The Media Line: In Shanghai, Preparing for Yom Kippur, Jews Feel Safe 

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In Shanghai, Preparing for Yom Kippur, Jews Feel Safe 

Chabad emissary Dina Greenberg remarks on the absence of inherent antisemitism in China and the longstanding memory of Jewish families who once lived there 

By The Media Line

On the eve of Yom Kippur, a look at the haven where Rabbi Shalom and Dina Greenberg have spent nearly three decades weaving together a far-flung family. 

Shanghai’s Jewish community doesn’t announce itself with a grand facade. It lives in a modest building, adapted over time into a full community hub with a small synagogue, a mikveh and a kosher kitchen run day to day by local Chinese staff. 

“We came here in 1998,” Rabbi Shalom Greenberg, founder of Chabad in Shanghai, told The Media Line. He moved to Shanghai with his wife, Dina Greenberg, co-director of Chabad Shanghai, to build something permanent after years of ad hoc holiday programming. “When we came, there were about two to three hundred Jewish people living here, all expats, and we started to build up the community,” he said. Rabbi Greenberg is from Israel; Dina is from Cleveland, Ohio. Both come from Chabad families and were raised similarly to the way they are raising their family today. 

Greenberg traces Shanghai’s Jewish story back about 150 years, in three waves: Baghdadi Jews arriving via the British Empire’s Asian circuits; Russian Jews coming south along the new Trans-Siberian line through Harbin; and, in the late 1930s and ’40s, refugees escaping Europe—some on “Sugihara visas” routed through Japan—who discovered that all you needed to enter Shanghai was a boat ticket. 

“At the end of 1945–1946, there were over 20,000… closer to 30,000 Jewish people living in Shanghai,” he noted. Most left after 1949; by the early 1960s, he says, “none” remained. The modern revival began in the 1990s as China normalized ties with Israel, drawing Jews from “all over the world” to form a community again. 

Today, the crowd is deliberately mixed. “A nice group from the United States, a nice group from Israel, a nice group from France … We had two families from Australia, one family from South Africa, one family from England… from everywhere,” says Rabbi Greenberg. “Some people came here as expats, some as entrepreneurs, some for business, some to study—we had lawyers, doctors, architects, engineers, teachers, professors—people from every spectrum,” he added. Some arrive with their families, and most stay only a few years, making this a necessarily transient community that relies on shared space, rhythm and support to feel connected. 

That ecosystem scaled up before the pandemic. “In 2018, we had about 5,000 Jewish people, then COVID affected us numerically; we had three locations before… we were very active,” Greenberg notes. “Now we have only one location… but we are going back to the numbers that we had when we just started,” he noted. 

Elsewhere in China, centers opened after Shanghai—in Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Foshan, Yiwu and Chengdu—proof that the Jewish presence in China is expanding. 

Daily life here turns on trust and patient translation. “It was very difficult for Chinese people to understand the concept of kosher,” Greenberg recalls of those early years—especially the separation of meat and dairy and the need to check every egg for a blood spot. Staff learned by doing; and culture met cuisine in small ways that built respect and routine. 

Dina shouldered much of the bridge-building. “My wife learned Chinese… She communicates with them well,” he added. She also coordinates the community activities as well as children’s programming, keeping a steady weekly and holiday calendar that helps newcomers settle in. 

In practice, the kitchen adopted simple, precise routines: A special bowl was kept only for eggs that passed inspection, and a separate bowl for any egg with a blood spot, which staff would respectfully use in their own kitchens rather than waste. And parts of the chicken not used in the kosher kitchen—like the chicken feet—became welcome gifts for their Chinese colleagues, a small, daily exchange that deepened trust on both sides. Chicken feet, although fully kosher, are not commonly found in Western cuisine; in China, they are considered a delicacy—another small bridge between traditions. 

The Greenbergs describe a community where children have the chance to enjoy events and traditions. “For some children, it was the first Jewish wedding they ever experienced, and in a tiny community like this, it is a less common event,” Dina told The Media Line. And amid the constant motion, the anchor is identity. When someone once tried to pin down their daughter—American passport, Chinese residency—she answered: “I’m Jewish,” Dina recalls. 

That vision guides the Greenbergs’ philosophy of Jewish life in the diaspora. Their mission is to ensure that wherever Jews may be, they can find the essentials of community—kosher food, Shabbat and holiday observance, and Hebrew education for children—so that Jewish life continues without interruption, even far from familiar surroundings. 

Shanghai has been a listening post since Oct. 7. Travelers have come through who were at the Nova music festival, families of the hostages and people experiencing challenges due to intense polarization abroad caused by the current war. Among them, a family whose nephew had been taken hostage and later killed in Gaza visited the center; they told the Greenbergs they still have not received his body—grief the community held quietly with them. The present is hard, the Greenbergs concede, but not hopeless: From a historical perspective, the Jewish community has navigated worse times and keeps moving forward and, as the rabbi put it, “to pursue kindness and make the world a better place.” 

Asked about the climate for Jews in China versus the West, Dina is unequivocal. She says there is no inherent antisemitism in China, and praises longstanding neighborhood memory of Jewish families who once lived here, as well as close cooperation with local authorities. 

Holidays are the community’s heartbeat. Rosh Hashanah this year drew a crowd over two days; Yom Kippur will bring together “most of the community” in fasting and reflection as well. The Greenbergs insist that the season—counterintuitively—should be joyous. “Even Yom Kippur… when we are joyful and we express our gratitude to God, it also opens that channel for more blessings,” Dina says. 

What sets Shanghai apart is not its scale, but its spirit. In an era of polarization, this quiet center gathers together everyone from Jews coming from all over the world to Chinese workers as well. 

“Our focus,” Dina says, is simple: ‘Make that little aura of light in our corner, and it will spread to the whole world.” Rabbi Greenberg offers the standing invitation: “You’re all welcome to visit.” 

PHOTO – Rabbi Shalom and Rebbetzin Dina Greenberg of Shanghai with The Media Line’s Giorgia Valente (The Media Line)