The History of the Shanghai Jews: New Pathways of Research

313 Pages·2022·8.231 MB·English

by  Kevin Ostoyich, Yun Xia

PALGRAVE SERIES IN ASIAN GERMAN STUDIES
The History of
the Shanghai Jews
New Pathways of Research
Edited by
Kevin Ostoyich · Yun Xia
Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies
Series Editors
Joanne Miyang Cho
William Paterson University of New Jersey
Wayne, NJ, USA
Douglas T. McGetchin
Florida Atlantic University
Boca Raton, FL, USA
This series contributes to the emerging field of Asian-German Studies by
bringing together cutting-edge scholarship from international scholars in
a variety of fields. It encourages the publication of works by specialists
globally on the multi-faceted dimensions of ties between the German-
speaking world (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and German-speaking
enclaves in Eastern Europe) and Asian countries over the past two centu-
ries. Rejecting traditional notions of West and East as seeming polar oppo-
sites (e.g., colonizer and colonized), the volumes in this series attempt to
reconstruct the ways in which Germans and Asians have cooperated and
negotiated the challenge of modernity in various fields. The volumes cover
a range of topics that combine the perspectives of anthropology, compara-
tive religion, economics, geography, history, human rights, literature,
philosophy, politics, and more. For the first time, such publications offer
readers a unique look at the role that the German-speaking world and Asia
have played in developing what is today a unique relationship between two
of the world’s currently most vibrant political and economic regions.
ADVISORY BOARD:
Prof. Sebastian Conrad, Freie University of Berlin
Prof. Dorothy Figueira, University of Georgia
Prof. Doris Fischer, Würzburg University
Prof. Suzanne Marchand, Lousiana State University
Prof. Lee M. Roberts, Purdue University, Fort Wayne
Prof. Franziska Seraphim, Boston College
Kevin Ostoyich • Yun Xia
Editors
The History of the
Shanghai Jews
New Pathways of Research
Editors
Kevin Ostoyich Yun Xia
Department of History College of Liberal Arts
Valparaiso University Shanghai University
Valparaiso, IN, USA Shanghai, China
ISSN 2731-5657 ISSN 2731-5665 (electronic)
Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies
ISBN 978-3-031-13760-0 ISBN 978-3-031-13761-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-13761-7
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2022
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institutional affiliations.
Cover Photo: Storefront in Shanghai with refugees and Chinese children. Photo part of
Alfred Brosan Collection. (Courtesy of Debra Brosan). © Debra Brosan 2022. All rights
reserved
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Daphne, Daniel, and Fay
A
cknowledgments
Works of history never simply appear fully packaged and ready to go. It is
with great pleasure that we acknowledge those who have helped us in
countless ways throughout the long process of offering this volume to
the world:
Prof. Jon T. Kilpinen, former Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences,
Valparaiso University; Prof. Colleen Seguin and the past and present
members of the Valparaiso University Department of History; the Creative
Work & Research Committee at Valparaiso University; Wheat Ridge
Ministries—O.P.  Kretzmann Memorial Fund; Dixon W. and Herta
E. Benz; the Jewish Confederation of Cleveland; Harry J. Abraham;
Danny Spungen; the Florence and Laurence Spungen Family Foundation;
the Sino-Judaic Institute; Prof. Steve Hochstadt; Rabbi Anson Laytner;
Kiel Majewski; Together We Remember; Dr Annette Meyer; Isabella
Schoop; Dr Julia Schreiner; the Center for Advanced Studies at the
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München; Prof. Dr Ferdinand Kramer;
Dr Karl Borromäus Murr; the German Historical Institute Pacific Regional
Office/University of California, Berkeley; Heike Friedman; Dr Sören
Urbansky; Ray Savord; the American Institute for Contemporary German
Studies of Johns Hopkins University; Susanne Dieper; Jessica Hart; Dr
Jackson Janes; Dr Lily Gardner Feldman; Prof. Joanne Miyang Cho; Prof.
Lee M. Roberts; Dr Chen Jian; Cai Qin; Han Yi; Dong Feng; Tian Lu;
and Tian Xiangjun.
We thank ASIANetwork; Prof. Zhimin Lin; the Valparaiso University
students who took part in the ASIANetwork Student-Faculty Fellows
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Program; Prof. Pan Guang; scholars at the Center of Jewish Studies,
Shanghai; and Rabbi Shalom Greenberg.
We especially thank the wonderful contributors to this volume, who
accompanied us on this journey with much patience and good cheer! We
are grateful to Tikoji Rao and the editorial staff at Palgrave Macmillan for
shepherding this volume to the finish line.
Finally, we thank our families for their moral support and appreciation
of history and those who write it! Rebecca Ostoyich went above and
beyond the call of duty (as usual), providing her amazing editing skills
from start to finish. We hope that our children, to whom this volume is
dedicated, always value and respect the many peoples and cultures of the
past, present, and future.
Sincerely
Kevin Ostoyich and Yun Xia
c
ontents
1 Introduction 1
Kevin Ostoyich and Yun Xia
Part I Placing the History of the Shanghai Jews within
Various Historical Contexts 21
2 Jews in China and Their Contributions 23
Xu Xin
3 The German East Asiatic Society (OAG) in Shanghai,
1931–1945 43
Christian W. Spang
4 The Designated Area for Stateless Refugees in Shanghai:
Exploring Aftereffects Using Unpublished Documents of
Captain Toshiro Saneyoshi 75
Kenji Kanno
ix
x CONTENTS
Part II Cultural Life of Refugees in Shanghai 97
5 The Kadoorie School: Educating Refugee Children in
Shanghai 99
Steve Hochstadt
6 Bruno Loewenberg and the Lion Book Shop 133
Rachel E. Meller
Part III The Jews Sojourning in Shanghai after the War 171
7 “A Problem of Some Delicacy”: Chinese Sovereignty,
Jewish Refugees, and the West, 1945–1946 173
Sara Halpern
8 The Plight of European Jewish Refugees in Post-Second
World War Shanghai, August 1945–April 1948 203
Fred A. Lazin
Part IV Commemoration of the History of the Shanghai Jews 235
9 Relative Resistance: Fascist Aryanization Practices and the
Bond of Victimhood in the Antifascist Animation A
Jewish Girl in Shanghai 237
Lee M. Roberts
10 The Shanghai Jewish Refugees: History and
Commemoration 271
Yun Xia and Kevin Ostoyich
Index 289