21st Century Bogatyr: Another Globe, Perhaps?

by Zvi Baranoff

Long ago, on the Home Planet, Earth, there was an ancient Russian Empire controlled by an aristocracy and ruled by a Czar. Under the Czar, Yidden suffered from limitations, oppression, deprivation and the occasional pogroms.

In the Russian Empire, Jews could only live in a region known as the Pale which was at the western end of the Empire in the border regions between other competing imperialist powers contended for control.

Armies marched through with flags displayed and much exuberance. Governments came and went. No matter what nation laid claim, life in the Jewish villages remained about the same for centuries.

When everything went as well as could be expected, there would be potatoes (bulbes) and onions (tsibeles), a bit of black bread and maybe some borscht. On Friday night, perhaps a schtickle of fish or chicken, a glass of wine and some white bread.

This was the world that Mendel was born to and this was what he expected from life.

Towards the end of the 1800s, life had become noticeably more difficult for the Yidden and many began to consider a life beyond the Pale. Millions emigrated during those years, including some from the shtetl where Mendel lived.

Some of Mendel's childhood friends became Zionists. They sang songs in Hebrew. They dreamed of a Land for Jews where they could walk tall and live on communal farms. They went off to a place they called Palestine.

Other childhood friends went to the Americas. Some went to New York, where the streets, they said, are paved in gold. Others went to Buenos Aires, where great opportunities existed for enterprising Yidden.

A few of his acquaintances had gone to South Africa. It was there that diamonds could be found just lying on the ground. In almost no time one could be wealthy, with a little effort. So, he had been told.

Mendel stayed in the shtetl of his birth, satisfied with his lot. Bulbes and tsibeles with a bit of black bread were not so bad. Why should he go looking for trouble?

In the beginning of the twentieth century, the Russian Empire was in turmoil. Great changes were afoot. Some of Mendel's childhood friends joined the Bolsheviks in the struggle to overthrow the Czar.

When the Bolsheviks came to power, the Russian Empire was no more. In its place a new government arose and was called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Everything was new and nothing was the same, he was told. The old power structure was gone. All men were equal. The workers now ruled and the capitalist class was destroyed.

Mendel still ate black bread and maybe a bulbes or a tsibele. A schtickle of fish or chicken was just a dream, but all told, his life had not changed much.

Shortly after the overthrow of the Czar and the installation of the Bolshevik-led Workers Paradise Government, a madman and paranoid narcissist with an evil temperament floated to the top of the pond as is the tendency of scum. Joseph Stalin, may his name be cursed for eternity, led Russia into an extensive period of non-stop terror with an irrational bureaucratic tinge to it.

It was towards the end of the 1920s, with a madman as the Party Leader and Head of State, the Politburo had determined that the Yidden, now free, needed a Jewish Republic - a piece of land with a Jewish character and culture - that reflected the values of the new Communist State.

With much fanfare, red flags blowing in the breeze, commissars and Yiddish poets urged the Yidden of the Pale to head east, to a new Jewish Land.

Far from the Pale, along another frontier adjacent to the Chinese border, a desolate and uninhabitable place where the Bira and the Bidzhan Rivers flowed, they determined in their wisdom that the Jews of Russia could remake themselves.

Upstanding writers, poets and Yiddishists urged the Yidden to move to the Birobidzhan Republic. Some went, but Mendel stayed put. A bit of black bread and maybe a bulbes or a tsibele and life goes on.

In the Jewish Republic of Birobidzhan, there was terrible housing, little work, failed gardens and not enough of anything. That was how things were going there at the best of it. Then, the purges began. Those that were summarily executed were the lucky ones. Many others were sent to Gulags where they worked themselves to death.

Meanwhile, to the west, dark clouds were rising. A stubby colonel and failed artist and sociopath named Adolf Hitler, a curse on his name as well, seized control of Germany, another country with imperialist fetishes.

These two crackpots found common cause for a short while. While they played lovey-dovey, they divided up all the land that spread out between Russia and Germany. Then, a lovers quarrel broke out which led to a messy divorce. When it reached full scale warfare, the battles raged across the Pale.

Mendel was drafted into the Soviet Army. He fought when he had to. He learned to keep his head down and he lived as a grunt private. The army sometimes fed him borscht, but not often. He could sometimes find a piece of black bread or a tsibele. Somehow he survived the war.

The madman Stalin held the reins of Russia until his death in 1953. During those years, life was hard for everyone. Of course, life was especially hard for the Yidden. After Stalin's death, everyone breathed a little easier. Life improved somewhat.

The gulags had largely been dismantled and the purges had mostly ended. The starving was alleviated. Slowly some reforms took place.

By the 1970s, the Soviet Government began to issue a limited number of exit visas. Mendel decided one day to go down to the office and apply for a visa. Maybe he could go and live somewhere else in this world where bulbes and tsibeles were plentiful, fish and chicken were available and one could have a bit of white bread and a glass of wine on a Friday night. Why not?

Mendel waited in line for the proper forms. He sat on the hard bench and filled in the paperwork with the stubby pencil that he was given. He stood in line to turn in the forms. He waited all day in the crowded outer office for his name to be called. It was nearly closing time when he heard a badly mispronounced version of his name being called. Mendel shuffled into the inner sanctum where his fate would be decided.

The bureaucrat that would determine Mendel's future looked up from behind his desk. Mendel fidgeted a bit, his cap in his hand. "Yes," said the bureaucrat. "Where is it you want to go to?"

The question caught Mendel unaware. He hadn't thought about where he wanted to be. He simply could no longer remember what held him there in Russia and imagined abstractly that there must be a better place. He stammered and stuttered.

The bureaucrat looked up from the papers he was shuffling. He saw before him an old veteran from the Great Patriotic War as that period of senseless bloodletting was known in Russia.

The government bureaucrat took a breath and his heart softened a bit. "I cannot issue an exit visa without a destination. You must tell me where you want to go and then I can put my stamp on this piece of paper and you pay the fee and you get a visa. It is as simple as that. Where do you want to go?"

Mendel also took a breath and felt a little more at ease. "Well," he said. "I suppose I should go to the Land of Israel. That is the country for the Jews, is it not?" Israel was the newfangled name for that place called Palestine when he was a youth. Some of his childhood friends had gone there back before the Revolution and the War.

The clerk felt a bit more at ease, now that he had something to write down on the blank line of the form. Just as his pen was about to touch the paper, Mendel spoke up. "Wait!" he said. "I am thinking, there they have war and the economy isn't so good. Maybe I don't want to go there." The clerk looked up, and sighed.

"Maybe I go to America. In New York, the streets are paved in gold. But, in America there is racial strife and crime and poverty. No. I don't think I want to go to America." The clerk shook his head.

Mendel considered other choices and just as quickly wrote those choices off. South Africa had apartheid and might be heading into a civil war. Australia had poisonous snakes and large crocodiles. The pictures of Canada that he had seen reminded him of Siberia. In Chile they speak Spanish. Germany is full of Germans.

Finally, the clerk, who just wanted to finish up his paperwork so he could go home, took a globe off of a shelf and placed it in the middle of his desk. He gave the globe a light spin. "Surely there is some place on this globe that you want to go to."

Mendel watched the globe spin and he looked deep into his heart. Then he spoke up. "Please, kindly bureaucrat, commissar apparatchik, comrade clerk sir…perhaps, just maybe, you have another globe?"

At that time, there was no other globe to even consider. We were all in exile then as we are now but our Galus was limited to the Home Planet. We have since extended our exile out into the great void. Some of us landed on Planet Birobidzhan. Here on Planet Birobidzhan, there are no government officials to grant us exit visas. We have nowhere else to go.

At least on Planet Birobidzhan, bulbes and tsibeles are plentiful, fish and chicken are available, all sorts of breads and cakes can be purchased at the bakery, borscht is as cheap as borscht and there is always wine for Friday night.

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