Shanghai, the haven for 25,000 Jews fleeing Nazi Europe during World War II, is expected to designate former synagogues as historic landmarks, it was revealed by Rabbi Arthur Schneier, president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, on his return from a study mission to China.
Schneier, senior rabbi of Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, told a press conference here today that an interfaith delegation of the Foundation which he led in China had met with Shanghai’s Deputy Mayor, Li Zhao Ji, last month.
The Shanghai official responded favorably to the delegation’s request that several of the former synagogues be given landmark status, Schneier said. The buildings are now being used for industrial, commercial and educational purposes, he said.
The delegation visited the former Jewish cemetery in Shanghai and Schneier recited Kaddish there. The cemetery was demolished during the cultural revolution in the late 1960’s, the delegation was told. The former Jewish chapel is now a tea house and the cemetery has been converted into a park and children’s playground.
Schneier said there were no practicing Jews in Shanghai or in China today. Some families such as those with the names Li, Chi, Kao, Zhao, Jin, Zhang and Shi claim descent from the now vanished Jewish community of Kaifeng, site of a Jewish colony established in the 12th century, Schneier noted. However, he added, “none practice Judaism and all of them have been fully absorbed into Chinese society.”
Recently, the popular Chinese magazine “Encyclopedic Knowledge” published an article by a young Chinese sociologist, Jin Xiao Jing, who wrote of how she had searched for her Jewish roots.
SIGNS OF RELIGIOUS GROWTH
While Jewish life has disappeared, the Appeal of Conscience leaders reported finding “concrete signs of vigorous religious growth” in the cities they visited — Peking, Hangzhou, Suzhou and Shanghai. Schneier said the delegation saw “visible evidence” that Catholic and Protestant churches and Buddhist and Taoist temples had been restored since the group’s last mission to China in 1981. He said enrollment was rising in religious seminaries and new seminaries were being built.
The delegation also met with Deputy Foreign Minister Han Xu and discussed with him recent developments affecting international relations, Schneier reported. At a formal banquet in Peking given by the Chinese officials, Han said he hoped the visit of the Appeal of Conscience delegation would “promote a continuing line of dialogue and mutual understanding between China and the United States.”
In addition to Schneier, the interfaith delegation was composed of the Rev. Donald Campion, secretary of information of the United States Jesuit Conference; Dr. Herbert Anderson, senior minister of the Brick Presbyterian Church in Manhattan; and Francis Dom, a prominent Catholic layman and former Brooklyn Congressman.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
