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A China Experience

Shanghai was probably not foremost on my radar in November of 2006 when the call came to join a delegation from Shanghai University for dinner. It was due to that coincidence that I was able to travel to China at the end of June 2007 to join more than 80 Chinese scholars and graduate students for a conference, "Teaching the Holocaust: International Task Force Seminar."


This conference/seminar was organized by the London Jewish Culture Centre and the History Department of the College of Liberal Arts at Shanghai University, as well as the Center for Jewish Studies in Shanghai, under the auspices of the Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance, and Research, an organization of about 25 member countries. The organizer was Professor Changgang Guo, of Shanghai University, my dinner partner back in November of 2006. This is how I came to travel to China. I would like to thank Mr. Jerold Gotel, the Overseas Director of the London Jewish Culture Centre, and Professor Guo for including me in this truly outstanding undertaking. Not only did I enjoy meeting the Chinese colleagues and students, who teach and study the Holocaust, but also my colleagues from The Wannsee Haus in Berlin, Wolf Kaiser; Irit Abramski from Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Dr. Dan Greene from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Trudy Gold from the London Jewish Culture Centre. Survivor Joanna Millan was enveloped with love by all who met her, and I will never forget her riveting presentation of her tragic childhood. Professor Guo and I are currently exploring the possibility of strengthening the cooperation between our two institutions, and I hope to return to China next spring to lecture at Shanghai University, perhaps also at Kaifeng and Nanjing Universities. For the future we hope to raise travel funds for additional faculty to participate.

Diane and Guilford Glazer Center for Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, China.
Diane and Guilford Glazer Center for Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, China.

After the conference I traveled to Nanjing to visit the Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University. The Center, administered by Professor Xu Xin, and endowed by Diane and Guilford, was dedicated in November of 2006. But that is not the beginning of Professor Xu Xin's efforts to teach Judaism to Chinese students, and to raise the money for scholarships so that Chinese students could travel to Israel to study Hebrew. Mrs. Beverly Friend of Chicago describes in the dedication booklet how Xu Xin's interest in Judaism came to be. She relates how, back in 1984, her husband Jim was invited to go to China for a semester to teach and how Xu Xin took care of him from the moment he stepped off the plane. She says, "Xu Xin not only whisked Jim through customs, he whisked Jim through every difficulty, smoothing his path, solving every problem as he acted as Jim's mentor and colleague while in China. He also became closer than a brother. The meeting transformed both men. Xu, at that time teaching a course in Jewish American Authors, had never actually met a Jew! Jim was his first!" Professor Xu lived with the Friends' for a year in 1986, learning all about Judaism, and from there the journey continued. In 1992, when China recognized Israel, Professor Xu established the first Institute of Jewish Studies in China. In his dedication speech he said, "The Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University was first established in May 1992 in order to meet a growing demand for Judaic Studies in China and to promote the study of Jewish subjects among Chinese college students and a better understanding between the two peoples following the establishment of full diplomatic relations between China and Israel in January 1992." It was a long road to the Glazer endowment in 2006, an article on Professor Xu Xin's work in the Forwarts that caught many a Jew's attention in the United States, and our meeting in July of 2007, when he was shepherding a group of American Jews around China for two weeks. We envisioned our meeting as the beginning of a linkage between UT and Nanjing University much the way it exists between Shanghai University and UT. I hope very much that such a liaison will come to fruition in the future.


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