Shanghai Jewish History

I did not know that the Jews had a strong connection to Shanghai. During World War II, 20,000 European Jews fled to Shanghai. It was one of the few places in the world they could go without a visa, and one of the few that put no limit on the number of Jews it would accept.

When I heard about their story I really wanted to visit the Jewish Museum to learn more.





There are 3 exhibition rooms with displays of photographs, scripts,videos and sculptors. The tour guide did a really good job explaining the history of the Shanghai Jews.

I was so engrossed in reading the pamphlets, and photo captions that the tour  guide asked if I was Jewish!


I learnt that there were different groups of Jewish settlers- There were the well off Jews from Baghdad who had already been living in Shanghai since the 19th century, then came the Russian Jews, then the Jewish immigrants from Germany and Austria. It was in the mid-1941 that refugees from Poland and Lithuania came to Shanghai.
If you like history, then this is a good place to visit.

The Ohel Moshe Synagogue. This was built in 1927 by the Ashkenazi Jews of Shanghai. It's no longer used as a synagogue, but is now a museum devoted to the history of the Jews in Shanghai.