The Jewish settlers at Bira Bidjan, Far Eastern Republic, where the Soviets had planned an autonomous Jewish state, are leaving the place hastily, according to three reports presented to the fourth plenary session of the Ozet, the society for settling the Jews on the land. The reports were presented by M. Sudarsky who investigated Bira Bidjan last month with a special commission of the land commissariat, by a special labor brigade sent to probe Bira Bidjan and by Hirsch Nagler, chairman of the Ozet’s control committee, who returned this week from Bira Bidjan after an inspection trip.
BIRA BIDJAN BADLY MANAGED
The plenary session, which is a substitute for the annual convention of the Ozet, which has been postponed until the Fall, devoted its opening meeting entirely to Bira Bidjan. All reports pointed out that the Jews are not deserting Bira Bidjan because the prospects of the land are poor but because of the extremely bad management of the Ozet. Sudarsky was especially sharp in his criticism of the Ozet.
JEWS HAD NO HOUSES, TOOLS
Himself a leader of the Ozet, Sudarcky said that until now the Jewish settlers had had no houses and no tools and hence had no desire to remain. A good deal of the discouragement in Bira Bidjan, it was reported, is also due to the general shortage of labor for in the Far East non-qualified workers get ten roubles a day and the new Jewish settlers consequently prefer to remain in Chabarovsk and other industrial centers of the Far East rather than go to Tichonkoye to settle on the land.
Although Sudarsky’s pessimistic report was not denied by others who reported, many of the speakers during the discussion accused him of being a right winger who sought to disorganize the Bira Bidjan propaganda and to weaken by his pessimism the desire of
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.
