A Yiddishland in Europe?

[Quailgate]

So I've currently been reading a lot about the political awakening that occurred within the Jewish community of Eastern Europe around the late 19th and early 20th century with writers such as Chaim Zhitlovsky advocating for Jewish Territorialism which differed from Zionism in that Zionism advocated specifically for the founding of a "Jewish state" in Palestine whereas Jewish Territorialism advocating for the creation of a "state of Jews" (the state not being inherently Jewish but containing a prominent Jewish majority).

Territorialists were open to pretty much any land including suggestions of Crimea, Birobidzhan and Uganda. Just looking at history and going by maps, one might be inclined to section off a thin strip of land between eastern Poland and western Ukraine, which is bound to piss of nationalists of both countries (I can already hear the screams of "judeopolonia") but the region has been a consistent home for Ashkenazi Jews since around the 10th century. The state would have to be multi-ethnic (unless the Soviets pulled some weird population transfers) with smatterings of Ukrainians, Poles, Belorussians, Lithuanians and ethnic Ashkenazi Jews. Though it necessary wouldn't be unrealistic for non-Jewish residents of this state to learn Yiddish if you frame it more as a dialect of Old High German (Alt-Taytsch in Yiddish) than as a Jewish creole it seems much more appealing, add in a Latin or Cyrillic script for it and it could really take off in the Christian population.

Obviously for this to occur the Holocaust would probably not have to happen even then the likelihood of Stalin allowing a Yiddish state between Poland, Belarus and Ukraine is pretty unlikely. And even further then, if there is one thing Poles don't like it's being partitioned so I could see decades from its foundation of Poles calling for the annexation of this Yiddishland as "rightful Polish land". I've been working on this as an entire timeline but it's becoming increasingly more unrealistic and following more so into the realm of world-building than alternate history...

 

[BigBlueBox]

There were ideas involving East Prussia. I think that could be more realistic, but not by much. Stalin is never going to give up his warm water port.

 

[Arkenfolm]

I can't imagine a Jewish state in Eastern Europe would have good relations with its gentile neighbours.

There were ideas involving East Prussia. I think that could be more realistic, but not by much. Stalin is never going to give up his warm water port.

What about the part of East Prussia ceded to Poland after WWII? Stalin OTL didn't need all of East Prussia, after all. The capital would probably be either Allenstein or Elbing.

 

[Remitonov]

I can't imagine a Jewish state in Eastern Europe would have good relations with its gentile neighbours.

What about the part of East Prussia ceded to Poland after WWII? Stalin OTL didn't need all of East Prussia, after all. The capital would probably be either Allenstein or Elbing.

Poland was slated to lose over half its territory to the Soviets. I'm not sure they could cram any more in Pomerania and Silesia if southern East Prussia isn't ceded, not that Stalin would have cared. Also, wouldn't it have been landlocked?

 

[Arkenfolm]

Poland was slated to lose over half its territory to the Soviets. I'm not sure they could cram any more in Pomerania and Silesia if southern East Prussia isn't ceded, not that Stalin would have cared. Also, wouldn't it have been landlocked?

It would have a small coastal strip along the Vistula Lagoon, with the main port being Elbing (slightly inland along a river).

And considering that nowadays the area in question, Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, has about 1.4 million people, having an extra million or so people spread out in post-war Poland doesn't seem like too much of a problem. It would be less too, since the Poles who lived in the area pre-war may or not be expelled, although they'd become a minority in their own country due to other Jews moving into the area (or simply being ethnically cleansed). And as you said, Stalin doesn't care.

 

[Eivind]

My impression is that the term Zionism was used for those working for a Jewish state no matter which geographical area.

About the possibility of a Jewish state in Europe, look at this earlier discussion: Jewish state in Europe? This is about the situation after WW2, so a bit different from your thread.

 

[Joshua Ben Ari]

My impression is that the term Zionism was used for those working for a Jewish state no matter which geographical area.

About the possibility of a Jewish state in Europe, look at this earlier discussion: Jewish state in Europe? This is about the situation after WW2, so a bit different from your thread.

Zionism was used for those working to create a Jewish state, but it was understood to mean a Jewish state in Palestine / the Land of Israel / the Holy Land. There was the Jewish Territorialist Organization, which was hoping to create a Jewish state outside Palestine / the Land of Israel / the Holy Land (specifically they looked at Galveston and Alaska, Angola, Australia, and other parts of Asia). But the Organization never had a lot of success and after the Balfour Declaration in 1917 they lost a lot of impetus.

There was a push in the USSR to turn first Ukraine, then Crimea, then Birobidzhan into a Jewish autonomous oblast (the latter succeeded but not a lot of Jews actually migrated there).

There were ideas involving East Prussia. I think that could be more realistic, but not by much. Stalin is never going to give up his warm water port.

In 1941, Lord Moyne told David Ben-Gurion that the Jews could have a state in East Prussia when the Germans were defeated, and the Germans living there pushed out or expelled. Ben-Gurion replied the only way to get Jews to go would be with machine guns (i.e.: that they wouldn't dare think of that proposal), and the only real solution was a Jewish state in Palestine / the Land of Israel / the Holy Land.

EDIT: Formatting issue

 

[sloreck]

The whole idea of a a Jewish State, whether in Israel or elsewhere, was for it to be just that. Minorities would be OK but the large majority would be Jewish and it would be a full fledged state not an "autonomous area" or similar - own government, armed forces, etc. Getting the Jews out of Europe was one of the key points of Zionism - Herzl wrote Die Judenstaat in the wake of L'Affaire Dreyfus, which was seen as showing the most egalitarian/liberal state in Europe, France, could fan the flames of antisemitism with negative consequences. This was further demonstrated with the rise of the Nazis in Germany, which contained perhaps the most "assimilated" Jewish community in Europe. Follow this by the Holocaust, the antisemitic persecutions even in those states which were not assisting the Holocaust on a governmental level (Hungary an example before the Arrow Cross), and the postwar pogroms in Poland (real in spite of current efforts by the Polish government to deny it), and it is pretty obvious Ben Gurion's attitude.

 

[Quailgate]

Yeah the problem with so many suggestions is the balance between viability and actual desire. While certainly Birobidzhan, Galveston, Alaska, Angola and Australia may have very well worked but had little to no draw for Jewish settlers. Crimea, East Prussia or the Kresy had some Jewish connection that could be utilized to build the foundations of a state on. Palestine is on the opposite end of the spectrum where it was greatly desired by settlers but as it turned out (as seen today) it wasn't the most viable. I've even read a post that suggested building a state carved out of the Rhineland from the traditional "Takkanot Shum" region of Worms, Mainz and Speyer which were the capitals of European Judaism during the Middle Ages.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Prior to Birobidzhan, Stalin considered using Crimea or an otherwise thinly-populated bit of Ukraine (Kherson Oblast east of the Dnieper maybe?).

Of the places historically considered, Crimea seems like the one most likely to work out. Much of the local population had been removed during the war by Stalin.

Alternatively, considering how Stalin emptied the place during the war, why not stick Soviet Jewry in what was formerly the Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic?

 

[Quailgate]

The Volga German Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic is not that bad of an idea since the Saratov Oblast isn't too distant from mainland Europe like Birobidzhan, isn't really claimed as a essential heartland by any group (like East Prussia or Palestine) and the land is pretty nice to boot.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

If “the Jews” don’t want to live in Europe, why would they accept a state in Europe?

Who’s going to make them and how long will the state last surrounded by hostile neighbours?

 

[King Thomas]

How about giving part of West Germany to the Jewish people in 1945 as punishment for the Holocaust? The Germans would have been too crushed by WW2 and too embarrassed about the Holocaust to mount any terrorist attacks on the Jewish people, and the nationality responsible for the Holocaust would have lost territory instead of the innocent Palestiniens.

 

[Arkenfolm]

How about giving part of West Germany to the Jewish people in 1945 as punishment for the Holocaust? The Germans would have been too crushed by WW2 and too embarrassed about the Holocaust to mount any terrorist attacks on the Jewish people, and the nationality responsible for the Holocaust would have lost territory instead of the innocent Palestiniens.

That's what making East Prussia a Jewish state would be, given that East Prussia was just as German as any part of West Germany during WWII.

 

[Joshua Ben Ari]

How about giving part of West Germany to the Jewish people in 1945 as punishment for the Holocaust?

Except no Jewish organization wanted any part of West Germany (or even the proposed Jewish state in East Prussia).

 

[Spelf]

There were ideas involving East Prussia. I think that could be more realistic, but not by much. Stalin is never going to give up his warm water port.

anything preventing him from creating it as a Jewish SSR? wouldn't really be a problem until a later breakup of the soviet union, no?

 

[sloreck]

An SSR in the USSR, really?? While there were certainly a good many Jews with Socialist/Marxist political views they were by no means even a very large minority. Stalin was not exactly philo-semitic and who would be crazy enough to trust Stalin. In the 1920s it would be a leap of faith, after the show trials and purges of the 30s, and the backstabbing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement how safe would Jews feel in some designated area of the USSR. Furthermore all of the rules from social to economic would be made in Moscow, not in the autonomous SSR (and exactly how "autonomous" were these regions OTL). There was a heavily Jewish area in Russia, surrounded by Russia and with the rules made by the Russian state - it was called the Pale of Settlement which existed until the overthrow of the Tsar.

 

[Joshua Ben Ari]

Add in the Night of the Murdered Poets (13 of the most prominent Yiddish-language poets were murdered), the Doctors' plot conspiracy theory, labeling Soviet Jews as "rootless cosmopolitans", and post-1948 Soviet antisemitism and destruction of Jewish culture (Yiddish theaters were closed, Yiddish-language publishing houses were closed, Jewish museums were closed, the leading members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee were arrested and charged with treason), it's not really possible for a Jewish SSR (or even ASSR) to be established in the Soviet Union.

Even the Jewish Autonomous Oblast never got to more than little over 16% Jewish in 1939, and that was with a massive state and international propaganda campaign.

 

[Quailgate]

Yeah I guess everything is pretty much ASB, I'd still really like to try and write a timeline for it but I think going into it with the understanding that is ASB is better than trying to pretend all these different variables magically fell into place to produce the exact scenario I'm going for (Yiddish speaking state in Europe).

 

[Remitonov]

Yeah I guess everything is pretty much ASB, I'd still really like to try and write a timeline for it but I think going into it with the understanding that is ASB is better than trying to pretend all these different variables magically fell into place to produce the exact scenario I'm going for (Yiddish speaking state in Europe).

Not ASB, just unlikely. You need to change the PODs more to get the change you want. Maybe the Orthodox Jews try to force their case against Zionism? Maybe Britain took a much harder line against the Aliyah? Maybe Stalin forced the creation of a Jewish homeland in East Prussia because he decided he hates Germans more than Jews. You just need a believable sequence of events.