Judeopolonia Model Birobidzhan Maroney

The Other Zions: The Lost Histories of Jewish Nations, by Eric Maroney. 2009

Soviet Birobidzhan as an Inadvertent Model for Judeopolonia

Owing to the many topics addressed by this book, I focus on only a few, and, unlike the author, assess the significance of Birobidzhan beyond its immediate impact.

THE YIDDISHIST MOVEMENT WAS AN ANTI-POLISH ONE

The most fascinating part of this book is the one that alludes to Eastern European Jews. Despite imports from Romance, Hebrew, Aramaic, and eventually, Slavic, 80% of Yiddish was Germanic. (p. 125). Yiddish even assumed the status of a “native” Jewish tongue even though Sephardic Jews never spoke Yiddish, Ashkenazi Jews had spoken it for only the last thousand years at most (pp. 124-125), and most eastern European Jews had not lived in Germany for several centuries.

Maroney assesses this as follows: “The drive to give Yiddish a centrality in the life of Eastern European Jews was called the Yiddishist Movement or Diaspora Nationalism—or Goles Nationalism in Yiddish. The JAR [Jewish Autonomous Region in Soviet Birobidzhan] was the only physical fulfillment of the Yiddishist dream of an autonomous homeland for Jews away from the traditional bounds of Zion…” (p. 124). “The JAR was the only formal attempt to put into place the dream of a Yiddish state. As we saw earlier, Goles Nationalism, in its various forms, conceived of the kind of state the JAR attempted. The JAR was a semi-autonomous region within a wider confederation of states, which gave preference to Jews and fostered Yiddish…” (p. 145).

Reflecting on the foregoing two quotes, the informed reader may be struck on their similarity to the much-maligned Endek understanding of erstwhile Polish Jews. This Endek understanding included Yiddish-centered hostility to Polish-ness, and Jewish nationalism with its goal of some form of Jewish nation–outside of Palestine if necessary—and culminating in the dangers of some form of Judeopolonia (a foreign-appointed Jewish ruling class, over subjugated Poland, serving the German and/or Russian masters).

BIROBIDZHAN AS A MODEL FOR JUDEOPOLONIA

The JAR in Birobidzhan, commissioned in 1927 and a reality in 1937, proved that at least some Soviet Communist authorities came to see the Jews as a nation (and not just a religion or an ethnicity), and moreover a nation worthy of some type of distinctive geographical region on Soviet-held territory. (pp. 138-139). The possibility of a literal Judeopolonia is clear. All the ingredients were in place.

Birobidzhan, located in Siberia near the Chinese border, far from areas where Jews lived previously, thus became a Soviet Zion, also supported by foreign monies. However, by 1939, only 18,000 of the 109,000 people living in the JAR were Jewish. (p. 141). Despite this, Yiddish and Russian were used in street signs and all government transactions. Yiddish was a compulsory subject even in non-Yiddish schools. (p. 141).

The Jews in Birobidzhan were given the status of ruling overclass, over the locals, along with all its privileges. A local Jewish majority was not necessary for Soviet-ruled Jewish Birobidzhan to become a reality and—by implication—neither was a local Jewish majority necessary for Soviet-ruled Judeopolonia to have become a reality.

JUDEOPOLONIA INSTEAD OF SOVIET BIROBIDZHAN

Had Poland lost the 1920 Polish-Soviet War, and Poland been re-absorbed into the USSR as the 17th Soviet Republic, the stage would have been set for Poland, and not Birobidzhan, as the new Jewish national state. In one master stroke, Stalin could, by creating a Jewish overclass over subjugated Poland, have created a Jewish homeland of sorts, punished the Poles for daring to want to be free, and weaken any residual Polish aspirations for autonomy. [To a milder extent, Stalin later did exactly that in the form of the largely-Jewish overclass that was part of the Communist puppet imposed on Poland (1944-on).]

Unlike the situation in Birobidzhan, a Jewish population—not to mention a huge one and long-established one–was already in place in Poland. Ironically, author Maroney, in discussing the eventual failure of the JAR, inadvertently hinted at how a Soviet-ruled Judeopolonia would have been a much better choice than remote, never-before-Jewish Birobidzhan: “If Birobidzhan was no Land of Israel, neither was it even Polish Galicia.” (p. 146).

In any event, the possibility of some form of Judeopolonia was long realistic owing to the following: “We will never know if the Yiddishist dream could have become a reality, in the JAR or elsewhere, for the Holocaust destroyed nearly all of the Yiddish-speaking communities that fostered the hope of Goles Nationalism.” (p. 146).

It is high time that various authors stop treating Judeopolonia as some kind of anti-Semitic fantasy. It most certainly was not.