Shanghai, China's History of a Jewish Haven Now Micro Chip Capital?

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                  

                                        A place to save a Jewish Life;  Shanghai

                            Back in 1841, Shanghai became a treaty port. 

                                                                         

              Harbin's Old synagogue.  Harbin is very far from Shanghai.  Harbin is the capital of Heilongjiang, China’s northernmost province. The city grew in the late 19th century with the influx of Russian engineers constructing the eastern leg of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Perhaps those Russian engineers were Jewish?  As it happened, the chief engineer of the building board of the Chinese Eastern railway was Alexander Yugovich. Born into a Jewish family that converted to Orthodox Christianity, he was a civil engineer and specialist in constructing of railways in deserts and highlands.  

A Jewish community had existed in Shanghai since the late 1800s, but that population exponentially grew as Russian Jews fled the Bolshevik Revolution and tens of thousands more fled Europe as Hitler rose to power in the mid-20th century. As one of the only places in the world that was continuously open to Jewish refugees, Shanghai was a popular destination. In the 1930s, “20,000 or so European Jews found their way to the city.”                                                                

                                                                       

      Sephardim of Baghdadi Jews in Shanghai established themselves there--largely under the aegis of the SASSOON  FIRM---SHORTLY AFTER IT BECAME A TREAT PORT.  

The Sassoon family, known as "Rothschilds of the East" due to the immense wealth they accumulated in finance and trade, is a family of Baghdadi Jewish descent. Originally based in Baghdad, Iraq, they later moved to Bombay, India, and then spread to China, England, and other countries.  From the 18th century, the Sassoons were one of the wealthiest families in the world, with a corporate empire spanning the entire continent of Asia.

Sephardim Jews, mainly of the Baghdadi origin, established themselves by 1841 in Shanghai.  They were followed after 1917 and World War I by Russian Jews.  For a time, Shanghai was among the most prosperous Jewish communities in the world.  

                                                                 

           Sassoon House, Shanghai, China
                                                                                                

Between the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai became known as "The Paris of the East, the New York of the West".  Economic achievements included the city becoming the commercial center of East Asia, attracting banks from all over the world. When movies and literature depict the golden days of by-gone Shanghai, it is generally associated with this era.                           

In the period immediately preceding World War II, Shanghai was one of the few places to which access was possible without a passport, and very large numbers of refugees settled there.  

In 1936, Shanghai was one of the largest cities in the world with 3 million inhabitants. Of those, only 35,000-50,000 were of European origin, but these controlled half the city under the unequal treaties that provided extraterritoriality until 1943.                                                      

End of Old Shanghai (1937–1945)  World War II started.    The Japanese Navy bombed Shanghai on January 28, 1932, nominally to crush Chinese student protests against the Japanese occupation of Manchuria. The Chinese fought back in what was known as the January 28 Incident.                                         

The Polish Jewish Ghetto in Shanghai along the port.  1941-1945.  

                                                                        

Shanghai in WWII, Chinese and Jewish girls playing in ghetto on left; on right in Harbin, China with a Jewish and a Chinese girl playing together

During the Japanese occupation in 1934-1945, modified anti-Semitism was introduced and most Jews were interned.  The community later re-established itself but after the Chinese occupation, Shanghai's special status ended and its Jews emigrated to other safe places. 

The ghetto was officially liberated on September 3, 1945. The Government of Israel bestowed the honor of the Righteous Among the Nations to Chiune Sugihara in 1985 and to Ho Feng Shan in 2001.

Since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and China in 1992, the connection between the Jewish people and Shanghai has been recognized in various ways. In 2007, the Israeli consulate-general in Shanghai donated 660,000 Yuan, provided by 26 Israeli companies, to community projects in Hongkou District, in recognition of the safe harbour provided by the ghetto. The only Jewish monument in Shanghai is located at Huoshan Park (formerly Rabin Park) in Hongkou District. Note:  Favorite names seem to come and go, depending on who's in and who's out.  So much for remembering history of the Jews of Shanghai.  

                                                                

Today, Shanghai wants in in the micro chips manufacturing business.  "As China charges forth to achieve "semiconductor independence" in the face of punishing global sanctions, the city of Shanghai is vying to be the place where Chinese chips get made.                                                 

On April 7, the Shanghai local government held a Global Investment Promotion Conference at which 16 semiconductor deals were signed. The deals include companies that manufacture critical materials for chipmaking, like photoresists or silicon wafers.

 In March 2021, the Lin-gang government released a 5-year plan that pledged to build a local semiconductor industry that by 2025 would be worth more than $15 billion and host 5 world-leading chip manufacturing companies. In the inter-provincial race to dominate China's domestic semiconductor industry, Shanghai is mostly competing with its neighboring province, Jiangsu, which has long produced the most chips among all Chinese provinces. Shanghai, a city whose government has the status of a province, ranked 4th in 2020.

                                                             

Microchip Technology Inc. has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Shanghai Haier Integrated Circuit Co., Ltd. (SHIC) of Shanghai, China. The suit, filed in the Shanghai Number 1 Intermediate People’s Court, alleges that SHIC has made unauthorized copies of the microcode embedded in Microchip’s proprietary PIC16CXXX microcontrollers, and the datasheets that detail the use and operation of those microcontrollers. Microchip’s datasheets and microcode are copyright-protected in both the U.S. and in China.Concurrently, Microchip has filed a related legal action against Linkage Technology Co. Ltd. of Hsinchu, Taiwan. Linkage Technology is noted as the Taiwanese distributor for SHIC.

According to the China Internet Information Center (described as the "authorized government portal site to China"), a senior manager with the Haier Group, commented, "...so-called intellectual propriety protection is a tool for multinational companies to lambaste others in order to retain their technology monopoly. This tool is more lethal than trade barriers and 60% of Chinese export companies are suffering this kind of technical barrier set by foreign countries."         

                      US President Joe Biden has spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping.  US President Joe Biden has warned that China will “eat our lunch” if America doesn’t “step up” its infrastructure spending.  Mr Biden was speaking on Thursday with a group of senators about the need to upgrade infrastructure in the US.

A quiet trade war is going on between China and the USA.  "In addition to traditional espionage, China partners civilian Chinese companies with American businesses to acquire technology and economic data and uses cyber spying to penetrate the computer networks of U.S. businesses and government agencies; an example is the December 2009 Operation Aurora. U.S. law enforcement officials have identified China as the most active foreign power involved in the illegal acquisition of American technology. On May 19, 2014, the United States Department of Justice announced that a Federal grand jury had indicted five People's Liberation Army officers for stealing confidential business information and intellectual property from U.S. commercial firms and planting malware on their computers.

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Shanghai#:~:text=End%20of%20Old%20Shanghai%20(1937%E2%80%931945),-Battle%20of%20Shanghai&text=The%20Japanese%20Navy%20bombed%20Shanghai,as%20the%20January%2028%20Incident.

https://www.protocol.com/china/shanghai-china-chip-capital

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassoon_family

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_espionage_in_the_United_States

https://dbs.anumuseum.org.il/skn/en/c6/e204683/Place/Harbin?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=jews%20in%20harbin&utm_campaign=g&device=c&gclid=CjwKCAjwq7aGBhADEiwA6uGZp4bBhbSmMUG9YA9-cYECGqthuSja_DJHwJKp6xbW43OERQbjvteM4hoCV7YQAvD_BwE

https://www.eldridgestreet.org/blog/jewish-communities-in-china-harbin-and-shanghai/

Kerry Giving Information to Iran About Israel

 Nadene Goldfoot                                          

A big shock came from one of  New York's most unbending Democratic-siding newspapers .  On Sunday, the New York Times committed a turn about act of journalism in not supporting their favorite team. Former Secretary of State John Kerry informed Iran's Zarif that Israel had attacked Iranian interests in Syria at least 200 times, to his astonishment, Mr. Zarif said, wrote the New York Times. 

The New York Times reported on an obvious violation of the Espionage Act by the   former Secretary of State, former Democrat presidential candidate,    former senator  John Forbes Kerry , born December 11, 1943  in Aurora, Colorado, USA ,                                      

The Espionage Act of 1917  was, “An act to punish acts of interference with the foreign relations, the neutrality and the foreign commerce of the United States, to punish espionage, and better to enforce the criminal laws of the United States, and for other purposes.” It was intended to prohibit interference with military operations or recruitment, to prevent insubordination in the military and to prevent the support of United States enemies during wartime.  What Kerry did was blab information like a gossiper.  What role is he in now? Did he do this on purpose?   

Syria and Lebanon are proxies of Iran used  by the Iranians in attacking Israel.   

Mohammad Javad Zarif is an Iranian career diplomat and academic. He has been foreign minister of Iran since 2013.

'At best, this shows that Kerry is enormously and irresponsibly indiscreet; at worst, he’s exposing American intelligence to an enemy in order to attack an ally.' Tammy Bruce, host of Get Tammy Bruce on Fox Nation. in a twitter and David Ruiz is a senior editor  at Fox News. 

During the Trump Administration, which was only 100 days ago,  Kerry informed the Iranian Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, that Israel had been attacking Iranian “interests” — military targets — in Syria throughout the Trump Administration.Therefore this happened during the Trump administration.  Was it already in the public domain?

                                                                

John Kerry has a personal connection to Javad Zarif.  I've written about this before.  

"One of John Kerry's daughters,  Dr. Vanessa Bradford Kerry,  married several years ago  to Dr. Brian (Behrooz) Vala Nahid /(Dr. Behrouz Brian Vala Nahed) , an Iranian-American physician,  son of Nooshin P and Dr. Reza Vala Nahid, .  Part of the wedding preparations included Kerry attending a dinner party given by George Soros, billionaire,  at his Manhattan penthouse. 

 He also met the best man, Mahdi Zarif and his father, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who is today's Iranian Foreign Minister.  Zarif was the chief negotiator during the nuclear talks. 

 "Dr. Kerry and Dr. Nahed, both 32, are residents at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where they married in her church. She is in her third year of a residency in internal medicine; he is in his fifth year of a residency in neurological surgery."  Dr.Brian, Nahid's father, is a pulmonologist and sleep medicine and critical-care physician, and is the chief of staff at Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills, Calif. He also runs a private practice there, which is managed by the bridegroom’s mother.

The information is highly critical of US-Iran relations, including the Iran nuclear deal that Zarif dictated to a hapless John Kerry. A recording of this oral history was leaked to a Persian-language outlet, Iran International, and shared with the New York Times.  Iran International is a Saudi and UK-backed, British-based Persian television station headquartered in London. It is aimed at Iranian viewers and broadcasts free-to-air by satellite. 

There is every reason to think the reason to believe the recording is legit. The Iranian foreign ministry has not disputed the authenticity. The opinions Zarif express are too unorthodox, to unusual to be anything other than frank and honest, and Zarif’s own account of Iranian foreign policy is not flattering to him. It makes him look deceitful  and unimportant and should leave any diplomat wondering why they should even deal with him when he admits that the the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), not the foreign minister, sets foreign policy.  

I thought for sure it was the Ayatollas.  I'm right.  "According to Iran's Constitution, the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah) is responsible for the delineation and supervision of "the general policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran," which means that he sets the tone and direction of Iran's domestic and foreign policies. The Supreme Leader also is commander-in-chief of the armed forces and controls the Islamic Republic's intelligence and security operations; he alone can declare war or peace. He has the power to appoint and dismiss the leaders of the judiciary, the state radio and television networks, and the supreme commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He also appoints six of the twelve members of the Council of Guardians, the powerful body that oversees the activities of Parliament and determines which candidates are qualified to run for public office.

What this says is that Kerry gave out classified information which is a forbidden act.  Is it true?  If not, why do it?  Who did it?  Why did the New York Times take such a chance in doing this?  Both Kerry and the State Department spokesman Ned Price have denied it.  

Kerry said something like, I can tell you that this story and these allegations are unequivocally false.  This never happened;  either when I was Secretary of State or since.  Is he known to tell the truth always, like George Washington? 

 His immediate family members were reportedly observant Roman Catholics. As a child, Kerry served as an altar boy. Although the extended family enjoyed a great fortune, Kerry's parents themselves were upper-middle class; a wealthy great aunt paid for Kerry to attend elite schools in Europe and New England. Kerry spent his summers at the Forbes family estate in Brittany, and there, he enjoyed a more opulent lifestyle than he had previously known in Massachusetts. While living in the U.S., Kerry spent several summers at the Forbes family's estates on Naushon Island off Cape Cod. That's quite a background.  

John Kerry has not been a bosom buddy of Israel.  Critics say he is not only a critic but an adversary of Israel.  He hasn't been a supporter.  He would say something like this if he thought the person he was talking to was in agreement with him and was his bosom buddy, and he thought this family connection  of Zarif being the father of the best man at his daughter's wedding made that so. Perhaps that in this real world, it does not make Kerry Zarif's bosom buddy.  Welcome to the Iranian East, Kerry.  And Jews and the Shah were in good relations when the Shah was in, too.  

It is said that Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo,  blasted Kerry  for “actively undermining” U.S. policy on Iran, and, in a tweet, President Donald Trump accused Kerry of holding “illegal meetings” with Iranian officials.  Pompeo said he would leave “legal determinations to others,” but said there was “no precedent for this in U.S. history.”

U.S. officials said that Iran and its proxies (Syria) were preparing an attack on U.S. forces in Iraq, sending an aircraft carrier strike group to the region and deploying Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to Baghdad in a show of force. Trump and his aides met at the White House, concerned about a clash between the 2 sides.  The president made it clear that he didn't want war with Iran;  just talking to their leaders, but Kerry blocked that and tells them not to call. 

 "That's a violation of the Logan Act, which could be prosecuted'', commented Trump, but his people were not for that.  The Logan Act is a United States federal law that criminalizes negotiation by unauthorized American citizens with foreign governments having a dispute with the United States. The intent behind the Act is to prevent unauthorized negotiations from undermining the government's position.Trump’s charges against Kerry come as his own administration had heightened tensions with Tehran.

"Facts First: Putting aside Trump’s charge against Kerry, which Kerry flatly denies, here’s what you need to know about the Logan Act. The act was established in 1799 and makes it a felony for individuals who are not authorized by the US government to negotiate with foreign governments which have disputes with the US. Though the term has been thrown around as an accusation several times this century – and has been used more than once by Trump to attack Kerry – there have been few cases when someone has been indicted for violating the act. These cases took place in the 1800s and no one was ever convicted.

Since the act’s creation, correspondence and interaction between Americans – lawmakers, former lawmakers, and citizens alike – has become increasingly common.

​It’s also common for former secretaries of states and diplomats to stay in touch with their counterparts around the world.."                                         

    PM Netanyahu at UN warning about Iran's nuclear progress and true goals in September 2012, nine years ago. Iran has reached that dangerous red line.  Israelis already have been running the 15 second stint to a bomb shelter almost daily lately.  What if one of those rockets were loaded with a nuclear device?  

Now Biden is changing the USA position back to Obama's position.  We should remember that US President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear agreement in May 2018, when it was discovered that Iran had been hiding information about their activities.   

Disclosing operations of one's friend to his enemy is an act of espionage.  Kerry has acted as a spy for Iran by giving them secrets. All the rest of the grumbling about Kerry is averting the fact that he was said to have given secrets to Iran that will definitely harm Israel.  That must be investigated as fully as the investigation of any spy possibility.  New York Times has made the accusation.  Being a government official or past government official makes it even more concerning.  Kerry knows a lot.     

I wouldn't be surprised if Zarif's standing with the Ayatollah has diminished for being to close to John Kerry.  That's more like the Alice and Wonderland experience one has with Iran.  Maybe they see him as a loose cannon.  

                                              

Update:  I cannot find any  proof of Kerry actually telling Zarif any confidential information about Israel other than what was soon to be in the public domain, either dated or about the origin of the information leaked.  The tape would be in Farsi.  We do not know the translator.  On the other hand, we cannot trust Zarif's comment being truthful, either.  It's silly to trust the Iranians in the first place which we had done in dealing with honesty about the uranium goal or how far they have gone with their enterprises, so believing Zarif puts us in the same position.  Trust and opinion have to be replaced with facts.  This could all be old news.  I'm left with the knowledge of Iran's goal of snuffing out Israel, and they have bragged about it many times.  They are putting into danger the whole Middle East with their goal of having atomic weaponry.  This is the country Israel must be concerned with the most.  They even pay and promote Lebanon and Syria to fight against Israel since they are the closest.    

A tweet cited a 2018 article by the Reuters news agency in which then-intelligence minister Israel Katz said that Israel had carried out over 200 airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria over the previous two years.  Kerry, former US secretary of state, cites Israeli minister’s 2018 speech mentioning raids, and State Department notes generally that such operations were public knowledge.   Following the exchange of fire on 10 May 2018, Israeli defense minister Avigdor Lieberman said that Israel won't allow Iran to turn Syria into a "forward base" against Israel.

Newest Update: Further research tells me that Kerry is not guilty.  The information was already in the Public Domain when Zarif brought this to anyone's attention.  An Israeli general first announced it, then a Minister of Intelligence announced it further.  It's much ado about nothing.  It was exciting to the Republicans for the moment but dates of who made the announcement and when cleared it up.  It all happened in 2017 when Trump was serving his first year in office.  Zarif was not being truthful.  

Resource:

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2015/08/john-kerrys-personal-connection-to.html

https://redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2021/04/26/nyt-john-kerry-disclosed-israeli-military-operations-in-syria-to-the-iranian-foreign-minister-n369173

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/FMfcgxwLtkSDPBJgxFDKsxMcjDHbkGKl

https://redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2021/04/26/nyt-john-kerry-disclosed-israeli-military-operations-in-syria-to-the-iranian-foreign-minister-n369173

https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2020/08/irans-use-of-syria-against-israel.html

https://iowaculture.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/americas-involvement-world-war- 

  i/espionage#:~:text=It%20was%2C%20%E2%80%9CAn%20act%20to,interference%20with%20military%20operations%20or

https://www.ploughshares.org/issues-analysis/article/why-iran-deal-us-national-interest?gclid=Cj0KCQjwsqmEBhDiARIsANV8H3av9n44xuoA5HxtKGWJ-8PfpqZaZ7MJmJNlgPzizevPoapkTQDEYh8aAj5rEALw_wcB

https://en.geneastar.org/genealogy/kerryj/john-kerry

https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-times-buried-bombshell-kerry-iran-israeli-operations

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/26/us/john-kerry-iran-israel-syria.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/nyregion/rudy-giuliani-trump-ukraine-warrant.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At2UbRrS5u8

https://t.co/BTOdFE1khW

— John Kerry (@JohnKerry) April 26, 2021