Jewish Refugees in Shanghai (1933 - 1941)

An exhibition bringing together for the first time photos, personal stories and artifacts from Shanghai's Jewish Refugee Museum, along with an international conference on Shanghai culture that puts this extraordinary exhibition in context.

From 1933 to 1941, Shanghai became a modern-day “Noah’s Ark” accepting some 18,000 Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust in Europe. Most were from Germany and Austria, but the refugees also included students of the famed Mir Yeshiva, the only yeshiva in occupied Europe to survive the Holocaust. In the “Designated Area for Stateless Refugees” in Tilanqiao area of Shanghai, Jewish refugees lived harmoniously with local Chinese, overcoming numerous difficulties together.

Conditions in the impoverished Hongkou District were harsh: 10 per room, nearstarvation, disastrous sanitation and scant employment. With the aid of Iraqi Jews living in Shanghai, and later of Russian Jewish locals and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, most of the Jewish refugees managed to survive and many went on to have remarkable lives. Holocaust historian David Kranzler called it the “Miracle of Shanghai.”

The exhibition, Jewish Refugees in Shanghai (1933-1941), brings together for the first time photos, personal stories and artifacts from Shanghai’s Jewish Refugee Museum, located in the former Ohel Moshe Synagogue in the Tilanqiao Historic Area. Former “Shanghailanders” now living in Southern California also loaned memorabilia for display at the October 27th opening celebration. A satellite exhibit at UCLA’s Young Research Library features related items from the library’s collection.

This international conference on Shanghai culture, “Cosmopolitan Shanghai,” will help to put an extraordinary exhibition in context. Speakers will explore models for promoting cross-cultural understanding and exchanges, using the Shanghai experience prior to 1949 as a critical foundation. Panelists will focus on the music, literature, visual arts and urban culture of the 1920s, 30s and 40s and the interchange between Chinese and Western elements. SCHEDULE “Cosmopolitan Shanghai”

SESSION 1  11 AM    COSMOPOLITAN SOUNDS AND JEWISH MUSIC IN PRE-1949 SHANGHAI
LUO QIN (Shanghai Conservatory of Music) Paper read by Helen Rees Shanghai as the Cradle of Chinese Modern Musical Culture TANG YATING (Shanghai Conservatory of Music) Reconstructing the Vanished Musical Life of the Shanghai Jewish Diaspora Community
LI QI (UCLA) A Jewish Composer’s Devotion to Chinese Music in 1930s Shanghai: Introducing Aaron Avshalomov and his Compositions
Moderator: HELEN REES (UCLA)

1PM LUNCH BREAK

SESSION 2  2PM TRANSNATIONAL SHANGHAI, MODERN METROPOLIS
YOMI BRAESTER (University of Washington) "The City beyond the Pale: Migrants and the Urban Cosmopolitan Fantasy in Film" BRYNA GOODMAN (University of Oregon) "News and Capital in Shanghai: Cosmopolitan and National Imaginaries"
WEN-HSIN YEH (UC Berkeley) "Shanghai at War: Violence and the Making of a Chinese Metropolis"
DAVID N. MYERS (UCLA) Concluding Thoughts
Moderator: R. BIN WONG (UCLA)

SESSION 3 4:30PM  OPENING CELEBRATION
Welcome
RABBI CHAIM SEIDLER-FELLER (UCLA Hillel)
TODD PRESNER (UCLA)

Remarks
THE HONORABLE LIU JIAN (Consul General of China)
CHEN JIAN (Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum)
DAVID SCHABERG (UCLA)

Speakers
YUNXIANG YAN (UCLA) Setting the Chinese Stage
C. CINDY FAN (UCLA) The Jewish Refugees in Shanghai (1933-1941) Exhibition and UCLA
STEVE HOCHSTADT (Illinois College) Jews and Chinese in Shanghai

Personal Recollection Roundtable
PETER LOEWENBERG (UCLA) Shanghailander 1933-1937
WILLIAM HANT (UCLA) Shanghailander 1939-1947

6:30PM RECEPTION

Click here to download the full schedule

Cost: The event is free and open to the public, but pre-registration is required. Please call (310) 267-5327 or email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu to RSVP