Israel Epstein

Israel Epstein (20 April 1915 – 26 May 2005), also known by his Chinese nickname "Aipei", was a Polish-born Chinese journalist who was one of the few foreign-born members of the Chinese Communist Party.

Born into a Polish family which fled to China after Epstein's birth, he covered the Japanese invasion of China for Allied news agencies and was later captured by Japanese forces. After the war, he became editor in chief of China Today.

Early life and education Israel Epstein was born on 20 April 1915 in Warsaw to Polish Jewish parents; Warsaw was then part of Congress Poland, which was under Imperial Russian control. His father had been imprisoned by the authorities of Tsarist Russia for leading a labor uprising and his mother had been exiled to Siberia. Epstein's father was sent by his company to Japan after the outbreak of World War I; when the German Army approached Warsaw, his mother and Epstein fled and joined him in Asia. With his family experiencing antisemitism in several places, Epstein came to China with his parents at the age of two and, in 1920, they settled in Tianjin, where Epstein was raised. In 1944, Epstein first visited Britain and 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 book The Unfinished Revolution in China in 1947. His book was reviewed in The New York Times by Owen Lattimore of Johns Hopkins University.

In 1951, Communist defector Elizabeth 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."

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. Epstein (front line, second right) visited Yan'an in 1944 with Mao (top right)In 1951, Soong Ching-ling invited him to return to China with his wife Fairfax-Cholmeley.

Imprisonments Epstein was placed in a concentration camp by Imperial Japanese authorities following the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. He escaped with other prisoners. Epstein died in Beijing on 26 May 2005. His funeral was held at the Babaoshan Cemetery for Revolutionaries, in Shijingshan District, Beijing on 3 June 2005.

Published works The People's War. [An Account of the War in China to the Fall of Hankow], V. Gollancz, 1939, 384 p. I Visit Yenan: Eye Witness Account of the Communist-led Liberated Areas in North-West China, People's Publishing House [Bombay], 1945, 94 pp. Notes on Labor Problems in Nationalist China, Garland Pub., 1980, 159 pp. My China Eye: Memoirs of a Jew and a Journalist, Long River Press, 2005, 358 pp. History Should Not be Forgotten, 五洲传播出版社, 2005, 286 pp.

First published in English The Unfinished Revolution in China, Little Brown and Company (1947), hardcover, 442 pp.

Published in Chinese, translated into English From Opium War to Liberation, New World Press (Beijing, 1956), hardcover, 146 pp. Tibet Transformed, New World Press (Beijing, 1983), trade paperback, 563 pp, Woman in World History: Soong Ching Ling, New World Press (Beijing, 1993), hardcover,