WI Two Jewish States?
- Thread starter Alexpira
- Start date
Would say ATL Israel is roughly the same since Mizrahi Jews followed by the Ex-Soviet Jews who decide to go there, being both historical Jewish groups who were badly oppressed outside of Israel would move Israel politically to the right regardless.
The Ex-Soviet or Far Eastern Yiddish State would probably embrace heterodox and anti/non-Zionist religious Jews as well as secular Jews and those of trace Jewish heritage. Especially if Israel's Law of Return is later updated to be defined by Jewish Law rather than anyone with Jewish ancestry or claiming as such, which was largely based on how the Nazis defined a Jew, the latter definition being adopted by the Ex-Soviet or Far Eastern Yiddish State to inflate its population on top of citizenship being inherited both paternally and matrilineally.
The Ex-Soviet Yiddish state's relations with Israel would probably be friendly in the beginning despite being a competing Jewish nationalism yet also being politically Left, given the Soviet Union's early support of Israel in OTL before following the lead of the Communist Bloc.
A Japanese conceived Far Eastern Yiddish state in a part of Russian Outer Manchuria nearer to the Sea of Japan (basically everything south of Khabarovsk and Vanino) or part/all of Sakhalin via a viable Fugu plan would probably maintain fairly friendly relations with Israel or at least be a neutral state in the interest of appeasing the Soviets nearby.
An interesting scenario would be such a state managing to develop good relations and protection with a communist or nationalist China as a potential counter to the Soviet Union / Russia seeking to reverse the results of the Russo-Japanese War, despite the potential threat of the Sino-Soviet split negatively impacting such a state.
Additionally a Sakhalin-based Yiddish state probably give more impetus to establishing fixed-links between the Russian mainland, Sakhalin and Hokkaido.
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danteheadman
Banned
I can't imagine that a post-Soviet Yiddishland would be able to perpetuate itself if Soviet Jews were as oppressed ITTL as they were historically. Nearly 300,000 Jews were permitted to emigrate from the USSR in the 70s and 80s (source), and another 1.6 million left when the Soviet borders were opened in the 1990s (source). There are currently a little shy of 200,000 Jews left in Russia today; that's more than in modern Germany, but not by very much (source). That's not enough to sustain a country.
For a post-Soviet Yiddishland to work, there needs to be less Soviet antisemitic oppression. If the USSR were less antisemitic, then there wouldn't be nearly as many Russian Jews in Israel or America. Israel would be more religious, more culturally Mizrahi, more nationalistic, and less hawkish towards the Palestinians than it is today. There would be no (very secular) Russian-Israeli culture; Lieberman and his party Yisrael Beiteinu either would be butterflied away or be significantly less influential ITTL; the movement for civil marriages in Israel would be weaker or nonexistent, because many post-Soviet Russian Jews weren't halachically Jewish; etc. etc. And I don't think that Israel would restrict the Law of Return because both countries would be competing for Jewish expatriates from America and Europe.
But I agree that they would try to be friendly and might help one another with intelligence and military tech. And if Yiddishland is on the Black Sea and not the Far East, Israel might work closely with it instead of Azerbaijan. Regardless, Yiddishland would probably remain firmly within the Russian orbit - and I have no idea if close relations between the two Jewish states would strengthen American-Russian relations in the post-Soviet world. The Jewish states might be torn apart instead.
Meant to say historically oppressed.
Can still see a number of Soviet Jews preferring Israel over a Yiddish State / Yiddish Medine / Yiddishestan / etc for religious reasons, though a significant remnant of Jews seeing themselves as European rather Middle Eastern yet not assimilationist would probably move to the Yiddish state (if they have not already done so in ATL) and can see the nationalistic European (as opposed to religious) aspect of the Yiddish state's identity being enough to retain those of partial Jewish ancestry would have otherwise disappeared amongst the peoples of Eastern Europe via its very broad definition of the Yiddish people along with non-Jews with some Jewish affinity (the latter two helping to bump up the Yiddish state's population).
See Alternative Definition frameworks on page 17 in following link for 2017 which shows the total Jewish and non-Jewish aliyah-eligible population in the FSU (both Europe/Asia) being almost 867k (on top of the total eligible for the non-Halachic defined Law of Return being roughly estimated at 23 million), in an ATL scenario a number of those Jews in the Soviet Union who otherwise hid their identity and assimilated many decades back or assimilated yet retained some Jewish affinity would have potentially opted for the Yiddish state. - https://www.jewishdatabank.org/cont...ewish_Population_2017_AJYB_DataBank_Final.pdf
It also depends which land is picked for the Black Sea or Far Eastern Yiddish state and how many people it can support. For Black Sea areas Crimea's highest population was over 1.6 million in 1989 (declining up to today) and Budjak's population is almost 620k, while for Far Eastern areas Sakhalin's population is almost 500k and Primorsky Krai's population is around 2 million (down from 2.26 million in 1989), am discounting Birobidzhan for being a less then ideal location with no access to the sea.
Then there is the Yiddish state potentially encouraging Anti/Non-Zionist Religious Jews to develop Amish-like Neo-Shtetl communities with a measure of autonomy amongst other things as an immigration inducement and a tourist attraction (with the graves of Rabbis such as Nachman of Breslov being potentially relocated from places like Uman - Ukraine to the Yiddish state), while at the same time appealing to heterodox sects by basically granting them legitimacy.
Would be interesting seeing the Yiddish state look to Scandinavia, Benelux and the British Isles as something to emulate in certain aspects (e.g. culturally, etc) in the post Cold War period, in addition to being influenced by Jews in the West.
A Far Eastern Yiddish state meanwhile adds an interesting element in terms of cuisine given the proximity to Japan, China and Korea. Its proximity combined with the OTL American Jewish tradition of eating Chinese food on Christmas, the OTL Japanese tradition of eating KFC on Christmas and the Koreans reputation for good food (along with China and Japan), would have an interesting effect in creating a unique adaptation of Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine as well as a similar custom for as secularized version of Novy God or Nay Yor (?) in Yiddish.
Perhaps Scots-Yiddish becomes a full dialect and becomes the Yiddish state's version of Ladino and Judeo-Arabic in terms of revival projects and popularity, with Standardized Yiddish drawing more from the Western dialect and adopting Latin script (particularly in the event the Soviets themselves adopt Latin script). Esperanto could fill a niche as a second language to be taught in schools (despite being considered by some as an alternative to Yiddish), on top of being a way to embrace parts or all of Esperanto founder L. L. Zamenhof’s real-life philosophy of Hillelism / Homaranismo (aka Humanitism).
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danteheadman
Banned
Because of historical oppression (and continued antisemitic feelings in the general populace), I agree with you that huge numbers of Soviet Jews would leave their homes in Russia proper or elsewhere if/when the USSR collapses. And that's a neat statistic about the number of assimilated and "lost" Russian Jews there are - I had no idea the number was so high.
But I still think that most Russian Jews would probably head to Yiddishland. They're likely non- or anti-Zionists, after decades of state-sponsored secular Yiddishism, and so most Russian Jews (the secular and the assimilated) wouldn't go to Israel. Some of the religious would go to Israel. But the Haredim would not. Only a third of Israeli Haredim consider themselves Zionist today! Most Haredim today are non-Zionist and consider secular Jewish nationalisms irrelevant. They'd stay in their homes across the FSU unless they're violently expelled in the chaos of the breakup.
I agree with your other points with one exception: languages. Yiddish being written in anything besides the Hebrew script seems impossible to me. Even in America, the haredi Yiddish press uses the Hebrew script. And why would Scots-Yiddish become recognized in Yiddishland? Ladino and Judeo-Arabic are becoming more popular in Israel because of how important those languages were to the Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews that make up most of Israel's population. Where are you getting this Scottish influence idea from?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddish#Former_Soviet_Union
Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
Gone Fishin'
I like the idea of USSR establish a Jewish SSR in former East Prussia.
Warm water port. No way any Soviet leader is going to give Kaliningrad up. Also, I think we can rule out a Far Eastern Yiddish State. If we want it to be successful and not get annexed by Russia, it would be preferable to put it in the Black Sea. And probably not on the Crimean Peninsula.
Yeah, but this is going to get very ugly when WWII rolls around.
The Scots-Yiddish idea is historical curiosity that would be been interesting seeing wanked to some degree given Scots is also a Germanic language, perhaps the Jewish Left in the UK popularizes it for some reason as a revolutionary dialect of Yiddish.
The potential for Yiddish adopting Latin script would depend on the OTL Soviet proposal to adopt Latin script for all languages in the Soviet Union, though the Hebrew script likely remains in circulation amongst the religious Jews within the Yiddish state depending on whether the Yiddish state goes the Turkish Republic route in replacing the Ottoman Turkish Alphabet with the Latin-based Turkish Alphabet (with a Post-Soviet Yiddish or few attempting to revival the Hebrew script akin to how OTL Erdogan wants to bring back the Ottoman Turkish Alphabet).
Interestingly the founder of Esperanto L. L. Zamenhof was a one time proponent for Yiddish switching to the Latin script based on the Bialystok (Northeastern) dialect along with other orthographic innovations. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L._L._Zamenhof#Work_on_Yiddish_language_and_Jewish_issues
Perhaps Zamenhof becomes more involved in the Yiddishist movement that soon evolves into a competing Jewish nationalist movement (effectively splitting from Bundism) with inflaunces from his Hillelism / Humanitism philosophy to appeal to those of Jewish heritage or non-Jews with an affinity for Yiddishism. The movement adopting the Partisan Song as the Yiddish state's national anthem. -
The question of whether a majority of Soviet Jews move to the already established Yiddish state or Israel, would depend on how successful the propaganda of the Soviet/Yiddish Yevsektsiya is and how competent the generally capricious Soviet leadership are able to keep their Anti-Jewish sentiments and those of the non-Jewish populations in check (which is asking quite a bit of them). Even then Anti-Jewish sentiment within the Soviet Union / Communist Bloc and the fact many of their non-Jewish Eastern Bloc neighbors collaborated with the Nazis during the war, would make Israel more attractive to even secular Jews since it is a tall order expecting them to believe otherwise (the aftermath of WW2 being the straw that broke the camel's back on relying on the goodwill of the nations of the world).
It would potentially be costly for Russia to annex a Far Eastern Yiddish state in the event it is under the protection of China whether communist or nationalist, though a Yiddish state in Sakhalin is probably more viable compared to one in part/all of Primorsky Krai (albeit both within the context of further Japanese gains in the Russo-Japanese War and a viable Fugu plan).
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If Budjak perhaps it includes a small part of Dobruja up to the Danube, along with possibly other surrounding areas with low-population. Though believe the area to be more suited for a post-war Romani ASSR.
The following is a population density map for Europe in 2010-2011, yet unsure how accurate it is.
Why would the People’s Republic of China support a Yiddish country? That’d be like the USSR not annexing Tuva Tuva because they’re afraid of Imperial Japan.
For one thing the Chinese believe the Russian Outer Manchuria area (which Primorsky Krai is part of) historically belongs to them and would probably prefer another Mongolia-like Socialist buffer state on a part of it between China and USSR then the area still remaining part of the latter once the Japanese are removed, another would be within the context of the OTL Sino-Soviet split later on.
Additionally it seems some Jews did serve in Mao Zedong's 1947 Provisional Communist Military Government such as Jakob Rosenfeld aka General Luo who served as the Minister of Health (and was in the Shanghai Ghetto). While others like Morris Cohen (also known as Two-Gun Cohen or Ma Kun) became aide-de-camp to Sun Yat-sen and a major-general in the Chinese National Revolutionary Army, his standing as a loyal aide to Sun Yat-sen helped him maintain good relations with both Kuomintang and Chinese Communist Leaders being one of the few people who was able to move between Taiwan and mainland China.
So China would appear to be more inclined to support a nearby Far Eastern Yiddish state whether in a more promising part of Outer Manchuria, though see Sakhalin being a bit more likely with the Japanese themselves probably preferring Sakhalin being under Yiddish rather than Soviet rule for similar reasons to China with Primorsky Krai on top of a viable Fugu Plan. Sakhalin prior to the discovery of oil was something of a white elephant and a disappointment for Russia / Soviet Union, since all it turned out to be good for was as a gulag for political prisoners.
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