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If there had been no synagogue there, they would have had to invent it: the case of the Birobidzhan “religious community of the Judaic creed” on the threshold of perestroika

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 42; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/13501674.2012.699205

1743-971X

Ber Kotlerman,

Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies

Abstract The Birobidzhan Jewish religious community, officially registered on 15 December 1946, was the only one recognised by the Soviet authorities in the USSR's Far East. During the first years of its activity the community represented a unique case – perhaps the only case in the country – of linkage between a synagogue and the Soviet party and economic establishment on the local level. However, the persecutions of the early 1950s and several anti-religious campaigns later resulted in the Birobidzhan religious community falling into to a very sorry condition. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Regional Executive Committee even decided to cancel the registration of the community and remove it from the books. At the same time, after the 1984 large-scale celebration of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR), the central Soviet authorities found that Birobidzhan “clericals” could serve the purposes of the Soviet agitation and propaganda apparatus, as confirmation of the absence of any oppression of Judaism in the JAR. As a result, the chairman of the Regional Executive Committee of Russian origin was removed from his position and a new chairman of Jewish origin was appointed. Furthermore, for the first time in decades, not counting the construction of the temporary synagogue at the Olympic village in Moscow in 1980, Soviet municipal authorities took an active part in the establishment of a Jewish house of worship. Keywords: Jews in the USSRBirobidzhanJudaismHolocaustSubbotniksSeventh-Day Adventists Notes This and other documents used in preparing this article were preserved in the Birobidzhan old synagogue and handed over to the author by its gabai (beadle) Boris (Dov) Kofman in the summer of 2007. For these documents (12 in total), published in Russian, their original language, see Kotlerman, “Correspondence with the Authorities,” 125–34. For the list of religious organisations of the Khabarovsk Territory that ceased their activity see file no. 253 in Bakaev, Religia i vlast' na Dal'nem Vostoke Rossii, 288. “The bottom part – 100% deterioration, the walls – 70%, the roof – 70%, the windows – 70%, the stoves – 60%, other works – 80%,” etc.; see Kotlerman, “Correspondence with the Authorities,” 125–34. Henakh (Einekh) Altsiker (1903–88) was the son-in-law of a rabbi from near Proskurov (today the city of Khmelnitsky, Ukraine) and a baker by profession. From 1953, he lived in the village of Valdheim and later moved to the city of Birobidzhan. Mordukh-Shmul Sluch (1906 to about 1987) was tried and convicted in the 1950s for making “slanderous statements against the Soviet state and social structure in connection with the electoral system, the situation of the Jews in the USSR, etc.” According to a letter from the Office of the Public Prosecutor of the Khabarovsk Territory, dated October 26, 1963 (No. 5–119), preserved in the author's personal archives, Sluch tried to obtain rehabilitation, but did not succeed. In the 1960s and 1970s, Sluch was an actor in the Birobidzhan Yiddish People's Theatre. Bugaenko, “Subbota v birobidzhanskoi sinagoge,” 58. The English version of the book is Bugaenko, On the Bank of the Amur. In addition, a large G clef in the form of a menorah was placed outside the new philharmonic hall, built in 1984. See Tokar', Doroga k Khramu, 140, 166. On these years see, for example, Weinberg, “Jewish Revival in Birobidzhan in the Mirror of ‘Birobidzhanskaya Zvezda’,” 35–53. On the functioning of the Jewish religious community in Birobidzhan during the early period of its existence, see Genina, “Religia i vlast',” 21–5. Genina, “Religia i vlast',” 22–3; Vaiserman, Birobidzhan, 318, 359. See Weinberg, “Birobidzhan after the Second World War,” 37. Genina, “Religia i vlast',” 22. See Altshuler, Yahadut bamakhbesh hasovyeti, 408. In the 1940s and 1950s, unregistered religious communities also existed in a number of villages in the Jewish Autonomous Region – Birofeld, Valdheim, and others. See Genina,“Religia i vlast',” 24. See, for example, the item published on the eve of Rosh Hashana, 1959: “Der reaktsionerer tokh fun di yidishe religieze yomtoyvim,” Birobidzhaner shtern, 2 October 1959. Hersh-Moshe Kats (1876–?) arrived in Birobidzhan in 1933 and worked as a forwarding agent in the regional industrial union. See State Archive of the Khabarovsk Territory (GAKhK), f. Р–1359, op. 3, d. 7, ll. 48–9; d. 3, l. 3; d. 6, l. 55 as found in Genina, “Religia i vlast',” 21, 23. It is not known whether Kats received a traditional education in a yeshiva. Borukh Maizler (1905–63), a native of Mogilev-Podolsk, was arrested in 1937 in the Ukraine for religious activity (formally, on a charge of embezzlement), sentenced to five years' imprisonment, and then sent to Central Asia. He arrived in the JAR in 1947, settled in the village of Birofeld, and then in the city of Birobidzhan. He worked as a weigher for the railway. “Old synagogue” refers to the synagogue of the old religious community. In 2004 a new institution, the “Bet Menahem” synagogue, was founded in Birobidzhan and acquired the appellation “the new synagogue.” It was and continues to be sponsored by the Chabad movement, whose new religious community is called the “Freyd” (“Joy”) community. On the discovery of the geniza, see Brener, Lekhaim, Birobidzhan, 285–6. The original engagement contract is preserved in the Jewish Museum of Birobidzhan, founded by the Chabad emissary, R. Mordechai Sheiner, and his wife Esther. The author wishes to thank R. Sheiner for the information he provided. On the return to Judaism of Soviet Jews in the 1970s and 1980s, see Pinkus, “The Hazara Bitshuva Phenomenon among Russian Jews in the Post-Stalin Era,” 15–30. In 2009 Kofman emigrated to Israel with his family and settled in Ma'ale Adumim. Vinokur, “Ugasanie drevnei very: iz laboratorii sotsiologa,” 41–3. See the purchase contract in the State Archive of the JAR (GАЕАО), f. 172, op. 7, d. 16, l. 236. Copy from 31 May 1982. A photograph of the building can be seen in Eliav, Beyn hapatish ve-hamagal: nisayon ishi bekerev yehudei Brit hamo'atsot, inset in the centrefold. Leib Gefen (1880–1966) was a native of the shtetl Vidzy (today in Belarus). He emigrated from Poland to the USSR at the beginning of the 1920s and arrived in Birobidzhan from Kazan at the end of April 1928 with the very first group of new settlers, “Nay-Kazan” (“New Kazan”). He was among the founders of the village of Valdheim. On the fire see Emiot, Der birobidzhaner inyen: khronik fun a groyliker tsayt, 180. Shapiro, “Jewish Believers in the USSR.” See also Pinkus, Yehudei Rusia u-Vrit hamo'atsot, 442. Orleanskii, Zakon o religioznykh ob'edineniakh R.S.F.S.R, 8, 14. Altshuler, Yahadut bamakhbesh hasovyeti, 65. See also Altshuler,“Synagogues and Rabbis in the Soviet Union,” 41–2. Altshuler, Yahadut bamakhbesh hasovyeti, 55–6. See also Zakonodatel'stvo o religioznykh kul'takh: sbornik materialov i dokumentov, 74. Yantovskii, Sud'by evreiskikh obshchin i ikh sinagog, 165. This quote is from an email sent by Kofman to the author in 2008. Yantovskii, Sud'by evreiskikh obshchin i ikh sinagog, 165. The apartments began to be occupied in 1989. See Tokar', Doroga k Khramu, 70. A copy of the list is in the possession of the author of these lines. The earliest mention of them there was probably made by the Swiss architect, Hannes Meyer, who, in the summer of 1933, drew up the first plan for the construction of the city of Birobidzhan. See Kotlerman and Yavin, Bauhaus in Birobidzhan, 96. See also the Polish journalist Perelman's 1934 report: Perelman, Birobidzhan, 184–9. In 1937, 15 Subbotnik families came to the JAR from the Stalingrad region, created their own kolkhoz, and settled together in the Khingan mountains in the village of Stalindorf (renamed the village of Zarechnoe in 1962); see Emiot and Yasinski, “A kolvirt fun gerim.” See files 249 and 250 in Bakaev, Religia i vlast' na Dal'nem Vostoke Rossii, 284–5. Fishkoff, “In Stalin's Former Jewish Haven, Locals Say Ground Is Ripe for Revival.” On Russian Subbotniks see Chernin, The Subbotniks. On the Seventh-Day Adventist religion see Jordan, Seventh-Day Adventists.