Iskateli schastya

I actually saw Seekers of Happiness sometime ago at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. This is a rare insight into the issue of the so-called Jewish homeland in the former USSR, i.e., Birobidjian. The film covers the journey and the efforts of one family's move to the as-yet established Birobidjian.

The conditions in the late '20's and early '30's in Birobidjian, which is located in the Russian far east, were very much analogous to that of Palestine in the the same era. The settlers drained malarial swamps, faced harsh winters, etc.

The entire 'project' of Birobidjian was circumspect and at the root of it all was one aspect of Stalin's plan to resettle Soviet Jews away from the heart of the country, and eventually to find a place to put them out of sight, all under the guise of establishing a "Jewish homeland" in the USSR.

One of the great features of Seekers of Happiness is Benjamin Zuskin, who plays the father. Zuskin's character, though idealistic at first, quickly becomes disenchanted with Birobidjian and wants to return home. Zuskin's comrades criticize him as spoiled and bourgeois, and an unpatriotic Jew.

Benjamin Zuskin was one of the great actors of the Soviet Yiddish theater. During the Anti-Semitic pogrom of the late 40's, Zuskin was one of the ill fated members of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee who were arrested on phony charges of espionage and Zionism (this was a crime in the Soviet Union then), and later executed.

This early Soviet propagandist melodrama was designed to lure hopeful Jewish emigrants to the remote, bug-infested Siberian swampland of Birobidjan, by promising wealth, prosperity, an autonomy which never came to be, and (yes) even romance! The hardy pioneers arrive singing in the Soviet Far East, finding an untamed but idyllic paradise where streams are filled with fish, forests are filled with game, and the air is filled with song! Sure, conditions are rough at first (notice there are no chilly scenes of Siberian winter), but through diligent application of collective methods ("If you want to have a fine life: work!") the plucky settlers soon discover Socialist dreams do come true! It's all totally ridiculous, of course, which at least gives the film a measure of camp entertainment value when seen today. Even less surprising is the fact that no one was fooled: by the time the film was released the truth was out about Birobidjan, and Jews were already leaving the region.

(Note: if you can find it, see the 1989 documentary 'Jews Under the Red Star', directed by Irmgard von zur Muhlen and Vladimir Dwinski, for a more objective view of the same history. I was fortunate to see both films, at the Castro Theater in San Francisco, during the 1990 Jewish International Film Festival.)