Jews in Shanghai

Abstract In 1844, after the British defeated the Qing dynasty in the First Opium War, sections of Shanghai were taken from the Chinese to become exterritorial “concessions”—primarily British, later also French, American, and Japanese. As a result, Shanghai became a temporary home for Jews, first by will, then by necessity. Sephardi Jews from Bombay, of Baghdadi origin, established the first Jewish community in the city. Later, other groups of Jews joined the Sephardi Jews—first Russians, then Poles, Germans, and Austrians—creating a Jewish mosaic within the Shanghai International Settlement. The dramatic plight of nearly 20,000 Jewish refugees finding a safe haven from Nazi persecution gained Shanghai a highly significant position in the modern history of Jews in East Asia. The contemporary Jewish community established in Shanghai since the opening up of China in the 1980s has a special awareness of and connection to this earlier chapter in their people’s history.