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Zvi Schiffrin | |
|---|---|
צבי שיפרין | |
 | |
| Born | (1922-09-26)September 26, 1922 |
| Died | 25 July 2024(2024-07-25) (aged 101) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | University of California, Berkeley (BA,MA) Hebrew University of Jerusalem (PhD) |
Harold Zvi Schiffrin (Hebrew:הרולד צבי שיפרין; 26 September 1922 – 25 July 2024) was an American-born Israeli sociologist and intelligence officer. He was a professor ofEast Asian Studies and Sociology at theHebrew University of Jerusalem and the founder of East Asian studies in Israel.[1]
Harold Zvi Schiffrin was born on 26 September 1922 inRochester, New York. In 1943, as a college student, he was conscripted into theUS Army and stationed at the Pacific front. During his service, he was stationed atCamp Ritchie and is considered to be part of theRitchie Boys. The army sent him toUniversity of California, Berkeley, to studyChinese language andculture (1943–44); upon graduating, he was stationed inManila, where there was at the time a large community of Chinese immigrants. In 1948, he settled inMandatory Palestine to serve in theMahal during theArab-Israeli War. Between 1955 and 1957, he returned to Berkeley and completed his M.A. in Chinese Studies under the supervision ofRobert A. Scalapino. He later pursued his PhD in Israel underS.N. Eisenstadt. In 1961, he received his PhD from the Department of Sociology, the Hebrew University and continued with postdoctoral research atHarvard University.
On his return, he joined the Hebrew University's academic staff. By 1958, he was offering courses in Chinese history, that were attracting large crowds of students. Throughout the 1960s, when history and languages of China and Japan were still considered an esoteric academic pursuit in Israel, he insisted on the centrality of East Asia in general, and China in particular, to the political and economic international arena. In 1968, his efforts culminated in the foundation of the Department of East Asian Studies at the Hebrew University. (then known as the Department of Chinese and Japanese Studies, the first of its kind in Israel. Japanese studies was represented at the time by Avraham Altman) Schiffrin laid the foundations for the research and teaching of Chinese Studies in Israel. He assembled to the department top researchers in the field and trained the next generations of East Asia researchers in Israel. He retired in 1990, and continued to research and participate in the department's life.
Schiffrin was also dean of the School for Overseas Students (1968–70), headed theHarry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace (1979–87), and chaired the US-Israel Educational Foundation (Fulbright Program; 1980–87). His activities on both national and international level for thealiyah of Jews from theSoviet Union and the release ofPrisoners of Zion won worldwide recognition.[citation needed] He also held research and teaching positions at Harvard (1962–63) and Berkeley (1988–89), and was a guest of theChinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing long before China and Israel establisheddiplomatic relations. In 2010, he was chosen by theNational Library of China as one of "the hundred greatestSinologists of all times."[citation needed]
Schiffrin died on 25 July 2024, at the age of 101.[2]
Schiffrin was an expert on the1911 Revolution and onSun Yat-Sen (孙中山1866–1925), the father of the Chinese republic and founder of modern China. He specializes in the social and intellectual history of modern China, and in particular the transition fromImperial China to the Republic (ca. 1840–1949).
a.Sun Yat-Sen and the Origins ofthe Chinese Revolution (1968)In this book, Schiffrin reconstructs the life and times of Dr. Sun Yat-sen (1866–1925), the founding father of the Chinese revolution. The book follows Sun's early activities, up to 1905, when he established theTongmenghui (同盟會 United Alliance) and developed the political philosophy known as the "Three Principles of the People" (sanminzhuyi 三民主義). Schiffrin presents Sun – a peasants' offspring, who received western rather than classical Chinese education – as an instrumental leader whose vigor, dedication, and insistence that only through adopting an advanced republican government China would succeed in catching up and eventually overtaking the West, managed to gain him the sympathy of Chinese intellectuals. The book reconstructs the complex world of China at the end of the 19th and start of the 20th centuries, including the dying dynasty, the variety of local Chinese forces, and the foreign influence in southern China. It presents Sun's activities in China, Europe, Japan, and among the Overseas Chinese in their political, social and intellectual contexts. Schiffrin was the first Western researcher to use newspapers issued by Chinese students and exiles in Japan as an important source for his research. The book received the American Historical Association'sJohn King Fairbank Prize for East Asian Studies in 1969. It was published in Chinese in both Mainland China andTaiwan and was reprinted – in the US and China – in 2010.
b. Sun Yat-sen, Reluctant Revolutionary (1980)
This sequel is a full biography of Sun Yat-sen. Analyzing his role in the 1911 Revolution, and his subsequent career as a founder of the Nation's Party, theGuomindang (國民黨, Kuomintang, KMT), the book also reviews Sun's legacy in the PRC and Republic of China or Taiwan. Schiffrin explores Sun's activities in a wide range of contexts, highlighting the turning points in early 20th century Chinese history. This book remained the standard biography of Sun for several decades, and was reprinted in China in 2010.
c. The 1911 Revolution in China (1984, 1995)
The two volumes co-edited by Schiffrin and the Japanese scholarEto Shinkichi (1923–2007), assemble Eastern and Western scholars, whose work sheds new light on the transitional period from Imperial to Republican China. Studies in these volumes discuss ideological, constitutional, ethnic, economic, political and biographical aspects, as well as the influence of Chinese Republican Revolution and its leaders in different parts of the world.
d. Military and State in Modern Asia (1976)
This collection of essays edited by Schiffrin examines the role of the army in the nation-states established in Asia in the 20th century, from East Asia tothe Middle East. It presents case studies fromIndonesia, Japan, China,Burma,Egypt andSyria, as well as a theoretical comparative discussion. The book integrates essays by leading historians and sociologists from Israel and worldwide. Schiffrin's own essay deals with the warlords during the Republican Period (1911–1949).
Schiffrin published many articles dealing with the political and intellectual history of China at the start of the 20th century and various aspects of modern Chinese history, such asforeign relations, the development ofChinese nationalism, China's military and economic policy, Chinese perceptions of the West, and intellectual life in contemporary China. He was an important contributor to theBiographical Dictionary of Republican China, ed. H. L. Boorman (Columbia University Press, 1967–1971) and also edited the China section of theEncyclopaedia Hebraica writing 50 different entries.
In Chinese:
