Dictionary

Birobidzhaner en · NOUN

Etymology

From Birobidzhan + -er.

Meanings

1. A native or inhabitant of Birobidzhan.
   • In the Khabarovsk prison too there must have been other Jews beside the Birobidzhaners, but they never were placed in the same cells with us. 1981, Israel Emiot [pseudonym; Israel Goldwasser], translated by Max Rosenfeld, “On the road to penal servitude”, in The Birobidzhan Affair: A Yiddish Writer in Siberia, Philadelphia, Pa.: Jewish Publication Society of America, →ISBN, page 62:
   • Still, Birobidzhaners could count on state funding to create many of their own Yiddish institutions. 2001, Miriam Weinstein, “The Soviet Union: Marching and Singing to Birobidzhan”, in Yiddish: A Nation of Words, South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press, →ISBN, part 2 (The Modern Era), page 106:
   • Young Birobidzhaners were bemused when a group of ethnically Slavic subbotniks, or Sabbatarians, settled in one of the villages of the JAR, but would not work on Saturday, because they were committed to living by Biblical law. 2023, Gennady Estraikh, “Growing Pains”, in The History of Birobidzhan: Building a Soviet Jewish Homeland in Siberia (Russian Shorts), London: Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN, page 43:

Forms