Wasn’t a large contingent of the Jewish population in the JAO Canadian Jews? The project was doomed partly because Soviet Jews already had a place in their communities more or less.
Keep in mind the resurgent antisemitism post WW2 in several Eastern Bloc countries was over a decade off at this point and the idea of Jewish nationalism had greatly diminished. For various reasons it came back and caused a huge reaction ( ie the rootless cosmopolitan campaign) and split in communist Jews. So end of the 20s they are riding high and integration and an embracing of Yiddish culture was a very clear reality for most people. The JAO had significant Canadian Jews come, and the USSR in general attracted a lot of the diaspora in this time because it was actively fighting against antisemitism.
Wasn’t a large contingent of the Jewish population in the JAO Canadian Jews? The project was doomed partly because Soviet Jews already had a place in their communities more or less.
Since the worst antisemitism of the Tsar was ended with the October revolution and the years after it, that rings as if it could be true.
Keep in mind the resurgent antisemitism post WW2 in several Eastern Bloc countries was over a decade off at this point and the idea of Jewish nationalism had greatly diminished. For various reasons it came back and caused a huge reaction ( ie the rootless cosmopolitan campaign) and split in communist Jews. So end of the 20s they are riding high and integration and an embracing of Yiddish culture was a very clear reality for most people. The JAO had significant Canadian Jews come, and the USSR in general attracted a lot of the diaspora in this time because it was actively fighting against antisemitism.