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American Jewish Communists and the Birobidzhan Project, 1924-1950
I have begun research on a book in which I will examine the history and political activities of two left-of-centre American Jewish movements whose main aim was to provide support for the Soviet project to establish a Jewish socialist republic in the Birobidzhan region in the far east of the USSR. The first of these groups, the Organisation for Jewish Colonisation in Russia, or Yidishe Kolonizatsye Organizatsye in Rusland, known by its transliterated acronym as the ICOR, was founded in 1924, and was active within the Jewish immigrant working class milieu; its members were to a large extent first and second generation Yiddish-speaking Jews of east European origin. Apart from aiding Jewish settlers in Birobidzhan, other major components of the ICOR's politics revolved around the defence of the Soviet Union, which, it claimed, was in the process of solving the 'national question' and eliminating anti-Semitism; the struggle against fascism, especially, after 1933, in Nazi Germany; and opposition to Zionism, an ideology deemed inimical to the Jewish working class. As well, the ICOR championed the political views and advanced the goals of the Communist Party of the USA on behalf of policies which it perceived as beneficial to the Jewish working class.
The second group, the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan, or Ambijan, was founded in 1934 as a popular front group catering the American-born, English-speaking, middle-class Jews, in line with the decisions then being made by the Communist International to seek broader alliances in the face of the increasing menace of Nazism and fascism. Ambijan was for that reason more liberal and inclusive in its orientation than was the ICOR, which made little secret of its pro-Soviet and left-wing outlook. Ambijan avoided ideological debates revolving around the establishment of socialism in the Soviet Union; instead, it emphasised the need for rescue and rehabilitation efforts on behalf of Jews threatened by fascism in Europe. Nonetheless, there was an overlap in the leadership of the two organisations, and both were controlled by Communists. In 1946 the two organisations merged; they survived another four years before disbanding in the face of US government harassment during the early years of the Cold War.
I hope to shed light on some of the following questions: How prominent were the ICOR and Ambijan in the wider political arena? What might we conclude about their successes and failures? Did they pursue aims congruent with Jewish values or did their allegiance to the Communist movement place limits on their freedom of manoeuvre? How did they respond to internal challenge or dissent? Such research might help determine whether the ICOR and Ambijan were first and foremost Jewish movements or whether they pursued an agenda ultimately shaped by non-Jewish — in their case, Soviet — concerns.
