In early 1980,  I was interviewing a patient the day before her surgery. She was in her 70's.

As soon as she saw me, her face was brightened up. I could see she was so happy to see me.

She told me that she was Jewish, born in Russia, but lived in Harbin. I am not sure how she

came to the U.S. She might have told me that she came to Japan and emigrated to the U.S. around

1945 when Japan surrendered. She told me that Japan had a plan to give Jewish people the

land that they have a country in Manchuria like Israel. It was in Providence, Rhode Island

where not many Asians lived then. This is how I came to know about Jewish settlement in

Manchuria. 

Let's assume that I was born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine. I had my own house and land.

All of sudden, government officials came and told me to leave the country. Whole family

got on the train that runs on the trans-Siberian railway all the way to Vladivostok.

Just before it reached the end of the railway, the family changed the train to cross the

border and settled in Harbin.

Some Jews went all the way to Vladivostok and got on the boat to go to Japan

and settled in Kobe. For a while, the Japanese were afraid of them penetrating into the

establishment like in other countries. So, the Japanese government moved them to Shanghai. 

Eventually, Jews who settled in Harbin had to move to Shanghai. Japenese made a ghetto

for Jewish people in Shanghai. But it was severely bombed during the Sino-Japanese war. 

They fled from Russians, Nazis and settled in Fareast with help of the Japanese, but I wonder

how many of them survived. The old lady whom I met almost 40 years ago was extremely lucky.

Jacob Henry Schiff (born Jakob Heinrich Schiff; January 10, 1847 – September 25, 1920) was a German-born American banker, businessman, and philanthropist. Among many other things, he helped finance the expansion of American railroads and the Japanese military efforts against Tsarist Russia in the Russo-Japanese War.

Born in Frankfurt, Germany, Schiff migrated to the United States after the American Civil War and joined the firm Kuhn, Loeb & Co.^[1] From his base on Wall Street, he was the foremost Jewish leader from 1880 to 1920 in what later became known as the "Schiff era", grappling with all major Jewish issues and problems of the day, including the plight of Russian Jews under the Tsar, American and international anti-semitism, care of needy Jewish immigrants, and the rise of Zionism.^[2][3] He also became a director of many important corporations, including the National City Bank of New York, Equitable Life Assurance Society, Wells Fargo & Company, and the Union Pacific Railroad. In many of his interests, he was associated with E. H. Harriman.

 *Japanese leaders were impressed by him. They thought that Jews were rich and thought

Jews would bring a lot of money and contribute to the regional economy. 

Harbin was rather more famous for the 'white Russians', not for the Jews as I know of. This unique group of White Russians in Harbin represents mostly antiSoviet pro-Czarists who escaped from Russia after the Revolution and eventually escaped to settle in the U.S. (some came to Korea as well) through the transit period along WWII - many were intially settled in Shanghai before they moved out from China-. But, the Russian Jews to Harbin? A bit unusual story but could be. 

However, Russian Jews seeked their own land preferably at Palestine led by Zionists we all know very well but quite a large group of Russian Jews (as you might recall, Russian Empire was the country which accepted the majority of Ashkenazi/European Jews who escaped from Spanish Inquisition, such famous Diaspora) wanted to settle in Europe and even during the Czarist period, they negotiated to get the foot hold along the Eastern Siberia right north to Amur River to form their own Autonomous Region for the Jews. Through two Revolutions quite a many Russian Jews settled in this region and it was continued with the support by Stalin even after WWII ( I believe there still remains Jewish Autonomous Region/province in same area though almost all are now gone for Israel).  

However, the Zionism was more attractive to them and indeed almost all of them were immigrated to Israel to cause significant conflicts with Sephadic Jews I also learned.

How do I know so well? One of my mentors who taught or rather allowed me to inherit Russian Concept/approach on the Lymphatic Reconstruction), Prof. Victor Krylov-see the attachment- was Russian Jew which was quite a surprise because he was the director, top official of Moscow Institute of Advanced Technology and Medicine when Soviet was collapsed, which is quite against the norm those days although Mrs. Krylov was pure Russian and not a jew.

Indeed, the Soviet collapse was a God-given blessing to me personally to inherit Russian concept of lympheatic reconstruction from Prof. Krylov. Because he wasn't able to live with limited pension - 47 USD per month?- after the Soviet was collapsed so that he had to get out from Moscow to Tel Aviv/Israel first so that we ccould help him to settle in the U.S.

Before we helped him to resettle in the States to Univ Illinois of Urbana-Champaign (Veterinarian School) while at Tel Aviv, I accommodated him at Seoul providing a bridge for his transition to overcome his financial difficulty, as a visiting professor in residence at SamSung Medical Center for the joint project of the Hopkins-SamSung/SungKyunKwan University to assist us to organize/train the chronic lymphedema surgery team- see the attached photo of Korean team he organized-.

Indeed, he is the one who convinced me not only to switch to his/Russian technique for the lymphatic reconstruction from Mario Degni ‘dunking’ technic which was, then, popular for microscopic lympho-venous anastomosis here in the U.S. but also chose the popliteal approach instead - I named it to Krylov approach (see the attached IJA article, Int J Angiol-Surg Lymph-s-0031-1279685.pdf  in regard to Krylov approach)-.

So I learned so much about Russian Jews following Diaspora and also Autonomous Jewish Oblast/Privnce  along the South-Eastern corner of Siberia across Amur River.  

BB Lee 

The Jewish Autonomous Oblast (JAO; Russian: Евре́йская автоно́мная о́бласть, Yevreyskaya avtonomnaya oblast; Yiddish: ייִדישע אװטאָנאָמע געגנט‎, yidishe avtonome Gegnt)^[14] or Far Eastern Israel (Russian: Дальневостóчный Изрáиль) is a federal subject of Russia in the Russian Far East, bordering Khabarovsk Krai and Amur Oblast in Russia and Heilongjiang province in China.^[15] Its administrative center is the town of Birobidzhan.

At its height in the late 1940s, the Jewish population in the region peaked at around 46,000–50,000, around 25% of the entire population.^[16] As of the 2010 Census, JAO's population was 176,558 people,^[10] or 0.1% of the total population of Russia. By 2010, according to data provided by the Russian Census Bureau, there were only 1,628 Jews remaining in the JAO (less than 1% of the population), while ethnic Russians made up 92.7% of the JAO population.^[17] Judaism is practiced by only 0.2% of the population of the JAO.^[18]

Article 65 of the Constitution of Russia provides that the JAO is Russia's only autonomous oblast. It is one of two official Jewish jurisdictions in the world, the other being Israel.

*It is very interesting story. Thank you, Dr. Lee!

https://youtu.be/nqSJ4JBNQ80

Jewish history of Harbin rediscovered

Wow, you dug out more story about Jewish settlement in Siberia, Dr. Ohn, thanks!

All I remember is such vague memories which are fading away so fast in these days to make me feel so sad- I am not upset because I lived long enough!-.

BB

P.S. Oops, I overflooked the video you posted.  Jewish settlement at Harbin was totally new to me and you surprised me! Very impressive! So some Jews apparently crossed the border to settle in China/Manchuria with no doubt. Something new! Only reason why I recall White Russians is my mother used play the organ at home when I was a small boy and one melody she loved to play was Stenka razin, Russian folk song and talked about 백계 로시아 인 escaped to China and even to Korea but never heard about Russian Jews; though they were identied as 백계 로시아 인, they might have been Jews!  

Learn every day, doc. I will share/forward to a couple of Jewish friends.