Ehud Olmert is in China this week, discussing (among other things) the Iranian threat to Israel. But most people probably don't know that Olmert's grandparents fled to China from the pogroms in Russia. In fact, Harbin had a large Jewish population for some time. And Harbin sheltered thousands of Jews fleeing the Nazis during WWII.
Bein expressed her appreciation of the peaceful childhood she enjoyed in Harbin.
"During the war, when the whole of Europe was aflame, we enjoyed a comfortable life," she said.
By the end of the World War II, there were about 30,000 Jews in China.
"Thirty thousand people came and 30,000 people left China," said Teddy Kaufman, President of Association of Former Residents of China and Israel China Friendship Society.
"Nobody was killed," he said.
China is one of the few nations of the world that opened its doors to Jews fleeing the Holocaust. Today, China is preserving the buildings that housed the Jewish community, a thing that is almost unheard of.
Harbin has preserved the largest Jewish cemetery in East Asia, which has about 600 tombstones and includes the grave of the grandfather of the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
The city's dozens of Jewish assembly halls, hotels, schools, hospitals, banks, shopping malls, dwelling houses, kindergartens and office buildings, some of which are nearly a century old, are protected by Harbin municipal government.
Some of buildings have been repaired and maintained in large scale, like the Jewish New Synagogue, which was restored in 2005.
How do you say "Thank you" in Chinese?