In the fascinating story of Israel-China relations, unique history and culture intertwine with complex diplomacy and global business ventures—some of which have reached impressive success. <i>China and Israel</i> is a living collage that addresses these issues from a point of view that combines the professional and the personal. This book paints a broad picture of China-Israel relations from an historical and political perspective and from the Jewish and Israeli angle. To tell this story, Shai relies on rare documents, archival materials and interviews with individuals who were active in forming the relationship between these two states. He profiles Morris Cohen who, according to some, served as Sun Yat-sen’s personal advisor; gynecologist Dr. Ya’akov Rosenfeld, who rose to the rank of general in the Chinese Red Army and ended his career as a family physician in Tel Aviv; and international business magnate Shaul Eisenberg, otherwise known as “the king of China,” who executed the first Sino-Israeli military contacts. Shai also covers the attempts of major Israeli companies and business people to enter China, and describes the opportunities and risks involved when China purchases companies that are part of Israel’s national infrastructure.<br>
The American Jewish Communist movement played a major role in the politics of Jewish communities in cities such as Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Philadelphia, as well as in many other centers, between the 1920s and the 1950s. Making extensive use of Yiddish-language books, newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, and other materials, Dreams of Nationhood traces the ideological and material support provided to the Jewish Autonomous Region of Birobidzhan, located in the far east of the Soviet Union, by two American Jewish Communist-led organizations, the ICOR and the American Birobidzhan Committee. By providing a detailed historical examination of the political work of these two groups, the book makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of twentieth-century Jewish life in the United States.