4,414,4.1.1191.
Page Ten
THE — JEWISH NEWS
Jews
By B. W. KORN
I
(Chaplain, USNR)
•
China
1
MAJOR
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Jews about whom
Chaplain Korn writes are not the much
discussed Chinese Jews whose synagogue
and colony at Kaifengfu have been the
subject of many articles and monographs.
Chaplain ,Korn writes about the modern
Jews he has seen in China while with
the Sixth Marine Division in Tsingtao,
Shantung Province, China.
REALLY never knew the
meaning of the word "ga-
luth" before I came to China. It is, of course, the Hebrew word
for "exile, dispersion, the Diaspora," and has been widely used in
contemporary discussions of the Zionist question. I had spoken the
word in many a sermon and speech to indicate Jewish homelessness,
but I had never felt its reality. How could I? I was an American
Jew and we in America do not, for the most part, feel this homeless-
ness except as it applies to Jews in other places.
We do not regard ourselves as transients in America, nor are we
victims of political insecurity (though many of us are victims of
spiritutal insecurity).
Here in China, all Europeans, (or rather non-Chinese, because it
is something of an anomaly to apply the European label to Siberian
Russians!) are in exile, voluntary or enforced, from their native lands.
Rare is the stranger who comes to China with the expectation of assimi-
lating into the Chinese environment. I have never met such a person,
but I have read that there are a few. But the ordinary non-Chinese
have come to China for business reasons or for political sanctuary
with the full assumption that they will be able to maintain their na-
tional separateness.
Whether they are White Russians who would not live under the
Soviet regime and fled to China for safety, or Germans who came
to a city like Tsingtao as colonists under the German occupation
before the First World War, or sundry others who have come for easy
profits or other personal reasons, all have sought to. preserve remind-
ers of their other life.
They speak in their original language and teach it in their schools;
their home-life is full of the homeland's customs and habits and their
churches are identical with those at home.
All these groups, who in days gone by fat-
Come to China
tened on the exploitation of a helpless China
through the legal extraterritorial rights gain-
for •Business
ed by illegal methods, have regarded their
or Sanctuary
stay in China as temporary.
All these groups live an abnormal, peri-
pheral existence. They live in the midst of the people of China, but
not with them; they earn their livelihood among the Chinese,
more often than not as veritable parasites, but with the exception of a
few intellectuals and missionaries, they share little or nothing of
Chinese culture and character.
The Jews of China share all of this and more! They first came to
China in appreciable numbers from Russia—fleeing from the pogrqms
of the Czar and later from the liquidations of the Soviets. But before
and during and after this influx, there were many Jews from Western
Europe and America who sought business opportunities in helpless
China. The latest influx of Jews into China came during the years
1933 to 1940 when thousands of German and Austrian refugees fled
Nazism to the Far East, because China offered the only free ports in
the world during the years of Hitler's persecutions.
* * * *
That the majority of these Jews, Russian and German, should con-
sider themselves to be in "galuth" is not strange. It would be strange
f they considered themselves to be at home in so different a civiliza-
tion as China's. And yet, unlike most other non-Chinese, they have
no allegiance to the lands from which they came. Only the few Aus-
trian and Czechoslovakian Jews, and, of course, the Americans, have
a home to which they may one day return. Here in China, there-
fore, are thousands of stateless Jews.
In Tsingtao, the Hebrew Association long since has been recog-
nized as an official body, comparable to the consular officials of the
various countries, representing the Jews as a distinct national group.
This recognition was accorded by both the Japanese invader, and by
the previous and present Chinese city govern-
ments. In the registration of non-Chinese per-
sons now being conducted by the local Chin-
Live Among
ese officials, "Jew" is one of the national cate-
gories in which individuals may be classified.
Them, Not With
The Chinese National Government, on the
Them in Own
other hand, has caused a furore all through
the Jewish communities of China by recently
IGaluth'
ssuing an order regarding the treatment of
German enemy aliens, and including Jewish
efugees in every provision. The Chinese National Government has
eemingly ignored the facts that even in China these refugees were
he victims of Hitlerism; that pogroms and persecutions were organ-
zed by the Nazis here, with the aid and blessings of the White Rus-
ian organization called "The White House" which, ridiculously
enough, declared war on the Allies five days after Pearl Harbor; that
he 15,000 refugees ghettoized in Shanghai in the notorious Hongkew
area (now being cared for under the guidance of JDC) could ,in no
wise be construed as enemy aliens; and that the Japanese mistreated
all Jews in occupied China. '
This action on the part of the • Chinese Governrnent, of course, has
been protested by Jewish communities everywhere in China. The
Hebrew Associations of Peiping, Tientsin, and- Tsingtao dispatched a
engthy telegram to President Chiang Kai Shek pointing out the para-
dox of a situation where Jews who were regarded by Germany . as
enemies of the Reich are now to be forcibly turned into enemies of
China and friends of the Reich.
,
* * * *
Religiously, the Jews of China are orthodox: the Eastern European
kind of Orthodoxy which we rarely see in America, but which to them
s the only known form of Judaism. Reform and Conservative Judaism
re unknown except as American Jewish chaplains have imported them
rom such centers of Jewish piety as Okinawa, Guam, and Pearl Harbor!
A weekly discussion group which I conduct supposedly. for the
benefit of the marines and sailors in the Tsingtao area draws a hearty
group of local Jews. The appeal of such an
affair is manifold. They have never held or-
Regard Palestine
ganized discussions on Jewish subjects before.
Many of the leiovements and ideas we discuss
as Major Hope
are completely strange and startling. And
for Survival
their kind of Jewish life has never offered
an opportunity for the expression of doubts,
he asking of questions, stating opposing points of view. Reconstruction
in China, as in America, is the object as well as subject of many a bull
ession! Interestingly enough, many are unable to distinguish between
Reform and Reconstructionism. - •
I have yet to meet an anti-Zionist among Jews in China, or even
non-Zionist. Though they have been starved for almost four years
or reliable information about Jewish 'lifein Palestine, they have
etained their allegiance to the dream-idea Of . a Jewry living in security
in its own home, fearful neither .of arbitrarT political decisions nor
f the self-consciousness that comes from struggling to hold on to the
ewish identification. Some eventually will go to Palestine, but all,
without exception, regard PaleStinian Jewry as the major hope for
urvival.
This adherence to the Zionist idea should not be surprising, for
the life these Jews live is a lesson in the need for Palestine not only
s a home for refugees, but also as a home for the Jewish people
which would redeem the status of "galuth" Jews everywhere. They
re deeply conscious of their own insecurity, of the hopelessness of
their religious and cultural life in China.
.
(Copyright, 1946, Jewish Telegraphic Agency),
Friday, April 19, 1946
A M
,
eattie Schoo1 Pioneer
KILLED IN ACT/ON
LIONEL WIGRAM SUCCESSFUL LONDON
SOLICITOR AND CAPTAIN IN THE LONDON
TERRITORIALS IN 1939 WROTE A BOOK ON
BATTLE DRILL FOLLOWING GEN. ALEXANDER'S
REPORT ON THE BATTLE OF DUNKIRK. THAT
ARMY METHODS OF 1940 WERE OUT OF DATE
WIGRAM,YOU'VE BEEN PROMOTED 70
IdEur-COL. AND WILL BE COMMANDANT
OF THE FIRST BATTLE SCHOOL
THE MANUAL PROVED A
SUCCESS AND WAS IMME-
DIATELY ADOPTED BY 71-1E
BRITISH ARMY
I ALL
REVERT
TO MAJOR:
HE RESIGNED HIS POSITION AT THE SCHOOL
OF INFANTRY TO BECOME AN OBSERVER
IN THE SICILIAN CAMPAIGN
.41,91
4
)
AND SO ONE NIGHT W141LE
LEADING A GROUP OF
GUERRILLAS,HE WAS
KILLED
HE MASTERED THE
LANGUAGE AND SET
ABOUT TRAINjNG
THE ITALIANS
HE FLEW HOME AND
IMPARTED HIS FINDINGS TO
FELLOW INSTRUCTORS
THROUGH TALKS AND
PHOTOGRAPHS
HE IS REMEMBERED NOT
ONLY FOR. HAVING FOUNDED
THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF ARM
TRAINING ,BUT ALSO BECAUSE HE—
STARTED A
HOSTEL .FOR-
REFUGEE
CHILDREN
TOOK A KEEN
INTEREST IN
THE HoM
rok
INCURABLE
.41
WAS PRESIDE-NT
OF THE
LONDON
JEWISH
AID
SoctE.TY
*A page from the book for Jewish children issued by the Canadian Jewish Congress to stimulate
their sense of pride in the contribution which world Jewry made to victory. The second series in the
booklet, just off the press, has been welcomed by Jewish : educators.
Film Maker for Armed Forces
By WILLIAM RAPP
(Copyright,' 1946, JTA)
T
HE WAR may be over for most of
us—troops, civilian workers, or civ-
ilian business experts—but it hasn't ended
yet for Arthur L. Mayer, New York film
executive. Mr. Mayer, who has seen ser-
vice in all major American theaters of oper-
ation as Red Cross commissioner, is back
at his ola desk on Times Square, but he's
still working for Uncle Sam. His first
major job in the second World War was
film consultant to the Secretary of War,
and now after two years with the Red
Cross, he's back again working for Secre-
tary Patterson.
During the early war years, Mayer, who
pioneered in the showing of foreign films
in America, assisted in the production of
films preparing ou4, soldiers and civilans
for what was ahead of them. Now he's
busy making orientation films for fresh
troops, before they are sent to take over
occupation duties.
The War department doesn't want the
GIS to be taken in by the "nice, clean gem-
uetlich" Germans; it wants the recruits to
know and remember the horrors of the con-
centration camps as our troops found them
when they broke into Hitler's "fortress."
The camps have been cleaned up, but the
Army still has the films of what they looked
like originally, and it is Mr. Mayer's task,
in collaboration with the army film ser-
vice, to present this material so that the
GI doesn't get fooled.
* -A- *
About two years ago Mayer's "rival,"
Stanley Griffiths, who was serving as film
consultant for the Office of War Informa-
tion, asked him whether he'd "like to see
the war at first hand." That appealed to
Mayer and he took off for the South Paci-
fic as deputy to Griffiths, who had been
appointed commissioner for that area by
the American Red Cross.
On this first trip the genial, white-
haired commissioner covered much
ground—and air and water, too—travel-
ling from New Zealand and New Cale-
donia all the way to Guam and Tinian,
arriving in the Marianas only a short
time after the islands had been secured
by American Marines and doughboys.
After that four-month tour and a couple
of months of fund raising and fact report-
ing speeches in the States, he was off
again—this • time to Europe. Here, as as-
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Red Cross used the 'services of
many Jews in its war time activities. One of these was
Arthur Mayer, New York film executive, who was a Red
Cross emissary on both the European and Pacific fronts.
Some of the highlights of his varied tasks are touched upon
in the following interview.
-
sistant to the chairman of the American
Red Cross he travelled through England,
France, Belgium, Italy, and Germany.
V-E day found - him in Germany. There
he visited the first refugee and displaced
persons camps, which then were under
direction of the Red Cross.
He describes his visits and experiences
in these camps as the "most heart-rend-
ing" of his life. Here he found Jews from
all. over Europe, from all walks. of life,
many broken in body, but not in spirit.
There was nothing left for them to cling
to, he stressed, except their Judaism.
* * *
Nobody seeing these people and
speaking to them, Jew or non-Jew,
Mayer emphatically. declared, could
wish to deny these people their one
hope—to, go to Palestine.
He pointed out that aside from political
considerations, these people wanted to go
to the Holy Land as the one and only re-
fuge left them in the world. None of them,
he said, wanted to go anywhere else, and
that when he spoke to them about the
possibilities of emigration to America, they
were uninterested—they had set their
minds on a goal, •and found other possibil-
ities too remote for th
eir consideration.
What shocked him more than. any-
thing else in the camps were the small
nationalistic cliques set up among • the
common victims of Nazism, and the fact
that some of these groups were. still
anti-Semitic, sometimes to a point of
violence.
After his European junket, Mayer re-
turned to this • country but stayed -.only a
month and was off again, this time to the
China-Burma-India Theater. Here, as else-
where within the Red Cross, he found noth-
ing but the "greatest appreciation" for the
work of Jews.
At Shanghai he met the recently ap-
pointed Red Cross director—a -Jew. On the
Ledo Road, he again found a Jew in charge
of all the organitation's activities. The
woman in charge of all Red Cross hospital
activity in the CBI was Jewish, at the time
Mayer visited there. In fact, he asserted,
he had - always found that the organization
did not .discriminate between Jews and non-.
JeWs anyWhere, and that the "closer you
get to the front lihes, the smaller the dif-
ferences between 'men become." • •