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Jewish Autonomous Region

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. | 2011 | Copyright

Jewish Autonomous Region or Birobidzhan , autonomous region (1995 pop. 211,900), c.13,800 sq mi (35,700 sq km), Khabarovsk Territory, Russian Far East, in the basins of the Biro and Bidzhan rivers, tributaries of the Amur. The capital is Birobidzhan. The region is bounded on the south by China (Heilongjinag prov.) and on the north by the Bureya and Hinggan (Khingan) mts., which yield gold, tin, iron ore, and graphite. Mining, agriculture (chiefly on the Amur plain), lumbering, and light manufacturing are the major economic activities.

Formed in 1928 to give Soviet Jews a home territory and to increase settlement along the vulnerable borders of the Soviet Far East, the area was raised to the status of an autonomous region in 1934. The Jewish population peaked in 1948 at about 30,000 (one fourth of the total population). Despite some remaining Yiddish influences—including a Yiddish newspaper—Jewish cultural activity in the region has declined enormously since Stalin's anticosmopolitanism campaigns and since the liberalization of Jewish emigration in the 1970s. Jews now make up less than 2% of the region's population.

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Birobidzhan

Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names | 2005 | | Copyright

Birobidzhan, Yevreskaya Autonomous Province/Russia Tikhonkaya Founded as Tikhonkaya railway station in 1928, it was renamed after the two rivers Bira and Bidzhan in 1937. In a remote part of the Russian Far East, the Birobidzhan autonomous province was renamed Yevreskaya ‘Jewish’.

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JOHN EVERETT-HEATH. "Birobidzhan." Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 26 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

JOHN EVERETT-HEATH. "Birobidzhan." Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. (May 26, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O209-Birobidzhan.html

JOHN EVERETT-HEATH. "Birobidzhan." Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names. 2005. Retrieved May 26, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O209-Birobidzhan.html

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Birobidzhan

The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. | 2011 | Copyright

Birobidzhan see Jewish Autonomous Region , Russia.

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"Birobidzhan." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. 26 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

"Birobidzhan." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Encyclopedia.com. (May 26, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-X-Birobidz.html

"Birobidzhan." The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed.. 2011. Retrieved May 26, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1E1-X-Birobidz.html

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Free newspaper and magazine articles

	Profile: New documentary about Jewish Autonomous Region in Russia Transcript from: NPR Morning Edition; 2/18/2003
	Red star over Birobidzhan: Canadian Jewish Communists and the "Jewish... Magazine article from: Labour/Le Travail; 9/22/1999
	Henry Felix Srebrnik, Dreams of Nationhood: American Jewish Communists and... Magazine article from: Labour History - A Journal of Labour and Social History; 11/1/2011