A rich and varied collection of items documenting the history of Birobidzhan, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Russia, 1920s to 1990s. Yiddish, Russian and English.
"The Jewish Autonomous Oblast" (Yiddish: Yiddishe Oitonome Gegent), better known by its former name, "Birobidzhan", was a territory allocated to Jewish agricultural settlement in Communist Russia. The idea of establishing a special region for Jews first came up after the October Revolution, when hundreds of thousands of Jews lost their sources of income and became, according to the Russian terminology of the time, "unproductive". In order to integrate the Jews into the new economy of the Soviet Union, a governmental authority by the name of KOMZET (КомЗЕТ) and a Jewish public company by the name of OZET (ОЗЕТ) were established, operating together to return the Jews to agriculture.
The success of Zionism and the developing solution in Palestine to the Jewish Question led the Russian authorities to examine the possibility of establishing an autonomous Jewish territory and introducing it to the world as a national home under the Soviet flag. At first, various territories closer to Jewish concentrations were examined – Western Russia, Ukraine and Crimea; eventually the decision was made to establish an oblast near the Chinese border, in a hostile and unsettled area located at the Russian "edge of the world". On March 28, 1928, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR passed a resolution to allocate the territory for the settlement of productive Jews and the first autonomous Jewish oblast was born – Birobidzhan.
Despite the difficult initial conditions, the oblast was a surprising success in the first decade of its existence: more than 20,000 Jews migrated to the place, new agricultural settlements were established, the Yiddish newspaper "The Birobidzhan Star" (Birabidzhaner Stern) was founded and in the capital city, squares were decorated with Jewish symbols and streets were named after leading Yiddish cultural figures.
Russia allocated immense resources to the "marketing" of the oblast around the world, and all the more so in North America, for which a special propaganda institution was established – ICOR. The organization operated among Yiddish-speakers and distributed an abundance of printed propaganda materials in order to compete with the Zionist movement over the heart of American Jews.
Towards the late 1930s, with the change in the attitude of Russia toward the Jews, the Great Purge reached Birobidzhan as well. Before long, most of the Jewish leaders, writers and intellectual were executed and after World War II, all the Yiddish-speaking institutions were dismantled. In the process, the two institutions which gave the project most of its momentum and power, KOMZET and OZET, were also dismantled. In the early 1950s, ICOR was shut down as well.
During the next decades, the number of Jews in the oblast gradually decreased and today the Jewish population is down to about 1500, which constitutes less than one percent of the population of the oblast. Nevertheless Birobidzhan continues to exist as an autonomous Jewish oblast to this day.
Offered here is a collection of documents, propaganda material, ephemera and printed items documenting this unique chapter in Jewish history and the history of Russian communism. The collection contains items from the short-lived "Golden Age" of the oblast, some of them issued by OZET and ICOR, alongside items documenting its decline in the second half of the 20th century and after the collapse of the USSR.
The collection contains:
Items issued by the OZET and ICOR organizations: • Two membership notebooks and four lottery tickets issued by OZET (late 1920s-1930s). • A portfolio with reproductions of works by Issachar Ber Ryback, William Gropper, Baruch Aaronson, Nikolai Kupriyanov and others. New York: ICOR, 1929. Most of the works depict Jewish peasants; some of them were drawn subsequent to the artists' visit to the Jewish agricultural colonies. • Covers of the booklet "ICOR Biro-Bidjan Souvenir", in Hebrew and Yiddish, with illustrations by William Gropper (June 1934). • Four booklets from the ICOR Bibliotek series (New York, 1930s). • Two ICOR pins, marking the tenth anniversary of Birobidzhan (1938). • "Umsterbleche Reyd", collection of speeches and articles supporting the Birobidzhan Experiment, by Reuben Brainin (writer, publicist, editor and Zionist activist who campaigned for the Jewish settlement in the USSR). New York: ICOR, 1940. Yiddish.
Booklets on the subject of Birobidzhan, in Yiddish and English, including: • "Biro-Bidzhan un Palestina", by A. Sudarski. Kharkiv: "Tsenterfarlag", 1929. • Birobidzhaneh, Dertseylung", by David Bergelson. Moscow: "Emes", 1934. • The Jewish Autonomous Region, by David Bergelson. Moscow, 1939. With photographs of Birobidzhan. • Birobidzhan, shilderungen fun a rayze in July-August 1934" [Birobidzhan, Descriptions of a Journey in July-August 1934], by A. Perlman. Warsaw: "Groshen Bibliotek", 1934. A map of Birobidzhan included in one booklet. • And more.
Items from Birobidzhan, most of them from the 1970s-1990s: • "Forpost", a Yiddish journal of the autonomous Jewish oblast. Birobidzhan 1937. • A Komsomol membership card issued to a boy from Birobidzhan, 1979. • Certificate in the name of Leonid Borisovich Shkolnik, the editor of the "Birobidzhan Star". Granted to him after being elected to the "Council of the People's Representatives of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast" (совет народных депутатов еврейской автономной области), 1990. • "Scheme of the Administrative Centre". Map of Birobidzhan (printed in Yiddish, English and Russian), 1989. • And more.
Additional items documenting the history of the Jewish agricultural settlement in the USSR.
Size and condition vary. Some of the items are placed in elegant frames for display.