AUTHOR: Saskia Swenson Moss
Across Asia, PJ Library provides a lifeline for families raising Jewish children. While every family receives a similar selection of monthly books in English, the way families experience PJ Library reflects the creativity of the volunteers who bring the program to life and the unique character of each country.
Join us as we journey to four of these communities in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore.
Shanghai: Building Identity
When Rebecca Kanthor first started PJ Library in Shanghai in 2017 in collaboration with Kehilat Shanghai, the Progressive Jewish community in that city, there were not a lot of resources for families raising Jewish children in China.
After hearing about PJ Library from family members in the United States, Rebecca contacted the Harold Grinspoon Foundation. “We started getting books, and then a lot of people piled into my tiny apartment for a storytime.”
That was nine years ago. Word spread, and now close to 40 children, mainly in Shanghai but also in Fuzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Wuhan, and Beijing, receive PJ Library books. A few times a year, with help from PJ Library mom Anna Kvasova, Rebecca hosts PJ Library activities that highlight the community’s unique mix of Chinese and Jewish traditions. Last fall, for example, they did a joint celebration of Sukkot and the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.
“For a lot of families,” says Rebecca, “PJ Library is their one Jewish touchpoint. The books teach the parents as much as they teach the kids and help us make sense of who we are.”
Hong Kong: Connecting to Global Jewry
Author and volunteer director Erica Lyons has been running PJ Library for a small community of about 82 subscribers in Hong Kong since 2018.
Why is she so invested in the program? “If I was in New York and wanted to buy a book for Passover,” says Erica, “I could go to a local bookstore. But in Hong Kong, there are very few English-language books to start with, and there are really no Jewish children’s books. PJ Library is it!”
Two of her favorite PJ Library books are Two New Years by Lynn Scurfield and Chicken Soup, Chicken Soup by Pamela Mayer. Both books gently explore the interplay between Asian and Jewish traditions.
“Reading these books,” says Erica, “gives us a rare opportunity to connect our experiences to global Jewry and feel a part of something bigger. And when we do, we find we are not as isolated as we think.”
Taiwan: Creating Community
The question of how to overcome the isolation of being one of the only Jewish families in a community is especially relevant in Taiwan. PJ Library has been operating in Taiwan since 2021 and, as Benjamin Schwall, board president of the local Jewish community, explains, its impact extends well beyond Taipei. In Taiwan’s capital, there are opportunities to engage in Jewish life, but PJ Library is also having a positive effect in communities across the country where Jewish families are few and there is little or no Jewish support system.
For example, in Taidong, on Taiwan’s southeast coast, there is no place for the small number of Jewish families living there to gather and celebrate Jewish holidays. Last spring, Ben connected the PJ Library families in Taidong. To his joy, once they knew about each other, they met and created a shared seder meal together!
“We know that families wait eagerly for the books,” Ben adds, crediting community member Rebecca Miller for helping make sure the books reach each family. In the rare case when a book does not arrive on time, the family’s reaction is immediate: “Where is our book!?”
Singapore: Learning Together
PJ Library in Singapore is unique in Asia as it is run through both a school-based and a community-based program.
For Chanelle O’Hayon-Crosby, the school librarian at Sir Manasseh Meyer International School (SMMIS), coordinating the program means distributing books to about 100 students from preschool through seventh grade and putting copies of each book in the classroom and school libraries. She describes PJ Library as “a lifesaver” because, thanks to the program, she has stories for the holidays, stories about Jewish history, and stories about Jewish life that teachers use in their curriculum.
For Kristin Dwek, cofounder of Ganenu, Singapore’s bilingual Hebrew and English preschool, being a PJ Library volunteer gives her access to books that she shares with the teachers and hand-delivers to more than 100 families!
Both Kristin and Chanelle use PJ Library books to run community activities, such as a PJ Library Mommy and Me program at Ganenu, and a Mimouna celebration at SMMIS, using PJ Library book’s A Sweet Meeting on Mimouna Night by Allison Ofanansky. Last year, SMMIS held a challah bake, with someone reading the PJ Library title Little Red Rosie by Eric A. Kimmel, as families worked together to make delicious challahs.
Kristin sums up why PJ Library makes such a difference to families like hers. “In Asia, we are not part of a larger Jewish community as I was growing up in Atlanta. But thanks to PJ Library, my daughter Harper can read about another Jewish girl and realize, hey, there are people like me all over the world! In that way, PJ Library turns distance into connection, giving children a sense that wherever they live, they are part of a much bigger Jewish story.”
Want to learn more about PJ Library around the world? Go to pjlibrary.org/about/pj-around-the-world.
