The Jewish Legacy
Shanghai’s Jewish legacy is one of the most extraordinary — and least widely known — chapters in the city’s cosmopolitan history.
While Shanghai is often remembered for opium traders, foreign concessions and revolutionary politics, it was also, uniquely, a sanctuary. At a time when much of the world closed its doors, Shanghai opened its arms, offering refuge to thousands of Jews fleeing Nazi persecution.
The first Jewish arrivals were Baghdadi merchants such as the Sassoons and Kadoories, who settled in Shanghai in the mid-nineteenth century. Their commercial empires — built on cotton, real estate and, controversially, opium — reshaped the city’s skyline. The Sassoon House (now the Fairmont Peace Hotel) became a Bund landmark, while the Kadoories invested heavily in utilities, hotels and philanthropy. Their wealth helped establish schools, synagogues and charitable institutions that anchored a growing community.
A second wave arrived in the early twentieth century: Russian Jews fleeing pogroms and revolution. Many settled in the French Concession, opening bakeries, cafés and small businesses. Their cultural imprint — from black bread to ballroom dancing — blended seamlessly into Shanghai’s cosmopolitan fabric.
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But the most dramatic chapter unfolded in the late 1930s and early 1940s, when Shanghai became one of the only places in the world that did not require entry visas. More than 20,000 European Jews — primarily from Germany, Austria and Poland — made the perilous journey to Shanghai. They arrived destitute, traumatized and disoriented, only to find themselves in a city already suffering under Japanese occupation.
The refugees were concentrated in Hongkou, a poor district that became known as the “Shanghai Ghetto.” Conditions were harsh: overcrowding, disease and hunger were constant threats. Yet the community endured. They founded newspapers, orchestras, theatres and schools. The Ohel Moshe Synagogue became a centre of spiritual life, and local Chinese residents, themselves impoverished, often shared what little they had.
After the war, most refugees emigrated to the United States, Australia or the newly founded state of Israel. But their legacy remains. The restored Ohel Moshe Synagogue — now the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum — stands as a testament to a moment when Shanghai, battered and unfree, nonetheless offered sanctuary when few others would.
In a city celebrated for its glamour and ambition, the Jewish story is a reminder of Shanghai’s deeper humanity: a place where survival, generosity and cultural resilience converged in extraordinary ways.
