Abstract. The October Revolution of 1917, the civil war, and the quick establishment and short-lived existence of the Far Eastern Republic (DVR) forced many Russian subjects, including Jews, to move to Manchurian cities in order to survive during a time of uncertainty and instability. Harbin, the capital of Manchuria, became a temporary home for former citizens of the former tsarist empire for almost thirty years. The Jewish community in Harbin began to take shape spontaneously with the opening of the Chinese Eastern Railway in

1903, but its organizational formation began in 1917, which was due both to the quantitative growth of the community and the need to adjust the Jewish life of those for whom Harbin temporarily became a new homeland. Almost overnight, Harbin became a community of marginalized people who had lost practically everything and had no hope of returning to their former life, but who at the same time wished to rebuild their lives in a new place. This article focuses on Ya. D. Frizer’s (1869–1932) Harbin period. Before the October revolution,

Frizer was one of the most important gold entrepreneurs in eastern Siberia; in Harbin, his wife, N. F. Frieser (1872–1945), was able to fulfill her dream of founding a Jewish nursery school. Ya. D. Frieser kept diaries and a family archive, and this article draws on the surving material. The authors also used the periodicals of the Harbin Jewish Spiritual Society (HEDO).