Connecting Jewish and Chinese Identities
In honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, we are sharing stories from Jewish students who are celebrating both their Jewish and their Asian identities.
Brooke Cohen, a rising senior at Brown University, has always been taught that her Chinese and Jewish backgrounds are more connected than they are different.
“My parents always told me that Chinese and Jewish values are very similar, from respecting your parents to caring about great food,” she said. “Both cultures share so much, and my parents encouraged me to see it that way.”
Brooke grew up in Singapore, where the Jewish community consists of an estimated 2,500 people. Brooke’s father is Ashkenazi Jewish, and her mother, who is Chinese, converted to Judaism as a young adult. But the maternal side of Brooke’s family has been connected to Judaism for generations.
As far back as the mid-nineteenth century, Shanghai had a small but active Jewish population. In the 1940s, Brooke’s great-grandfather was a business partner with a Jewish man who fled from Germany, one of the 20,000 Jews that sought refuge in Shanghai during the Holocaust. He became an honorary uncle — “Uncle Willie” — to Brooke’s grandmother. Later, Uncle Willie helped her mother’s family escape from Shanghai to Hong Kong, just before the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
“He was a Jewish man from Germany, and China saved his life,” Brooke said. “And then he saved my family’s lives.”
Because of that history, Brooke’s grandparents had a deep respect for Judaism and the Jewish community, and were supportive when her mother converted to Judaism. Her father, who took a Mandarin class in the 1980s and later studied in China, is fluent in Chinese.
“I really like how both sides of my family have had a lot of respect for one another, and a lot of deep understanding,” Brooke said. “That’s something I’ve been wanting to personally explore even more.”
Born and raised in an expat community in Singapore, Brooke attended Singapore’s only Jewish day school, where she learned both Mandarin and Hebrew. By third grade, her class consisted of fewer than 10 students, and her parents had to make the decision to move her to an international school with a larger student body. Even though her Jewish community was small (she recalls only six or so students in her bat mitzvah class), her rabbi made sure to help her connect with other young Jews from around Asia. He organized annual weekend trips to places like Japan, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, where the students could meet each other and form friendships.
When Brooke decided to attend college in the United States and chose Brown University, she found the experience of being surrounded by hundreds of Jewish students for the first time to be a special one.
Brooke quickly dove into the Hillel community, regularly attending Shabbat dinners and other programs and joining the student cabinet. She also participated in the Lauder Fellowship, a year-long program organized by the World Jewish Congress for Jewish student leaders seeking to represent and advocate on behalf of the global Jewish community.
“Meeting people my age who are also Jewish has been such a new thing for me,” Brooke said. “So I’ve been very eager to be in these Jewish spaces, and soak up everything I can.”
This has held true for Brooke even through challenging moments for the Jewish community at Brown since October 7, 2023.
“Even though it sometimes felt lonely on campus, I finally had a community of students that were similar to me, or coming from a similar background to me,” Brooke said. “This was so different from when I was the only Jewish student in my high school during the 2021 conflict between Israel and Hamas, and I had to navigate it alone.”
Since coming to college, something important to Brooke has been finding ways to deepen her connection to both her Jewish heritage and her Chinese background, taking Mandarin classes and delving into her family history to learn more about her grandparents and great-grandparents — as well as Uncle Willie.
“I do sometimes feel a bit of push and pull with my identity,” Brooke said. “But I feel very Chinese and very Jewish. And I’m still learning and discovering more about where I fit in that puzzle.”
In the long term, Brooke hopes to someday write a book about her family’s story. Call us when it’s ready, Brooke — your Hillel community would love to read it!