Jewish writer Marc Alter was in Moscow when he saw Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visit, accompanied by two rabbis, the autonomous Jewish district of Birobidjan, where they were received by signs in Yiddish. The delegation went to a synagogue while a chuppah ceremony was being held, and then Medvedev was seen laying several pebbles on a local Holocaust memorial. The Russian president's visit shed light on the fact that Jewish autonomy has continued.
Dictator Joseph Stalin sought to solve the Jewish "problem" by setting up the area on the Chinese border in 1934 and he proclaimed Yiddish to be the official language. Alter recounts that he took the Trans-Siberian Express to see for himself what is taking place in Birobidjan. First, he learned that Yiddish remains the official language, and not only Jews, but other local residents, speak it.
"The street names are written in Russian and Yiddish," says Alter. "It's quite an anomaly, but Yiddish remains the official language of Birobidjan. Here we are 11,000 kilometers from Paris, on the Chinese border, and Yiddish flourishes such a far distance away from any Jewish population center in the world."
The district, twice the size of Belgium, has just 180,000 residents, out of which only 10,000 are Jewish. He was told that 8,000 Jews live in the city of Birobidjan itself, of a total of 67,000 residents. Although the Jews are a minority, Yiddish is taught in the schools.
