Warning that Biro-Bidjan, autonomous Jewish territory, may never become a republic at the present rate of development coupled with an indication that reorganization is pending of the Comzet, Government commission for Jewish settlement, and the Ozet, society for settlement of Jews in the Soviet, is given by A. Chatzkievitch, secretary of the Soviet Nationalities Council, in an article in Emes, Yiddish daily.
“If the settlement of Jews in the region proceeds at the same rate,” he is quoted, “it will never be transformed into an autonomous Jewish republic.” He contends it is necessary that Government plans for more rapid settlement and creation of a Jewish majority not only be carried out, but exceeded.
One of the most difficult obstacles, he asserts, to more rapid development is the slow rate of house-building and setting up of industrial and cultural enterprises.
That the region can attract more settlers than it has, he says, is shown by the fact that in the past year 8,000 settlers arrived there of whom 2,000 paid their own passage. The present population is only 21 per cent Jewish, he stated, and in the course of the past year the Jewish population has increased by only three per cent.
He ascribes the slow development of Biro-Bidjan to the reluctance of Jews to leave good positions to migrate there. The chaotic situation and unemployment in Russia ten years ago, he explains, impelled thousands of Jews from the Ukraine, White Russia and the Western provinces to seek homes in the Jewish region, while at present, he states, the situation has changed radically.
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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.
