Hillel will be hosting a program exploring Jewish life in Shanghai during the 1940s on Monday, February 11th at 6PM in the Cayuga Lake Meeting Room inside Campus Center. Hillel will be hosting a program exploring Jewish life in Shanghai during the 1940s on Monday, February 11th at 6PM in the Cayuga Lake Meeting Room inside Campus Center.
Discussion will be led by Rita Melen, who is a member of the local Ithaca community and a second-generation Holocaust survivor. Her family found refugee in Shanghai during much of the 1940s after fleeing Europe. Rita herself spent the first four years of her life in an area of Shanghai which came to be known as the Shanghai Ghetto due to the presence of 23,000 Jewish refugees in the one square mile neighborhood during WWII and the years immediately following.
While conditions in the Shanghai Ghetto were difficult, the neighborhood was not walled, and the city's Jews interacted freely with their predominately ethnic Han neighbors.
A free Chinese dinner will be provided to attendees!
Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Austin Reid at areid1@ithaca.edu. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20190207144018487