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Jewish Ghetto In The 1930's

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In the 1930’s, a wave of Jewish refugees fled to Shanghai to escape the horrors of an impending Holocaust. Although at first comfortably ensconced in the city the Japanese army soon forced the Jewish community to live in a ghetto. In an effort to transplant and sustain their culture in Shanghai, the Jewish population, mostly from Central Europe, established their own businesses in the area. This area eventually became “Little Vienna” because it appeared to be an Austrian-style street in the Jewish ghetto. After World War II, most of the Jews emigrated from Shanghai and soon after “Little Vienna” ceased to exist. In recent years, the opening of the Shanghai Jewish Refugee Museum and the influx of immigrants into the city have led to a rebirth …show more content…
It has been documented that the conditions of the ghetto were unsanitary and overcrowded. “The housing conditions were so crowded that many refugees lived in tiny concrete rooms that housed the electric meters…mold and mildew grew in food, clothes…ubiquitous insects and mosquitos added to the discomfort”, said James Ross, who was a refugee living in the ghetto. However, the squalor did not hinder the Jews from establishing their culture. Numerous yeshivot, or Jewish day schools, were established. More than 50 books and newspapers, such as The Jewish Call and Shanghai Jewish Chronicle, were distributed in both Hebrew and Yiddish. The Ohel Moshe Synagogue, which was established years earlier, still served as the primary place of worship. By 1938, the establishment of Café Louis, along with other European-style cafes, delis, and nightclubs, gave the area the sobriquet “Little Vienna”. Even numerous sports clubs, such as the Zionist Sports Club and the Maccabi Club, were established in Shanghai. This was particularly important to the Jews at that time in squashing German anti-Semitic stereotypes that Jews were weak and …show more content…
The city of Shanghai was home to three million Chinese residents in the mid-1930s; yet, a group of 20,000 Jews that represented a miniscule .7% of the population was able to successfully establish a community for themselves. Immediately upon arrival, this group of refugees was able to transform a traditional Chinese area into a Viennese- Jewish area. If the small Jewish population was able to achieve this even under the duress of an oppressive Japanese government and an all-around hostile environment, clearly the magnitude of their ethnoscape transcended material population. The strength of culture and the powerful will to become integrated play a greater role in the characteristics and impact of ethnoscapes. The cultural impact was even larger due to the fact that Jews and Chinese share many ideals in common, such as an emphasis on education and the importance of family. As Appadurai continues “ethnoscapes around the world are no longer familiar anthropological objects, insofar as groups are no longer tightly territorialized, spatially bounded, or culturally homogenous”. This is very evident in the Shanghai Ghetto, as the cultural difference between the Jews and Chinese rendered Shanghai an extremely foreign landscape. Still, the small number of Jews unshackled themselves from the constraints of foreign territory and established their

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