Recovering Lost Jewish Lives in China: Yiddish Tears on the Bubbling Well Road – HK Jewish Historical Society – 28/2/13

This event was originally planned for last December but unfortunately I had to cancel due to a family death and quick dash to London. However, the good people at the Jewish Historical Society of Hong Kong were kind enough to reschedule and now we’re on for 28th February….

Recovering Lost Jewish Lives in China: Yiddish Tears on the Bubbling Well Road

We are pleased to host a talk by author Paul French, who participated in the recent Hong Kong International Literary Festival where he presented his novel “Midnight in Old Peking”. While researching for this book, French came across some interesting stories, quite unrelated to his subject, which he felt deserved to be told. 

Hardoon, Sassoon, Kadoorie, Ezra… all familiar names whose histories are well documented, but what of those less dramatic Jewish lives, what of those Jews in China who remained largely anonymous or lived on the fringes, in the margins or among the underbelly?

This talk will focus on those Jews in China, lost but perhaps glimpsed in new research, including where they danced all night in the 1940s Shanghai Ghetto; how Eliza Shapera was trafficked from a Bessarabian shtetl to a Shanghai bordello — and then murdered; how Mr. Kahn ended up in the Russian-Jewish slum of Yang-I-Hutung in Peking; how Joe Farren ran away from Vienna’s Jewish ghetto, nearly became Shanghai’s biggest gangster and married Shanghai’s “Josephine Baker”; and why grown men cried when Lily Flohr (above) sang in Yiddish on the Bubbling Well Road.

Join us to hear Paul’s account of this fascinating part of our collective history.

Please note that visitors to the JCC are required to register at the Reception desk upon arrival.

Should you have any last-minute questions about the lecture, please call April on 9078-6155.