A recent Jewish visitor to the Soviet Union has branded as a “propaganda exercise” an announcement by Russian authorities that the Yiddish weekly, Stern, published in Birobidjan, was being changed to a daily. He said the intent was to show that contrary to Jewish claims, Yiddish language organs were not forbidden but actually encouraged in the USSR. The observer said there were actually few Yiddish readers left in Birobidjan which was established as an autonomous Jewish Republic in Soviet Asia during the 1920s. He said Jews elsewhere in the Soviet Union ignored Stern because it was an official mouthpiece.
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.
