"What is the matter with the young people of to-day?" The 1943 Shanghai Version

"What is the matter with the young people of to-day? Is it true that they are worse than their parents were in their young days?" With these resonating sentences begins an issue of a Jewish Newspaper published in Shanghai in 1941 which I just got in. Published with Yiddish and English sections, the title of the Newspaper is The Word, or Dos Vort, "A Jewish weekly for the Religious Revival in the Far East", which appeared as a weekly for a few short weeks in 1941 before disbanding.

Reading through the current news that interested refugee Jews in Shanghai during the Holocaust, gives fascinating insight in to what life was like for the local Jewish Community, which consisted of a sampling of much of World Jewry. which suddenly found itself huddling together outside of Hitler's grasp. Some of the articles are by local authors and others are taken from publications around the world that would interest the newspaper's readers. Alongside news of the happenings in Palestine and the Warsaw Ghetto, we find notices of farewell to a local who made it safely to Israel, of a local Oneg Shabbas Mesibah that was taking place, an ad offering assistance to those interested in making their way to Israel and advertisements of local Jewish-owned businesses. The opening article in the English section of the paper is of Rabbi Dr Victor Schonfeld on the issues of Modern Youth, followed by a biography of Rashi.
In the newspaper, we find an article by Rabbi Simcha Elberg, under his pen-name A. Simhoni, less than two months after his arrival in Shanghai, following 2 years on the run through Russia, Japan and China. It is inspiring to see how the local Jews attempted to continue life as normal as possible, and kept their faith and spiritual needs throughout this harrowing time.