Eliana: I wanted to start with talking about being Jewish in Taiwan, and I understand that the Jewish population in Taiwan is quite small, only about 2,000 people as of recent data. 

Ross Darrel Feingold: I would say it's probably less than that. I don't know where the 2,000 number came from. It may include spouses and children who are not Jewish under strict interpretation of Halakhic law. You know, as you may have noticed from some of the reading materials, the local people, and this applies throughout Asia, it's not unique to Taiwan, but they have a lot of stereotypes about Jews. I think the technical term for this is philo-semitic instead of antisemitic, where they think that Jews have these extraordinary qualities and abilities to make money and that jews are very smart. They control Wall Street and control US Politics. So for a lot of people in Asia when they meet a Jewish person, they just immediately say these things like “oh, you must be very smart” or “oh Jews are good at making money” and they'll give you a thumbs up and for them that's not offensive. You know it's difficult to explain to them that in most Western countries, you would never say such things because not only is it an incorrect stereotype, but it's just weird. 

Eliana: Yes, definitely. So how large is the community? I heard that you started the Taipei Jewish Center. And how large is the community with that?  

Ross Darrel Feingold: Uh, well, there's actually, you know, like any Jewish community, there's multiple synagogues. There's not only one. So there's one called the Taipei Jewish Center, which is affiliated with Chabad. And I helped start that organization when the Rabbi came here around 10 years ago. And then there's another one with a very similar name called the Taiwan Jewish community, which is much more progressive. So there's two different, very different, very different styles of prayer. Just like if you had a Chabad house and a reform synagogue in any other town where Jewish people live. I would put the number closer to, or maybe less than a thousand, uh, not, not including those who've married local wives and have had children. I would say under a thousand is probably a more realistic estimate of the number of Jews from America, Israel, Europe combined who live here in Taiwan. 

Eliana: Wow, that is quite small. Are there certain complications being in such a small community-besides what you're talking about with the stereotypes and all the comments? 

Ross Darrel Feingold: Well, one complication that arises is because it's a small community, but there are two different options, you know, not everyone wants to pray at the Chabad house, so they might go to the other one or vice versa. So, you know, that that's a challenge, but again, it happens in every town where there's a Jewish community.

I grew up on Long Island in a town called Great Neck and we had, like, I don't even remember how many different synagogues we had. We had reform ones. We had reconstructionist ones. Conservative Orthodox and Chabad house. Then there were Persian Jewish synagogues and Ashkenazi synagogues. So you know, that's one issue, it’s that it's not just one synagogue.

It's a small group of people divided into different synagogues. Now my background as we discussed is I was helping the Chabad Rabbi for many years to help start the organization. So I was heavily involved at the beginning with trying to help the Rabbi do things that you would expect a Chabad Rabbi to try and do such as make kosher food available. And that was something that we spent a lot of time working on. Both talking to the local authorities and finding sources for companies willing to export small orders because we were, you know, we weren't buying a lot. For example, I went with the Rabbi to help slaughter chickens once, because we negotiated with a local chicken farm to let us come in and slaughter the chickens in a kosher way, and then we had to package them all up. And then another time we worked with a local hypermart, you know, a big supermarket, to import kosher frozen chicken under their name, and since they're a big food importer, the logistics was something that they helped take care of. And then they put it, they were very generous, they put it on the store shelf. They knew that because it was overpriced versus other non kosher options, no one was gonna buy it except our small number of Jews. And then eventually we had to buy back everything from them that wasn't sold. So we had to rent a big freezer room somewhere in a warehouse to store many months worth of kosher chicken.

Eliana: Yeah, that was actually gonna be one of my next few questions about accessibility to kosher food or food for specific holidays. 

Ross Darrel Feingold: Well, yeah, I mean having a, having a Chabad Rabbi here, you know, that's something that they do wherever they go around the world. They make sure that there's Jewish prayer services and kosher food available for any Jew who happens to be there, whether they live there or they're just visiting for business or tourism. So, yeah, there is just a source for kosher food because we have a Chabad rabbi.  

Eliana: Can you tell me a bit more about the Taipei Jewish Center and its affiliation with the Chabad?

Ross Darrel Feingold: It's like going to any other Chabad house around the world. There's a rabbi with a big black hat and a beard, and he's here with his wife because wherever they go, they tend, wherever they send a Chabad person to open a new location, generally, as a matter of practice, they send a husband and wife team so that they could support each other and do women's events in addition to the usual events. So he's here with his wife and he's been here, as I said, about 10 years. So he's had a lot of children during that time. I'm not even sure how many he's up to. I think it's six or seven. You know, they're just doing their thing, right? They are making available Jewish activities in a strictly Halakhic compliant way. And that's why you get another option that develops right there. There's a, as I mentioned, there's also the more reform option because not everyone wants to pray in a strict synagogue where the men and women sit together and they follow all the rules very strictly. 

Eliana: Do you or the Chabad do work with education for young children or Elianas?  

Ross Darrel Feingold: The rabbi has taught classes internally over the years. One challenge that he had is a lot of the younger people here are typically the, the family or the children of, of mixed marriages. And frankly, it's, and understandably, it's not a priority for a Chabad Rabbi to really provide that to children of mixed marriages because to the rabbi, they're not Jewish. That sometimes could be frustrating to people who are in a mixed marriage. And then I, as the chairman of the board, I'm not chairman anymore, but when I was chairman, you know, sometimes I get caught in the middle and I have to explain to people like the Rabbi, you know, he unfortunately just doesn't view your children as Jewish because he's going by strictly Halakhic law, that's what the Torah says. And I had to tell people, you know, he didn't write the law,  they were written long before he became a rabbi. You know, there's no need to get angry about it. But sometimes people get angry. And that's why the alternative community is able to exist because they have a much more liberal interpretation of the rules.

Eliana: So you find that many of the children of these mixed marriages go to the reform synagogue?

Ross Darrel Feingold: Absolutely, because they'll bar mitzvah, you know, children of mixed marriages, and they'll provide education to children of mixed marriages. Another interesting thing, a similar issue, is sometimes we get invited to speak to local groups, schoolchildren, university classes, but for, for a rabbi, things like that are typically not a high priority. So to give you an example, if he had the choice today to help one Jewish person put on Tefillin or run off to some high school class in Taiwan and give them an introduction to Jewish law, he's going to spend his time helping a Jewish person put on Tefillin. And again, some people, they don't understand that, but you have to look at it from his perspective and why Chabad has these rabbis in places around the world. It's to help Jewish people be more Jewish. It's not to help foreign people understand Judaism.  

Eliana: Uh huh. Do you know anything about the experiences of these children of mixed marriages? What their experience is like in school, or if they experience a lot of antisemitism or philo-semitism. 

Ross Darrel Feingold: I don't think young people or really the non Jewish young people, I don't think they're really going to be a source for antisemitism in this society. I think it's people who are a little bit older and I'd say more well read, but they're just reading the wrong materials. Or they're looking at the wrong videos on TikTok or other social media platforms. I don't think that's typically a problem with children. But I am aware of some examples of children of mixed marriages who did face some antisemitic remarks in schools here because, you know, some parents have told me about such incidents. So it does happen. But as far as I can tell, it's not, it's not a prevalent problem. I think it's usually with, uh, it's usually with older people, not really with, say, high school age or elementary school age children.  

Eliana: That leads me directly to my next question, so thank you, and also thank you for sharing so many resources with me prior to the meeting. My question is, how do you feel that your work in adding English subtitles to antisemitic Chinese videos or reposting anti Semitic tweets to make people aware or writing about antisemitism in Taiwan helps stem global antisemitism?

Ross Darrel Feingold: Well, for one thing, it just made a lot of Chinese people angry at me, people in China. Sosome of the typical responses were, “oh, just ignore it.” Or, “well, maybe it's not somebody in China, it's somebody, somebody in Taiwan who knows how to write Chinese.” So there was a lot of pushback when I pointed out those posts. People just saying, “you know, just get over it,” it's not a big deal,” you know, “there's always one bad apple in the bunch” kind of responses. So I often had to explain to people that as Jews we’re taught to speak out about this. And specifically when it comes to the Holocaust, we're taught to never forget. And you know, the whole field of Holocaust education and scholarship. You know, we have so many professors at universities in America or Israel who are full time scholars of the Holocaust. So coming at it from a totally different perspective than the local people that just, you know, just brush it off. You know, “it's not a big deal. Get over it. It's just a social media post by one random individual.” But we're, we're really taught to speak out about this kind of stuff. We're taught not to be silent about antisemitism or philo-semitism, and we're taught not to be silent about the Holocaust. So when we see these examples, you know, I feel, as a Jewish person, it's my obligation to do what little I could do, and that's why I added subtitles to some of those videos, and I write about it, and I'm talking to you about it, because, again, we're really, as far as I know, we're taught to speak up about this stuff. We're taught not to be silent. 

Eliana: Is there a holocaust education in Taiwan? In the schools?

Ross Darrel Feingold: Well, after this incident in 2016, when, and I sent you this article, it was about high school students who dressed up in Nazi uniforms for, it was kind of like a school costume party kind of event. And one of the groups of students dressed up in what they thought were Nazi uniforms and they made Heil Hitler motions with their hands as part of their performance. The government here did commit to do more Holocaust education. But I think like anywhere in the world outside of places like New York or Israel, you know, it's just a little blip in a curriculum that's covering, you know, some basic facts about European or world history. So the government said they would do a little bit more. Maybe they have. I don't think it's going to make much of a difference. These incidents are going to recur. I mean, I've been living in Taiwan roughly on and off for 30 years, and I've shared with you examples of these kinds of inappropriate use of Holocaust or Nazi references in advertising and politics. The incident in the school in 2016, you know these incidents keep happening. So obviously, whatever education they're doing is not working. 

Eliana: Definitely. And is there education about Judaism as a whole, Jewish practices, Jewish traditions, Jewish holidays, anything like that? Do students get school off for Jewish holidays? 

Ross Darrel Feingold: No, not that I know of. It's only if they would invite in the rabbi from either the reform synagogue or from the Chabad to give a talk, and they sometimes do get those kinds of invitations, but I don't think they're reaching a large number of youngsters with that. So the answer to your question would be no. I don't think there's much education about what is Judaism for younger people here in Taiwan. 

Eliana: Yes, and that would be very difficult, especially if they went to school, let's say, in the United States, and were with so many different Jewish students. That would probably be a struggle. 

Ross Darrel Feingold: Yes.

Eliana: So I want to switch gears a bit to talking about the war on October 7th. The first question would be, have you felt a change in attitudes about Jewish people in your community since the start of the war?  

Ross Darrel Feingold: Well, like a lot of places around the world, there are people who are people here in Taiwan and certainly over in China, a lot of people who are upset at Israel. They're upset at the large number of civilian deaths and the destruction that's taking place in Gaza that we see on TV nearly every single day. And that's led to antisemitism, I wouldn't say specifically here in Taiwan, but again, because I'm an active social media user in China and I'm engaging with people on social media in China every day, the amount of antisemitism or whether that's in mems or text messages, like, “Jews are better off being soap or going up and being gassed and going up in smoke,” it's a extraordinarily large quantity of these kinds of antisemitic messages that I see on, uh, I'll just broadly call it the Chinese internet. I mean, Chinese language internet and social media that I have some exposure to. Yeah, the quantity of, of anti semitism is just extraordinary.  

Eliana: And have you been directly affected or directly affected more by antisemitism in the wake of the events on October 7th?  

Ross Darrel Feingold: Well, I wind up spending more time responding to it, so that that's one way that I'm directly offended. I mean, nobody has said anything. Uh, you know, no Chinese person or Taiwanese person, in person, well, I haven't had any kind of in-person incidents. I lost one American friend in Hong Kong that I used to text with every day because he said Israel deserved this. And, you know, that was the end of our friendship. But again, what I do have personal experience with is the enormous quantity of antisemitic content that has flourished on the Chinese Internet. And I'll say this because I think it's a very important point. In China, the internet is closely controlled by government censors. And the companies have policies and algorithms so that they don't get in trouble with the censor. So very often when stuff is removed from the Chinese Internet from social media in China, it's not because the government sensor told the company to remove it. Very often, the company has already developed its own algorithms because the companies know where the red lines are. So, very often, the companies themselves will remove content because they know if it stays online, it's going to anger the authorities. So the point I want to make is a lot of this antisemitic content that I see on the Chinese social media, if those messages were about Muslims, they would be removed immediately because the Chinese government, they don't want to have any ethnic strife in China. Right? So they have millions of Muslims in China. They don't want their millions of Muslims to be angry about anti-Muslim content that appears on Chinese social media. So I could say with certainty these kinds of antisemitism and nasty remarks and mems and things like that, that are basic antisemitic in nature, that are directed at me on Chinese social media; if that was about Muslims, it would be removed immediately, again, in the interest of avoiding ethnic strife in China. But it's very clear that the social media companies in China have not felt the need to adjust their algorithms to remove antisemitic content. I think that's like I said, I think it's a really important point. 

Eliana: Definitely. So what strategies, besides pointing out the antisemitic remarks and translating them, do you use to combat antisemitism, both in the past few months or throughout your life?  

Ross Darrel Feingold: Often it's Germany or Israel's diplomatic representatives who will follow up on these incidents. So here in Taiwan, a lot of those incidents that involve, for example, the inappropriate use of Nazi or Holocaust imagery in the commercial context, or politicians calling their opponents Nazis. Typically you'll see the German diplomats or Israel diplomats will get involved in trying to convince the person why this is wrong, why they should take it down. I mean, that's not realistic with the extraordinary quantity of stuff now that's on the Chinese Internet. I mean, they couldn't possibly unless again, unless they convince the companies to adjust their algorithms to automatically delete this stuff, you couldn't possibly talk to the thousands and thousands of people who are posting this kind of stuff. I mean, so I put a post on my Chinese social media account last week about that day when 21 Israeli soldiers died in Gaza. I wrote, you know, this is a tragedy and condolences to their families, and it was read by like 80,000 people, and something like 10,000 people wrote comments and the comments were all universal in condemning Israel and so many of those comments were antisemitic. So it's difficult to fight against that, but, you know, it's again, it's following that principle that we have to as Jews. We have to speak up. We can't be shy about this and we have to let people know we have to explain why it's wrong. That's why I added English subtitles to some of the antisemitic videos. You know, it took a lot of time to do that. Not only did we have to do the translation, but we had to do the technical aspects as well to add the subtitles and then try and get some traffic, try and get people to actually watch that stuff.

Eliana: Have you had a lot of people watching these videos?

Ross Darrel Feingold: Unfortunately, no. I've been disappointed that more people haven't found it. And that's why I keep talking about it. I wrote 1 column that was published in an online publication called The Diplomat. It focuses on Asia Pacific political issues and actually that was published on September 20th. It was just by coincidence. It was a few weeks before the Hamas attack and the war began. And then a couple of days ago, I was featured in a story on Fox News website where they talked about this and there was a link to some of my videos.  

Eliana: What did you talk about on Fox News? 

Ross Darrel Feingold: Um, again, it was only print. It wasn't, it wasn't on TV. I just talked basically a, you know, kind of a short summary of the extraordinary amount of antisemitic content that now exists on the Chinese social media and that the authorities in China are clearly, at this point in time, they have not been motivated to remove it. Whereas again, I think if it was anti-Muslim content, they would remove it very quickly. 

Eliana: So that's the end of my questions because I didn't want to take up too much of your time.

Ross Darrel Feingold: But it's no problem. Is there any more?  

Eliana: Is there anything you'd like to add that we haven't touched on yet?  

Ross Darrel Feingold: I'll just add that antisemitism is clearly a problem around the world. It's not just in Europe or in the United States. You know I'm speaking from Taiwan and I have a lot of exposure to China, and it's definitely a problem that exists in this part of the world as well. 

Eliana: And do you have any questions for me or about the project I'm working on and why I'm doing this interview.

Ross Darrel Feingold: No, nothing comes to mind, but feel free to contact me again if you need to follow up. 

Eliana: Thank you so much.