About the event 

Though Shanghai had experienced Jewish immigration since the 1800s--when both Baghdadi and Russian contingents established themselves there--not until the 1930s did the community swell into the tens of thousands. By then, Jews fleeing Nazi persecution and hardships had almost nowhere to go. But unlike the rest of the world, which had essentially locked these people out, Shanghai welcomed them. In fact, by the time World War II started, this city harbored more European Jewish refugees than anyplace else on earth, many of whom came to see China as a dearly beloved second home.

We cordially invite you to attend the film screening and panel discussion of the Survival in Shanghai.

Distinguished Guest

Michael Blumenthal is an American business leader, economist and political adviser who--decades before serving as treasury secretary under President Carter--barely escaped Nazi Germany for Shanghai.

Ellen Chaim Karcko, whose parents fled from Nazi Germany to Shanghai, was the youngest of 13 Shanghai-born Jewish refugees to travel to the city for a reunion in 2006.

Betty Grebenschikoff is the author of Once My Name Was Sara, a memoir that details the flight of her family from Nazi Germany to Shanghai days before her father's anticipated arrest by the Gestapo.

Qin Gao is the Professor of Social Policy and Social Work and director of the China Center for Social Policy at Columbia University.

Orville Schell is the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations of Asia Society.

For information at the Temple Emanuel Streicker Center