinists, Alla Pugachova, the Omsk Russian folk choir, Olga Voronets, and oth- ers.” Moreover, just about everyone agrees that the emigration movement is tapering off even as all obstacles to emigration are being removed — and Soviet Jews are find- ing new strength and identity in a cultural revival at home. But what role in all of this for Birobidjan? One point seems clear: Soviet Jews are more urbanized, professional and sophisti- cated than ever, and not at all likely these days to be attracted by the distant, some- what pastoral vistas of Birobidjan. Any new influx of Jews into the region seems extremely unlikely. Birobidjan’s economic development is probably tied to broader currents presently affecting the Soviet Far East. For instance, collective farmers at the Zavyete Ilicha kolkhoz are already planning to invite Chi- nese farmers to come, take out leasehold- ings, and teach them how to grow watermelons and Chinese garden vegeta- bles. At the Chulochno textile factory in Birobidjan, some 100 young Vietnamese women are apprenticing as machine opera- tors, and they can be observed walking in giggling, hand-holding groups in the streets of this city, heavily swaddled in their Rus- sian fur hats, overcoats and mufflers. Already an amazing mix of races and nationalities, there seems no likelihood in future that Birobidjan will become any less so. And yet, given all that, the special Jewish nature of the region seems set to assume new significance. The Birobidjaner Stern, has blazed the trail as the Soviet Union’s only Yiddish-language newspaper, turning itself over the past several years from a simple local paper into a country-wide chronicle of the life of Soviet Jewry. “Our paper is at the centre of this process of revival that is going on across the coun- try,” says Shkolnik. “Our reporters are going everywhere, covering the emergence of new organizations and cultural groups. In fact, we have become the primary means of communication among them. As of Jan. 1, 1989, we will begin printing a two-page supplement in Russian — since it’s a reality that most of our young Jews do not know Yiddish — in which we will print news; basic Yiddish lessons, and information about meetings.” Birobidjan already has the USSR’s only teachers’ college that prepares Yiddish instructors. In 1989 it will acquire a peda- gogical institute specializing in Jewish stU- dies. The region expects to become, secon only to Moscow, a major centre of Jewish publishing. However, says Shkolnik, “Birobidjam» realistically, is not yet playing the role it should in the revival of Jewish life in this country. It should become a full-fledg centre of Jewish learning, a place where people who want to have a truly nation@ education would be able to come from 4” over. We are not speaking about national- ism here, but it’s very difficult to be intern tionalist if you don’t know your nationa roots ... “You know, we had a lot of Jewish nib; ilists created by the period of stagnation, he observes. ‘When you think about ih.’ national nihilism is every bit as bad nationalism.”