Paper short abstract:

This paper addresses the dynamics of (re)discovering the local heritage of the Jewish Autonomous Region of Russia. Despite the emigration of majority of Jews to Israel after 1991, Jewish heritage remains locally important in the commemorative as well as commercial discourses and practices.

Paper long abstract:

The Jewish Autonomous Region created in 1934 as the "Soviet Jewish homeland" did not differ from other places in the USSR in reference to the Jews. While the regime promoted internationalism, official anti-Semitism nevertheless limited Jewish cultural, linguistic and religious expression. In the wake of the economic collapse after Perestroika 70% percent of the Jewish population emigrated to Israel and Germany.

Nevertheless, the region's Jewish heritage is increasingly popular. Two narratives are particularly prevalent. The first showcases secular Jewish culture and heritage of the Yiddish language as unique to the "Birobidzhan project". It stresses the need to commemorate an almost forgotten heritage. The latter narrative exploits local heritage as a commodity to attract capital investors. Jewishness is used in this case as a marketing strategy that incorporates propaganda methods rooted in the practice of the former Soviet houses of culture.

Newly rediscovered Jewish idiom engenders cultural meaning. Commemoration allows for embracing difficult history, it also helps Jews to feel comfortable with their own identity and express what the previous generation silenced due to trauma.

Jewish heritage as commodity directed towards outsiders, meanwhile, is deliberately devoid of its content - what is commodified is the form itself. It also gains support from the state authorities - they tend to prefer "empty signifiers" as they suit current homogenizing politics in Russia in which local cultural strategies with emancipatory potential are being reduced to the pop-culture.