groups worked alongside the government to encourage the widespread Jewish use of Yiddish. Both the Evsketsii and the Bund supported the Jewish movement towards assimilation and saw Yiddish as a way to encourage it. They saw the use of Yiddish as a step away from the religious aspects of Judaism, instead favoring the cultural aspects of Judaism. A public educational system entirely based on the Yiddish language was established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher educational institutions (technical schools, rabfaks and other university departments). These were initially created to stop Jewish children from taking too many spots in regular Soviet schools. The Soviets feared that the Jewish children were both taking spots from non-Jews as well as spreading revolutionary ideas to their non-Jewish peers. As a result, in 1914 laws were passed that guaranteed Jews the right to a Jewish education and as a result the Yiddish education system was established. After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 even more Yiddish schools were established. These schools thrived with government, specifically Bolshevik, and Jewish support. They were established as part of the effort to revitalize the Soviet Jewish Community. Specifically, the Bolsheviks wanted to encourage Jewish assimilation. While these schools were taught in Yiddish, the content was Soviet. They were created to attract Jews in to getting a Soviet education under the guise of a Jewish institution. While schools with curriculums taught in Yiddish existed in some areas until the 1950s, there was a general decline in enrollment due to preference for Russian-speaking institutions and the declining reputation of Yiddish schools among Yiddish speaking Soviets. As the Yiddish schools declined, so did overall Yiddish culture. The two were inherently linked and with the downfall of one, so did the other. General Soviet denationalization programs and secularization policies also led to a further lack of enrollment and funding; the last schools to be closed existed until 1951. It continued to be spoken widely for decades, nonetheless, in areas with compact Jewish populations (primarily in Moldova, Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Belarus). In the former Soviet states, recently active Yiddish authors include Yoysef Burg (Chernivtsi 1912–2009) and Olexander Beyderman (b. 1949, Odessa). Publication of an earlier Yiddish periodical ( – ; lit. The Friend), was resumed in 2004 with (; lit. The New Friend, Saint Petersburg). Russia According to the 2010 census, 1,683 people spoke Yiddish in Russia, approximately 1% of all the