Day in the history of the Jewish Autonomous Region
Photo: Regional Library
November 10, 1939
The Bureau of the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks discussed the issue of the progress of socialist competition between the cities of Birobidzhan and Blagoveshchensk.
November 10, 1995
A Decree of the President of the Russian Federation was signed on awarding the Order of Honor to Leder Roman (Rakhmil) Isaakovich, the head of the production association of housing and communal services of the Jewish Autonomous Region.
Roman Isaakovich is a native Far Easterner, born and raised in the Jewish Autonomous Region. Roman Isaakovich’s father came to the Far East from Ukraine in the early 30s, here he met his future wife. At first, the family lived in Birakan, then his father served in the army as an officer, and life took him to different parts of the Far East. In 1941-1942, my parents lived in Birobidzhan. Later the family moved to Primorye.
After his father’s demobilization in 1948, the family returned to Birobidzhan; the family already had five children.
Upon arrival in Birobidzhan, we first lived with the head of the repair construction site, Anastasia Tikhonovna Podolyak. When my father entered Birtorg as deputy chief accountant, the family was given an apartment on Kalinin Street in a wooden two-story building.
Roman Isaakovich graduated from the institute in Khabarovsk with a diploma in highway construction engineer. The production career progressed quickly – foreman, foreman, site manager. When he headed the road construction department, he was invited to work in Tomsk at the regional highway department, but he refused the offer.
For a long time he was the head of road construction department No. 1. Roman Leder was directly involved in the organization of Victory Square in Birobidzhan. The fir trees in Victory Square have their own history. The chairman of the city executive committee at that time (early 1970s) was Miron Ivanovich Goncharuk. It was necessary to urgently plant trees in the park, since for the first time in the history of the city a delegation from Mongolia was supposed to come to us. We had to do something beautiful, plant trees. A solution was found – the chairman of the city executive committee asked for a company of soldiers at the military unit, and a couple of timber trucks were also found. They dug up mature spruce trees in the taiga and then planted them in the park, all the trees took root, not a single one was lost.
From 2007 to 2020, the Freud community was headed by Roman Isaakovich Leder. All this time he continued the traditions of his predecessor.
On August 19, 2025, at the age of 84, the former chairman of the Birobidzhan Jewish religious community “Freud” Rakhmil Isaakovich Leder died.
