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David Marshall and Jewish Emigration from China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2009

Josef  and
Lynn Silverstein
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Extract

Although unplanned, in 1956 the residue of the Jewish community in China played a small and nearly forgotten role in the early post-Second World War history of Sino-Soviet relations. Equally unplanned, was the role of David Marshall of Singapore in helping them to leave China.

Type
Research Notes
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 75 , September 1978 , pp. 647 - 654
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 1978

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References

* The authors gratefully acknowledge the travel grant provided by the Lee Foundation, Singapore, which made it possible for them to go to Singapore in 1975. During the course of their research, material for this article emerged.

1. There are several important works devoted to this topic: Finn, James, Jews in China: Their Synagogue, Their Scripture, Their History (London: B. Wertheim, Aldine Chambers, Paternoster Roe, 1843)Google Scholar; Torrance, Thomas, China's First Missionaries, Ancient Israelites (London: Thyne and Co., 1937)Google Scholar; Cohen, Hayim (ed.), Jews in Asia and Africa: Annotated Bibliography (Israel: Mason Ben Zvi, 1976. In HebrewGoogle Scholar); Dicker, Herman, Wanderers and Settlers in the Far East: A Century of Jewish Life in China and Japan (New York: Twayne Publishers Inc., 1962).Google Scholar

2. Dicker, , Wanderers and Settlers in the Far East, p. 69.Google Scholar

3. During the 1930s there was no official census taken; all population figures are approximate, this is especially true for refugees entering China via Shanghai. The estimate is from Encyclopaedia Judaica (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1971), col. 471.Google Scholar

4. Dicker, , Wanderers and Settlers in the Far East, pp. 141–42.Google Scholar

5. The Dicker study is one of the few which attempts to discuss this period. Even there, the material is thin as this was a period when there was much turmoil and movement and little or nothing was recorded.Google Scholar

6. “Attachment,” letter from Abraham, R. D., Chairman, Council of the Jewish Community, Shanghai (25 June 1956), to David Marshall.Google Scholar

7. The Council of the Jewish Community was organized on 1 June 1949 as a continuation of the Far Eastern Emergency Council. After the closing of the Joint Administrative Committee in August 1950, the CJC was the only local agency through which relief and emigration was channelled.Google Scholar

8. Letter from Abraham to Marshall.Google Scholar

9. Encyclopaedia Judacia, cols. 471–72.Google Scholar

10. This view was expressed in a letter from Leslie Hale, C. to David Marshall, 11 September 1956Google Scholar. In Abraham's letter from 24 October 1956 to Marshall, he said that in view of the fact that the Soviet Council was then assuring Jewish families holding Soviet passports that they could apply for exit visas, it was his (Abraham's) impression that this was an “admission that the Soviet Consulate had been responsible for the delays.”Google Scholar

11. The information about Marshall's visit to China and his role in helping the Jews was taken from a series of letters written by Marshall, during his visit, to his brother, Meyer, who then resided in Singapore. Further information was added as a result of interviews between Marshall and the authors in July 1975.Google Scholar

12. New York Times, 19 August 1956; Hsin-hua News Agency release No. 081834, 19 August 1956.Google Scholar

13. The shelter was established in the early 1930s as a home for the aged.Google Scholar

14. Letter from Hale to Marshall, 11 September 1956.Google Scholar

15. Letter from Marshall to his brother, Meyer, 21 August 1956.Google Scholar

16. Letter from Marshall to his brother, Meyer, 25 September 1956.Google Scholar

17. Letter from Marshall to his brother, Meyer, 29 September 1956.Google Scholar

18. See Hsin-hua News Agency release No. 101220, 12 October 1956.Google Scholar

19. Ibid. Item No. 3.

20. Taped interview with Marshall on 3 August 1975.Google Scholar

21. Letter from Abraham to Marshall, 24 October 1956.Google Scholar

22. Letter from Yudalevich to Marshall, 16 November 1956.Google Scholar

23. Letter from Yudalevich to Marshall, 6 December 1956.Google Scholar

24. Letter from Marshall to Chang Hsi-jo, 5 December 1956.Google Scholar