Red Star Over Birobidzhan: Canadian Jewish Communists and the "Jewish Autonomous Region" in the Soviet Union

Chronicles the work of the Organization for Jewish Colonization in Russia (ICOR) during the 1920s and 30s in support of a Soviet government initiative that established a Jewish Autonomous Region in Birobidzhan in the far east of the Soviet Union. ICOR was also founded in opposition to the Zionist movement for a Jewish national state in Palestine. Controlled by the US and Canadian communist parties, the organization was comprised mostly of Yiddish-speaking East European Jews. In 1933, ICOR claimed a membership of 10,000 members including a Canadian section with members in 10 cities in four provinces. The Canadian section also published a periodical, "Kanader Icor." Concludes that the project for a Jewish Autonomous Region was a largely fraudulent scheme that unravelled under the weight of the Stalinist purges in the Soviet Union as well as developments in the international sphere.