Jews have never constituted a majority of the population of the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR), and their absolute numbers have fluctuated significantly throughout its history. According to the 1939 census, the population of the JAR was 108,900, including 17,700 Jews (16.2%). In subsequent years, their numbers and share steadily declined. The most intensive outflow occurred after 1991, due to the migration of Jews to Israel and Germany. In 2010, Jews made up only 0.9% of the region's 178,000 population—ten times lower than in 1959 and three times lower than during the last Soviet census of 1989. Even if official statistics underestimate the number of Jews in the region by 1.5 to 1.8 times, the issue is not merely absolute or relative numbers: the region's population as a whole, and Jews in particular, rarely use Yiddish as a spoken language. Consequently, the question of the extent to which the Jewish Autonomous Region can be considered Jewish requires a much more comprehensive answer.

Established nearly 90 years ago, the Jewish Autonomous Region of the Russian Federation represents a unique phenomenon: it is not merely a long-standing symbol inherited by post-Soviet Russia as a local variant of the national-territorial solution to the "Jewish question" in the USSR, but essentially the only implemented project in the world based on the "territorialist" model of Jewish national self-determination.

Conceived as a Soviet communist alternative to Zionism, the Birobidzhan project, launched under the slogan "To the Jewish Country!", attracted thousands of Jews from shtetls and cities within the USSR. It also drew approximately 1,500 Jewish settlers from 14 foreign countries, including the United States, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Argentina, and other Western nations, as well as repatriates from British Mandate Palestine.

It is nevertheless important to note that the "titular nation"—the Jews—never constituted a majority of the population of the JAR, and their absolute numbers, judging by the data compiled by the author, fluctuated significantly throughout its history. In May 1928, the targeted resettlement of Jews to the Birobidzhan district began. As early as July 7-8, 1928, the first Jewish village council, "Birefeld," was established in the area of the Bira experimental field. It should be noted that the first Jewish pioneers faced significant hardships due to the lack of suitable housing and unprepared agricultural land, which failed to yield the expected results in retaining the settlers.[1] By the end of 1929, the Jewish population in the Birobidzhan district totaled only 800 people[2].

According to an archival report submitted to the Regional Committee of the CPSU as of October 1, 1930,[3] the population of the district stood at only 37,538, including 2,300 Jews. There were 248 settlements, including 9 with a predominantly Jewish population; 53 village councils, including 3 Jewish ones; 67 schools in total, including 3 Jewish ones; and 36 collective farms, including 4 Jewish ones.

During 1931, an additional 2,108 people arrived in the district. In the same year, 465 Jews arrived in the Birobidzhan district from Lithuania, Argentina, and America.[4] The total number of Jewish settlers arriving from abroad in the 1930s was approximately 1,500. By 1932, the Birobidzhan district had five Jewish collective farms—"Waldheim," "Birefeld," "Amurzet," "Ikor," and "Leninafeld"—with a total workforce of 1,840; six Jewish state farms of various types employing 1,085 workers; and nine different enterprises employing 1,579 Jewish laborers. The percentage of returnees dropped to 26%. By 1932, a total of 4,504 Jewish settlers resided in the Birobidzhan district[5].

During the same period, 68 schools operated in the district in the 1931/32 academic year, rising to 120 schools by the beginning of the 1937/38 academic year, covering 15,673 students.[6] The number of schools and classes where instruction was conducted in Yiddish grew steadily. In the 1932/33 academic year, there were 22 Jewish classes with 250 students;[7] in 1934/35, 950 children were taught in 52 Jewish classes; in 1936/37, there were 11 Jewish and 11 Jewish-Russian schools, with 110 classes and a total of 1,430 students; and in 1938/39, there were 12 Jewish and 13 Jewish-Russian schools, with 130 classes and a total of 1,813 students.[8] To train teaching staff, a pedagogical college with Jewish and Russian departments was opened in the working settlement of Birobidzhan in 1932, graduating its first class in 1935.

Between 1935 and 1937, 19,000 settlers arrived in the region, including 16,100 Jews. From 1938 to 1940, the influx of settlers declined (8,300 people, including 2,400 Jews). According to the 1939 census, the population of the JAR was 108,900, including 17,700 Jews (16.2%).[9] Svetlana Mishchuk's research notes that "In 1959, the numbers of Jews and Ukrainians were comparable (14,300 and 14,400 respectively). However, in subsequent years, the number of Jews declined steadily (Table 1). The most active outflow occurred after 1991, driven by the migration of Jews to Israel and Germany.[10] Between 1989 and 2002, the Jewish population decreased by a factor of 3.9, which represents the highest rate of decline of the Jewish population within the total population of the JAR over the entire period analyzed."

Mark Tolts' research illustrates the migration process of the Jewish population from the JAR in comparison with other regions of Russia. "In 1996-1998, this region made the most significant contribution to the migration flow to Israel compared to other subjects of the Russian Federation, accounting for 13-14%. The level of emigration from Russia to Israel in 1994-1998 showed very large regional variations: for Moscow, it constituted only 2.3% of the 'expanded' Jewish population at the beginning of 1994, whereas for the JAR this figure rose to 59.6%. <...> In 1999, as in previous years, the majority of Jewish emigrants from Moscow (72%) and St. Petersburg (59%) left for Western countries. Conversely, the vast majority of those from the provinces (82%) headed to Israel, and for the JAR this share was even higher (94%). This region, which was home to only 1% of Russian Jews, accounted for about 9%."[11] Consequently, according to the 2010 All-Russian Population Census, Jews made up only 0.9% of the region's 178,000 population—ten times lower than in 1959 and three times lower than in 1989, the year of the last Soviet census.

Table 1. Ethnic Structure of the JAR Population According to USSR and RF Censuses, 1959–2010

Former governor of the region Alexander Levintal, however, believed that official statistics do not always reflect reality. "We know that the national demographic policy of the past actively encouraged assimilation and intermarriage. Various studies indicate that, based on these factors, we could realistically adjust the Jewish population in our region upward by 1.5 to 1.8 times, which would be closer to the truth."[12]

However, the issue extends beyond the absolute or relative numbers of the Jewish population in this unfulfilled Jewish Country.

According to a brief prepared by the regional government at the author's request, "According to the 2010 census, in the JAR, which has a total population of 176,558 and a Jewish population of 1,628, proficiency in Yiddish was indicated by 97 individuals (6% of the region's Jewish population), proficiency in Hebrew by 312 individuals (19% of the region's Jewish population), and proficiency in other Jewish languages (unspecified) by 54 individuals. The population of the region as a whole, and Jews in particular, do not use Yiddish as a spoken language."[13]

Thus, the legitimate question—to what extent can the Jewish Autonomous Region be considered Jewish?—requires a much more comprehensive answer, which must be addressed not only by demographers and statisticians.

[1] State Archive of the Khabarovsk Territory (GAKhK). F. 353. Op. 3. D. 35. L. 33.

[2] GAKhK. F. 353. Op. 1. D. 128. L. 1.

[3] State Archive (GA) of the JAR. F. 75/4c. Op. 2. D. 268. L. 1-3.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid. L. 10.

[6] GA of the JAR. F. R-100. Op. 1. D. 40. L. 1.

[7] Ibid. L. 2.

[8] Ibid. L. 15.

[9] GA of the JAR. F. 87. Op. 4. D. 93. L. 7.

[10] Svetlana Mishchuk, "Ethnic Composition," in Geography of the Jewish Autonomous Region, ed. E. Ya. Fishman (Birobidzhan: Institute for Complex Analysis of Regional Problems, Far Eastern Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2018), pp. 287-288, http://xn--80apgve.xn--p1ai/konferens/monografii/geografiya-eao/глава%2012.pdf

[11] Mark Tolts, "Russian Emigration to Israel," Population and Society: Information Bulletin of the Center for Demography and Human Ecology of the Institute for Economic Forecasting of the Russian Academy of Sciences, no. 71, May 2003. http://www.demoscope.ru/acrobat/ps71.pdf

[12] EAJC Yearbook. Jews of Europe and Asia: Status, Heritage and Prospects / Collection of Scientific and Publicistic Articles, Vol. 1 (2018 — 2019/ 5779) — Herzliya, Israel, Euro-Asian Jewish Congress — Institute for Euro-Asian Jewish Studies — 2019. p. 267

[13] Information brief on the preservation, development, and popularization of the languages and cultures of the peoples of Russia, received on April 28, 2019.