21st Century Bogatyr: A Personal History of an Early Settler on Planet Birobidzhan

by Zvi Baranoff

My Grandfather was one of the earliest settlers on Planet Birobidzhan. At the time of my Zaydeh's passing, he had left a significant fortune to be divided amongst his heirs. He had, in his long lifetime, become one of the wealthiest men on the Planet.

The responsibility of sorting through his personal effects fell on my shoulders. In a desk drawer, I found a notebook filled with various notes and observations, including the essay that I reproduce here with no comments or editing.

A Personal History of an Early Settler on Planet Birobidzhan

It was certainly never my ambition to try to scratch out a living as a subsistence farmer. On the Home Planet, I had never even been to a farm.

I was raised in a city. I had no agricultural training. I never even had a garden. I had started at the University and imagined that I was destined for commerce or perhaps law.

However, some issues arose. One thing led to another. My academic career was on the skids. It looked like I was going to lose my relatively comfortable position as a university student…and, even more importantly, the military deferment that resulted from my status as a student.

Emigration to another planet had suddenly become the least disagreeable option, if it could be arranged. Being accepted for passage, however, was more complicated than simply getting one's name on a list. Bookings were limited and a broad set of factors were considered to determine who received passage.

However, I did end up on Planet Birobidzhan and many years were spent growing potatoes and shoveling chicken shit.

My little corner of Planet Birobidzhan did not have much to offer. From what little I had seen - and from all that I had heard - it wasn't any better anywhere else. I frankly never had a whole lot of that pioneering spirit and what little I did have rapidly faded.

I wasn't much thinking about anything and I was paying attention to even less when the rooster's crowing pierced the clouds of self absorption that surrounded me.

"Kukuriku, kukuriku! Is that all you have to say?" I asked the rooster. He looked at me, tilted his head, scratched behind his ear and then crowed once more.

I can't say that I am surprised. Quite frankly, if he had something else to say besides kukuriku and managed to articulate it, that would certainly be something. He wasn't much for company or conversation but neither was I. I suppose we each settle into patterns and make the best of it.

Anyway, he was being awfully persistent with all that calling and strutting and flapping and such. I looked at the rooster.

The rooster cocked his head to stare off at the skyline to his left. I turned my head towards whatever it was the bird was gawking at. I stared at the empty horizon…and then I saw the streaking across the skyline.

I had arrived on one of the earliest transports. For a while, ship loads of settlers and supplies arrived with regularity every few weeks. Before long, however, the time between new arrivals began to stretch.

Now, more than seventy years have passed since the last transport. So very few Earth-born can be counted on Planet Birobidzhan. Life on Birobidzhan has normalized, so to speak.

At the time, our lives were all in upheaval. We were almost all very young and inexperienced. We were on a vast planet full of unknowns. We had limited tools to work with and shortages of basic necessities. And somehow, we still each had to find a way to macht a leben.

My financial situation - if we can even use the term "financial" to discuss those early years of life on Planet Birobidzhan - was truly insecure.

In the early days of planetary settlement, a lot of outcomes were determined in very informal ways. Family, friends, mazel, random rabbinic proclamations, chutzpah and the prevailing winds were the things that mattered most and most "business" involved these factors.

There were a lot of paper shekels in circulation but they held virtually no exchange value. Necessities were rationed, if available. For instance, each person could receive approximately two and a half cups of "Shabbos wine" per week. No amount of money could get you any more than that.

In the early days, the paper shekels were mostly used for gambling. They were also generally accepted as payment by prostitutes. One could also buy rotgut schnapps with currency.

Family connections were way more valuable than cash. My very passage on board one of the earliest transports was largely contingent on a hastily arranged marriage. Relationship to those on earlier flights was one of the key factors in selection of a position by the Agency.

The young woman's familial connection to a prominent rabbi on the initial transport assured her place on board, if she were married. We met one day and became engaged the next. We married the morning of the launch and were placed in cryogenic sleep before consummation of our marriage.

My wife's family connections were enough to get us passage but not enough to gain either of us much pull once we arrived. The family "business" was a yeshiva in New Jerusalem. We had absolutely no positions there. She was considered a "troubled child" by her family. Securing her safe passage off of Earth was all that they had to offer.

My family had arranged what I thought to be a significant level of monetary security. They had sold some property and cashed in some bonds. They added some modest savings to that and it all went into my personal account along with the little bit of gelt I still had from my Bar Mitzvah.

The money in my account was all transferred to the Agency before we left the Home Planet. It was exchanged at what we thought to be a very favorable rate of three Shekels to each dollar.

However, that assumption was based on a premise that the money would have some value on the newly settled world. It would be many, many years before the paper shekels were worth anything except for the ephemeral vices, possibly decorating or perhaps insulation if one had enough.

So, once we were defrosted and semi acclimated, we were faced with some very tough choices.

I was not inclined to lumberjack or mining work. There were no shops or commerce at the time. The kibbutzim were full of socialists, secularists and Hebraists. New Jerusalem and New New York were dominated by the yeshivas. The Town of First Landing was rapidly filling with disenchanted and disillusioned new settlers.

We determined that one of the new shtetls and a small homestead was our best option and maybe doable. We put on our best front and made an effort to make things work. Well…at least for a while.

It had been nearly a year since the last ship had arrived from the Home Planet. This was a big deal. It was heading to the port in the Town of First Landing. My little farm was not far from there. I decided to head there myself.

I told the rooster that I was going to town and that he was in charge while I was gone. He walked along with me for a while and then headed back to the chicken pen and his personal frustrations there. The two hens continued to fend him off. They wanted nothing to do with his self-important "Kukuriku!" or any other aspects of his rooster ways.

We were two of a kind. My wife had given up on the homesteading shtick in a little more than New York minute. She was dazzled by the bright lights and easy ways of a nearby kibbutz. She went for a movie. She stayed for the prepared meals and lesbian orgies. For the time being, the rooster was the closest I had to a friend and confidant.

My little farm was part of a shtetl that was so new that it didn't even have a name yet. The walk from there to the Town of First Landing is over two hours.

Fortunately for me, my neighbor Reb Goldman was driving his "Jeep" - Just Essential Parts - into town to pick up supplies. He picked me up along the way, shortening the trip to something like a half hour.

The time shaved off of that little trip by bumping along in that minimalist vehicle was not all that significant. More importantly, the fortuitous ride led to a serendipitous partnership that transformed both of our lives and guaranteed the security and wealth of our families.

When we arrived at the Space Port, the cryogenic technicians, of course, were on hand. The standard transports had each carried around 10,000 tightly packed passengers in a state of suspended animation and it was the task of the technicians to safely "defrost" the new arrivals.

The technicians were surprised by the ship's manifest and what they found on board. There were only a few hundred human passengers on this transport.

The balance of this shipment carried an odd assortment of supplies and a very large number of Earth's endangered mammals.

The technicians followed the directions to defrost the people first. The passengers were biologists and zoologists. They had been sent to Birobidzhan to establish a zoo.

Groggy zoologists oversaw the unloading and unfolding of pre-built cages and wildlife habitats. Everything was included. Even a gate with a sign reading Zoologisher Gortn in both Yiddish and English, just in case there was any doubt as to what the Agency had sent our way.

The future Birobidzhan Zoo began to take form adjacent to the Space Port.

When we arrived at the Space Port in Reb Goldman's pitiful excuse for a car, the place was busy with essential workers as well as crowded with excited onlookers.

Everyone was curious and some of us were busy trying to figure an angle on whatever action there might be from the limited cargo of this rare transport that the crowd was already calling Noah's Ark.

The Agency had previously determined that it was uneconomical and nonviable to ship cattle. On Earth it was presumed that we would derive kosher meat mostly from the buffalo-like creatures that are roaming our savannas. This proved to be baseless optimism.

At that time, we still presumed that the native wild hogs were traif, which was unfortunate ignorance on our part. Up until the arrival of Noah's Ark, the only Earth creatures on Planet Birobidzhan besides us Yidden were chickens and goats.

Meat, and even eggs, were still seriously limited. The arrival of breeding pairs of Earth mammals had everyone salivating even before the beasts were defrosted.

A gaggle of rabbis and shochets descended on the scene and inserted themselves into the middle of the fray. Someone needed to differentiate between the kosher and the traif and discourage hungry Yidden from trying to barbeque monkeys and hedgehogs.

Through and in spite of all this balagan, we pushed, haggled, elbowed, cajoled, schmoozed and negotiated. Rabbis were gesticulating. Laborers were schlepping. Technicians and zoologists were trying to maintain order.

We managed to get our hands on a breeding pair of Argali sheep which originated from the Himalayas. We got them packed into crates and dragged, pushed and wiggled them towards Reb Goldman's Jeep.

This is how Reb Goldman and I began our sheep herding partnership. We envisioned piles of gelt by cornering the planetary mutton trade.

We did not realize how long it would take to build a herd. We also never imagined that the rabbis would declare the native wild hogs to be kosher and that the Yidden of Planet Birobidzhan would so readily take to ham, pork and bacon.

We earned a few shekels from the sheep over the years. We earned more from their horns, making shofars from them, than we did from the meat but nothing spectacular. That is not to say, however, that this odd pair of Asian mountain sheep didn't play a role in initiating a very profitable convergence. We must certainly give credit where credit is due.

As we were finishing loading the crates into the Jeep, I noticed a small packet of seeds on the ground by the back wheel. Perhaps it had been lodged in a crevice of one of the crates or maybe someone had dropped it or it had blown there. I slipped it into my pocket and gave it no further thought until I got home and we had our new livestock settled in.

To be perfectly honest about it, I didn't give it a whole lot of thought at that time either.

There was a tiny amount of seeds in that packet labeled European Pennyroyal. The picture provided was none too impressive. The information provided suggested that they would grow in marginal soil and that the leaves were used in Italy to season lamb.

I scratched up some dirt behind my house and tossed the seeds in without any real expectations. The herb grew voraciously in that plot and expanded with vigor, displacing native grasses and weeds. I soon had a field filled with the stuff.

Evidently, that tiny packet was the only one to make it to Planet Birobidzhan. I had a monopoly, so to speak, for an obscure herb for seasoning lamb. Of course, lamb was still a luxury item but we had plenty of seasoning.

The word got around that I had lots of the stuff. I soon had growing consumer demand for this obscure seasoning.

When consumed as a tea, European Pennyroyal has the capacity to terminate pregnancy. We live in a world where birth control is non-existent and doctors are very reluctant to perform an abortion.

European Pennyroyal filled an important niche market. So, while the sheep raising enterprise was no big success, I split the profits from the herbal sales with Reb Goldman because a partnership is a partnership and none of it would have been possible if he hadn't picked me up in his Jeep that fateful day.

This is not a Jewish story. It is, however, a story about Jews. One does not need to be Jewish to read this tale any more than one needs to be a Hobbit or an Elf to read Lord of the Rings.

This story is a work of fiction. The setting for this tale is in the distant future, on the far away Planet Birobidzhan. This planet was settled by Jewish exiles from Planet Earth.

The population of Planet Birobidzhan has been cut off from the Home Planet for a long time. They have developed their own unique culture, traditions and linguistics.

The language spoken on Planet Birobidzhan is primarily Yiddish. I have sprinkled a significant number of Yiddish words and phrases throughout the telling of the tale. I also refer to various Jewish religious and cultural touchstones.

To make this story more accessible, I have included a glossary of words and phrases in Yiddish and Hebrew that are used as well as some explanations of religious terms and holidays.

I hope that readers find this to be useful.

The link to the Glossary is here:

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-useful-guide-glossary-to-planet.html?m=1

פּלאַנעט ביראָבידזשאַן

Do you want to read more about Planet Birobidzhan? Here are all the posted installments so far, in the order that they were posted. Just click your way through the story!

1 On A Planet Safe for Yidden

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/on-planet-safe-for-yidden.html

2 Yenne Velt: A History of Planet Birobidzhan

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/yenne-velt-history-of-planet-birobidzhan.html

3 Another Globe, Perhaps?

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/02/another-globe-perhaps.html

4 Bereshis: The Transport & Transformation of the Founders

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/03/bereshis-transport-transformation-of.html

5 The Town of First Landing

https://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-town-of-first-landing.html

6 A Personal History of an Early Settler on Planet Birobidzhan

http://21stcenturybogatyr.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-personal-history-of-early-settler-on.html