The plan for setting up a Jewish district in the Krivoyrog region is explained in detail in an article appearing here in the Yiddish Communist organ, “Stern.”
The idea of setting up a Jewish district has grown, the paper states, out of the everyday needs of the Jewish peasants of the Krivoyrog region. Before the Revolution, there were in the region seven Jewish villages with less than 6,000 souls. Many of these fled at the time of the famine. Afterwards some of them returned and began to restore their farms. By now the old farmers have completely reestablished their economic positions. The old Jewish colonies were concentrated in the districts of Schirokoye and Sofievka. The colonies were situated two to six verst from each other, ten verst from the centre of the region, and about ten to eighteen verst from the nearest railway station. In 1924, another 560 individuals settled in two new colonies in the region, and 150 immigrants came there. Systematic transference of migrants started in 1925. At the present time there are 9,723 Jewish souls settled in the district. There are six village Soviets. In the next month or so another six will be created, two in the old colonies and four in the new, the paper states.
“Arrangements are now being made for setting up this prospective Jewish district. By the autumn we shall have fifteen new villages of migrant settlers, and by 1927 it is expected that the district will already have been established,” it states.
The beginnings of a second Jewish district are showing themselves now in the Sholakov district, where 90,000 desiatin of land have been allocated for Jewish settlement, and where 12,000 souls are to be settled in the course of the next two years. In order to create a national minority district, a working class population of 10,000 is required.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
