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This documentary tells the astonishing story of Jewish life in Birobidzhan, a region located in the far eastern region of Siberia, near the Manchurian border. Birobidzhan was the capital of the "Jewish Autonomous Region," an area so designated by Stalin in 1928 in an attempt to oppose Zionism and as a point of military strategy. In the early 1930s, Jews from the US, South America, and Palestine joined the community, which was centered in Birobidzhan. Many of the pioneers could not adapt to the harsh climate and rural life and quickly departed; the Stalinist purges of the 1930s and 1940s devastated the community. This documentary, which was filmed during 1988-89, examines the problems facing the Jews of this region, including the questioning of their religious activities under a communist regime. Footage from American and Russian sources, from 1928 to the present, appears here for the first time. (NCJF)
