Photoessay #2072 - Jewish autonomous oblast

This post goes in the "I never knew" category

This actually is a busy family weekend. Naomi is back from Central for the summer.  Ilana and Matt are in town (and staying with us) as Matt and his extended family celebrate his UW graduation.  I'll be hosting a party for his relatives and my family members and whoever comes by on Sunday afternoon.  And Danny, my first baby, is 30 years old today.  Ilana, Naomi and I made a Costco run, had lunch at Dick's and went to visit Susanna and Megan at 99 Monkeys where they work.  They even had some paying customers.

I'm returning to a memoir style piece about discovering I was a person of color.  Many thanks to Sue who workshopped it this last week.  But I realized I had to get a little straightened out on the Jewish diaspora through Europe.

And I found this Jewish Autonomous Oblast....that's their flag.  Part of  Russia, in the far east bordering on northeastern China.  Never heard of it.  Apparently Stalin set it up as a "Jewish Homeland" ion the 1920s and 1930s and about 20,000 Jews emigrated there.  Cold winters, swampy lands.  But it's still there though the Jews are only about 2% of the population.  Apparently a resurgence in Jewish community there.

The Flag was redesigned in 1996.  The seven lines are supposed to symbolize the seven branches of the menorah.

Crazy, never ever heard of it.