HARBIN, China—Can things change in the course of two years time, since our last reunion in the city of our birth mirth and maturity?  No.  Not much.  However, the second visit renders an opportunity to see more and observe better all the things you passed by in the ecstasy of your first “return." A major example of this would be the very mode of expectations.

During the first return trip to Harbin, one focuses on what is not there any longer.  In doing this, you become totally obsessed and partially disappointed:  The shops you know, the playground of your youth, the sport fields on Kommercheskaya and Apteraskaya Streets (where I was crowned “Champion Sprinter of Harbin – 1940"), the many popular restaurants, the grocery shops and yes—our homes on Birjevaya, Artelleriskaya, Pekarnaya and so on — all of these are no more.  Neither is the Jewish Bank, the Talmud Torah and the Jewish Hospital, which my father, Sema Liberman, helped create and over which he presided for more than ten years.

And yet there stands the Kitaiskaya Street, the Kommercheskoe Uchilische building, the Mars Restaurant and the famous Modern Hotel.  These trigger nostalgia.  All of this stimulates sentimentality and a tsunami of memories.

All this aside, however, perhaps the most significant part of this “second visit” is in the realization that we are not alone thinking and dreaming of those wondrous days during the first three decades of the 20^th century.

Today, there are scores of Chinese scholars and historians who are devoting many long hours each day as they dig out and reconstruct as much of the Jewish yesterday in China as is humanly possible.

These devoted men and women, with the blessing and material aid from the government, are engaged in preserving such historic relics as the Jewish cemetery, the “old synagogue” and the “new synagogue”, which is now totally reconstructed and transformed into a museum depicting Jewish life in Harbin and its historic contribution to the cultural, social and economic growth of the city as a whole.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of these activities is in the wide interest they trigger among the media as well as the Chinese population, at large.

This second seminar on Jewish history and culture in Harbin,  has been attended by over one hundred Chinese academicians and well covered on every TV channel, radio station and newspaper of the city.

During our visits to the cemetery, synagogue or the various sites such as the former Jewish school and the Talmud Torah, we were greeted by warm smiles and applause from hundreds of ordinary men and women on the streets.

The enthusiasm with which this project of renewal, recovery and reconstruction of Jewish life in China,  is completely genuine.  The warmth with which our past is being recalled by the current citizenship of Harbin is reflected not only in the speeches of their leaders, but also in the generous material participation of the authorities concerned.

Millions of dollars have been allocated to the restoration of the “new synagogue” alone.  Millions more went to the creation of the only Jewish cemetery left in China.  Here, on the premises, a beautifully serene façade has been created with paved roads leading to flowered gravesides with resurrected grave stones brought from the old cemetery compound.  At the entrance to the cemetery grounds stands a gigantic black marbled Magen David.

The entire work of reconstruction has been closely coordinated with Igud Yotzei Sin – the Tel-Aviv based association of all former members of the Jewish communities of China in Harbin, Tientsin and Shanghai.

Frankly, I am not certain if fortune will be generous enough to give me an opportunity for yet another “return” to the city of my birth, but I can honestly say that both of my previous visits to Harbin were unforgettable as an experience, and remarkable in resting the gnawing nostalgia which we all experienced upon leaving the shores of China some sixty years ago.

Not only were our lives in China good, productive, and happy, but also our return visits have been memorable, sentimental, and unique.

For all who made this possible  ---  Thank you!

Editor's Note—Liberman was a youth leader in the Betar movement in Harbin and Shanghai, and was part of the communal emigration to Israel in 1949.  There, he rose to the rank of general secretary of the Herut party, working closely with future Prime Minister Menahem Begin.  Business took him to Taiwan, where he helped form the Jewish community there, and eventually to San Diego, where he now lives in retirement.