The Chinese-Jewish Connection ... A Thousand Years in the Making

The Sino-Judaic Institute is proud to announce the establishment of the Arthur H. Rosen Sino-Judaic Memorial Fund, honoring the life and legacy of its first Chairman, longtime Board member, and President Emeritus of the National Committee on US-China Relations.    

In honor of his dedication to SJI, the Fund will offer grants for academic and creative projects related to the Jewish experience in China, provide opportunities for Chinese students and scholars to participate in conferences and do academic research, fund the translation of relevant Judaic-related texts and educational material into Chinese, and support the development and strengthening of Judaic Studies programs in China. 

Please join us in commemorating Art’s life and keeping his legacy alive by donating to the new Arthur H. Rosen Sino-Judaic Memorial Fund.  All contributions are tax-deductible, and include a one-year membership in the Institute.  

Donations may be made online at:

The Arthur H. Rosen Sino-Judaic Memorial Fund

Checks may be made out to The Sino-Judaic Institute

and sent to: 

Prof. Steve Hochstadt

Treasurer, The Sino-Judaic Institute 

34 Colgate Road, Unit 1

Roslindale, MA 02131 

Please note “Art Rosen Memorial Fund” in the Memo line.  

To send a direct wire transfer: 

Contact Prof. Steve Hochstadt

shochsta@ic.edu  

Kensington Library - 4207 18th Avenue - Brooklyn 

In collaboration with Amud Aish Memorial Musuem

and the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum  

This multi-branch exhibition includes images and ephemera of European Jews who were displaced during the war, films and lectures about their time in China, and a discussion about their eventual emigration to the United States. When Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s, he issued a series of anti-Semitic decrees, depriving Jews of their civil rights. With the outbreak of WWII, many Jews chose to flee their hometowns, and a considerable number of them took refuge in Shanghai, China— a city they could travel to without a visa.  Around that same time, students from the Mir Yeshiva in Vilna, Lithuania, also made their way to East Asia to escape the Nazi regime, setting up yeshivas in their new home. Many of these students—and their families—emigrated to Brooklyn, NY, following Japan’s surrender in 1945.

Shanghai: Safe Haven During the Holocaust 

Photographs from 1946 documenting Jewish Refugees in Shanghai

by American photojournalist Arthur Rothstein 

 Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center - Northern Trust Gallery

The Joseph L. & Emily K. Gidwitz Memorial Foundation Gallery    

Shanghai: Safe Haven During the Holocaust sheds light on a lesser-known moment in Holocaust history: European Jews who had been shut out of country after country while trying to escape Nazi persecution found a beacon of hope in an unlikely place: Shanghai, China. In 1946, American photojournalist Arthur Rothstein began a project documenting the lives of Jewish refugees who now called Shanghai’s Hongkew District “home.”  The exhibition, which highlights Rothstein’s photographs and features artifacts from local Holocaust Survivors, is a tribute to human endurance, capturing both the enormous hardship and fierce perseverance of refugees and their families as they managed to not only survive but thrive while living in the Shanghai ghetto.