Making our way around the city, we viewed the new Sholom Aleichem monument at 2 Sholom-Aleykhem Street. Then we stopped in at the state kindergarten at 19 Pionerskaya Street, where the youngsters in the Menora program offered their own version of the Birobidzhan story in Yiddish and Hebrew. We walked under tree-lined streets named after such Jewish personalities as Emmanuel Kazakevich and Boris Miller. And with Zionism no longer taboo as it was in Communist days, we discovered Hebrew language study is gaining ground. The alef-bet is taught in the state kindergarten.
We reached the old Hut Synagogue on Mayakovskaya Street, a modest structure dating to the dark Communist years of the 1960s. During much of the Stalin’s days, no synagogue existed in Birobidzhan as religion was perceived to be counterrevolutionary. This first synagogue opened at the end of World War II, but closed in the mid-1960s after it was severely damaged in a fire. In 1968, the “Hut Synagogue” (so named because it resembled a wooden shtiebel), was established. The modest structure with a tin roof houses is described as a 19th century Jewish village congregation, held together by a small membership, a number of whom may not even be Jewish – or so we were told.
The community’s heart is the JCC at 14a Sholom Aleykhem Street. It has been renovated a number of times and at one point housed the second and main synagogue which opened in 2000. The congregation soon discovered that it was difficult to hold services in a crowded JCC, so in 2004, it moved to a newly-constructed building next door to the JCC, affiliated with Chabad – the cost of construction benefited from a donation by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee which financially assists organizations involved in education and welfare needs throughout Russia and Ukraine.
This synagogue features a prayer hall that seats over 100, a beautifully-designed Aron Kodesh crafted from wood imported from China, meeting rooms, a kitchen and canteen, a children’s center and a room designed for celebrating Shabbat and Jewish culture. “Cafe Simkha” on Sholom Aleykhem Street features klezmer music. According to Samuel Millstein, an American, who describes himself as an “observant Jew,” the restaurant was kashered specifically for the Israeli diplomatic mission and guests during the Jubilee festival last year. He noted that there is a Yiddish supermarket chain called “Brider Penshina” with a growing selection of kosher products, including kosher meat.
Born and raised in the U.S. and a recent graduate of Emerson College in Boston, Millstein, who now lives in Odessa, believes in Yiddish as a living language. He went to Birobidzhan to live, but had difficulties obtaining the necessary immigration papers. Now he works at the Tikva Children’s home in Odessa as an English-language videographer where he plans to improve his Russian and return to Birobidzhan.
The weekly Jewish newspaper, The Shtern, circulates throughout the city, but most of the articles are in Russian, though there are four Yiddish articles each week with a glossary of Yiddish words printed alongside them.
Rabbi Riss told me that there are a large number of residents with Russian names who have shared with him that they are Jewish. This phenomenon of Jews “coming out of the woodwork,” is not new to Eastern Europe and Russia. Once they discover they are Jews, “they now come to the synagogue,” added the rabbi.
After years of decline, Birobidzhan Jews face the future with optimism, even though the Jewish population has decreased. In the past, predictions abounded of JAR’s demise. But Jewish life in Birobidzhan continues and it could last a long time. Otherwise, why is the community building a new Jewish kindergarten, with a youth synagogue and mikveh in Birobidzhan?
