Jewish past and colonial Shanghai: trade, treaty-port, and transitive modernity

Abstract

This dissertation explores the transnational and colonial encounters of Sephardic Jews and Chinese in treaty-port Shanghai by examining 1) the Jewish networks of capital, goods, and market; 2) Jewish elites and their political activism; 3) transnational legal and political status of Sephardic Jewish elites in Shanghai and 4) Jewish cultural heritage in Shanghai. A central argument of this work is that as an expatriate business community living in treaty-port Shanghai, Sephardic Jews took advantage of the British colonial system to achieve wealth and at the same time established extensive contacts with the Chinese in Shanghai. As a result, they deeply influenced Shanghai’s economic, political and social institutions and rhythms of life.

Using both Chinese and English archival resources, a wide range of Chinese and English language newspapers and periodicals, this study contributes new materials and analyses to three areas of scholarly research: the modern history of Shanghai, Jewish diaspora in port-cities, and colonial studies in China. Ultimately, the purpose of this study is twofold: to document the economic/social encounters of Jews and Chinese in a colonial context and to examine the urbanization and modernization process of Shanghai itself as a result of this encounter.