#Jewish initiater free

Jewish Communists argued that the way to solve this ideological dilemma was to create a Jewish territory, hence the ideological motivation for the Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Stalin's theory on the National Question held that a group could only be a nation if it had a territory, and since there was no Jewish territory, per se, the Jews were not a nation and did not have national rights. Yiddish, rather than Hebrew, would be the national language, and a new socialist literature and arts would replace religion as the primary expression of culture.

The idea was to create a new 'Soviet Zion', where a proletarian Jewish culture could be developed. In that sense, it was also a response to two supposed threats to the Soviet state: Judaism, which ran counter to official state policy of atheism and Zionism, the creation of the modern State of Israel, which countered Soviet views of nationalism. Īccording to Joseph Stalin's national policy, each of the national groups that formed the Soviet Union would receive a territory in which to pursue cultural autonomy in a socialist framework. In 1938, with formation of the Khabarovsk Territory, the Jewish Autonomous Region (JAR) was included in its structure. On May 7, 1934, the Presidium accepted the decree on its transformation in the Jewish Autonomous Region within the Russian Republic. In 1932, the first scheduled figures of the region development were considered and authorized. The State Planning Committee considered the Birobidzhan national region as a separate economic unit. On August 20, 1930, the General Executive Committee of the Russian Soviet Republic ( RSFSR) accepted the decree 'On formation of the Birobidzhan national region in the structure of the Far Eastern Territory'.

#Jewish initiater free

On March 28, 1928, the Presidium of the General Executive Committee of the USSR passed the decree 'On the attaching for Komzet of free territory near the Amur River in the Far East for settlement of the working Jews.' The decree meant that there was 'a possibility of establishment of a Jewish administrative territorial unit on the territory of the named region'. Location of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the Russian Federation. Some Jews, who viewed this as a mistake, formed the Jewish Territorialist Organization with the aim of establishing a Jewish state anywhere. Moreover, it was populated by a large number of Maasai who did not seem at all amenable to an influx of people coming from Europe.Īfter receiving this report, Congress decided in 1905 to politely decline the British offer. However, the observers found a dangerous land filled with lions and other creatures. Its high elevation gave it a temperate climate, making it suitable for European settlement. The next year, a three-man delegation was sent to inspect the plateau. In the end, the motion to consider the plan passed by 295 to 177 votes.

Before the vote on the matter, the Russian delegation stormed out in opposition. The African land was described as an 'ante-chamber to the Holy Land', but other groups felt that accepting the offer would make it more difficult to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. The idea was brought to the World Zionist Organization's Zionist Congress at its sixth meeting in 1903 in Basel. The offer was a response to pogroms against the Jews in Russia, and it was hoped the area could be a refuge from persecution for the Jewish people. He offered 5,000 square miles (13,000 km 2) of the Mau Plateau in what is today Kenya. The offer was first made by British Colonial Secretary Joseph Chamberlain to Theodore Herzl's Zionist group in 1903. The British Uganda Program was a plan to give a portion of British East Africa to the Jewish people as a homeland.