A colloquium for Israel Epstein, member of the Standing
Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's
Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC)
and honorary chief editor of China
Today, was held on Wednesday in the Great Hall of the
People.
More than 180 luminaries from around the world gathered to
celebrate his 90th birthday. They included Gu
Xiulian, vice chairwoman of the Standing Committee of the
National People's Congress, Hao
Jianxiu, vice chairwoman of the CPPCC National Committee, and
Zhao Qizheng, minister of the State Council Information Office.
Zhao Qizheng and other leaders spoke of Epstein's outstanding
contributions to China's revolution and socialist construction and
praised his internationalism and patriotism.
Epstein was born to a Jewish family in Poland on April 20, 1915.
In 1917, his parents moved to China and settled in Tianjin in 1920.
He grew up, studied and worked in China, and became a naturalized
citizen in 1957.
He participated as a journalist in China's revolution and the
Anti-Japanese War in the 1930s and 1940s, going to front-line bases
and writing eyewitness accounts of the Chinese people who fought
for national independence and liberation.
In May 1944, Epstein wrote more than 10 articles from the Yan'an
headquarters of the Eighth Route Army in Shaanxi
Province for periodicals overseas, predicting that Yan'an was
the future and hope of China.
At the close of World War II, Epstein went to the US, where he
wrote for the Allied Labor News until 1951, when he returned to
work with Soong Ching Ling in Beijing to establish China
Reconstructs (now China Today) magazine.
In April 2004 he published the Chinese edition of his
autobiography, and the English version, A Memoir of More than
80 Years in China, is now complete.
An Epstein Photo Exhibition will be held at the Beijing
Friendship Hotel beginning April 21, and the New World Press plans
to publish a photo album Epstein soon.
(China.org.cn April 20, 2005)
