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Israel Epstein | |||||||||||||||||
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伊斯雷尔·爱泼斯坦 | |||||||||||||||||
_MENAHEM_BEGIN_IN_POLISH_ARMY_UNIFORM_OF_GEN._ANDERS_FORCES_WITH_WIFE_ALIZA_AND_DAVID_YUTAN._(TOP)_MOSHE_STEIN_AND_ISRAEL_EPSTEIN._(JABOTINSKYD98-131_(cropped).jpg) Epstein in 1942 | |||||||||||||||||
| Member of theStanding Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference | |||||||||||||||||
| In office June 1983 – 26 May 2005 | |||||||||||||||||
| Personal details | |||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1915-04-20)20 April 1915 | ||||||||||||||||
| Died | 26 May 2005(2005-05-26) (aged 90) | ||||||||||||||||
| Political party | Chinese Communist Party | ||||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Journalist, author | ||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 伊斯雷尔·爱泼斯坦 | ||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 伊斯雷爾·愛潑斯坦 | ||||||||||||||||
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Israel Epstein[a] (20 April 1915 – 26 May 2005) was a Chinese journalist. Born into aJewish family inCongress Poland under theRussian Empire, he was one of the few foreign-born Chinese citizens of non-Chinese origin to become a member of theChinese Communist Party.
Israel Epstein was born on 20 April 1915 inWarsaw to Jewish parents;[1][2] Warsaw was then part ofCongress Poland, which was underImperial Russian control. His father had been imprisoned by the authorities ofTsarist Russia for leading alaboruprising and his mother had beenexiled toSiberia. Epstein's father was sent by his company toJapan after the outbreak ofWorld War I; when theGerman Army approached Warsaw, his mother and Epstein fled and joined him in Asia. With his family experiencing anti-Jewish sentiment in several places, in 1917, Epstein came to China with his parents at the age of two and they settled inTianjin in 1920. Epstein was raised there.[2]
Israel Epstein began to work in journalism at age 15, when he wrote for thePeking and Tientsin Times, an English-language newspaper based in Tianjin. He also covered theJapanese Invasion of China for theUnited Press[3]: 203 and other Westernnews agencies. In the autumn of 1938, he joined theChina Defense League, which had been established bySoong Ching-ling,Sun Yat-sen's widow, for the purpose of publicizing and enlisting international support for the Chinese cause.[2] In 1941, he faked news about his own death as a decoy for theJapanese who were trying to arrest him. The misinformation even found its way into a short item printed inThe New York Times.[4]
After being assigned to review one of the books ofEdgar Snow, Epstein and Snow came to know each other personally and Snow showed him his classic workRed Star Over China before it was published. He was deeply influenced by the progressivism of Snow and became involved with the democratic movement in China, becoming an editor for Snow's magazine,Democracy.[2]
In 1934, he married Edith Bihovsky Epstein, from whom he later divorced due to the eruption of theSecond Sino-Japanese War in 1937, where his insistence on reporting from the front conflicted with her reluctance. She later remarried as Edith Ballin.[5] In 1944, Epstein first visited Britain and afterwards went to live in the United States with his second wife Elsie Fairfax-Cholmeley for five years.
After escaping from an Imperial Japanese concentration camp, he worked for Allied Labor News, becoming editor-in-chief. He published his bookThe Unfinished Revolution in China in 1947.[3]: 203 His book was enthusiastically reviewed inThe New York Times byOwen Lattimore of Johns Hopkins University.[6]
In 1951 Communist defectorElizabeth Bentley testified to the U.S. Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, "Israel Epstein had been a member of the Russian secret police for many years in China."[7]
Many years later, his wife, Fairfax-Cholmeley, would become known to a generation of Chinese-language students in China and around the world as a contributor to one of the most widely used Chinese-English dictionaries published in the PRC. After Fairfax-Cholmeley's death in 1984, Epstein married his third wife, Huang Huanbi.[8]
In 1951,Soong Ching-ling invited him to return to China with his wife Fairfax-Cholmeley.[3]: 203 There, Epstein served as an advisor toPeople's China (Renmin Zhongguo), the forerunner ofPeking Review.[3]: 203 With Soong, he started the magazineChina Reconstructs (Zhongguo Jianshe),[3]: 203 which was later renamedChina Today. Epstein also worked on the translation of theSelected Works of Mao Zedong (Mao Zedong Xuanji).[3]: 203 He remained editor-in-chief ofChina Today until his retirement at age 70, and stayed on as editoremeritus. During his tenure atChina Today, he became a Chinese citizen in 1957 and a member of theChinese Communist Party in 1964.[2] In 1955, 1965 and 1976 Epstein visitedTibet, and based on these three visits in 1983 published the bookTibet Transformed.[9]
Epstein was imprisoned twice, separately by theEmpire of Japan and later by thePeople's Republic of China.
He was placed in a concentration camp by Imperial Japanese authorities following theattack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He escaped along with some of the other prisoners.[2]
During theCultural Revolution, on charges of plotting againstZhou Enlai, he was imprisoned in 1968 in the north of Beijing inQincheng Prison, where he was subjected to solitary confinement. In 1973, he was released, and Zhou apologized. His privileges were restored.[10]
During his life, Israel Epstein was honored by Chinese political leadersZhou Enlai,Mao Zedong,Deng Xiaoping,Jiang Zemin, andHu Jintao. In April 2005, Hu Jintao personally paid a visit to Epstein.[11] Epstein died inBeijing on 26 May 2005.[12] His funeral was held at theBabaoshan Cemetery for Revolutionaries, inShijingshan District, Beijing on 3 June 2005.[13]
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