Shanghai, China – When David Ohana, his parents and two sisters moved to Shanghai from Paris five years ago, they were among the few Jews in what had once been a thriving Jewish community. The Shabbos services, held in the hotel room of Shalom Greenberg, an Israeli-born rabbi, attracted maybe a half-dozen families.
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Today, an estimated 1,000 Jews live in Shanghai, and Greenberg’s congregation now occupies a three-story villa on the western edge of the city. During major holidays, the bustling Shanghai Jewish Center attracts more than 300 worshipers.
Parents send their children to its school and camp, while an average of 15 diners a day enjoy the city’s only kosher restaurant.
In addition to foreign Jews who come to Shanghai to work, teach or study, an estimated 50,000 Jewish tourists arrive annually to see the European-inspired buildings and tenement homes of the old Jewish ghetto, according to the Jewish center and tour agencies.