by Lois Ruby
Two bits of information tie up the loose ends of this story. You have read about an entire Polish yeshiva (rabbinical seminary) of some four hundred students, teachers, and their families, all of whom were transported to Shanghai through the defiant courage of a Japanese diplomat named Chiune Sugihara. These men of the Mirrer Yeshiva continued their religious studies with barely an eyeblink of interruption. I’ve wondered where all those future rabbis ended up, and now I can account for one of them. My youngest son married a woman whose father grew up in Toronto. As a boy, he studied at a religious school—under the rigorous tutelage of one of those rabbis who survived Poland, moved through Japan and China, and resettled in Canada. Many years passed, and now my husband and I share a beautiful granddaughter with that Toronto man.
But that’s still not the end of the story. In May 2002 I presented a paper on Jewish children’s literature at an international symposium in Nanjing, China. My novel sprang to life during that trip. And so with the publication of Shanghai Shadows, and the birth of Hannah Miriam, to whom this book is dedicated, the story begun more than a half century ago comes full circle.
Selected Biliography
BOOKS
Barber, Noel. The Fall of Shanghai: The Splendor and Squalor of the Imperial City of Trade, and the 1949 Revolution That Swept an Era Away. New York: Coward, McCann & Geohagen, 1979.
Bloomfield, Sara J., ed. Flight and Rescue. Washington: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 2001.
Davidson-Houston, J. V. Yellow Creek: The Story of Shanghai. New York: Putnam, 1962.
Dong, Stella. Shanghai: The Rise and Fall of a Decadent City. New York: William Morrow, 2000.
Gilkey, Langdon. Shantung Compound: The Story of Men and Women Under Pressure. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
Heppner, Ernest G. Shanghai Refuge: A Memoir of the World War II Jewish Ghetto. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Kranzler, David. Japanese, Nazis & Jews: The Jewish Refugee Community of Shanghai, 1938–1945. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1976.
Lu, Hanchao. Beyond the Neon Lights: Everyday Shanghai in the Early Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Mochizuki, Ken. Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story. New York: Lee & Low Books, 1997.
Pan, Guang, ed. The Jews in Shanghai. Shanghai: Shanghai Pictorial Publishing House, 1995.
Pan, Lynn. Tracing it Home: A Chinese Journey. New York and Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1993.
Patent, Gregory. Shanghai Passage. New York: Clarion Books, 1990.
Sergeant, Harriet. Shanghai: Collision Point of Cultures, 1918–1939. New York: Crown, 1990.
Tobias, Sigmund. Strange Haven: A Jewish Childhood in Wartime Shanghai. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Tokayer, Marvin, and Mary Swartz. The Fugu Plan: The Untold Story of the Japanese and the Jews During World War II. New York and London: Paddington Press, 1979.
Wei, Betty Peh-T’i. Shanghai: Crucible of Modern China. London: Oxford University Press, 1987.
PERIODICALS AND PAMPHLETS
Hannah, Norman B. “Strudel in Shanghai.” National Jewish Monthly (October 1979): 35–47.
“Jews of Shanghai: The Story of Survival.” Canadian China Society, March 21, 2002.
Kersey, Mary E. “Refugees Pour Into Shanghai.” Living Age (October 1940): 159–163.
Kuhn, Irene Corbally. “Shanghai Revisited: A Postscript.” Gourmet (April 1990): 102 +
“Ohel Moishe Synagogue.” Jewish Refugee Memorial Hall of Shanghai, [1998?].
About the Author
Lois Ruby is the author of eighteen books for middle graders and teens, including Steal Away Home, Miriam’s Well, The Secret of Laurel Oaks, Rebel Spirits, Skin Deep, and The Doll Graveyard. Her fiction runs the gamut from contemporary to historical and from realistic to paranormal.
An ex-librarian, Ruby now writes fulltime amid speaking to bookish groups, presenting at writing workshops, and touting literacy and the joys of nourishing, thought-provoking reading in schools around the country.
No one would love to have a spirit encounter more than Ruby, so she explores lots of haunted places—Myrtles Plantation in Louisiana, Theorosa’s Bridge in Kansas, dozens of ghostly locations in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and even a few spooky spots in Australia, Morocco, and Thailand. No spirits have tapped her on the shoulder yet, but it could still happen; she hasn’t given up hope.
Ruby and her husband live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the foothills of the awesome Sandia Mountains.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2006 by Lois Ruby
Cover design by Julianna Lee
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1365-9
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
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