The Arab Higher Committee's suggestion that Jews who wish to
migrate from Palestine should move to " the free Jewish republic of Birobijan " strjkes me as slightly disingenuous. Birobijan, as perhaps not every schoolboy knows, is situated in the inhospitable regions to the north of the Amur River, which forms the boundary between Manchuria and Russian territory ; if you took a train from Liverpool Street Station to Vladivostok (which used to be perfectly possible but might, what with the Iron Curtain, be less easy now) you would pass Birobijan on the right about the middle of the second week. Its correct designation is, I believe, " the Jewish Autonomous Region," but since it forms part of the U.S.S.R. and has not even the theo- retical rights under the constitution of " constituent republics " like the Ukraine or Uzbekistan its autonomy is probably not excessive. In any case the improbability of the Russians opening their frontiers to large-scale Jewish immigration is only equalled by the improba- bility of any Jews wanting to go and live under a totalitarian regime in Eastern Siberia.
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