Abstract
The Introduction articulates the goals of the present volume, namely, to broaden the scope of the historical narrative pertaining to the history of the Shanghai Jews and investigate the interaction of Jews with Chinese, Japanese, and non-Jewish Westerners. All the contributors to the volume provide new insights on the general theme of “interaction and exchange.” Under this general theme, four sub-themes appear: (1) Placing the History of the Shanghai Jews within Various Historical Contexts; (2) Cultural Life of Refugees in Shanghai; (3) The Jews Sojourning in Shanghai after the War; and (4) Commemoration of the History of the Shanghai Jews. After providing a summary the main findings within each sub-theme, the Introduction offers reflections on how the new pathways of research presented in the volume enhance our understanding of the history of the Shanghai Jews.
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Notes
- 1.
Some of the more popular memoirs are Horst Eisfelder, China Exile: My Years in Shanghai and Nanking (Teaneck, NJ: Avotaynu, 2004); Ernest G. Heppner, Shanghai Refuge: A Memoir of the World War II Jewish Ghetto (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1995); Sam Iwry, To Wear the Dust of War: An Oral History Biography, ed. Leslie J. H. Kelley (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004); Evelyn Pike Rubin, Ghetto Shanghai (New York: Shengold Publishers, 1993); Sigmund Tobias, Strange Haven: A Jewish Childhood in Wartime Shanghai (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009). This list is by no means exhaustive. See, as well, the collection of shorter accounts in Berl Falbaum, ed. Shanghai Remembered...: Stories of Jews Who Escaped to Shanghai from Nazi Europe (Royal Oak, MI: Momentum Books, 2005). New memoirs continue to come out. See, for example, Bert L. Reiner, My Journey from Shanghai to Las Vegas: An Autobiography by Bert Reiner (Independently published, 2019). The classic scholarly work in the field continues to be David Kranzler, Japanese, Nazis & Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938-1945 (Hoboken, N.J: KTAV Publishing House, 1998). The work originated as Kranzler’s dissertation at Yeshiva University in 1971 and then was published in 1976 by Yeshiva University Press. Some other significant early works in the field are Marvin Tokayer and Mary Swartz, The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews During World War II (New York: Paddington Press, 1979); Antonia Finnane, Far from Where? Jewish Journeys from Shanghai to Australia (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1999); and James R. Ross, Escape to Shanghai: A Jewish Community in China (New York: The Free Press, 1994).
- 2.
Some significant scholarly works in the West since 2000 are Georg Armbrüster, Michael Kohlstruck, and Sonja Mühlberger, eds. Exil Shanghai 1938-1947: jüdisches Leben in der Emigration (Teetz: Hentrich & Hentrich, 2000); Steve Hochstadt, ed. A Century of Jewish Life in Shanghai (New York: Touro University Press, 2019); and Marcia Reynders Ristaino, Port of Last Resort: The Diaspora Communities of Shanghai (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001). In China, Pan Guang and Xu Xin have published many works over the last few decades. Major scholars in more recent years include Wang Jiang and Lihong Song.
- 3.
Recent oral histories of the subject include Steve Hochstadt, Exodus to Shanghai: Stories of Escape from the Third Reich (New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 2012); Kevin Ostoyich, “A Profile of the ‘Hit Maker’: Recording the Life of Berliner, Shanghailander, and Philadelphian Gunter Hauer,” Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies 85, no. 4 (2018): 530-555; Vera Schwarcz, In the Crook of the Rock: Jewish Refuge in a World Gone Mad: The Chaya Walkin Story (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018). See, as well, the online oral history articles of Kevin Ostoyich at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies of Johns Hopkins University: www.aicgs.org/by-author/kevin-ostoyich/. Accessed October 30, 2021.
- 4.
In her 2013 book Shanghai Sanctuary: Chinese and Japanese Policy toward European Jewish Refugees during World War II, Gao attempts to address the lack of Chinese and Japanese perspectives within the historical narrative. While the strengths and weaknesses of Gao’s specific findings are not the subject of this volume, her overall call for more study of cultural interaction has been a key motivating force behind its creation. One of our contributors has provided a probing critique of Gao Bei’s work; see Steve Hochstadt, “Bei Gao. Shanghai Sanctuary: Chinese and Japanese Policy toward European Jewish Refugees during World War II,” American Historical Review, Volume 118, Issue 5, December 2013: 1499–1500.
- 5.
For an introduction to the history of the Kaifeng Jews, see Anson Laytner and Jordan D. Paper, eds., The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng: A Millennium of Adaptation and Endurance (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2017) and Xu Xin, The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion (Jersey City, NJ: KTAV Publishing House, 2003).
- 6.
After the first Opium War (1839–42), Great Britain, the United States, France, Austria-Hungary, and fourteen other nations obtained extraterritorial rights in China. Late Qing and the Republic of China had made constant efforts to gain judicial sovereignty since 1902 but did not achieve this goal until 1943, when China signed treaties with the United States, Britain, and France regarding the abolishment of extraterritoriality. See Wesley R. Fishel, The End of Extraterritoriality in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1952), 1–25.
- 7.
See Xu Xin’s chapter and Yun Xia and Kevin Ostoyich’s chapter in the present volume.
- 8.
In June 2021, the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences held a high-profile book launch event for The Belt and Road Country Studies: Israel. The event featured top scholars in Israeli and Middle Eastern studies in China as well as Chinese and Israeli diplomats. Wang Zhen, ed. Yidai yilu guobie yanjiu baogao: Yiselie juan (The Belt and Road Country Studies: Israel). Shanghai: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2021.
- 9.
In his chapter, Kenji Kanno points out the “self-alienation” of Japanese scholars when it comes to research on Jews in Shanghai, and that most scholars “have contented themselves with reference to writing—historical or fictional—by overseas authors, from America in particular.” Given the ongoing work of Kenji Kanno, we have reason to hope for new discoveries.
- 10.
The exhibit is titled “The Jewish Friends of the CPC in the Last One Hundred Years.” “Zhewei youtai nanmin weihe hui jiaru Zhongguo Gongchandang?” Wenhuibao, June 24, 2021.
- 11.
See, for instance, Timothy Brook, Collaboration: Japanese Agents and Local Elites in Wartime China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007); Poshek Fu, Passivity, Resistance, and Collaboration: Intellectual Choices in Occupied Shanghai (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993).
- 12.
Given the number of refugees, Sephardic Jews, and stateless Russian Jews in Shanghai during the 1930s and 1940s are approximations, the editors have allowed variance of the numbers in the contributor’s chapters. Also, given the variety of names for certain place names (e.g., Hongkew, Hongkou, and Hong Kou), the editors have likewise allowed for variance based on contributor preference.
References
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Wang, Zhen, ed. 2021. Yidai yilu guobie yanjiu baogao: Yiselie juan (The Belt and Road Country Studies: Israel). Shanghai: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe.
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Ostoyich, K., Xia, Y. (2022). Introduction. In: Ostoyich, K., Xia, Y. (eds) The History of the Shanghai Jews. Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13761-7_1
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