This study looks at the community of Shanghai Jews in its diversity, 1930s-1940s, then at its interactions in 1949 with the American Jewish communities of Atlanta and New York as Shanghai Jews were transported across the United States in sealed trains. This exploration supports the argument that Shanghai Jewish refugees and American Jewish communities existed in an interdependent relationship at the close of the 1940s. Through an exploration of individual and institutional interactions in Shanghai, Atlanta, and New York, with an emphasis on media, this study questions what these interactions tell us–and do not tell us–about both the host and refugee communities.