Return of the Jews: To Russia not Israel

msnbc.msn.com ^ | Aug. 9 issue | Newsweek International

[Destro]

Return of the Jews
For decades the story of Russia's Jews has been one of fear and flight to Israel. Now many are coming home.

That's why an estimated 50,000 Jews have returned to Russia in the past five years. They come mostly to booming Moscow—but also to godforsaken places like Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region, a swampy Siberian area larger than Israel that is plagued by mosquitoes in summer and minus-35-degree temperatures in winter. ,,, Part of the reason, he says, is that under President Vladimir Putin, life for the Jews of Russia has changed. "It's a lot better," he says. "There's work. Russia is rising again."

The contrast is indeed stark, at least by some measures. In Russia oil prices are setting new highs. Economic growth is set to surpass 7 percent in 2004, as it has in most recent years. In Israel the economy is a mess. Unemployment tops 10 percent, and the intifada is in its fifth year. Even the Jewish Autonomous Region—created in the 1930s by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin to lure Jews from western Russia to a new Siberian "homeland"—is enjoying a modest boom. As Dubinin puts it, "You can make a good living."

All this defies expectations. "Jews in Russia are as free as they are anywhere else in the world," declares Rabbi Berel Lazar, a top Jewish leader who has forged unusually good relations with the Kremlin—partly on the strength of the fact that Putin himself, Lazar says, happily shared an apartment with a Jewish family when growing up as a boy in St. Petersburg.

[Destro]

A Wave of Jews Returning to Russia @ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1184708/posts

[Destro]

Jews leave France but return to Russia @ http://newsfromrussia.com/world/2004/07/22/55159.html

[gobucks]

THE JAR .... never heard of it. But here it is:

Jewish Autonomous Republic

Jewish Autonomous Republic, or Birobidzhan, is a remote territory in the Russian Far East, bordering China. It has an area of 35,700 sq. kilometers (13,895 sq. miles) and a population of approximately 212,000 (1995), of which only about 2 percent is Jewish: the remainder is Russian (approximately 85 percent), Ukrainian, and Korean.

The capital is Birobidzhan, and that name is often used to describe the sparsely populated territory in its entirety. The economy is based on mining (gold, tin, iron, and graphite), lumber, limited agriculture, and light manufacturing (mainly textiles and food processing).

According to the current administrative subdivisions of Russia, it is officially called Jewish Autonomous Oblast, within the Russian Far East federal district.

The Jewish Autonomous Republic was founded in 1928 as the Jewish National District. It was the result of Vladimir Lenin's nationality policy, by which each of the national groups that formed the Soviet Union would receive a territory in which to pursue cultural autonomy in a socialist framework. In that sense, it was also a response to two supposed threats to the Soviet state: Judaism, which ran counter to official state atheism, and Zionism, which countered Soviet views of nationalism. The idea was to create a new Soviet Zion, where a proletarian Jewish culture could be developed. Yiddish, rather than Hebrew, would be the national language, and a new socialist literature and arts would replace religion as the primary expression of culture.

With hindsight, it can be said that the experiment was doomed from the start. Another important goal of the Birobidzhan project was to increase settlement in the remote Soviet Far East, especially along the vulnerable border with China. In 1928, there was virtually no settlement in the area, while Jews had deep roots in the western half of the Soviet Union, in Ukraine, Belorussia and Russia proper. The geography and climate were harsh, and any new settlers would have to build their lives from scratch. Some have even claimed that Stalin was also motivated by anti-Semitism in selecting Birobidzhan: he wanted to keep the Jews as far away from the centers of power of possible. To his credit, however, it must be said that the Ukrainians and Crimeans were reluctant to have a Jewish national home carved out of their territory, even though most Soviet Jews lived there, and there were very few alternative territories without rival national claims to them.

Despite the hardships, a trickle of Jewish settlers arrived. By the 1930s the Jewish National District was promoted to the status of an Autonomous Region and a massive propaganda campaign was underway to induce more Jewish settlers to move there. Some of these incorporated the standard Soviet propaganda tools of the era, and included posters and Yiddish-language novels describing a socialist utopia there. Other methods bordered on the bizarre. In one instance, leaflets promoting Birobidzhan were dropped from an airplane over a Jewish neighborhood in Belorussia. In another instance, a government-produced Yiddish film called Seekers of Happiness told the story of a Jewish family that fled the Depression in the United States to make a new life for itself in Birobidzhan.

As the Jewish population grew, so did the impact of Yiddish culture on the region. A Yiddish newspaper, Der Birobidzhaner Shtern, was established, a theater troupe was created, and streets in the new city that was built were named after prominent Yiddish authors, such as Sholom Aleichem and Y. L. Peretz. At the same time, some efforts were also made to Russify Yiddish culture: the most notable of these was a failed attempt to replace the Hebrew alphabet used for writing Yiddish with a Cyrillic one.

The Birobidzhan experiment ground to a halt in the mid-1930s, during Stalin's first campaign of purges. Jewish leaders were arrested and executed, and Yiddish schools were shut down. Shortly after this, World War II brought concerted efforts to bring Jews East to an abrupt end. There was a slight revival in the Birobidzhan idea after the war as a potential home for Jewish refugees. During that time, the Jewish population of the region peaked at almost one-third of the total. Efforts in this direction ended, however, with the Doctors Plot, the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state, and Stalin's second wave of purges shortly before his death. Once again, the Jewish leadership was arrested and efforts were made to stamp out Yiddish culture—even the Judaica collection in the local library was burned. In the ensuing years the idea of creating an autonomous Jewish region in the Soviet Union was all but forgotten, and Birobidzhan once again became a remote backwater on the Sino-Soviet border.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and new liberal immigration policies, most of the remaining Jewish population left for Germany and Israel. In 1991, the Jewish Autonomous Region was elevated to the status of an Autonomous Republic, but by that time most of the Jews had left, so that Jews now constitute less than two percent of the local population. Nevertheless, Yiddish is once again taught in the schools, the Birobidzhaner Shtern publishes a Yiddish edition, and a Yiddish radio station still operates.

A documentary film, L'CHAYIM, COMRADE STALIN! on Stalin's creation of the Jewish Autonomous Region and its settlement by a few Jews was released in 2003. In addition to history of the creation of the proposed Jewish homeland the film features scenes of contemporary Birobidzhan and interviews with Jewish residents. (from http://www.fact-index.com/j/je/jewish_autonomous_republic.html)

What is interesting is that I have never encountered any of this in school or the media.

Hats off to FR for once again revealing the utter expanse of the infinite of what I don't have a clue about ...

[GSlob]

"No one likes Russians there," says Dubinin, who emigrated to Israel in 1999 and came back last year."
He might have hit the nail on the head. Having absorbed too much of russian identity/mentality [and not having made sufficient effort to discard it] he has found it to be a handicap. As they would say it in russian: "khuyevo".

[Destro]

Many non-Ashkenazi (Ashkenazi being Jews of Western European/German culture origin) complain of such discrimination. It is a Western European/Israeli culture that discriminates against them - think of them as Israel's WASPS.

[GSlob]

From what I have seen during my 26 years in thucking USSR/Russia - vast majority of what is now called "Russian Jews" are Ashkenasis. Given the history of Pale of Settlement - i.e. how Russia inherited most of its Jewish population from Poland (i.e. from Germany through Poland - hence Yiddish language) it makes a lot of sense. The only Sephardic ones I have ever seen or heard about while there were "Soviet Jews" from Central Asia (like Bukhara Jews). I do not know enough history to attribute Karaims. But both Karaims and Central Asia Jews are/were a distinct minority among Jewish population of former USSR.

[Destro]

You are correct that the Russian Jews are Ashkenazi Jews but the old USSR - while hard on religious and ethnic minorities - did assimilate Jews into the "mainstream". So after all these decades of Communism Russian Jews are indistinguishable from Slavic Russians. I wonder if that is how others more knowledgable see it like this also?

[GSlob]

"So after all these decades of Communism Russian Jews are indistinguishable from Slavic Russians."
Some do, albeit I would still change it to "little distinguishable". With more precision, I would speak about "degree of identity/mentality contamination", and to that extent you are right. This is precisely the problem of that Dubinin, quoted in the original article and from it in my post #4. Now he had to (at crash speed) shed as much as he could of that Russian identity/mentality. It is more difficult than stopping heavy drinking, although that, too, might have been involved.
When using the words "Identity/mentality contamination" I mean the things like degree (or index) of individualism which is pretty high in contemporary secular Ashkenasis and rather low in Russian culture. One could add other parameters normally associated with Western and Russian/Orthodox - in Huntington's nomenclature - civilizations and create a sort of "spectrum" or numerical matrix of identity/mentality (historiometry of Charles Murray comes to mind here). Majority of Ashkenasis in Russia/USSR/Russia in this sense were "internal emigrants" and cultural/civilizational aliens throughout recent history. While there has been significant assimilation with regard to language loss and abandonment of Judaism - I would still say that (based on my own anecdotal observations) Ashkenasi identity/mentality matrix is very resilient and highly resistant to assimilation

[Destro]

You are incorrect in regards to Russian "contamination". The problem is they are more secular and view themselves as Hebrews (or Russian?) that happen to be Jewish (or athiest or whatever).

The Ashkenazi view being Jewish as the only identity - The Russian Jews compartmentalize the identity into two parts.

[FearGodNotMen]

I posted this to another thread dealing with the same subject, so I thought I'd post it here to.

A European friend of mine who has traveled and studied the Soviet Union and Russia extensively recently sent an email to me. Here is an excerpt of his remarks:

"In Soviet era, that was even more bureaucratic, but today, it might be easier for some people to emigrate than to move from their home town to Moscow, if only they would get a visa from a foreign country. That is why Israel has been flooded by more and less genuinely Jewish Russian immigrants."

There is no doubt that many Russian Jews made Aliya for genuine reasons. However, many of the Jews who immigrated from Russia to Israel weren't even Jews at all. Still others, with a residual connection Jewish to their Jewish heritage, were not committed to Zionism or Israel. I know, because I interviewed many of them during my stay there. Plus, you can bet, the Russians were sure to mix-in plenty of FSB agents for good measure. In short, many of the people we see going back to Russia were never committed to Eretz Israel (as the article makes abundantly clear) and therefore never belonged there in the first place IMHO.

[Destro]

Plus, you can bet, the Russians were sure to mix-in plenty of FSB agents for good measure.

What a paranoid and moronic statement and thus your paranoid opinions are useless.

[GSlob]

As far as KGB/FSB types are concerned, FearGodnotMen is absolutely correct. It was self-evident to FBI, and attracted their attention and resources. Once they even appeared at my workplace in Rochester NY in 1983 (or 84?), checking me out.

[Destro]

Yea - USSR was around then - that fool thinks that the Jewish emigres to Israel and France are FSB plants returning to Russia. Either you did not understand that when you read it (no shame) or you buy into his paranoid - the FSB are everywhere crap.

[GSlob]

The more they change the more they remain the same (Voltaire). If anything is paranoid, it is the idea that FSB somehow is qualitatively different from KGB, despite continuity of personnel and mission.

[Destro]

What is paranoid is that the FSB are everywhere and controlling Jewish returns to Russia. The myth that the KGB could do anything with efficiency is laughable as is leftist myth that the CIA runs the world.

[FearGodNotMen]

All I was saying is they slipped their agents into Israel along with the rest of the Jewish immigrants. It's a no-brainer. And GSlob is right, I know plenty of Jews, who know Russian Jews, who can attest to the fact that the Russian immigrant community (especially Russian Jews) is being constantly monitored by the FSB.

[Destro]

He was talking aboutthe KGB in 1984. The modern offshoot called the FSB hardly has the resources to do stuff not in direct line to national security - the old KGB "watched" the Russian Jews for political reasons (immigration being a tool the Cold War politics).

And your a nutjob if you think just being from Russia makes you a spy for the FSB.

[FearGodNotMen]

"And your a nutjob if you think just being from Russia makes you a spy for the FSB."

Quit being deliberately sophomoric. Of course I know your average Russian immigrant does not work for the FSB. Please.

[Destro]

Quit being deliberately sophomoric. Of course I know your average Russian immigrant does not work for the FSB. Please.

You lie.

Plus, you can bet, the Russians were sure to mix-in plenty of FSB agents for good measure.

Plenty, eh? Your own words get you.

"FearGodNotMen Since Oct 5, 2004
Banned in the past for being a Chechen sympathizer."

[FearGodNotMen]

"FearGodNotMen Since Oct 5, 2004
Banned in the past for being a Chechen sympathizer."

Destro, you really ought to see a shrink about all those Chechens beneath your bed. I really think you're starting to lose it.