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The  Russian government in 1895 had leased a land concession from China to  build the Chinese Eastern Railway across Manchuria as an extension of  the cross-country Trans-Siberian line. Once the tracks were laid, the Czar was so eager to establish Russia’s economic hold along the route  that he offered Jews a chance to live without restrictions if they moved to Manchuria. They could choose between small communities in the  Manchurian outback or the larger settlement of Harbin, which means “place of drying fish nets” in Chinese. Originally a cluster of sleepy  fishing villages at the confluence of the Songhua (known then by its  Russian name, Sungari) and Heilong or Amur Rivers, Harbin had become the railroad’s administrative hub and was developing into a thriving  frontier town.
 

The  Czar’s offer had its drawbacks. Ukrainian Jews from the Pale of Settlement had to summon their courage, pack their possessions, turn their backs on all that was familiar and face several uncomfortable and uneasy weeks on the Trans-Siberian railroad to reach Harbin. Siberian  Jews, just across the border from Manchuria, faced a shorter train trip  but a similar plunge into the unknown. Harbin winters were bitterly cold, and in spring, gritty dust from Mongolia turned the skies yellow and covered every surface, animal, vegetable and mineral. In the early  years, European-style amenities were few and far between, and Jewish  institutions were nonexistent.
 

Despite these deterrents, waves of Russian pogroms provided Harbin with a steady supply of Jewish residents. Demobilized Jewish soldiers settled in  Harbin at the end of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, and more Russian  refugees, both Jewish and gentile, arrived during and after World War I and the Bolshevik Revolution.
 

Although desperation led many Jews to China, a large number new “Harbiners” also welcomed the opportunity to be pioneers in an uncharted land. The  railroad brought prosperity and a need for all types of goods and services. Even better, local Chinese had no tradition of anti-Semitism. Word spread fast in the old countries: a Jew could live in Harbin without fear of persecution -- and make a nice living, too.
 

The  railroad-engineering bureau moved to Harbin from Vladivostok in 1898 to  begin construction. The first Jew, S.I. Bertsel, arrived in 1899. Shortly thereafter, the first Harbin “minyan” took place. By 1900, the town had 45 Jews, and by the end of 1902, Harbin had 300 Jews and more than 10 Jewish-owned shops.
 

Although figures vary, the Harbin Jewish population may have topped 20,000 at its peak in the 1920s.  It is known that there were about 13,000 residents in 1931. The  population then began a precipitous decline, especially after the  eruption of Sino-Japanese hostilities in 1937. There were two major synagogues, the Main or “Old” Synagogue and the New Synagogue. The Jewish community also established a library, a Talmud Torah, an elementary and a secondary school, a cemetery, a women’s charitable organization, a soup kitchen, a home for the aged, and a Jewish hospital, which treated both Jews and non-Jews.
 

Here Jews enjoyed residential permission plus an array of other economic and  political rights unavailable in Czarist Russia. These fundamental rights remained when the Soviet Union acquired the railroad zone and when the  Soviets, in turn, sold the zone to Japan in 1936.  

Jews  were furriers, bankers, bakers, shopkeepers, restaurateurs, teachers and  people of letters and the arts. They owned coal mines, lumber mills,  breweries and candy factories. The Jewish-owned Hotel Moderne boasted a restaurant, a cinema, a billiard room, a bar and a barbershop. Because of its ornate, European-inspired architecture, Harbin became known as the “Oriental St. Petersburg” and the “Paris of the Orient."  Its rich cultural life led to the nickname “City of Music.”

Because Harbin was a Russian-speaking community, it also became the East Asian  entry point for Vladimir Zev Jabotinsky’s Zionist Revisionist movement. Most Revisionist literature in the late 1920s was in Russian. Among  the better known Revisionists from Harbin were Israeli Herut Party leaders Eliahu Lankin and Ya’akov Liberman and the firebrand activist Judith Ben Eliezer, née Hasser. Arguably the most famous Revisionist family to come from Harbin was that of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (see below).

Even Harbin’s two major Jewish sports organizations reflected the community’s ideological richness and diversity:  Maccabi for the General Zionists, and Betar for the Revisionists. These two groups would occasionally cooperate to combat the virulent anti-Semitism of the openly Fascist White Russian organizations which also thrived in Harbin’s relatively unrestricted  political climate. There were shouting matches and occasional scuffles between these groups.  

There  was also a largely clandestine Communist Party in which some Jews were  active, notably Lazar Epstein’s son Israel Epstein, who later becomes a  member of the People’s Republic of China’s National People’s Consultative Congress, a largely advisory and ceremonial body. Approximately fifty Jewish communists from Harbin repatriated to the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and from 1945-50.

Harbin also had a tiny community of Karaites, who were not formally recognized  as Jews in Israel until the mid-twentieth century.  Among the best-known Karaites were the tobacco merchants Eli Aaronovitch (1874-1936) and Abraham Aaronovitch (1877-1953) Lopato, originally from Trakai (Troki), Lithuania. There were forty-one Karaite graves in Harbin’s Foreign Catholic Union Cemetery before its demolition in the 1950s.

In spite  of their energy, enthusiasm and organization, Harbin Jews couldn’t avoid the dark clouds coming their way. World War I and the Russian Revolution brought scores of anti-Bolshevik White Russians to Harbin, along with a virulent strain of anti-Semitism. Although anti-Semitism was never institutionalized in Harbin as it was in Russia, bullying of Jews by Russian hooligans became common.  

The Harbin Russian Fascist Party was established in 1931, the same year the  Japanese Army invaded Manchuria. Japanese troops occupied Harbin in 1932, and the city became part of the puppet state of Manchukuo. The Japanese immediately began expropriating private property and terrorizing the civilian population. They recruited spies among the locals and allowed Russian fascists to spearhead anti-Soviet and anti-Jewish campaigns. Foreigners as well as Chinese were kidnapped, tortured and often murdered by the occupying army and its collaborators.  Kaufman, who headed the Harbin Jewish community before and during the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, was unable to offer ordinary citizens  any recourse against these injustices.  

Many of  the incidents were muddied by double-dealing, with the Japanese using  Russian gangsters and Chinese bandits as a front. One such case that occurred in 1933 was the kidnapping and murder of Simeon Kaspe, a brilliant young concert pianist and naturalized French citizen. Simeon was the son of Russian-born Joseph Kaspe, who owned the Hotel Moderne as well as a large jewelry store and a chain of theaters. When Joseph Kaspe refused to negotiate with the kidnappers, they sent him his son’s ears. Simeon was tortured for several months and eventually killed, while Japanese authorities ignored both the French consul’s protests and  widespread international outrage.