Jewish Refugee Museum

Shanghai has a somewhat interesting Jewish history. During World War two when the Jews were fleeing Europe and no nations were willing to take them, Shanghai was one of the only places in the world to offer them visas. The Japanese issued the visas for Tokyo actually but they stopped in Shanghai on the way and nobody continued on to Japan. There were a total of about 14,000 Jewish refugees living in Shanghai at one point.

The Jewish refugee museum was a tribute to these people and the Chinese citizens who lived peacefully with them and helped them. It was in a pretty old and rundown neighborhood. It had the pretty tiled roofs that I like though and a view of the Pearl Tower.















I assumed the museum would be small but I wasn't really sure what to expect. When we arrived they asked if we would like someone to give us a tour and we hesitantly agreed. Our guide, in slightly broken English, gave a very good description of the history of Jews in the area. He started the tour off by asking if I was Jewish and threw in a few questions about Judaism throughout the tour. He clearly had added information to the tour by asking visitors. I asked him if most of the visitors were Jewish and he said there were a lot of Jewish visitors as well as a lot of Chinese people who had lived in the area and known Jewish neighbors as kids.

The museum itself wasn't very impressive to see but the history was interesting. There was a restored building which used to be the synagogue. It had a collection of a handful of random pieces of Judaica that had been donated, not much more unique than what I'd find in my parents house. There were a few pieces of art showing how the two cultures had come together.













We asked if the synagogue was still used and they said the government only lets people use it for weddings and Bar Mitzvahs, not for religious celebrations. I'm pretty sure the Chinese government has no idea what a Bar Mitzvah is and somebody told them it is a birthday party. They had photos of events held in the synagogue.

Outside there was a courtyard with a door to their museum, which was a bit more like a memorial to the families who had lived in Shanghai during the war. They had a sign showing all the places their visitors had come from.















The area had some facts about how they ended up there and credited a man named Ho Feng Shan with saving them from the Nazis. It was mostly decorated with photos and videos of the people who had lived there. There were a few books on display as well. It is a small museum that had a few interesting pieces of history to share and made for a nice afternoon.
















After our visit we headed over to Yu Yuan bazaar to buy gifts for some people at home since I'm visiting pretty soon. Yu Yuan is usually so crowded that it is a bit hard to enjoy but it was a cold drizzly day and wasn't too bad. They were in the process of putting a new display up which looked sort of interesting.