As part of our BOOK CLUB SERIES
Join us for an Author Talk with Jonathan Kaufman as he discusses his book 
The Last Kings of Shanghai:  The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China

In the 1930’s two powerful Jewish families, the Sassoons and the Kadoories, rival one another in wealth and influence. Both originally from Baghdad, these families stood astride Chinese business and politics for more than 175 years, profiting from the Opium Wars; surviving Japanese occupation; courting Chiang Kai-shek; and losing nearly everything as the Communists swept into power. At the height of World War II, these two families joined together to rescue and protect eighteen thousand Jewish refugees fleeing Nazism. Though their stay in China started out as a business opportunity, the country became a home they were reluctant to leave, even on the eve of revolution. 

Jonathan Kaufman is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, editor and author, and also served as the Wall Street Journal's China Bureau Chief, based in Beijing.  As a reporter, Mr. Kaufman covered race and class issues in the workplace and on college campuses and wrote about race and women's issues in the extraordinary 2008 presidential campaign.

The United Jewish Federation of Tidewater & the Simon Family JCC’s Lee and Bernard Jaffe Family Jewish Book Festival is held in coordination with the Jewish Book Council,
the only organization in the organized American Jewish community whose sole purpose is the promotion of Jewish books.