A Memorable Piece of Mail

 A philatelist, interested in Judaica, yours truly comes across once in a while with an interesting historic letter or a canceled envelope mailed from an exotic part of the world, bearing a Jewish background.

One such item I recently discovered and acquired from an auction house was an envelope mailed from Shanghai in 1948 by, then Chief Rabbi Meir Ashkenazi, spiritual leader of the former Russian community in Shanghai. 

The five stamps on the envelop with a portrait of Sun Yan-sen were issued by the former Republic of China (ROC) in the year 1945 and 1947, a time when a large contingent of Jewish refugees from Europe and Central Asia were still living in Shanghai. As a reminder, the ROC governed all of China before it lost control of the mainland in 1949 to the People’s Republic of China (PRC). 

The first wave of Jewish migration to Shanghai (1843-1920) consisted of Sephardic Jews from Baghdad and Bombay. Rabbi Ashkenazi, whose name appears on the return address of the envelope, takes us back to the second wave (1920-1937), marked by the migration of thousands of Russian Jews that fled the pogroms in Russia and came via North-east China to Shanghai. 

Rabbi Ashkenazi is remembered as a legendary figure by most Shanghailanders (refugees that lived during the war years in Shanghai). Before and during World War II, he spearheaded relief efforts for thousands of European Jews who had taken refuge in Shanghai. He was in the forefront of all humanitarian Jewish communal activities, both religious and secular.

One of the first things he did was to organize a building committee for a new synagogue, the rented quarters having become too small for the growing Ashkenazi congregation in Shanghai. His efforts came to fruition in 1927 when the Ohel Moishe congregation moved to it new home at 62 Changyang Road, formerly Ward Road. The complex housed the Talmud Torah and Yeshiva both supported by the Russian Ashkenazi Jews and headed by Rabbi Ashkenazi. They were well attended by students from all the elements of Shanghai, both religious and non-religious, with a new pair of leather shoes awaiting many of the needy students every year as a reward for attending regularly afternoon Hebrew classes. Matzos were also baked on the premises and distributed during Passover to families in the Hongkew Ghetto.

In 1928, the Russian Jews invited Rabbi Ashkenazi who was a member of the Chabad-­Lubavich movement, and the first Lubavitch rabbi in Shanghai, to lead their community. He accepted and retained the position until his departure to New York in 1949.

The return address on the backside of the envelop shows that the Rabbi may have resided on the street called Cardinal Mercier in the Shanghai upscale French Town. Most of the better class among the Russian Jews and others were living in that part of Shanghai. After the Proclamation by the Japanese authorities was announced stating that all stateless Jews had to move into the “Designated Area”, the poorer section of Shanghai, those that arrived prior to 1937 and not yet declared stateless, were exempt. Among those were Rabbi Ashkenazi and the Jewish entrepreneurs who were prospering in Shanghai long before that time.

By the end of the war, Rabbi Ashkenazi was one of approximately 24,000 Jews living in Shanghai. The majority were from the third wave of migration (1938-1952) that had escaped from persecution in Europe. With the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Jewish community dwindled, with many emigrating to Israel, the US, and Australia,

Reference:

Shanghai Jewish Center, a project of Chabad

The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington

Kranzler, Shanghai, 1938-1945, Japanese, Nazis & Jews