ABSTRACT
The experiences of the larger Far Eastern Jewish seaport communities tend to validate David Sorkin’s thesis that Jews in seaport cities enjoyed distinct opportunities for economic advancement and political and intellectual emancipation. Conversely, the Jews of Harbin, China, 1500 miles inland, also enjoyed these types of progress, calling into question the applicability of Sorkin thesis in a Far Eastern context. All of the above-mentioned communities conform to immigration historian Caroline Golab’s thesis that institutional and political development depends on length of residence, with long-term immigrants developing institutions more extensively than transitory migrants. Additional research on Jews in smaller Far Eastern seaports is needed to further test the Sorkin/Golab hypotheses.
