The news that the Soviet government has agreed to permit the entrance of the first fifteen hundred Jews from Poland to Biro-Bidjan will no doubt be received with great interest, not only in Poland, but also in the United States.
The Jews of the United States are interested in aiding Polish Jewry in its desperate plight. The Jews of the United States—no less than the Jews in Poland—know that Biro-Bidjan in its present state is hardly a desirable place of refuge. But Dr. Suritz, leader of the Agro-Yid, was quite right in pointing out to the Polish Ambassador in Moscow that “a million destitute Jews in Poland would now migrate anywhere.”
THE NAKED TRUTH
It is useless to close our eyes to the fact that these million Polish Jews who have been reduced to a state of beggary and who have no hope for the future in Poland have nowhere to go at present except Biro-Bidjan. Most of them would certainly prefer not to go to this distant land. Most of them would prefer to remain in Poland. A goodly number of them would like to go to Palestine. Many would have no objection to migrating to America.
But the doors of America are, unfortunately, closed. The doors of Palestine also are not at all open. And Poland? Is the Polish government making even the slightest attempt to help the million of her unfortunate citizens.
THE PERSPECTIVE
It is to be assumed that many of the Polish Jews coming to Biro-Bidjan will not feel happy there. A goodly number of them will, however, be satisfied, especially when they look back to the miserable conditions in which they lived in Poland.
As for those Polish Jews who will not succeed in acclimatizing themselves to Biro-Bidjan, I am certain that they will find their way to other places in Soviet Russia. Once admitted into the U. S. S. R., they will be able eventually to leave Biro-Bidjan and settle in other regions. They will sooner or later be absorbed into the 160,000,000 people in Russia and will assimilate with the Soviet Jews.
DIFFERENT TREATMENT
The movement to settle foreign Jews in Biro-Bidjan is only at its beginning. The Soviet government is interested in showing the Jews of the world that the experiment in Biro-Bidjan is on the way to success. Soviet authorities know that the Jews of the world will be watching how the first group of Polish Jews adapt themselves to Biro-Bidjan.
It can, therefore, be expected that the Jews who migrate now from Poland to Biro-Bidjan will receive the best treatment possible and will experience less of those difficulties which the first Jewish Soviet settlers faced there.
In the search for new territories for settling Jews from Poland, Germany and Austria, the Biro-Bidjan territory in the Far East cannot be overlooked. Especially for the Jews from Poland. Everybody knows that if the Soviet government would open its gates wide thousands of Polish Jews would flock to Russia, while very few Soviet Jews would go to Poland.
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.
