Both rivers are tributaries of the Amur.Built on the site of an earlier village called Tikhonka,[15] Birobidzhan was planned by the Swiss architect Hannes Meyer, and established in 1931.

[16] After the Bolshevik revolution, the Soviet government set up two organisations that worked with the settlement of Jews into Birobidzhan, the KOMZET and OZET.

Many Jewish Canadians then gave their support to the Soviet Union by becoming either members or sympathisers with the Communist Party of Canada.

[17] Jewish communists believed that the Soviet Union's creation of Birobidzhan was the "only true and sensible solution to the national question.

[18] In 1935, Ambijan received permission from the Soviet government to aid Jewish families travelling to Birobidzhan from Poland, Romania, Lithuania and Germany.

[20] Although Birobidzhan was meant to serve as a home for the Jewish population, the authorities struggled to turn the idea into a reality.

Ulterior motives generated by the Soviet government were the primary reasons for Jewish people to relocate to Birobidzhan.

The region was also a link between the Trans-Siberian Railroad and the Amur River Valley, and the Soviet government sought to exploit the natural resources of the area, such as fish, timber, iron, tin, and gold.

As Jews relocated to Birobidzhan, they had to compete with the approximately 27,000 Russians, Cossacks, Koreans, and Ukrainians already residing there for property and land to develop new homes.

Due to inadequate infrastructure and weather conditions of the area, more than half the Jewish settlers who relocated to Birobidzhan after the initial settlement did not remain.

[22] However, Jews were once again targeted in the wake of World War II when Joseph Stalin embarked on a campaign against "rootless cosmopolitans".

[18] Yiddish writer David Bergelson played a large part in promoting Birobidzhan, although he himself did not settle there permanently.

[22] Bergelson wrote articles in the Yiddish language newspapers in other countries extolling the region as an ideal escape from antisemitism elsewhere.

[22]: 90 In the Russian language play Novaia rodina (New Homeland) by the Soviet playwright Victor Fink celebrated Birobidzhan as the coming together of three communities - the Koreans, the Amur Cossacks and the Jews.

Likewise, the Soviet Yiddish writer Emmanuil Kazakevich portrayed in a poem the achievement of Birobidzhan being declared the Jewish Autonomous Region on 7 May 1934 as an inter-communal event with the members of the Amur Cossack Host coming out to join the celebrations.

[25] Canadian Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson was vice president of Ambijan, or the American Committee for the Settlement of Jews in Birobidjan, which was a supplementary group that was combined with ICOR in 1946.

[19] The Russian Empire had the largest Jewish population in the world in the 19th and early 20th centuries and the majority of them were Ashkenazi Jews.

[29] The orthodox synagogue, completed in 2004, is next to a complex housing Sunday School classrooms, a library, a museum, and administrative offices.

[37] For the Chanukah celebration of 2007, officials of Birobidzhan in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast claimed to have built the world's largest menorah.

Riss' parents were originally residents of Birobidzhan, but moved to Israel in the 90's along with a large majority of the Jewish population from the Oblast.

The five- to seven-year-olds spend two lessons a week learning to speak Yiddish, as well as being taught Jewish songs, dance and traditions.