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[Tianjin/Tientsin, China] Jewish Club "Kunst" (Tientsin) : PROYEKT USTAVA YEVREYSKOGO KLUBA "KUNST”

No Place (Tianjin): No Publisher (The Club), 1940

1st edition. Original printed wrappers, 12mo, 17 pages. In Russian. Title translates as, “Draft Statutes of the Jewish Club ‘Kunst.’" The cover notes, that this draft was “Approved by the resolution of the Board of Elders of the Club for presentation to the Extraordinary General Meeting. Minutes No. 43/49 of 12, XI. 1940.” Presumably the extraordinary meeting, and this resulting draft, were in response to increasing numbers of refugees arriving from Europe as Nazi forces continued to march east in 1940. The “Kunst” club was a Jewish theater group in Tianjin (“Kunst” means “Art” in German and Yiddish). Up until 1904 only ten Jewish families lived in Tientsin. In 1906 the Jews established the Tientsin Jewish Union which rendered various religious services. Side by side with this union the Tientsin Hebrew Association was active in the city and took care of welfare needs such as soup kitchens, hospitals, homes for the elderly, etc. The 1917 Russian Revolution fueled the rapid growth of the city's Jewish population with many Jewish immigrants from Russia, and “in 1920 the community was formally named The Hebrew Association of Tientsin (THA) [The organization named here in this charter booklet]. In this context the community built a synagogue, engaged a Rabbi and a Shochet, and provided full religious services. Committees for Eretz Israel affairs and hospitals were set up. A singular feature of the community was the establishment of the Benevolent Society in 1920, whose aim was to assist Jews in need and help them settle into their new environment.” Tianjin soon became the third largest Jewish community in China, after Shanghai and Harbin. In 1935, the number of Jewish people in Tianjin reached 3,500. Though most Jews left the city after the 1949 Chinese Revolution. (sinojudaic.org/tianjin), large numbers of Jewish refugees had been streaming to Tianjin before and during World War II, with the city occupied by the Japanese from July 1937 to August 1945. For more on the Tianjin/Tiensin Jewish community, see also https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/harbin/Growing_Up_in_Tientsin_Chapter_22. pdf. A similar booklet for a Jewish organization in Tianjin–but more common and from a less important date–sold at auction in 2023 for $875 (with commission). SUBJECT(S): Jews -- China -- Tientsin -- History -- Societies, etc. OCLC lists no copies anywhere. We could not locate a copy anywhere else using a google search. Perhaps a unique surviving example. Light stain to rear, named penciled on cover, newsprint toning as expected, about Very Good Condition. Exceedingly Rare (Holo2-160-11)

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