Holon Institute of Technology participant Maria Ginzburg is from the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) in Russia, the first territorial region allocated to Jews a full 20 years before the establishment of Israel.

        My name is Maria and I come to Israel from Birobidzhan. I’m sure, most of you don’t know where it is or may be somebody thinks that it’s somewhere not far from Azerbaidzhan. Correct me if I am wrong?!

That’s why I’m writing this article, because I want you to know where it is and why it should be so special for all Jewish people round the world. I will tell you the story about establishing the Jewish Autonomous Region on Far East of Russian Federation, quite near to China, Japan, and Korea. History of the JAR establishment, as the first and only state territorial unit of the Jews not only in the USSR, but also in the world (Israel was established on a solution of UN in 1948), begins from the fact that the Presidium of the General Executive Committee of the USSR passed the decree "On the attaching for KOMZET (Committee on land settlement of the working Jews) of free grounds

near the Amur River in the Far East for settlement of the working Jews" on March 28, 1928.  The decree meant that there was "a possibility of establishment of a Jewish administrative territorial unit on the territory of the called region".

Jewish settlements were created in small villages. They connected the Trans-Siberian railway with the Amur River valley. The epicenter of the Jewish resettlement was Tikhonkaya station (later Birobidzhan city).

The fact of revival of a sovereign Jewish territory, though far away from the actual ancestral Motherland and as an autonomy, actuated an afflux of immigrants abroad. They sincerely believed that the Soviet Union was a democratic people's state. With such ideas almost 700 people from Argentina, Lithuania, France, Latvia, Germany, Belgium, the USA, Poland and even from Palestine arrived there.

Multinational culture and art had broad development in the JAR. Several regional newspapers, Forpost, a literary, art and political magazine, were issued. The magazine published works of the largest Soviet Jewish writers and poets. The Jewish theatre was developed in Birobidzhan city.

First three post-war years, when the country was destroyed by the war, and the new great advance of production was carried out due to the forced commercial production in the East, were years of the best prosperity of local Jewish culture and industrial formation of the society. Another stream of Jews - immigrants flooded the region. In streets of Birobidzhan city, many villages and settlements Yiddish sounded as often, as Russian». – This is what the official cite of Jewish AR government says about its history ( http://www.eao.ru/eng).

As commonly repeated “two Jews, three opinions”, have created many interesting stories: somebody considers that Stalin choose this place on purpose: climate here is very difficult to get used to, forests and peat bogs, absolutely wild land all this was a severe test for newcomers. It’s also a historical fact that by Stalin’s plan all Jews from USSR must live there. Fortunately, he died before completing his plan.

Jewish community of JAR used to be an immense one: Jewish schools, Jewish theater, newspapers, signs on Yiddish are still common, but after 1991 a lot of people left the place: some of them came here to Israel, some went to USA, some - to Germany. But still there are people who want to stay, who can’t leave their small Motherland. On May 7, 2004 the Jewish Autonomous Region celebrated the 70th anniversary of its foundation. Nowadays, JAR is quite developed region; we have good relationships with our neighbor – China, and really warm feeling to our brother- Israel.