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Friday, December 19, 2014

Биробиджан

Lenin Street in Birobidzhan (in Yiddish)  לענין גאַס

Birobidzhan, The Jewish Autonomous Region of the Russian Federation.

...Jews never constituted more than one-fourth of the population of Birobidzhan, and today their share has shrunk a lot more. Emigration to Israel, often encouraged by the economic crisis of perestroika and an active campaign by Israel and its local agents, has depleted this Jewish community just as it has many others in the former Soviet Union. At one of the synagogues I saw leaflets recruiting new immigrants for Israel, even though, as the former deputy governor of the Jewish Autonomous Region Valery Gurevich later told me, there are more Jews returning from Israel than going there...
The retro-emigration is interesting, but is a phenomenon attested throughout the ages.

http://972mag.com/a-land-without-a-people-a-visit-to-russias-jewish-autonomous-region/100088/

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