The first modern Jewish state wasn’t in the Middle East—it was in Siberia. Stalin’s Forgotten Zion explores the history of Birobidzhan through archival footage and family stories to reveal why Jews from around the world flocked to a homeland that turned out to be full of disappointment.

“There’s an animal called a mink,” a man from Birobidzhan says, “It has beautiful fur, but when it gets hungry, it will eat itself. And the more it eats itself the angrier it gets. The Soviet regime was just like that. The regime ate its own people. It was madness. They lured people to Birobidzhan only to arrest them later on.”

When Stalin created the first Jewish Autonomous Oblast in the 1930s, news about the great socialist haven spread from New York to Buenos Aires to South Africa. Wanting to escape antisemitism and the world’s economic crisis, eager Jews from around the world traveled to remote Siberia to live among their people and to be a part of a new socialist community. But soon after they arrived, the Soviet Union’s Great Terror swept through Birobidzhan, deporting and killing hundreds of thousands of Soviet minorities. The Jews that survived this bitter time in history were left to deal with the extreme cold, a failing economy and, later, the mass Jewish emigration to Israel. The Jews who still remain in Birobidzhan – and though they are few, they are there — must wonder why they too haven’t left.

The first Jewish pioneers trekked to Birobidzhan on a grueling journey by train. One old woman remembers that everyone was exhausted and hungry, but as they traveled across Siberia’s barren landscape, they tried to make the best of the excruciating train ride by telling jokes and singing, until they finally arrived, full of hope, to the small village near the border of China that was to be their new home.

Upon arriving, though, they were greeted by a series of disappointments. Under Soviet law, citizens of Birobidzhan were forbidden to practice their Jewish religion or culture. This explains why only two percent of the residents have remained Jewishly identified, and why, during the filming of the documentary, no one in the synagogue can answer basic questions about Passover.

The citizens of the Jewish Autonomous Region always wanted to live a Jewish life, but in the Soviet era it was nearly impossible to study anything other than Lenin. One woman says she moved to Birobidzhan hoping to learn Yiddish, but the schools were closed in 1947, and, soon after, pens and paper were forbidden. She says it’s a good thing that the Torah has been translated to Russian because otherwise she wouldn’t understand a word of it.

Ignorance of Jewish laws ad customs is perhaps a small frustration compared to the devastating effects The Great Terror had on Birobidzhan’s citizenry. Only half of the population survived when Jews were deported in sealed trains to work at labor camps throughout Siberia.

Only 5,000 Jews remain in Birobidzhan, according to Stalin’s Forgotten Zion, while five times as many former residents have left Siberia for Israel. The documentary shares interviews with Jews that have stayed and those that have left to look at how they made their decision. One old woman says she hasn’t left Birobidzhan because her husband wants to be buried with his parents, who died in Siberia, but, even so, their decision to stay hasn’t been easy. “Life is so hard here,” she says, “I don’t know what to do.”

The move to Israel doesn’t necessarily bring happiness, though, as the film reveals. After making aliyah, the former rabbi of Birobidzhan quickly became disillusioned when he struggled to find work. In Siberia he had been a celebrity figure who could teach and do the work that he loved, but in Israel, as part of a much larger Jewish community, he would be lucky to land a job at a bread factory or the postal service.

Ultimately, the film’s explores the nature of “home,” arguing that it’s not something you choose but something you’re born into. In the words of Soviet poet Margarita Aliger, “You don’t choose your home. You get it, just like your parents.” And, whether it’s Israel or Birobidzhan, being home can be tough. But as another wise poet once said, there’s still no place like it.