Person · 5654–5736 AM · 1894 CE — 1976 CE
Mao Zedong 毛泽东
Founder of the People's Republic of China: the Great Leap and the Cultural Revolution
He took power in China in 1949 and ruled until his death. He has no direct Jewish connection—he stands here as a measure of what was happening in the world in the years when the State of Israel came into being. The communities of Shanghai and Harbin, where refugees from Nazism had sheltered, were already leaving by the time he came to power, and by the late 1950s no Jewish communal life remained in China.
He died on 9 September 1976—before Tishrei, so 5736 AM.
Sources
Scholarship
- Wikipedia, “Mao Zedong” — exact dates; the rule 1949–1976
Basis: documents and evidence.