The story
Birobidzhan Yiddish Language and Jewish Culture Festival in Birobidzhan
Birobidzhan's Yiddish language festival, known locally as “Es redt Birobidzhan!” (“Birobidzhan Speaks!”), is held in the capital of Russia's Jewish Autonomous Region, the country's only region actively working to preserve Yiddish. Founded by Birobidzhaner Shtern newspaper editor Elena Sarashevskaya and supported by federal nationalities-policy funding, it mixes literary readings, dance workshops, cuisine tastings and Purim celebrations.
Long before Israel's founding, the Soviet Union created its own designated Jewish homeland territory in the Russian Far East: the Jewish Autonomous Region, with Birobidzhan as its capital, established in the 1930s as an alternative Soviet answer to Jewish territorial aspirations.