in the minds of both foreign and Soviet Jews had evaporated by the time of Stalin's death in 1953. The region had never become a center of Jewish culture and life. The post-Stalin era did not bring any substantial changes to the Jewish Autonomous Region, and Jewish life remained sterile. Nonetheless, the continued existence of the Jewish Autonomous Region served the Kremlin's purposes, presumably as proof of the regime's commitment to allow Jews national and cultural rights.