Soviet Embassy in Washington Disseminates Article on Biro-bidjan

The Soviet Embassy here today circulated to the press an article by a Jewish writer in Biro-Bidjan aimed at showing that Jewish life is going on in the former Jewish autonomous region. However, aside from generalities about the economy and educational institutions of the region, the article does not indicate any specific Jewish activities in those fields.

Published in celebration of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the “Jewish Autonomous Region, ” the article mentions that one of the main streets of the city of Biro-Bidjan is named after the Yiddish writer, Sholom Aleichem. It also mentions that the railway station bears the name of the town “in Yiddish and Russian.”

Yakov Gurevich, assistant editor of the Yiddish newspaper, Birobidjaner Stern, reported in the article that Biro-Bidjan contains a teachers’ school which has graduated more than 2, 000 students–but there is no indication as to how many of these graduates are Jews. The writer reports that the town has a Sholom Aleichem Library, containing “some 100, 000 volumes of political and scientific works, as well as fiction, a great many of which are in the Yiddish language.” There are two newspapers–one of which is the paper on which Mr. Gurevich works, in Yiddish, the other in Russian.

Throughout the article, Jews are mentioned–but only in general context, without any details as to numbers. Jews are reportedly among the workers in the village of Waldheim, in Amurzet, and in a nearby collective farm named after the late Josef Stalin. Jewish names are mentioned among the founders of these villages, among them Yekhiel P. .k, Natan Brandman and Semyon Fuchsman.

The article states that the region has five representatives in the Soviet of Nationalities of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and one deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Soviet Federation of Soviet Republics. Among those named is Vera Gleizer, identified as principal of the Biro-Bidjan boarding school.