A Century of Jewish Life in Shanghai (Touro University Press)

The next best thing to attending a conference on a fascinating topic, lies in reading the papers presented there. "A Century of Jewish Life in Shanghai" is a compilation of such conference papers presented over three days in Shanghai in June 2015. The work in its entirety offers not only historical context, but intellectually stimulating hypotheses and conclusions. It is a valuable contribution to scholarship. While the entire book is worthwhile, I found the last section the most interesting. For me, it broke new ground, going beyond history to draw some remarkably interesting conclusions.