American Rabbi Coping In China
SHANGHAI, China — The boom of China has lured countless Americans: manufacturing CEOS, high-tech entrepreneurs, bankers, lawyers and investment moguls.
And one rabbi from Brooklyn.
Asked seven years ago to move from Crown Heights to a country where many people still don’t have flush toilets, “I asked, `Do they have electricity? Do they have hot water?’ ” Shalom Greenberg said.
But there was an even bigger challenge for the rabbi from the orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch organization: leading Jews in a country that does not officially recognize Judaism.
“I didn’t know the concept existed of Jews living in China,” Greenberg said.
Although tens of thousands of Jews fleeing the Nazis relocated to Shanghai, joining a thriving Jewish community, China’s 1949 Communist takeover eventually sent nearly all Jews fleeing.
But with expats trickling back 20 years ago, the city’s Jewish population (virtually all non-Chinese) is now about 1,000. Another 4,000 Jews live elsewhere in mainland China.
Leading Shanghai’s Jewish faithful has required a lot of compromise and flexibility because Chinese authorities ban any type of religious recruitment.
Even with religion, “They don’t want a foreigner to be the head of Chinese people,” he said.
Keeping kosher in China is another problem. “This is the land of pork. Everything that moves, everything that crawls, they’ll eat it,” he said.
A cook helps prepare kosher meals for Greenberg, his wife, Dina, and their three young kids, but it hardly compares with the food choices of Brooklyn.
“There’s nothing like a New York pastrami,” he said longingly.
Greenberg also has been unable to persuade Chinese officials to allow him to frequently use Shanghai’s 85-year-old Ohel Rachel Synagogue – used for decades after the Communist takeover as a government office – although he’s granted access three or four times a year. But that’s it. Chinese authorities guard the complex that includes the ivy-covered stone temple and forbid unapproved visits.
Building a new synagogue is out of the question, although he has been allowed to rent a large house with ample room for basement services, even a Hebrew school.
“For us, it’s a real synagogue. We pray here,” Greenberg said. “The Chinese people are not fools. They know what we do here. … They are being very accommodating.”
But is the 33-year-old rabbi being watched? Whether it’s Chinese authorities – or a higher authority – Greenberg thinks he knows.
“I believe that all the time there is someone watching me, whether I am in China or anywhere in the world,” he said.
