ABSTRACT
The Jewish Autonomous Region, with its capital Birobidzhan, represented essentially the final product of yidishe arbet, conducted in the 1920—1930s by a number of sub-structures of the party and state apparatus, pursuing two main objectives: propagation of Communist ideology and nation-building. Folks-Shtime's design, structure and approach to presenting international, domestic and specifically Jewish material modelled a Soviet prototype — the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee newspaper Eynikayt. Soviet representatives promised to allow foreign Jews to settle in the Far Eastern territory designated for Jewish colonization, which in May 1934 began to be called 'Jewish Autonomous Region', which was seen as a temporary Status on the way to proclaiming a full-blown republic. In the 1950s, a number of Communist parties had a significant Jewish membership that was unhappy to see a radical curtailing of Soviet Yiddish culture, and their parties' leaders, notably Maurice Thorez, therefore also insisted on launching Yiddish publications.
