Jewish Autonomous Region. The promised land? A Stalinist whim? A symbol of the fatalism of Jewish destiny? Or maybe just a marketing ploy? What is JAR?

There is nothing more precious in the world than illusions.  It is because of enchanting illusions that the most abundant rivers of human blood have always been shed and will continue to be shed.  A world without illusions, without fairy tales, is hell.

No nation in the world deserves love. You can only love a nation’s fairy tale, and others – only as long as they do not begin to interfere with the delight of your own, for to give up your own fairy tale would mean for any nation – perish. – ALEXANDER MIELICHOW [RED ZION  Warsaw: Sic! 2005.]

Birobidjan is a symbol of the dreams of the Israelites. Stalin, like God gave them the promise of participating in the fable of the New Covenant of Man. The Jews welcomed this new opportunity like they would greet a Messiah: they believed, it would, once and for forever, eradicate all discrimination.

If so far these dreams have not been realized, it means that all efforts were in vain: Birobidjan will remain only in that Jewish history that lives in books, but will not remain in the more important story: the one which lives in fantasies.  – PROF. ARTUR PATEK, Jagiellonian University.