Komzet

Threshing in the fields in a Jewish kolkhoz, c. 1930

Komzet(Russian:Комитет поземельному устройствуеврейскихтрудящихся,КОМЗЕТ) was theCommittee for the Settlement of Toiling Jews on the Land(some English sources use the word "working" instead of "toiling" ) in theSoviet Union.The primary goal of the Komzet was to help impoverished and persecuted Jewish population of the formerPale of Settlementto adopt agricultural labor. Other goals were getting financial assistance from theJewish diasporaand providing the Soviet Jews an alternative toZionism.

Function

The Komzet was a government committee whose function was to contribute and distribute the land for newkolkhozes.A complementary public society, theOZETwas established in order to assist in moving settlers to a new location, housebuilding, irrigation, training, providing them with cattle and agricultural tools, education, medical and cultural services. The funds were to be provided by private donations, charities and lotteries.

History

Established in 1921, Komzet was headed byP. G. Smidovich.

In 1924–1926, the Komzet helped to create several Jewishkolkhozesin various regions, most notably inCrimea,UkraineandStavropolregion.

In 1927, following a failed attempt to establishJewish autonomy in Crimea,theBirsko-Bidzhansky regionin theRussian Far Eastwas identified as a territory suitable for compact living of the Soviet Jews. The region would become theJewish Autonomous Oblastbut it did not attract the expected mass Jewish resettlement.

Komzet was abolished in 1938, as part of the process of dismantling almost all central nationalities institutions.

See also

• Organization for Jewish Colonisation in the Soviet Union (IKOR)
• Society for Settling Toiling Jews on the Land (OZET)
• Gezerd
• History of the Jews in Russia and the Soviet Union
• Jews and Judaism in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
• American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
• Yevsektsiya

Further reading

• Robert Weinberg.Stalin's Forgotten Zion. Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland: An Illustrated History, 1928–1996(University of California Press, 1998))ISBN0-520-20990-7
• Jonathan L. Dekel-Chen.Farming the Red Land: Jewish Agricultural Colonization and Local Soviet Power, 1924–1941(Yale University Press, 2005)ISBN0-300-10331-X

External links

• OZET lottery posters and ticketsfeatured inSwarthmore College's online exhibition "Stalin's Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland."
• Up From the "Ash Heap"? A Lost Chapter of Interwar Jewish Historyby Jonathan Dekel-Chen (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) from Colombia Journal of Historiography