Editing Birobidzhan (section)

==History==
[[File:Txu-oclc-6614368-nm53-10.jpg|thumb|right|Birobidzhan (1950)]]
Built on the site of an earlier village called Tikhonka,<ref>https://www1.swarthmore.edu/Home/News/biro/html/panel09.html</ref> Birobidzhan was planned by the [[Switzerland|Swiss]] architect [[Hannes Meyer]], and established in 1931. It became the administrative centre of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in 1934, and town status was granted to it in 1937.<ref name="gr">{{Cite book |title=Энциклопедия Города России |publisher=Большая Российская Энциклопедия |year=2003 |isbn=5-7107-7399-9 |location=Moscow |page=47}}</ref> The 36,000&nbsp;km<sup>2</sup> of Birobidzhan were approved by the Politburo on March 28, 1928.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Srebrnik |first=Henry Felix |title=Dreams of nationhood: American Jewish communists and the Soviet Birobidzhan project, 1924-1951 |publisher=Academic Studies Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-936235-11-7 |location=Boston |pages=12 |oclc=769190216}}</ref> After the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviet government set up two organisations that worked with the settlement of Jews  into Birobidzhan, the [[Komzet|KOMZET]] and [[OZET]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Srebrnik |first=Henry Felix |title=Red Star Over Birobidzhan: Canadian Jewish Communists and the "Jewish Autonomous Region" in the Soviet Union |publisher=Canadian Committee on Labour History |year=1999 |pages=129–147}}</ref> These organisations were responsible for the distribution of land as well as domestic responsibilities, ranging from moving to medical assistance. Many Jewish Canadians then gave their support to the Soviet Union by becoming either members or sympathisers with the [[Communist Party of Canada (Marxist–Leninist)|Communist Party of Canada]].<ref name=":0"/>

Jewish communists believed that the Soviet Union's creation of Birobidzhan was the "only true and sensible solution to the national question."<ref name=":0" /> The Soviet government used the slogan "To the Jewish Homeland!" to encourage Jewish workers to move to Birobidzhan. The slogan proved successful in convincing Soviet Jews as well as Jews from other countries to move to the city.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Ivanov |first=Alexander |date=December 2009 |title=Facing east: the World ORT Union and the Jewish refugee problem in Europe, 1933–38 |journal=East European Jewish Affairs |volume=39 |issue=3 |pages=369–388 |doi=10.1080/13501670903298278 |s2cid=144107382}}</ref> In 1935, [[Organization for Jewish Colonization in Russia|Ambijan]] received permission from the Soviet government to aid Jewish families travelling to Birobidzhan from Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Germany.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Srebrnik |first=Henry Felix |date=1998 |title=An idiosyncratic fellow-traveller: Vilhjalmur Stefansson and the American committee for the settlement of Jews in Birobidzhan |journal=East European Jewish Affairs |volume=28, 1 |pages=37–53 |doi=10.1080/13501679808577869}}</ref> Jewish workers and engineers travelled to Birobidzhan from Argentina and the United States as well.<ref name=":1" /> This campaign by the Soviet government was known as the Birobidzhan Experiment.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Birobidzhan: Stalin's Forgotten Zion |url=http://www.swarthmore.edu/Home/News/biro/html/panel04.html# |access-date=17 February 2019}}</ref>

===Factors behind the Birobidzhan Experiment===
Although Birobidzhan was meant to serve as a home for the Jewish population, the authorities struggled to turn the idea into a reality. There were no important cultural connections between the land and the Jewish settlers. The growing population was culturally 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 Jewish people to relocate to Birobidzhan. 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.<ref name=":2" />

===Complications during the Experiment===
Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, residence for Jews was restricted to the [[Pale of Settlement]]. As Jews relocated to Birobidzhan, they had to compete with the approximately 27,000 Russians, Cossacks, Koreans, and Ukrainians already residing there 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.<ref name=":2" />

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.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Skolnik |first1=Fred |title=Encyclopaedia Judaica |last2=Berenbaum |first2=Michael |publisher=Macmillan Reference USA in association with the Keter Pub. House |year=2007 |isbn=9780028659282 |location=Detroit |oclc=70174939}}</ref>

When the Stalinist purges began, shortly after the creation of Birobidzhan, Jews there were targeted.<ref name="Gessen">{{Cite web |last1=Gessen |first1=Masha |last2=Interviewed by Terry Gross |date=7 September 2016 |title='Sad And Absurd': The U.S.S.R.'s Disastrous Effort To Create A Jewish Homeland |url=https://www.npr.org/2016/09/07/492962278/sad-and-absurd-the-u-s-s-r-s-disastrous-effort-to-create-a-jewish-homeland |access-date=10 September 2016 |website=Fresh Air |publisher=WHYY |format=Interview}}</ref> Following World War II, tens of thousands of displaced Eastern European Jews found their way to Birobidzhan from 1946 to 1948.<ref name="Weinberg 1998, 72-75">Weinberg, Robert (1998). ''Stalin's Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland''. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp. 72–75. {{ISBN|978-0-520-20990-9}}.</ref> Some were Ukrainian and Belarusian Jews who were not allowed to return to their original homes.<ref name="Gessen" /> However, Jews were once again targeted in the wake of World War II when [[Joseph Stalin]] embarked on a [[Stalin and antisemitism|campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans"]].<ref name="Gessen" /> Nearly all the Yiddish institutions of Birobidzhan were liquidated.<ref name="Pipes-NRoB-27-10-16">{{Cite journal |last=Pipes |first=Richard |date=October 27, 2016 |title=The Sad Fate of Birobidzhan |url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/10/27/the-sad-fate-of-birobidzhan/ |journal=New York Review of Books |access-date=17 October 2016}}</ref>

===Notable supporters of Birobidzhan===
[[File:The Soviet Union 1933 CPA 414 stamp (Peoples of the Soviet Union. Jews, Birobidzhan) cancelled.jpg|thumb|Jews of Birobidzhan in a 1933 "Peoples of the Soviet Union" postage stamp]]
Among Birobidzhan's proponents was [[Dudley Aman, 1st Baron Marley]]. After Lord Marley met Peter Smidovich and Jacob Tsegelnitski in August 1932, Marley became a proponent of Birobidzhan as a new homeland for Jewish workers and refugees. His visit to Birobidzhan in October 1933 was organised by Smidovich himself. Marley's assessment of the area was positive, and he became a more avid supporter of the settlement of Birobidzhan.<ref name=":1" />

Yiddish writer [[David Bergelson]] played a large part in promoting Birobidzhan, although he himself did not settle there permanently.<ref name="Gessen" /> Bergelson wrote articles in the Yiddish language newspapers in other countries extolling the region as an ideal escape from antisemitism 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 antisemitic campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans"<ref name="Gessen" /> following the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.<ref name="Gessen" />{{rp|90}}

In the Russian language play ''Novaia rodina'' (''New Homeland'') by the Soviet playwright Victor Fink celebrated Birobidzhan as the coming together of three communities - the Koreans, the Amur Cossacks and the Jews. Each community has its own good and bad characters, but ultimately the good characters from each community learnt to cooperate and work with each other. To symbolise the unity achieved, the play ends with mixed marriages with one Jewish character marrying a Korean, another Jewish character marrying a Cossack and a Cossack marrying a Korean. Likewise, the Soviet Yiddish writer Emmanuil Kazakevich portrayed in a poem the achievement of Birobidzhan being declared the Jewish Autonomous Region on 7 May 1934 as an inter-communal event with the members of the Amur Cossack Host coming out to join the celebrations. Kazkevich's poem had a basis in reality as many members of the Amur Cossack Host hoped that Birobidzhan signalled Soviet interest in the neglected region along the banks of the Amur river.<ref>Estraikh, Gennady & Murav Harriet ''Soviet Jews in World War II: Fighting, Witnessing, Remembering'' Brighton: Academic Studies Press p.90</ref>

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 [[Organization for Jewish Colonization in Russia|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 suited for the journey.<ref name=":3" />