Gennady Estraikh's book explores the birth, growth, demise and afterlife of the Birobidzhan Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR). The History of Birobidzhan looks at how the shtetl was widely used in Soviet propaganda as a perfect solution to the 'Jewish question', arguing that in reality, while being demographically and culturally insignificant, the JAR played a key, and essentially detrimental, role in determining Jewish rights and entitlements in the Soviet world. Estraikh brings together a broad range of Russian and Yiddish sources, including archival materials, newspaper articles, travelogues, memoirs, belles-letters, and scholarly publications, as he describes and analyses the project and its realization not in isolation, but rather in the context of developments in both domestic and international life. As well as offering an assessment of the Birobidzhan project in the contexts of Soviet and Jewish history, the book also focuses on the contemporary 'Jewish' role of the region which now has only a few thousand Jewish occupants amongst its residents.

An examination of the Birobidzhan project from its inception to the present day.

About the Author
Gennady Estraikh is Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University, USA where he directs the Eugene Shvidler Project of Comprehensive History of Jews in the Soviet Union. In 1988-91, he worked in Moscow as Managing Editor of the Yiddish literary monthly Sovetish Heymland. In 1991-2002, he lived in Oxford, where he received his doctoral degree and worked at the Oxford Institute for Yiddish Studies, UK. In 2000-2010 he co-edited the East European Jewish Affairs journal. He has written and edited several books and is a recipient of the American National Jewish Book Award for his co-authored work, 1929: Mapping the Jewish World (2013).

Reviews
The Russian Shorts series by Bloomsbury Academic has been enriched with another title. To the list of such comprehensive works as a brief but extremely fact rich history of Birobidzhan, or the Jewish Autonomous Region within the Russian Federation has been added... Gennady Estraikh's History of Birobidzhan presents a rich collection of diverse facts from various sources (some of which are rather hard to access), often capable of surprising even seasoned experts in the history of Soviet Jewry in general and Birobidzhan in particular, and pointing to new directions for potential research. * The Russian Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9781350296244
Author Professor Gennady Estraikh
Format Paperback
Page Count 152
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC