1. Israel Epstein was a Polish-born Chinese journalist and author.
20 Facts About Israel Epstein
1. 2.
Israel Epstein was one of the few foreign-born Chinese citizens of non-Chinese origin to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party.
3.
Israel Epstein was born on 20 April 1915 in Warsaw to Jewish parents; Warsaw was then part of Congress Poland, which was under Imperial Russian control.
4.
Israel Epstein's father had been imprisoned by the authorities of czarist Russia for leading a labor uprising and his mother had been exiled to Siberia.
5.
Epstein's father was sent by his company to Japan after the outbreak of the World War I; when the German Army approached Warsaw, his mother and Epstein fled and joined him in Asia.
6.
Israel Epstein began to work in journalism at age 15, when he wrote for the Peking and Tientsin Times, an English-language newspaper based in Tianjin.
7.
Israel Epstein covered the Japanese Invasion of China for the United Press and other Western news agencies.
8.
Israel Epstein 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.
9.
In 1934, Israel Epstein married Edith Bihovsky Israel Epstein, later Ballin, from whom he was divorced in the early 1940s.
10.
In 1944, Israel Epstein first visited Britain and afterwards went to live in the United States with his second wife Elsie Fairfax-Cholmeley for five years.
11.
Israel Epstein published his book The Unfinished Revolution in China in 1947.
12.
Israel Epstein's book was enthusiastically reviewed in The New York Times by Owen Lattimore of Johns Hopkins University.
13.
Israel Epstein worked on the translation of the Selected Works of Mao Zedong.
14.
Israel Epstein remained editor-in-chief of China Today until his retirement at age 70, and stayed on as editor emeritus.
15.
In 1955,1965 and 1976 Israel Epstein visited Tibet, and based on these three visits in 1983 published the book Tibet Transformed.
16.
Israel Epstein was imprisoned twice, separately by the Empire of Japan and later by the People's Republic of China.
17.
Israel Epstein was placed in a concentration camp by Imperial Japanese authorities following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
18.
Israel Epstein escaped along with some of the other prisoners.
19.
Israel Epstein was elected as a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body, in 1983.
20.
Israel Epstein's funeral was held at the Babaoshan Cemetery for Revolutionaries, in Shijingshan District, Beijing on 3 June 2005 at 09:30.