International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies - Cemetery Project

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CHINA
(including Hong Kong and Macao)

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY

http://www.amyisrael.co.il/asia/china/index.htm [October 2000]
http://www.mindspring.com/~jaypsand/dispersed.htm [October 2000]
http://www.haruth.com/JewsChina.html [October 2000]
Also click on China at http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/comm_asia.html
http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/7136/format/html/displaystory.html [October 2000]
http://www.haruth.com/JewsChina1907.html :
"The Chinese Jews" by Oliver Bainbridge National Geographic , vol. XVIII, No. 10, Washington, October, I907) [October 2000]
article by the late Prof. Daniel Elazar:
http://www.jcpa.org/dje/articles2/china.htm [October 2003]


THE CEMETERIES

BEIJING :
Beijing Jewish Community website: http://www.sinogogue.org/
Email: bjjcinfo@iname.com or kehillat@istarnet.com [August 2000]

DALIAN :
Alternate names: Dairen/Lushun/Luta. Dalian, formerly Port Arthur, was the terminus of the Russian Eastern Railway southern spur. cemetery: The actual location is on a PLA Naval facility. Eight Jewish graves are found there. Dr. Warren plans to obtain the various permissions required to photograph the graves of our lost, OBM. Source: Dr. Robert Warren, CFE at email: reconditenotes@aol.com . [January 2002]

HARBIN : Manchuria {10558}

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printer&cid=1068697365585
     In 1958, 853 graves were transferred from the old Jewish cemetery located at the end of Bolshoi Prospekt behind the Russian Orthodox Usenski cemetery. 23 graves were added before Nov. 20, 1965 when the Jewish community stopped functioning. 515 graves of 800 have been identified and are on {10558} database. As more people go, maybe more names can be identified. The Association of Former Residents of China documented the Harbin cemetery. I have a complete list of those buried there (all whose monuments were legible when they took an inventory in 1994), but they are all in Russian. These were transliterated through the help of those at JewishGen. Source: Scott Seligman seligman@alumni.princeton.edu .
     Tess Johnston (Old China Hand Research Service Unlimited) has been a tremendous help in getting information on members of my tree who lived in Harbin, China up until the late 1940s. She has access to much information on Jews who lived in Harbin and Shanghai. She now lives in Charlottesville, VA; phone: 703-242-4576. Source: Carol Skydell skydell@vineyard.net .
     Another source: Mr. B. Mirkin, Sec., Igud Yotzei Sin, Ponve Center, 13 Grusenberg Street, POB 1601 Israel, phone: 035171997 has information on the cemetery and its contemplated restoration.
      http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0298/manchuria.html : "Manchuria Memories" by Riva Moiseef Bassin in Jewish World Review . [October 2000]
      http://chinadaily.com.cn.net/cover/storydb/2000/04/03/cntomb.403.html : China re-opens Jewish cemetery (04/3/2000) "China has re-opened a cemetery for members of the Jewish faith, prior to the traditional Tomb-sweeping Day, which falls on April 4. The cemetery, suited in Harbin, capital city of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, is said to be the largest of its kind in Asia. Some 20,000 Jewish people came to the city after the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 1896. They built the first Jewish cemetery in China in 1903, which later housed more than 2,000 tombs. In 1953, the local government moved 605 well-preserved tombs to the current site, the Huangshan Cemetery. Zhou Jifa, an official in charge of local funeral affairs, said that the cemetery is open to anybody who wants to pay respects there, and that he hoped the relatives of the deceased would visit the cemetery often. Cemetery workers have cleaned up the cemetery and placed flowers in front of each of the tombs." [January 2001]
       "Harbin is also home to the biggest Jewish cemetery in the Far East, boasting 700 gravestones with clearly legible Hebrew inscriptions." [source http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/monitoring/media_reports/945367.stm , which includes further information on the former Jewish community.]
        UPDATE: "The first Jewish cemetery in Harbin was erected in 1903, at the end of  “Bolshoy Prospect”, the main street of the NANGANG quarter, and was operated in its original location until 1958."  In 1958, the cemetery was closed and  the graves rekicated to a new location in the HUANG-SHAN district located about 50 km north of the city. "In all, a total of 853 graves were relocated, 600 with tombstones, the rest with marked tables only (for which some had marble tombstones erected at a later stage). The Jewish community ceased to exist on December 31, 1963, and until that date 23 graves were added to the new location, to achieve a total of 876 graves. [September 2004]  List of 515 graves, with names in Russian (but not in English) and dates can be viewed at: "http://www.jewsofchina.org/JewsOfChina08/Templates/showpage.asp?DBID=1&LNGID=1&TMID=84&FID=630 [February 2009]


HONG KONG :
    Former British colony, now returned to China.

The Jewish Community Center
One Robinson Place
70 Robinson Road
Mid-Levels
Hong Kong
Tel. 852 2801 5440,
Fax 852 2877 0917 [October 2000]

http://www.bh.org.il/Communities/Synagogue/Hong-Kong.asp [October 2000]
http://www.amyisrael.co.il/asia/hongkong/index.htm [October 2000]
http://www.haruth.com/AsianHongKong.html [October 2000]
Also click on Hong Kong at http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/comm_asia.html [August 2005]
KAIFENG :
http://sites.netscape.net/orphancolony [August 2000]
http://www.sino-judaic.org/jewsofkaifeng.html [July 2008]
http://www.kaifeng.co.uk/jewsofkaifeng/ [June 2003]
    "A once-thriving Jewish community whose members are likely to be descended from Persian Jewish traders who settled in Kaifeng in the 10th & 11th centuries. Most Kaifeng Jews assimilated with local Confucians in the 16th century, but 500 contemporary descendants of those Jews have revitalized their Jewish practices."
    Source: http://www.mindspring.com/~jaypsand/dispersed.htm [January 2002]

LUO YANG :
Had a Jewish community. Source: Betty Provizer Starkman BetteJoy@aol.com [June 2000]

MACAO :
    Former Portuguese possession, now returned to China.
    "I believe I have located some Jewish graves at Macao, MSAR, China." Source: Dr. Robert Warren, CFE at email: reconditenotes@aol.com . [January 2002]

SHANGHAI :
http://www.haruth.com/AsiaJewsShanghai.htm [October 2000]
http://www.haruth.com/JewsChina.html [October 2000]
(8 names {10557}) from Tess Johntson
http://www.babylonjewry.org.il/new/english/nehardea/10/m2.htm
      The Babylonian Jewish Community in Shanghai. [January 2002]
http://www.chinajewish.org [December 2000].
1277 Beijing Xi Road,
20th floor,
Shanghai, China 200040,
Tel: (86-21) 6289-9903,
Fax: 8621 6289-9957.
Email: sjcchina@usa.net
Rabbi Shalom Greenberg,
1277 Beijing Xi Lu 19/F,
Shanghai, 200040 China,
Tel: 8621-6279-7164, 8621-6289-9903,
email: rabbishalom@yahoo.com
      "During WWII, Shanghai's small Jewish community of merchants and descendants of silk traders became a safe haven for almost 30,000 European Jews who were fleeing from the Nazis. During the war they were allowed to practice freely and even build their own autonomous government. Though most emigrated to the U.S. after the war ended, some Jews still live in Shanghai and practice an increasingly "Chinese" Judaism."
    Source: http://www.mindspring.com/~jaypsand/dispersed.htm [January 2002] THAILAN :
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