Editing Jewish Autonomous Oblast (section)

== History ==
{{Main|History of the Jews in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast}}
{{See also|History of the Jews in Russia|History of the Jews in the Soviet Union}}

=== Background ===

==== Annexation of the Amur Region by Russia ====
Prior to 1858, the area of what is today the Jewish Autonomous Oblast was ruled by a succession of [[Dynasties in Chinese history|Chinese imperial dynasties]]. In 1858, the northern bank of the [[Amur River]], including the territory of today's Jewish Autonomous Oblast, was split away from the [[Qing dynasty|Qing Chinese]] territory of [[Manchuria under Qing rule|Manchuria]] and became incorporated into the [[Russian Empire]] pursuant to the [[Treaty of Aigun]] (1858) and the [[Convention of Peking]] (1860).

==== Military colonization ====
In December 1858, the Russian government authorized the formation of the [[Amur Cossacks|Amur Cossack Host]] to protect the south-east boundary of Siberia and communications on the Amur and [[Ussuri]] rivers.<ref name=pereltsvaig/> This military colonization included settlers from [[Transbaikalia]]. Between 1858 and 1882, many settlements consisting of wooden houses were founded.<ref name="russianamur">{{Cite book |last=Ravenstein |first=Ernst Georg |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_XEEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA156 |title=The Russians on the Amur: its discovery, conquest, and colonization, with a description of the country, its inhabitants, productions, and commercial capabilities ... |publisher=Trübner and co. |year=1861 |page=156 |author-link=Ernst Georg Ravenstein}}</ref> It is estimated that as many as 40,000 men from the Russian military moved into the region.<ref name=russianamur/>

Expeditions of scientists, including geographers, ethnographers, naturalists, and botanists such as [[Mikhail Ivanovich Venyukov]], [[Leopold von Schrenck]], [[Karl Maximovich]], [[Gustav Radde]], and [[Vladimir Leontyevich Komarov]] promoted research in the area.<ref name=pereltsvaig/>

==== Construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway ====
{{Multi image
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| caption1          = Map of the Trans-Siberian Railroad: original route in red, Baikal-Amur Mainline in green.
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| caption2          = The Jewish Autonomous Oblast with the administrative center of Birobidzhan underlined.
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In 1899, construction began on the regional section of the [[Trans-Siberian Railway]] connecting [[Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai|Chita]] and [[Vladivostok]]. The project produced a large influx of new settlers and the foundation of new settlements. Between 1908 and 1912, stations opened at Volochayevka, [[Obluchye]], [[Bira, Russia|Bira]], [[Birakan]], [[Londoko]], [[In, Russia|In]], and [[Tikhonkaya, Jewish Autonomous Oblast|Tikhonkaya]]. The railway construction finished in October 1916 with the opening of the {{convert|2590|m|adj=on}} [[Khabarovsk Bridge]] across the Amur at [[Khabarovsk]].

During this time, before the [[Russian Revolution|1917 revolution]], most local inhabitants were farmers.<ref name=pereltsvaig/> The only industrial enterprise was the Tungussky timber mill, although gold was mined in the Sutara River, and there were some small railway workshops.<ref name=pereltsvaig/>

==== Russian Civil War ====
In 1922, during the [[Russian Civil War]], the territory of the future Jewish Autonomous Oblast became the scene of the [[Battle of Volochayevka]].<ref>[https://www.prlib.ru/en-us/History/Pages/Item.aspx?itemid=990 Anniversary of the Battle of Volochayevka]</ref>

==== Soviet policies regarding minorities and Jews ====
Although [[Judaism]] as a religion ran counter to the [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik party]]'s policy of atheism and their crackdown on organized Jewish communities by closing synagogues and harassing believers, [[Vladimir Lenin]] also wanted to appease minority groups to gain their support and provide examples of tolerance.<ref name=siegel/>

In 1924, the unemployment rate among Jews exceeded 30 percent,<ref name="komzet">{{Cite web |last=Kipnis |first=Mark |title=Komzet |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_11427.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116155108/https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_0012_0_11427.html |archive-date=16 January 2017 |website=[[Jewish Virtual Library]] |publisher=Encyclopaedia Judaica}}</ref> as a result of USSR policies against private property ownership, which prohibited them from being craftspeople and small businessmen as many had been prior to the revolution.<ref name="sadandabsurd">{{Cite web |last=Masha Gessen |date=September 7, 2016 |title='Sad And Absurd': The U.S.S.R.'s Disastrous Effort To Create A Jewish Homeland |url=https://www.npr.org/2016/09/07/492962278/sad-and-absurd-the-u-s-s-r-s-disastrous-effort-to-create-a-jewish-homeland |publisher=[[NPR]]}}</ref> With the goal of getting Jews back to work to be more productive members of society, the government established [[Komzet]], the committee for the agricultural settlement of Jews.<ref name=komzet/> The Soviet government entertained the idea of resettling all Jews in the USSR in a designated territory where they would be able to pursue a lifestyle that was "socialist in content and national in form". The Russians also wanted to offer an alternative to [[Zionism]], the establishment of the [[Mandate for Palestine|Mandate of Palestine]] as a Jewish homeland. [[Socialist Zionist]]s such as [[Ber Borochov]] were gaining followers at that time, and Zionism was the favored ideology in the world's political economy to the Yiddish interpretations, which were essentially incompatible with the USSR because of the Yiddish movement's growing opposition (e.g. [[Emma Goldman]]) to the very ethno-nationalism which constituted and structured Soviet states.<ref name="pereltsvaig" />

[[Crimea]] was initially considered in the early 1920s, when it already had a significant Jewish population.<ref name="pereltsvaig">{{Cite web |last=Asya Pereltsvaig |author-link=Asya Pereltsvaig |date=October 9, 2014 |title=Birobidzhan: Frustrated Dreams of a Jewish Homeland |url=https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/russia-ukraine-and-the-caucasus/birobidzhan-frustrated-dreams-jewish-homeland.html}}</ref> Two Jewish districts ({{lang|ru|raiony}}) were formed in Crimea and three in south Ukraine.<ref name=komzet/><ref name="Yaacov Ro'i 1995 193">{{Cite book |last=Yaacov Ro'i |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bJBH5pxzSyMC&pg=PA193 |title=Jews and Jewish Life in Russia and the Soviet Union |publisher=Frank Cass & Co. |year=2004 |isbn=9780714646190 |page=193}}</ref> However, an alternative scheme, perceived as more advantageous, was put into practice.<ref name=pereltsvaig/>{{Multiple image
| image1            = Rosja 1990.jpg
| caption1          = A child playing in the JAO.
| image2            = Chapel of St. Dmitry Donskoy.jpg
| caption2          = The Chapel of St. Dmitry Donskoy.
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| caption3          = A monument to the Volochaevsky battle.
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| caption4          = A Yiddish-Russian sign on the JAO government headquarters.
}}

=== Early history ===

==== Establishment ====
Eventually, [[Birobidzhan]], in what is now the JAO, was chosen by the Soviet leadership as the site for the Jewish region.<ref name="rosen">{{Cite web |last=Arthur Rosen |date=February 2004 |title=Birobidzhan – the Almost Soviet Jewish Autonomous Region |url=https://www.jewishmag.com/75mag/birobidzhan/birobidzhan.htm}}</ref> The choice of this area was a surprise to Komzet; the area had been chosen for military and economic reasons.<ref name=siegel/> This area was often infiltrated by [[Republic of China (1912–49)|China]], while [[Empire of Japan|Japan]] also wanted Russia to lose the provinces of the [[Soviet Far East]]. At the time, there were only about 30,000 inhabitants in the area, mostly descendants of Trans-Baikal [[Cossacks]] resettled there by tsarist authorities, Koreans, Kazakhs, and the [[Tungusic peoples]].<ref name="Nora Levin 1990 283">{{Cite book |last=Nora Levin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1Nz0N5GBW6MC |title=The Jews in the Soviet Union Since 1917: Paradox of Survival, Volume 1 |publisher=New York University Press |year=1990 |isbn=9780814750513 |page=283}}</ref> The Soviet government wanted to increase settlement in the remote [[Russian Far East]], especially along the vulnerable border with China. General [[Pavel Sudoplatov]] writes about the government's rationale behind picking the area in the Far East: "The establishment of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in Birobidzhan in 1928 was ordered by Stalin only as an effort to strengthen the Far Eastern border region with an outpost, not as a favour to the Jews. The area was constantly penetrated by Chinese and White Russian resistance groups, and the idea was to shield the territory by establishing a settlement whose inhabitants would be hostile to [[White émigré|white Russian émigrés]], especially the Cossacks. The status of this region was defined shrewdly as an autonomous district, not an autonomous republic, which meant that no local legislature, high court, or government post of ministerial rank was permitted. It was an autonomous area, but a bare frontier, not a political center."<ref>Pavel Sudoplatov and Anatolii Sudoplatov, with Jerrold L. Schecter and Leona P. Schecter, [[Special Tasks|Special Tasks: The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness – A Soviet Spymaster]], Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Co., 1994, p. 289.</ref>

On 28 March 1928, the Presidium of the General Executive Committee of the USSR passed the decree "On the attaching for Komzet of free territory near the Amur River in the Russian Far East for settlement of the working Jews."<ref name=behindcommunism/> The decree meant "a possibility of establishment of a Jewish administrative territorial unit on the territory of said region".<ref name=pereltsvaig/><ref name="behindcommunism">[https://books.google.com/books?id=7QLiAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA105 Behind Communism]</ref>

The new territory was initially called the [[Birobidzhan]] Jewish National Raion.<ref name=siegel/>

Birobidzhan had a harsh geography and climate: it was mountainous, covered with virgin forests of oak, pine and cedar, and also swamplands, and any new settlers would have to build their lives from scratch. To make colonization more enticing, the Soviet government allowed private land ownership. This led to many non-Jews settling in the oblast to get a free farm.<ref name="Richard Overy 2004 567">{{Cite book |last=Richard Overy |url=https://archive.org/details/dictators00rich |title=The Dictators: Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia |publisher=W.W. Norton Company, Inc |year=2004 |isbn=9780393020304 |page=[https://archive.org/details/dictators00rich/page/567 567] |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In the spring of 1928, 654 Jews arrived to settle in the area; however, by October 1928, 49.7% of them had left because of the severe conditions.<ref name=siegel/> In the summer of 1928, there were torrential rains that flooded the crops and an outbreak of [[anthrax]] that killed the cattle.<ref name="wherejews">{{Cite book |last=Gessen |first=Masha |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IfW4DAAAQBAJ |title=Where the Jews Aren't: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region |year=2016 |isbn=9780805242461 |author-link=Masha Gessen}}</ref>

On 7 May 1934, the Presidium of the General Executive Committee accepted the decree on its transformation into the Jewish Autonomous Region within the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic]].<ref name=pereltsvaig/> In 1938, with the formation of the [[Khabarovsk Krai|Khabarovsk Territory]], the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) was included in its structure.<ref name=behindcommunism/>

==== Growth of Jewish communities in the early 1930s ====
{{Multiple image
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| image2            = Биробиджан, вокзал (cropped).jpg
| caption1          = Market near the village of Nikolaevka.
| caption2          = A menorah dominates the front of Birobidzhan's railway station.
| image3            = Село Владимировка ЕАО фото.JPG
| caption3          = Vladimirovka village.
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In the 1930s, a Soviet promotional campaign was created to entice more Jewish settlers to move there. The campaign partly incorporated the standard Soviet promotional tools of the era, including posters and Yiddish-language novels describing a socialist utopia there. In one instance, leaflets promoting Birobidzhan were dropped from an airplane over a Jewish neighborhood in Belarus. In another instance, a government-produced Yiddish film called ''[[Seekers of Happiness]]'' told the story of a Jewish family from overseas making a new life for itself in Birobidzhan.<ref name=pereltsvaig/>

Early Jewish settlements included [[Valdgeym]], dating from 1928, which included the first [[collective farm]] established in the oblast,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Stalin's forgotten Zion: the harsh realities of Birobidzhan |url=http://www.swarthmore.edu/Home/News/biro/html/panel13.html |publisher=Swarthmore}}</ref> [[Amurzet]], which was the center of Jewish settlement south of Birobidzhan from 1929 to 1939,<ref>{{Cite web |date=31 August 2004 |title=A Jew Receives State Award in Jewish Autonomous Republic |url=http://fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=170388&cid=84435&media=80392&NewsType=80052&origMedia=80392&scope=3806&start=30 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://archive.today/20140720041927/http://web.archive.org/web/20070927015959/http://fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=170388&cid=84435&media=80392&NewsType=80052&origMedia=80392&scope=3806&start=30 |archive-date=July 20, 2014 |access-date=2009-02-18 |publisher=The Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS |location=Birobidjan, RU}}</ref> and [[Smidovich]].

The [[Organization for Jewish Colonisation in the Soviet Union]], a Jewish Communist organization in North America, successfully encouraged the immigration of some US residents, such as the family of the future spy [[George Koval]], which arrived in 1932.<ref name=pereltsvaig/><ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Michael Walsh |date=May 2009 |title=George Koval: Atomic Spy Unmasked |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/george-koval-atomic-spy-unmasked-125046223/ |magazine=[[Smithsonian (magazine)|Smithsonian]]}}</ref> Some 1,200 non-Soviet Jews chose to settle in Birobidzhan.<ref name=pereltsvaig/><ref name=rosen/>

As the Jewish population grew, so did the impact of [[Yiddish culture]] on the region. The settlers established a Yiddish newspaper, the ''[[Birobidzhaner Shtern]]''; a theatre troupe was created; and streets being built in the new city were named after prominent Yiddish authors such as [[Sholom Aleichem]] and [[I. L. Peretz]].<ref name="jewishcurrents" />

==== Stalin era and World War II ====
The Jewish population of JAO reached a pre-war peak of 20,000 in 1937.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=nzhq85nPrdsC&pg=PA326 A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581–1990]</ref> According to the 1939 population census, 17,695 Jews lived in the region (16% of the total population).<ref name=behindcommunism/><ref name="atlas">[https://books.google.com/books?id=-w9JCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA257 Russian Political Atlas – Political Situation, Elections, Foreign Policy]{{Dead link|date=May 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

After the war ended in 1945, there was renewed interest in the idea of Birobidzhan as a potential home for Jewish refugees. The Jewish population in the region peaked at around 46,000–50,000 Jews in 1948, around 25% of the entire population of the JAO.<ref name="David Holley" />

==== Cold War ====
The census of 1959 found that the Jewish population of the JAO had declined by approximately 50%, down to 14,269 persons.<ref name=atlas/>

A synagogue was opened at the end of World War II, but it closed in the mid-1960s after a fire left it severely damaged.<ref name="crownheights">{{Cite web |last=Ben G. Frank |date=April 15, 2012 |title=A Visit to the 'Soviet Jerusalem' |url=http://crownheights.info/something-jewish/43151/a-visit-to-the-soviet-jerusalem/ |publisher=CrownHeights.info}}</ref>

In 1980, a Yiddish school was opened in [[Valdgeym]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Pinkus |first=Benjamin |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=52Ew77pZsNUC |title=The Jews of the Soviet Union: the History of a national minority |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-521-38926-6 |page=272 |chapter=The Post-Stalin period, 1953–83 |access-date=2009-02-18 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=52Ew77pZsNUC&pg=PA272}}</ref>

In 1987, the reformist Soviet government led by [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] pardoned many political prisoners and told the American Jewish community that it would allow the emigration of 11,000 Jewish [[refusenik]]s.{{sfnm|1a1=Doder|1a2=Branson|1y=1990|1p=195}} According to the 1989 Soviet Census, there were 8,887 Jews living in the JAO, or 4% of the total JAO population of 214,085.<ref name="siegel">{{Cite web |title=Nation Making in Russia's Jewish Autonomous Oblast |url=https://www2.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/demokratizatsiya%20archive/05-03_siegel.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160902184547/https://www.gwu.edu/~ieresgwu/assets/docs/demokratizatsiya%20archive/05-03_siegel.pdf |archive-date=September 2, 2016 |access-date=January 13, 2017}}</ref>

=== Post-Soviet history ===
[[File:Flickr - Government Press Office (GPO) - Jewish Agency Representatives.jpg|thumb|[[Birobidzhan]]ers [[1990s post-Soviet aliyah|arriving in Israel]], 23 March 1993.]]
In 1991, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast became the [[Federal subjects of Russia|federal subject]] of Russia and thus was no longer subordinated to [[Khabarovsk Krai]]. However, by that time, most of the Jews had emigrated from the Soviet Union and the remaining Jews constituted fewer than 2% of the local population.<ref name="jewishcurrents">{{Cite web |last=Henry Srebrnik |date=July 2006 |title=Birobidzhan: A Remnant of History |url=http://jewishcurrents.org/old-site/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Birobidzhan.pdf |publisher=[[Jewish Currents]]}}{{Dead link|date=July 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref> In early 1996, 872 people, or 20% of the Jewish population at that time, emigrated to [[Tel Aviv]] via chartered flights.<ref name="jamesbrook">{{Cite news |last=James Brook |date=July 11, 1996 |title=Birobidzhan Journal;A Promised Land in Siberia? Well, Thanks, but ... |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/11/world/birobidzhan-journal-a-promised-land-in-siberia-well-thanks-but.html}}</ref> As of 2002, 2,357 Jews were living in the JAO.<ref name=atlas/> A 2004 article stated that the number of Jews in the region "was now growing".<ref>{{Cite news |last=Julius Strauss |date=August 17, 2004 |title=Jewish enclave created in Siberia by Stalin stages a revival |work=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1469623/Jewish-enclave-created-in-Siberia-by-Stalin-stages-a-revival.html |url-status=live |url-access=subscription |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/1469623/Jewish-enclave-created-in-Siberia-by-Stalin-stages-a-revival.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022}}{{cbignore}}</ref> As of 2005, [[Amurzet]] had a small active Jewish community.<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 10, 2005 |title=Remote Far East Village Mobilizes for Purim |url=http://www.fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=267005 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090204000238/http://www.fjc.ru/news/newsArticle.asp?AID=267005 |archive-date=February 4, 2009 |publisher=Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS}}</ref> An April 2007 article in ''[[The Jerusalem Post]]'' claimed that the Jewish population had grown to about 4,000. The article cited [[Mordechai Scheiner]], the [[Chief Rabbi]] of the JAO from 2002 to 2011, who said that, at the time the article was published, Jewish culture was enjoying a religious and cultural resurgence.<ref name="jpost">{{Cite news |last=Haviv Rettig Gur |date=April 17, 2007 |title=Yiddish returns to Birobidzhan |work=[[The Jerusalem Post]] |url=https://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-Features/Yiddish-returns-to-Birobidzhan}}</ref> By 2010, according to data provided by the Russian Census Bureau, there were only approximately 1,600 people of Jewish descent remaining in the JAO (1% of the total population), while ethnic Russians made up 93% of the JAO population.<ref>{{Cite web |date=January 20, 2016 |title=Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region In Siberia 'Ready' To House European Jews. |url=https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-jewish-autonomous-region-house-european-jews/27498765.html |publisher=[[Radio Free Europe]]}}</ref>

According to an article published in 2000, Birobidzhan has several state-run schools that teach Yiddish, a Yiddish school for religious instruction and a kindergarten. The five- to seven-year-olds spend two lessons a week learning to speak Yiddish, as well as being taught Jewish songs, dance, and traditions.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Steen |first=Michael |date=January 13, 2000 |title=Soviet-era Jewish homeland struggles on |work=Utusan Online |url=http://ww1.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2000&dt=0113&pub=Utusan_Express&sec=Features&pg=fe_02.htm |url-status=dead |access-date=January 12, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170113171700/http://ww1.utusan.com.my/utusan/info.asp?y=2000&dt=0113&pub=Utusan_Express&sec=Features&pg=fe_02.htm |archive-date=January 13, 2017}}</ref> A 2006 article in ''[[The Washington Times]]'' stated that Yiddish is taught in the schools, a Yiddish radio station is in operation, and the ''Birobidzhaner Shtern'' newspaper includes a section in Yiddish.<ref name="washingtontimes.com">{{Cite news |date=7 January 2006 |title=Jewish life revived in Russia |work=The Washington Times |url=https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/jan/7/20060107-104818-4703r/}}</ref>

[[File:OmqBXApVTdk.tif|thumb|Memorial for Jewish poet [[Isaac Leibovich Bronfman]].]]
In 2002, ''[[L'Chayim, Comrade Stalin!]]'', a documentary on Stalin's creation of the Jewish Autonomous Region and its settlement, was released by [[The Cinema Guild]]. In addition to being a history of the creation of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, the film features scenes of contemporary Birobidzhan and interviews with Jewish residents.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kehr, Dave |author-link=Dave Kehr |date=January 31, 2003 |title=Film Review; When Soviet Jews Sought Paradise in Siberian Swamps and Snow |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/31/movies/film-review-when-soviet-jews-sought-paradise-in-siberian-swamps-and-snow.html |website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>

According to an article published in 2010, Yiddish is the language of instruction in only one of Birobidzhan's 14 public schools. Two schools, representing a quarter of the city's students, offer compulsory Yiddish classes for children aged 6 to 10.<ref name=HERSZENHORN/><ref>{{Cite news |last=Alfonso Daniels |date=June 7, 2010 |title=Why some Jews would rather live in Siberia than Israel |work=[[Christian Science Monitor]] |url=http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0607/Why-some-Jews-would-rather-live-in-Siberia-than-Israel}}</ref>

As of 2012, the ''[[Birobidzhaner Shtern]]'' continues to publish 2 or 3 pages per week in Yiddish and one local elementary school still teaches Yiddish.<ref name="HERSZENHORN">{{Cite news |last=David M. Herszenhorn |date=October 3, 2012 |title=Despite Predictions, Jewish Homeland in Siberia Retains Its Appeal |work=[[New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/04/world/europe/jewish-homeland-in-birobidzhan-russia-retains-appeal.html}}</ref>

According to a 2012 article, "only a very small minority, mostly seniors, speak Yiddish", a new [[Chabad]]-sponsored synagogue opened at the 14a Sholom-Aleichem Street, and the [[Sholem Aleichem Amur State University]] offers a Yiddish course.<ref name=crownheights/>

According to a 2015 article, [[kosher]] meat arrives by train from [[Moscow]] every few weeks, a Sunday school functions, and there is also a [[minyan]] on Friday night and [[Shabbat]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Ben G. Frank |date=May 27, 2015 |title=A Railway Sign In Yiddish? – Only in Siberia |url=http://www.jewishpress.com/sections/features/features-on-jewish-world/a-railway-sign-in-yiddish-only-in-siberia/2015/05/27/ |publisher=[[Jewish Press]]}}</ref>

A November 2017 article in ''[[The Guardian]]'', titled, "Revival of a Soviet Zion: Birobidzhan celebrates its Jewish heritage", examined the current status of the city and suggested that, even though the Jewish Autonomous Region in Russia's far east is now barely 1% Jewish, officials hope to woo back people who left after Soviet collapse.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Walker |first=Shaun |date=27 September 2017 |title=Revival of a Soviet Zion: Birobidzhan celebrates its Jewish heritage |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/27/revival-of-a-soviet-zion-birobidzhan-celebrates-its-jewish-heritage}}</ref>

==== 2013 proposals to merge the JAO with adjoining regions ====
In 2013, there were proposals to merge the JAO with [[Khabarovsk Krai]] or with [[Amur Oblast]].<ref name=pereltsvaig/> The proposals led to protests,<ref name=pereltsvaig/> and were rejected by residents,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Ilan Goren |date=August 24, 2013 |title=In Eastern Russia, the Idea of a Jewish Autonomy Is Being Brought Back to Life |work=[[Haaretz]] |url=https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.543221}}</ref> as well as the Jewish community of Russia. There were also questions as to whether a merger would be allowed pursuant to the [[Constitution of Russia]] and whether a merger would require a national referendum.<ref name=pereltsvaig/>