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Jewish / Zionist youth group
The Jewish population of Harbin was probably about 8,000 before World War I, and reached 15,000 or more in the 1920s. (The highest estimate is 25,000) Since Harbin probably had about 120,000 Russians at that time (some figures go as high as 200,000), Jews were a decided minority among the city’s Russians (not to mention its overall population of around 500,000), but not an insignificant one, and their relations with the rest of the Russian community were often tense. Many of the Russian exiles, especially the ex-soldiers – though certainly not all of them – belonged to the political far right. For various reasons, the Russian right wing had a very strong anti-Semitic element, which often portrayed Jews both as ruthless capitalists who had destroyed the Russian peasantry and as communists who were responsible for the excesses of the Soviet Union. Partly in response to this, and in an absence of legal protections for minorities in both pre- and post-revolutionary Russia, Zionism – the movement for a Jewish national homeland, usually imagined in what was then Palestine – was quite strong among Russian Jews in this period, both within Russia and in diaspora locations such as Harbin. Britain took control of Palestine (formerly ruled by the Ottomans) during World War I, and announced their support for some sort of Jewish homeland there (leaving the details vague); this further strengthened interest in Zionism among Jews in Harbin (and elsewhere), and Zionist youth groups became a major part of Jewish life in many places.
These groups varied considerably in their ideologies, and in their attitudes towards violence. The one that predominated in Harbin, called Betar (meaning “fortress”), came from the hardline, ultra-militant wing of Zionism. (it had been founded by Jews from Riga, which was then Russian-ruled; this may have given it particular credibility among the Russian Jewish exiles in Harbin.) Bard himself was a Zionist, and remained one throughout his life – he later wrote that when he eventually visited Israel years later, and met up with old friends from Harbin’s Betar he felt guilty about not having moved to Palestine when Japan took over Harbin, as they had. But he favored a much more moderate Zionism than Betar’s, much less willing to support violence. In fact, in an unpublished family history Bard wrote late in his life (2007), he referred to Betar as resembling “brownshirts”: the paramilitary shock troops of the early Nazi movement, also a product of this period. His disillusionment with Betar had important implications for his subsequent life, as some of his friends who remained active in the group chose to emigrate to British Palestine (later Israel) when things got ugly under the Japanese in the 1930s – while Bard instead went to Shanghai and then Hong Kong.
It is unclear how important Betar was to the Jewish community in Harbin, or how many people who had some association with it supported its entire program. A history of the Harbin Jewish community by one enthusiastic ex-member credits the group with protecting people against the White Russians, as well as organizing many social and cultural activities; Bard mentions sports teams and outings sponsored by Betar, but otherwise says little about it, and refers to violence only in the context of “boys” getting involved in “street brawls.” There is no doubt, though, that it organized many other activities – from sports teams to summer camps, nature hikes, and music programs, and was often the only group sponsoring such activities for Jews in Harbin; Bard participated in many of these activities while growing up there.
uncle David
Bard’s maternal uncle, David Froumson, was a major influence on him. Among other things he introduced him to the violin, and to playing in orchestras; but he also helped convince Bard not to pursue music as a career. Froumson’s own career helps explain why.
David was born in Sebastopol in 1897, where his father and mother (Bard’s grandparents) were furriers; his father also gave music lessons (on violin and flute) and dance lessons to supplement his income. David played the violin but did not originally plan to make it his career.
Fate intervened as David was conscripted into the Russian army before he had a chance to fully learn any trade. Escaping from that, he was back in Sebastopol when the Red Army approached during the Russian Civil War, and it seemed likely that he would be conscripted again, He and his brother fled on the first boat they could get on, which happened to be a Greek warship headed for the Middle East. Disembarking, David found that his most marketable skill was his violin-playing; from 1923-26, he made his living playing in night clubs in Aleppo and Beirut. In 1926, his sister (Bard’s mother) with most of her family now settled in Harbin, sent for David, and he joined the family there.
Bard’s mother disapproved of he brother making his living in night clubs, feeling that this was not fully respectable and also involved hours that were hard to reconcile with having a family. It appears that David himself had doubts, too, but the violin remained his best way of making a living; many Harbin clubs and restaurants had live music, and there was also a “serious” orchestra that David joined. Solly asked him to teach him to play, too, and he turned out to have a knack for it; more music lessons followed, and before long the younger Bard began joining his uncle for some performances.
But David opposed the idea of Solly becoming a professional musician. Apparently, he himself wished that he had a different career -- and he eventually did. Moreover, he told Solly that while he was a very good musician, he was not quite good enough to make a good living as a headline performer. Meanwhile, playing in a band or orchestra was an economically precarious path, and David thought it was about to get much more so: movies with sound (“talkies”) were just taking off, and as they took over, jobs playing in movie house orchestras, accompanying silent films, would vanish. Whatever the exact mix of arguments was – Bard himself gave slightly different accounts on various later occasions – Solly was convinced, and headed for Shanghai to work on English and prepare for medical school. Uncle David went, too, but he continued to work as a musician there: first in the orchestras of nightclubs (some of them Russian-owned and/or themed), where he was again sometimes joined by Solly, and then in the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra.
By 1948, David and his nephew Leo (Bard’s brother) were still in Shanghai, having survived the war; but they were uncertain about what would come next. CCP forces were fast approaching the city, and it was unclear how they would treat either the foreigner-dominated Municipal Orchestra or Leo’s optical business. Still having no passport from any country – the International Settlement in Shanghai, where they had been since 1932, neither required them nor could issue them – they had few options; one was the newly-formed nation of Israel, which would grant entry to any Jew. Both Leo and David moved there; Leo opened an optician’s business, and David, helping him, learned enough to open a shop of his own when Leo, who had never liked living in Israel, moved on to Argentina (where his parents still lived) a few years later. He was apparently pleased to no longer depend on music for a living, as he had for over 25 years. Eventually David moved, too, following his married daughter to Melbourne, Australia.
the Japanese has seized Manchuria
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(Source: S.C.M. Paine; The Wars for Asia, 1911-1949)
scattered in many directions
Some Harbin Russians went to the Soviet Union, which generally did not work out: many were killed either in Stalin’s purges or in WW II. Some went to the Americas, both North and South; some to Shanghai or other places in China; some of Bard’s friends from the Jewish community went to Palestine. Quite a few, like Bard, wound up in Hong Kong as well; Bard played violin at least one public benefit concert for Russian refugees.
