Describes Growth of B’nai B’rith’s Shanghai Lodge

The organization and growth of B’nai B’rith’s most recently established outpost is described in the first annual report of Shanghai Lodge No. 1102, Shanghai, China, just received here. The charter for this lodge was granted on May 6, 1928, and its first meeting took place Dec. 10, 1928, with 20 of its 23 charter members present.

The report, which is written by George E. Sokolsky, president of Shanghai Lodge, declares that although small in number, the Jewish community in Shanghai is exceedingly complex in its social and political characteristics, the Jews there being divided into the old-established and very wealthy Sephardic element; the West-European and American Ashkenazim; and the recent immigrants from Russia and Poland.

“It was for the purpose of creating a medium in which these three elements can find a common meeting ground that the Shanghai Lodge of B’nai B’rith was organized,” declares the report. “The membership doubled during the first year of the Lodge’s existence and is constantly on the increase.

“The charitable work of the lodge has been astonishingly significant, considering the fact of its recent organization. When the Jews in Palestine issued their appeals for relief, the members in about fifteen minutes contributed $595 which was later distributed through the agency of the Palestine B’nai B’rith lodge. The employment committee has found work for several Jewish young men who drifted into Shanghai, expecting to find easy fortunes here, but found themselves faced rather by depressed economic conditions.”