I remember hearing proposals to abolish the JAO and merge it back into Khabarovsk Krai - mostly because the Jewish population of the JAO has been less than 1% for decades now.

I was born there in the 60s, raised there, and still have relatives there. The Jewish population is closer to 2000 (even the rabbi will agree) - a lot of people changed their nationality on line 5 to avoid the university/military quotas and other hinderances & are on the official registers as being Russians (the Mohel who did my Bris was ON PAPER 100% Russian LOL). It was good back then. We spoke Yiddish in school - a bunch of kids were non-Jews from families who'd been deported East under Stalin but disallowed from returning to the western part of the USSR - they & their families preferred speaking their own languages at home and Yiddish with others instead of Russian. Sadly, our Korean neighbours had been so utterly terrorised during the Great Terror that while they DID keep their food, they no longer knew how to speak Korean. In the Pioneers, we got little badges & a slice or 2 of Doctorskaya or a handful of sweets from the shops if we would read The Birobidzhaner Shtern out loud (in Yiddish) to people waiting on the trains in the station. It sounds silly NOW, but it was fun and we got some free sausage and candy so it was important to US LOL We also got to meet people arriving from other parts of the USSR and sometimes would get a piece of hard-to-find fruits (like Mandarins) or foreign coins for our collections. We got left alone, and now that I'm friends with other former Soviet Jews from the same time, I realised just how good we had it there. OH! The Synagogue was only for show by the time of the fire. Religious services were happening all the time, just in peoples' flats. Interesting video.

I mean, it's not "secret." It's just unknown.

I'm from Russia and when I figured out there was a Jewish province inside our country, I was like "WTF???".

I met an actor from Birobidzhan once while working on a Chinese TV movie about the Doolittle Raid that will never be released due to political tensions. He had great difficulty explaining to people that he was from the "Jewish Autonomous Republic" which most people just assumed to mean Israel. He appreciated that I knew the difference.

Soviet Jews: Can we go to Israel? Stalin: We have Israel at home. Israel at home: JAO

Wouldn’t be surprised if its integrated into a neighboring region soon, as it still exist purely because of its historical context.

Cool you cover this. In 2019 I visited Birobidzhan and basically just for the story. It was an odd place with not much going on. Still I had a fun time though.

As a Russian, who ofc knew about JAO preciousot, Jewish Autonomous Republic with just 800 Jews, is just hillarious!

Fewer than 900 Jewish people there. I think the number will continue to dwindle. Those who make it will leave and the old ones will stay to look after the graves of their ancestors.

The whole history of the USSR both opposing and supporting national projects is pretty interesting.

An old Soviet joke: There was only one Jew left in Birabidzhan -Shlagbaum(railway barrier in translation)

You should do a video on the Jewish population of Iran. Despite being at odds with Israel, Iran hosts a large Jewish population and preserves several Jewish sites. There is even a memorial for the Jewish soldiers killed in action during the Iran-Iraq war.

A small correction, but the JAO doesn't actually have Yiddish as a second official language, since the Russian constitution only recognizes the republics' right to designate state languages other than Russian (and in practice, even the republics don't always exercise that right in full). The JAO's charter only mentions Russian as the state language and then talks about "creating the conditions for the preservation, study and development of languages of the Jewish people and those of other peoples residing within the oblast", which is similar to the wording used in other non-republic subdivisions of Russia in relation to the languages of their indigenous and other minority ethnic groups.

0:48 Nearby to this there was for a brief period in the 17th century a Polish state called Jaxa that bordered Qing China, so it's possible there were a few Polish Jews living around the Amur river even long before the Jewish autonous oblast was formed.

Funnily enough my mother is from Birobidzhan which is a city in the JAO, her father is originally a jew from Ukraine but he and many others fled when the germans invaded. He ended up being a fairly high ranking politician in the JAO, and later moved to Israel where we now live.

My great grandmother lived there

Hello Hilbert. I had heard of this, but interesting to get more detail. Now I just need to stop myself thinking of songs from "Fiddler on the Roof".

This is not a secret, also not a state, but an autonomous area

I've seen this place with my own eyes, but from the Chinese side of the river. It was very surreal because the Chinese side had a hum of activity but across the river, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast felt and sounded empty. Not to mention it was a 3-hour time difference or something, which was due to daylight saving in summer and China's weird time zone alignment.

In the years 1679-1680, the Jews of Yemen were sent to a desert region known as Mawza, until they were permitted to return to their former places. This expulsion of Jews to Mawza is known as the "Mawza exile." There is a Wikipedia article describing this exile.

Huh. my family immigrated from Birobidjan to Israel in 1999, plesently surprised someone made a video about this area, you actually researched into this. So accurate, thank you

"Secret." Interesting choice of words.

My Russian friend told me about it when I was in A levels. Happy that it got coverage by a channel like yours. Cheers🎉

I was a Russian studies major in university, and I did an entire research paper on the history of the region including the JAO.

Awesome. Brilliant content. Well said.

Learned more about this area through this video thank you. I remember hearing of it but didn’t know it lasted as long as it did.

My great-Grandfather and his wife were jews from Ukraine, Kherson. He joined the red army adn fought in the war, but when he came back after the war, one of the first things that happened to him, is that the soviets forced him and his relatives that survived to pack a small amount of items and move to the oblast, where they stayed until stalin died. Not all of the jews in this oblast were volunteers to go there, and not all were refugees..

And by "secret" we mean published in many, many Western atlases for a long, long time. "Forgotten" or "Ignored" would have served better here.

The original JAO was to be in Crimea, there were organizations that existed that lobbied to have Crimea and parts of southern Ukraine to be a JAO. Stalin axed the idea due to potential conflict with other ethnic groups in the area, and settled on its current location for strategic reasons, as mentioned in the video.

I discovered this area when visiting Harbin in China some years ago. Someone had made a small display of some information about the oblast. But since it was in mostly chinese I had to find out more about it myself. Mostly the same as the video.

Never knew of it. Great job.

Good video.

Yes. I recall reading through a Soviet publication in 1979 was showed the Jewish Oblast on a map and a description in the text. Years later I happened to meet a group of young Israelis in 2016 in NZ and we got talking as you do and one of the topics was the Soviet Autonomous Jewish zone. As it happened they were familiar with the subject I had raised.. More astonished that someone in NZ knew about something pretty much unknown.

Yes many Jews joined the reds. My family were Jewish in Ukraine in a village with a creek that fed into the Southern Bug. My side of the family fled a pogrom to Ellis Island. My great uncles who stayed behind fought in the Black Army, then another pogrom occurred under anarchist "rule", so they joined the reds.

I thought it was a well known fact, not a secret. When I lived in Israel I've actually met one person from Birabidjan. One thing to note is that people could not move freely inside the USSR. They were forced to move by the government. Like, Crimean Tatars being moved to exile in the east for instance. Or, in most cases, the government would relocate you because they needed workers somewhere where nobody wanted to go. There was no zionist movement in the USSR to speak of. Many secular Jews were Bolshevicks and other types of Communists - like Trotsky for example, but there was no massive support for communism among Jewish communities whatsoever. There was hardly any way to emigrate from the USSR to anywhere. There was a short period of time in the 80s when some people got out (after a stay in Vienna most of them chose either USA or Germany). Other tan that you couldn't get out until the 90s (like my family did). Although somehow Daniel Craig's character from the film "Defiance" did end up living in Brooklyn after the war. Go figure. When there's a will there is a way. During the civil war many people managed to escape, but that's before the USSR existed. The main reason the oblast (region) existed is that Stalin had a plan to relocate Jews to the far east. To get rid a potentially troublesome population in the Ukraine (and other places within the pale of settlement) and move them some place where you will never hear from them again. Like with Crimean Tatars. He started a campaign against the "cosmopolitans" with the doctors' affair towards the end of his life (arresting some most prominent Jewish doctors in Moscow). That was most likely a result of Israel unexpectedly aligning with the West. All indications were towards a massive clampdown on people who were ethnically Jewish, or rather part-Hebrew. Pretty much nobody was religiously Jewish at that point. I have met only one religious Jew during my 19 years in the USSR (one of the Refusniks), even though most of my parents' friends self identified as Jewish. Stalin died (or more likely was assassinated by Beria) before the plan was implemented. Otherwise there would be A LOT of Jews in Birabidjan.

I first heard about this in Farley Mowat's book, "The Siberians."

The JAO failed because it was essentially a Bantustan... Nothing more than just a tiny wedge of land tucked in a far away corner of the country where the undesirable ethnic minorities can be resettled. In fact, it's even worse than a Bantustan, because at least those were located somewhat within their historical homelands. The reality is, Zionism was only ever going to succeed in a location that's connected to the Jewish people. Otherwise, there would've been no incentive to stay and put up with the violence and hardship. You can always try again another time in a different land, after all. And that's exactly what happened here with the JAO.

Thank you for this interesting video! You inadvertently gave me a great idea : I've been wanting to learn Hebrew but I don't have enough time. This video made me realize I could learn Yiddish first so at least I'll learn the alphabet. I'm a native Dutch speaker from Belgium with a degree in German so picking up the actual language once I can read it should be doable.

Bolshevik Inner party were mostly jewish. Red Army itself was mostly jewish as well.

Hi Hilbert, worth a mention that the JAO has had some of the highest casualties percentage wise of any Oblast during the Invasion of Ukraine

Thank you for this special item.

It is not secret, not Jewish, not a state It is a region with local language being Yiddish. It’s Jewish population is 0,6%. Less than Russian population of Chechnya. JAO regional head is a Jew, and JAO has one of the highest representation of ethnic Russians in its government (funnily enough).

I didn't know it was a secret.

_A _*_secret_*_ Jewish state_ So *secret* that Wikipedia has over 100 articles about it including most exotic languages let alone English, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Chinese...

History with Hilbert: Interesting video. I have always been a "History guy" since elementary school days, but I have never heard of the place / region before or of the planned by Moscow apparatchiks settlement there for Jews. Looks like a cold, windy, bleak region according to the map.

This is fascinating.

"Why?" or "How?"

Thats something obscure that i never knew

Interesting. I did not know this.

Jew to non jew ratio is about 1 to 50.

At the time the JAO was founded, it could really be claimed this was (almost) a "Land without People". Certainly, there would have been far fewer people in that region than in Palestine, and would have caused fewer problems.

Why the header calls it "A secret"? Who is it a secret for?

The location of the area was very thoughtfully considered. They can get Chinese food anytime.

Clearly not secret.

I love this Oblast's flag

Is the L'Chayim Comrade Stalin documentary available on youtube?

I think this should have been titled "Why used to be there a Secret Jewish State Inside Russia"

it's not a secret just because you didn't know about it

1:33 oh yeah I'm sure Bolshevism was as Gentile as a Bake Sale at a Lutheran Church

Suggestion: Look up City of Joel in Monroe, NY

Bald and Bankrupt visited this region and did a video about it maybe last year.

I wonder if the JAO would evolve into the Republic of Birobidzhan...?

Formerly jewish, not really autonomous, likely to no longer be an oblast in the near future.

Volume set far too low

Sounds more legitimate a homeland for Khazars from the Caucasus and Ashkenazis from Germany than somewhere in the middle east

Adolf Hitler on the 21st of June, 1941:

The progroms started before 1917 and lead to the fall of the Pale of Settlement amount other things I'm pretty sure Harbin has quite a few Jews as the fled in the 1500s and that area was taken from China in 1917. Its only 400km from the current Russian border. I wonder if some of them were moved before the Japanese took over

❤u r spot on. Bless you.

I love this subject, its like walking on crushed glass when you discuss it! So soon Russia can write "jude fr**" on the map! Didnt know about this but its not surprising considering the.. the history of that people and how Stalin acted. He often used demographics as a weapon, its not a coincidence that Ukraine happen to have territory from several diffrent countries like Poland, Romania, Russia & Hungary.

That place is right at the heart of the far East. China, Koreas, Mongolia and Japan are all at a proximal location and from what I hear, this Jewish oblast is full of resources. If it were an independent country, there’s a lot of opportunity for wealth. East Asian countries are by-in-large not mostly anti-Semitic also.

So they do have a homeland they havent been evicted from ?

I knew about that region , sad to see about it's decline

Stalin when russian jews migrate to Israel rather than to JAO: 😲

I wonder if theres also tunnels there too.

Thought of doing some work with Sam Aronow?

Kaganovich visited it a few times. Molotov wanted Crimea to be a state.

The title sounds kinda sus

More to the point why did the nkvd speak yiddish and why was yiddish an inside language for the KGB?

i'm not jewish, but i have wondered why there werent several jewish states. Imagine if the zionists had taken up musolini's proposal for a jewish state in Ethiopia. There couldve been 3 jewish states. Hope this JAO survives, and thrives once Russia becomes democratic again.

Very interesting . Thanks. I'm Jewish with some ancestry perhaps from that region. I truly wonder about this .

Because Soviet Wario had another terrible idea.

the audio is too low

Thank you for posting this. It is a very important topic on many levels. You overlooked some events, and was incorrect about other facts, but not worth quibbling about. Been studying Birobidzhan for decades. My Father may have passed by there during the war. Sadly, many extremist antisemites want to ship all Jews there today. It is mentioned in their sites. Birobidzhan has always been on my “to visit” bucket list.

once i devoted to apple time to subjects of the federation so became aware of its existence (…)

since when has it been a secret? I read about it on wiki 13 years ago

Why would you call it "secret"

Secret? 😂 Region's name is literally "Jewish autonomous Oblast".

It's got a very interesting flag too

"Secret" my rectum! I learned about Birobidzhan when doing history A-Levels in 1980. Stalin and his pals were far from bashful when describing the joys of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast on it's launch in the 1920s. Not what I would call secret, to put it mildly.

Imagine if stalin has forced all jews from european russia there. How many through that albeit violent act could’ve been saved from the holocaust.

And here i thought Americans are the few ones that dont know their own states, but according to the comment section, there are people in other countries that dont even know their own provinces.

Secret because YOU just happened to find out about it?? 😂

the framing is a little odd, but pogroms had also happened frequently prior to the 1917 Revolution, and the Tsarist government’s use and incitement of antisemitism during the instability of the Empire’s end led to a lot of this too

Because most people who claim to be Jewish are actually Slavic (not Jewish at all)

I have friends that visited there..... said the people there are racist and unkind towards others

Pretty wild. I'm Jewish and had absolutely no idea this existed

How much B-S can be put in 1 video? Why is there a Secret Jewish State Inside Russia:

"I don't think there were any Jewish people" - there is no corner of the world where you cannot find at least a few Js

It isn’t secret and never has been. Just because most people may never have heard of Birobidjan doesn’t mean anything remotely sinister. Most people especially in and around the Internet don’t know about the difference between shit and Shinola. So what?