Growing Up Jewish in China


Book Description

A colorful memoir of Jewish life in China during the first half of the twentieth century. Dolly Beil spent the first part of her life in the Chinese cities of Tsingtao (Qingdao), Mukden (Shenyang), Harbin, and Tientsin (Tianjin). Her father, owner of a jewellery store and a businessman, descended from the prominent family of Solomon Guterman, who owned an estate in Irkutsk, Russia. Her mother was one of three daughters of Grigory Lazarovich Gershevich, who built the first hotel in the northern city of Harbin, located on Pacific Road. The year of Dolly's birth -- 1927 -- meant that she and her family, part of the country's small Jewish community, would live through events that would change China, and them, forever: The Japanese occupation Liberation by Americans at the end of World War II Civil war between Nationalist and Communist forces The flight of foreign nationals from an increasingly closed society Beil's entertaining stories will draw you into an unusual blend of European and Asian life in the country of her early joys and sorrows: China, the country that she loves so much to this very day. Includes seventy black and white photos.




The Last Kings of Shanghai


Book Description

"In vivid detail... examines the little-known history of two extraordinary dynasties."--The Boston Globe "Not just a brilliant, well-researched, and highly readable book about China's past, it also reveals the contingencies and ironic twists of fate in China's modern history."--LA Review of Books An epic, multigenerational story of two rival dynasties who flourished in Shanghai and Hong Kong as twentieth-century China surged into the modern era, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist The Sassoons and the Kadoories stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than one hundred seventy-five years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and nearly losing everything as the Communists swept into power. Jonathan Kaufman tells the remarkable history of how these families ignited an economic boom and opened China to the world, but remained blind to the country's deep inequality and to the political turmoil on their doorsteps. In a story stretching from Baghdad to Hong Kong to Shanghai to London, Kaufman enters the lives and minds of these ambitious men and women to forge a tale of opium smuggling, family rivalry, political intrigue, and survival.




Growing Up Jewish in China


Book Description

A colorful and compelling memoir of Jewish life in China during the first half of the 20th century. Beil spent the first part of her life in the Chinese cities of Tsingtao (Qingdao), Mukden (Shenyang), Harbin, and Tientsin (Tianjin) and lived through the Japanese occupation, liberation by Americans at the end of World War II, civil war between Nationalist and Communist forces, and the flight of foreign nationals from an increasingly closed society.




Strange Haven


Book Description

The author, part of the Jewish refugee community in Shanghai, tells of his experiences growing up in the ghetto under Japanese occupation.




Escape to Shanghai


Book Description




China and the Jewish People


Book Description

The Jewish people and world Jewish leadership are facing critical dilemmas, opportunities and challenges. These create a need for systematic thinking to examine the range of decisions that may affect the standing of world Jewry in the decades to come. The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) was established as an independent think tank whose mission is to contribute to the continuity of the Jewish people and Judaism, and their thriving future. China and the Jewish People' is the first document in a series of strategy papers dedicated to improving the standing of the Jewish people in emerging superpowers without biblical tradition.China and Jewish People: Old Civilizations in a New Era by Dr. Shalom Salomon Wald, is a crucial book that addresses the Jewish people and their issues with China.




Voices from Shanghai


Book Description

When Hitler came to power and the German army began to sweep through Europe, almost 20,000 Jewish refugees fled to Shanghai. A remarkable collection of the letters, diary entries, poems, and short stories composed by these refugees in the years after they landed in China, Voices from Shanghai fills a gap in our historical understanding of what happened to so many Jews who were forced to board the first ship bound for anywhere. Once they arrived, the refugees learned to navigate the various languages, belief systems, and ethnic traditions they encountered in an already booming international city, and faced challenges within their own community based on disparities in socioeconomic status, levels of religious observance, urban or rural origin, and philosophical differences. Recovered from archives, private collections, and now-defunct newspapers, these fascinating accounts make their English-languge debut in this volume. A rich new take on Holocaust literature, Voices from Shanghai reveals how refugees attempted to pursue a life of creativity despite the hardships of exile.




The Image of Jews in Contemporary China


Book Description

Bookstores in Chinese cities are stocked with dozens of Chinese-language books on how Jews conduct business, manage the world, and raise their children. At least ten universities throughout China offer popular Jewish Studies programs, some with advanced degrees. Yet there are virtually no Jews in China. The Chinese are constructing an identity for a people that the large majority of them will never meet. This edited volume critically examines the image of Jews from the contemporary perspective of ordinary Chinese citizens. It includes chapters on Chinese Jewish Studies programs, popular Chinese books and blogs about Jews, China_s relations with Israel, and innovative examinations of the ancient Jewish community of Kaifeng.




JewAsian


Book Description

"An examination of intersecting racial, ethnic, and religious identities among couples where one partner is Jewish American and the other is Asian American"--




Peony


Book Description

A young Chinese woman falls in love with a Jewish man in nineteenth-century China in this evocative novel by the Nobel Prize–winning author of The Good Earth. In 1850s China, a young girl, Peony, is sold to work as a bondmaid for a rich Jewish family in Kaifeng. Jews have lived for centuries in this region of the country, but by the mid-nineteenth century, assimilation has begun taking its toll on their small enclave. When Peony and the family’s son, David, grow up and fall in love with one another, they face strong opposition from every side. Tradition forbids the marriage, and the family already has a rabbi’s daughter in mind for David. Long celebrated for its subtle and even-handed treatment of colliding traditions, Peony is an engaging coming-of-age story about love, identity, and the tragedy and beauty found at the intersection of two disparate cultures. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Pearl S. Buck including rare images from the author’s estate.