In 1928 first Jewish homeland of the modern era was created not in the Middle East, but in the Far East of the Soviet Union.
Thousands of pioneers came from all over the world
Most who made the long journey to Birobidzhan quickly returned home defeated by the harsh reality that awaited them there, but this ambitious contemporary opera looks at the lives of an American family and a European family who stay to pioneer Siberia's mysterious Jewish Autonomous Region and how they must rise to the challenges they face in achieving the freedom they seek.
The new musical drama SOVIET ZION takes a closer look at how the political maelstrom of the time would send six ordinary people to the end of the earth in search of a home; at their relationships to the identities that define them; and their search for a sense of belonging that would compel them all the way from Malibu to Siberia and beyond.
The following rare historical footage give a glimpse of what life was like arriving in the Russian Far East, miles from home, to build a whole country from scratch.
We came here to be peasants
To work upon the land
We came here to be equal
Our dreams and goals weren't grand.
Our dreams and hopes are withered
As the autumn whips the land
It strips away the life we build
And ruins what we'd planned
LONG LIVE THE LAND
BEYOND OUR DREAMS AND PLANS
LONG LIVE THE LAND
THOUGH THOSE DREAMS HAVE TURNED TO SAND
Our faith in G-d is weaker than it ever was before
It's whittled further ev'ry year
The shavings on the floor
Are being swept about now and collected in a heap
They're brushed into a basket
Not put away to keep, they are carried to a bonfire
And scattered to the wind
Carried upwards in the current
But once the smoke has thinned
They quickly fall back downwards
Burning embers hit the ground
Thereby all hope is cauterized
Reminders all around
That we came here to be peasants
But we're dying with that dream
The land will live long after us
Our blood
And sweat
And tears
G. Howe, 2008
