Sold on a Stereotype

Yin Ri Shuai, a Chinese entrepreneur, says Jewish success books "teach about family and education and other values," not just business. (By Ariana Eunjung Cha -- The Washington Post)

Several of the books, despite their covers, focus on basic business acumen that has little to do with religion or culture. But others focus on explaining how Judaism has ostensibly helped Jewish people's success, even quoting extensively from the Talmud.

Practically every book features one or more case studies of the success of the Lehman brothers, the Rothschilds and other Jewish "titans of industry and captains of finance," as one author put it.

Some works incorrectly refer to J.P. Morgan (an influential Episcopalian leader) and John D. Rockefeller (a devout Baptist) as Jewish businessmen.

Yin Ri Shuai, a 29-year-old from Henan province, west of Shanghai, who is opening a cosmetics franchise, has purchased and read two such success books. Recently, he was back at the Shanghai City of Books, flipping through some recent titles.

"I feel they are interesting not only because they teach about business but because they teach about family and education and other values," Yin said.

Most Chinese people have never met a Jew -- they number fewer than 10,000 in a country of 1.3 billion people. But several of the most successful businessmen in the nation's financial capital, Shanghai, have been Jewish. The Sassoon brothers, for instance, were real-estate moguls of British descent from Baghdad who constructed the landmark Peace Hotel.

Today, one of the deans of the Jewish community in Shanghai is Ohana's father, Maurice, 57, who has lived in China for more than 10 years.

Maurice Ohana has mixed feelings about the Jewish business books. On the one hand, he believes that the books' assertions that many Jewish people value punctuality and never go back on their promises are "absolutely correct."

But the books' tendency to mix religious scripture with business lessons makes him uncomfortable. "I know very well the Talmud," he said. "They don't talk about business."

Positive stereotypes about Jews and their supposed business prowess have given the Jewish community iconic status in the eyes of the Chinese public.

The cover of January's Shanghai and Hong Kong Economy magazine wonders, "Where does Jewish people's wisdom come from?"

Jewish entrepreneurs say they are bombarded with invitations to give seminars on how to make money "the Jewish way."