Investor Presentaiton
was removed in 1930 (the Evkom was dissolved earlier in 1924). 206 However, Stalin's policy
approach was highly inconsistent, and even paradoxical; the earlier policy of supporting non-
Jewish national movements that were "Socialist in content, nationalist in form" was abandoned
for other nationalities, but now applied to Jews.
As a continuation of the failed 1920's attempt to create a Jewish agricultural territory in
Northern Crimea and the Southern Ukraine territory of Kuban, the Soviet government
established a new territory as a Soviet Jewish homeland in Siberia, called Birobidzhan. 207
This territory was approved as a "Jewish agricultural settlement” in 1928, and in 1930 it was
declared a Jewish National Region.2 Then, in 1934, Birobidzhan was given status as an
209
208
autonomous region.2 The territory comprised an area “larger than Holland and Belgium
combined," and was presented as a “new Zion. "210 Considering the territory was located in the
Soviet Far East and was established as an agricultural territory, it was not popular. Jews, who
had achieved successful levels of assimilation, were not interested in leaving their lives behind to
become Siberian farmers.
In addition to the failed 'Soviet Zion' of Birobidzhan, Stalin also introduced new policies
in the 1930s that would further separate Jews from the rest of society, despite earlier promoting
their assimilation. The most obvious example is the introduction of identity cards in 1932. Now,
"Jewishness became a non-voluntary category foisted on every child of Jewish parents, thus
206
Ibid, 102.
207 Slezkine, The Jewish Century, 248.
208 Ibid.
209 Alessandro Vitale, "Ethnopolitics as Co-operation and Coexistence: The Case Study of the Jewish Autonomous
Region in Siberia," Politeja, no. 31/2 (2015): 127.
210 Vitale, "Ethnopolitics," 124.
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