M. Kalinin, President of the Union of Socialist Soviet republics, today received a Jewish deputation which called on him to express formally the gratitude of the Jews of Russia for the proclamation of Biro-Bidjan as an autonomous Jewish region.
M. Kalinin, in accepting this expression, declared that Biro-Bidjan would be a united center for Jewish culture, the Jews creating there a “new Jewish type, no longer the persecuted type of Czarist times.”
Proclamation of Biro-Bidjan as a Jewish region has been greeted with satisfaction by the non-Jewish population of the area, which is greatly in excess of the number of Jews settled there. This is largely due to the fact that Jewish immigration has developed large tracts of desert area and has materially furthered the development of the region.
The Moscow State and town Planning Institute has already begun to prepare the project of a capital for the region conceived as a political, cultural and administrative Jewish center.
The capital will be established on the banks of the Biro River. According to present plans it will cover 1250 acres. Actual construction will begin next Spring. The town of Biro-Bidjan, which was not pained as the capital, will be developed as an industrial center.
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.
