(Jewish Group) His great-grandparents found refuge in China...

[Behind the Aegis]

His great-grandparents found refuge in China. Now this Canadian Jew is starting for its hockey team.

Most of Ethan Werek’s teammates on the Chinese Olympic hockey team had never met a Jewish person before he joined the roster.

But Werek’s family tree was once planted in Chinese soil.

Like the six athletes suiting up for Israel in this year’s games, Werek didn’t need to be born in the country on his jersey to play for its national team. Yet his right-of-return story is no less Jewish than theirs — and it predates the Jewish state. How this Canadian came to play for the Chinese national team is a Jewish homecoming more than a century in the making.

During World War I, Werek’s great grandparents, Nehemia and Luba Werek, fled Eastern Russia to Harbin, a city in Northeast China where a community of several thousand Jews found safety and better economic opportunities. Werek’s grandparents grew up in China; two aunts were born in Shanghai. In 1948, the family immigrated to Israel, where Ethan’s father was born. The Wereks immigrated to Canada in the 1950s.

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