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Kaifeng Jews

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Kaifeng Jews
Jews of Kaifeng, late 19th or early 20th century
Regions with significant populations
Israel, China
 China600-1,000[1]
 Israel20 (as of 2016)[2]
Languages
Mandarin Chinese and Hebrew (modern)
Judeo-Persian (historic)
Religion
Judaism, Sunni Islam
Related ethnic groups
Bukharan Jews, Persian Jews, Han Chinese, Hui people

The Kaifeng Jews (Chinese: 開封猶太族; pinyin: Kāifēng Yóutàizú; Template:Lang-he) are members of a small Jewish community in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China, whose members had largely lost their original religion such as Jewish families converting to Islam and becoming Hui Muslims while preserving some Jewish traditions and customs. Their origin and time of arrival in Kaifeng are a matter of debate among experts. While most Kaifeng Jewish descendents are assimilated into mainstream Chinese culture, some still work to maintain their original customs and beliefs.

History

Further information: History of the Jews in China

Early history

Most scholars believe that a Jewish community has existed in Kaifeng since the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127), though some scholars date their arrival to the Tang Dynasty (618–907) or earlier.[3] Kaifeng, which was then the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, was a cosmopolitan city on a branch of the Silk Road. It is surmised that a small community of Mizrahi Jews, who were most likely from Persia (see Persian Jews) or India (see History of the Jews in India) or Jewish refugees who probably fled the Crusades, arrived by a land or a sea route, settled in the city, and built a synagogue in 1163.[4] Fragmentary evidence which dates to the 11th century indicates that at that time, the Kaifeing Jewish community was primarily of Persian Jewish origin but some members of it may have come from different backgrounds. It is thought that some of the Kaifeng Jews originally came from what is now Iraq (see History of the Jews in Iraq). Many of the known Hebrew names of the Kaifeng Jews were only found among Persian and Babylonian Jews. Jewish written sources do not mention how the Jews arrived in Kaifeng, though a legend says that they arrived by land on the Silk Road. It is thought that the core group of Jews which played a decisive role in founding the Kaifeng Jewish community arrived by land, while other Jews, particularly those who had initially lived in other Chinese cities before settling in Kaifeng, arrived by sea with Persian merchants who sailed from the Persian Gulf across the Indian Ocean to Southern China. There is evidence that Jews traveled into China via the northern caravan route. The ancestors of the Kaifeng Jews may have primarily been Bukharan Jews (Jews of Persian origin who settled in Central Asia). The Persian rubrics of the Kaifeng Jewish liturgy are written in the Bukharan dialect and the Bukharan Jews believe that in the past, some of their kin migrated to China and ceased to have contact with their country of origin.[5]

During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), a Ming emperor conferred eight surnames upon the Jews, by which they are identifiable today: Ai, Shi, Gao, Gan, Jin, Li, Zhang and Zhao. By the beginning of the 20th century, one of these Kaifeng clans, the Zhang, had largely converted to Islam.[6]

Leaders among this community were called "mullahs" in a stone inscription giving the community's own account of itself and its origins.[7]

A catastrophic flood in 1642 destroyed the synagogue, and considerable efforts were made to save the scriptures. One man of the Gao clan, Gao Xuan, dove repeatedly into the flooded synagogue to rescue what he could and afterward all seven clans helped restore and rewrite the 13 scrolls.[8] Floods and fire repeatedly destroyed the books of the Kaifeng synagogue;[when?] they obtained some from Ningxia and Ningbo to replace them, and another Hebrew Torah scroll was bought from a Muslim in Ning-keang-chow in Shen-se (Shanxi), who acquired it from a dying Jew at Canton.[when?][9]

Matteo Ricci

A model of the Kaifeng synagogue at the Diaspora Museum, Tel Aviv
Interior of the Kaifeng synagogue, 18th century

The existence of Jews in China was unknown to Europeans until 1605, when Matteo Ricci, then established in Beijing, was visited by a Jew from Kaifeng, who had come to Beijing to take examinations for his jinshi degree. According to his account in De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas,[10][11] his visitor, named Ai Tian (Ai T'ien, 艾田), explained that he worshipped one God. It is recorded that when he saw a Christian image of Mary with Jesus, he believed it to be a picture of Rebecca with Esau or Jacob. Ai said that many other Jews resided in Kaifeng; they had a splendid synagogue (礼拜寺, libai si) and possessed a great number of written materials and books. Ricci wrote that "his face was quite different to that of a Chinese in respect to his nose, his eyes, and all his features". This indicates that up to that time, the Kaifeng Jews had still largely shunned intermixing and were thus physically distinguishable from the surrounding population.[12]

About three years after Ai's visit, Ricci sent a Chinese Jesuit lay brother to visit Kaifeng; he copied the beginnings and ends of the holy books kept in the synagogue, which allowed Ricci to verify that they indeed were the same texts as the Pentateuch known to Europeans, except that they did not use Hebrew diacritics (which were a comparatively late invention).[13]

When Ricci wrote to the "ruler of the synagogue" in Kaifeng, telling him that the Messiah the Jews were waiting for had come already, the archsynagogus wrote back, saying that the Messiah would not come for another ten thousand years. Nonetheless, apparently concerned with the lack of a trained successor, the old rabbi offered Ricci his position, if the Jesuit would join their faith and abstain from eating pork. Later, another three Jews from Kaifeng, including Ai's nephew, stopped by the Jesuits' house while visiting Beijing on business, and got themselves baptized. They told Ricci that the old rabbi had died, and (since Ricci had not taken him up on his earlier offer), his position was inherited by his son, "quite unlearned in matters pertaining to his faith". Ricci's overall impression of the situation of China's Jewish community was that "they were well on the way to becoming Saracens [i.e., Muslims] or heathens."[13]

19th to 20th centuries

The Taiping Rebellion of the 1850s led to the dispersal of the community, but it later returned to Kaifeng. Three stelae with inscriptions were found at Kaifeng. The oldest, dating from 1489, commemorates the construction of a synagogue in 1163 (bearing the name 清真寺, Qingzhen Si, a term often used for mosques in Chinese). The inscription states that the Jews came to China from India during the Han Dynasty period (2nd century BCE – 2nd century CE). It cites the names of 70 Jews with Chinese surnames, describes their audience with an unnamed Song Dynasty emperor, and lists the transmission of their religion from Abraham down to Ezra the scribe. The second tablet, dating from 1512 (found in the synagogue Xuanzhang Daojing Si) details their Jewish religious practices. The third, dated 1663, commemorates the rebuilding of the Qingzhen si synagogue and repeats information that appears in the other two stelae.[14]

Two of the stelae refer to a famous tattoo written on the back of Song Dynasty General Yue Fei. The tattoo, which reads "boundless loyalty to the country" (simplified Chinese: 尽忠报国; traditional Chinese: 盡忠報國; pinyin: jìn zhōng bào guó), first appeared in a section of the 1489 stele talking about the Jews’ “boundless loyalty to the country and Prince”. The second appeared in a section of the 1512 stele talking about how Jewish soldiers and officers in the Chinese armies were “boundlessly loyal to the country.”

Father Joseph Brucker, a Roman Catholic researcher of the early 20th century, notes that Ricci's account of Chinese Jews indicates that there were only in the range of ten or twelve Jewish families in Kaifeng in the late 16th to early 17th centuries,[15] and that they had reportedly resided there for five or six hundred years. It was also stated in the manuscripts that there was a greater number of Jews in Hangzhou.[15] This could be taken to suggest that loyal Jews fled south along with the soon-to-be crowned Emperor Gaozong to Hangzhou. In fact, the 1489 stele mentions how the Jews "abandoned Bianliang" (Kaifeng) after the Jingkang Incident.

Despite their isolation from the rest of the Jewish diaspora, the Jews of Kaifeng preserved Jewish traditions and customs for many centuries. In the 17th century, assimilation began to erode these traditions as the rate of intermarriage between Jews and other ethnic groups, such as the Han Chinese, and the Hui and Manchu minorities in China increased. In 1849, an observer who had contact with the Kaifeng Jewish community noted that "the Jews are quite Chinese in appearance." The destruction of the synagogue in the 1860s led to the community's demise.[16] However, J.L. Liebermann, the first Western Jew to visit Kaifeng in 1867, noted that "they still had a burial ground of their own". In 1868 it was reported that their liturgy consisted only of pieces from the Bible.[17] S.M. Perlmann, a Shanghai businessman and scholar, wrote in 1912 that "they bury their dead in coffins, but of a different shape than those of the Chinese are made, and do not attire the dead in secular clothes as the Chinese do, but in linen."[18]

Kaifeng Jewish ancestry has been found among their descendants living among the Hui Muslims, such as how during a hajj pilgrimage the Hui Muslim woman Jin Xiaojing (金效靜) found out about her Jewish ancestry and wrote about it in the article "China's Jews" (中国的犹太人) published in "Points East" in 1981. Scholars have pointed out that Hui Muslims may have absorbed Kaifeng Jews instead of Han Confucians and Buddhists.[19][20] Jewish converts to Islam who became Hui Muslims in 16th century China were called the blue hat Hui (藍帽回回) since they converted to Islam due to similarities in their tradtions.[21] One of the 7 prominent Hui Muslim clans of Kaifeng, the Zhang Jewish clan, became Muslim; [22] they, among several other Hui Muslims with Kaifeng Jewish ancestry, are openly proud of their ancestry, calling themselves "fake Muslims". [23] Instead of being absorbed into Han, a portion of the Jews of China of Kaifeng became Hui Muslims.[24] In 1948 Samuel Stupa Shih (Shi Hong Mo) (施洪模) said he saw a Hebrew language "Religion of Israel" Jewish inscription on a tombstone in a Qing dynasty Muslim cemetery to a place west of Hangzhou.[25]

The Nanjing and Beijing Jews became Muslims[26] At the start of the 20th century the Zhang Kaifeng Jewish family became Muslims.[27][28] Muslim men married Jewish women.[29] Some Jews adopted non-Jewish sons.[30][31] After the 1642 Yellow River flood some Muslim women were taken as wives by a Kaifeng Jew, "the handsome" Zhang Mei (Chang Mei).[32] Kaifeng Jews became Muslims.[33] Islam was taken up after Kaifeng Jews married Muslims.[34][35] The converts to Islam retained Jewish characteristics after conversion.[36][37]

Today

Earth Market Street, Kaifeng, 1910. The synagogue lay beyond the row of stores on the right

In China, due to the political situation, research on the Kaifeng Jews and Judaism in China came to a standstill until the beginning of the 1980s, when political and economic reforms were implemented. In the 1980s, the Sino-Judaic Institute was founded by an international group of scholars to further research the history of the Jewish communities in China, promote educational projects related to the history of the Jews in China and assist the extant Jews of Kaifeng.[38] The establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Israel in 1992 rekindled interest in Judaism and the Jewish experience, especially in light of the fact that 25,000 Jewish refugees fled to Shanghai during the Nazi period.[39]

It is difficult to estimate the number of Jews in China, population count often having to fluctuate constantly due to changes in official attitudes. The last census revealed about 400 official Jews in Kaifeng, now estimated at some 100 families totalling approximately 500 people.[40] Up to 1,000 residents have ties to Jewish ancestry,[16] though only 40 to 50 individuals partake in Jewish activities.[41]

Some descendants of Kaifeng's Jewish community say their parents and grandparents told them that they were Jewish and would one day "return to their land",[16] others are only vaguely aware of their ancestry.[42]

The Kaifeng Jews intermarried with local Chinese sufficiently to be indistinguishable in appearance from their non-Jewish neighbors.[43] One trait that differentiated them from their neighbors was adhering to some kosher laws such as abstaining from certain foods.[16] Qu Yinan, a Chinese woman who discovered her Jewish ancestry after her mother attended a conference on minorities in 1981, says her family did not eat pork or shellfish and her grandfather always wore a blue skullcap.[44]

Within the framework of contemporary rabbinic Judaism, matrilineal transmission of Jewishness is predominant, while Chinese Jews based their Jewishness on patrilineal descent, likely as a result of Chinese cultural influence (Chinese lines of descent are typically patrilineal).[45][46] As a result, in Israel they are not recognized as Jews by birth and are required to formally convert to Judaism in order to receive Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return.[47][48]

After contact with Jewish tourists, some of the Jews of Kaifeng have reconnected to mainstream Jewry.[49] In 2005 Arutz Sheva reported that a family of Kaifeng Jewish descendants formally converted to Judaism and accepted Israeli citizenship.[50] Their experiences are described in the documentary film, Kaifeng, Jerusalem.[51] On October 20, 2009, the first group of Kaifeng Jews arrived in Israel, in an aliyah operation coordinated by Shavei Israel.[52][53][54]

In the 21st century, both the Sino-Judaic Institute and Shavei Israel sent teachers to Kaifeng to help interested community members learn about their Jewish heritage, building on the pioneering work of the American Judeo-Christian Timothy Lerner.[citation needed]

Advocates for the descendants of the Kaifeng Jews are exploring ways to convince the Chinese authorities to recognize the antiquity of the Kaifeng Jews and allow them to practice their Chinese Jewish way of life.[55]

Kaifeng manuscripts

Membership list in a prayer book, in Hebrew characters (without vowel pointing) and Chinese characters, circa 17th century

A number of surviving written works are housed at Hebrew Union College's Klau Library in Cincinnati, Ohio.[56][57] Among the works in that collection are a siddur (a Jewish prayer book) in Chinese characters and a Hebrew codex of the Bible. The codex is notable in that, while it ostensibly contains vowels, it was clearly copied by someone who did not understand them. While the symbols are accurate portrayals of Hebrew vowels, they appear to be placed randomly, thereby rendering the voweled text as gibberish. Since Modern Hebrew is generally written without vowels, a literate Hebrew speaker can disregard these markings, as the consonants are written correctly, with few scribal errors.[citation needed]

Also at the Klau Library is a haggadah from the 17th century and another from the 18th century, one written in Jewish-Persian hand, the other in Chinese Hebrew square script (like that of the Torah scrolls), using text primarily from an early stage of the Persian Jewish rite.[58] The Haggadah of the Kaifeng Jews of China has a facsimile of one manuscript and a sample of the other, the full text of the Hebrew/Aramaic and Judeo-Persian haggadah (in Hebrew characters), as well as an annotated English translation.[59]

The British Library houses a Torah scroll from the Kaifeng Synagogue.[60]

Controversy

The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions

Ink rubbings of the 1489 stele (left) and 1512 stele (right)

In The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China, Tiberiu Weisz, a teacher of Hebrew history and Chinese religion, presents his own translations of the 1489, 1512, and 1663 stone stelae left by the Kaifeng Jews. Based on the new information gleaned from this translation, Weisz theorizes after the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BCE, disenchanted Levites and Kohanim parted with the Prophet Ezra and settled in Northwestern India. Sometime prior to 108 BCE, these Jews had migrated to Gansu province, China and were spotted by the Chinese general Li Guangli, who was sent to expand the borders of Han Dynasty China. Centuries later, the Jews were expelled from China proper during the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution (845–46), where they lived in the region of Ningxia. Weisz believes they later returned to China during the Song Dynasty when its second emperor, Taizong, sent out a decree seeking the wisdom of foreign scholars.[14]

In a review of the book, Irwin M. Berg, a lawyer and friend of the Kaifeng Jewish community, claims Weisz never figured the many religious documents—Torah, Haggadah, prayer books, etc.—into his thesis and only relied on the stelae themselves. Such documents can be roughly dated from their physical and scribal characteristics. Even though he refers to Persian words utilized in the stelae, Weisz did not include a study on when the Judeo-Persian language of the liturgical documents first came into use in his thesis. Judeo-Persian first developed in Central Asia during the 8th century,[61] well after the author supposes the Jews first entered China. Berg questions the historical reliability of the three stone inscriptions themselves. He gives one anachronistic example where the Jews claim it was an emperor of the Ming Dynasty who bequeathed the land used to build their first synagogue in 1163 during the Song Dynasty.[62]

Authenticity of the Kaifeng Jews

In 2004, Dr. Xun Zhou, a research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, published doubts regarding the authenticity of the Kaifeng community.[63] Zhou asserts that the apparent presence of the Jews was largely a Western cultural construct,[60] which grew following the publication by James Finn of The Jews in China (1840) and The Orphan Colony of Jews in China (1874)[64] whose initial research was based upon the accounts of the 17th century Jesuit missionaries.[63] She maintains that the community had no Torah scrolls until 1851, when they suddenly appeared to be sold to eager Western collectors.[63] She also states that drawings of the synagogue were doctored in the West because the original did not look like one, and that the Kaifeng community claimed to have kept some Jewish practices since before they are known to have begun. Xun Zhou's conclusion is that the Kaifeng community was not Jewish in any meaningful sense.[63] Her hypothesis is countered by historical evidence, artifacts now residing at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and by the persistence of memory among the Jewish descendants themselves.[65]

Recent findings

Yu Peng completely rejects the Song-entry theory,[66] which is widely accepted by many Chinese scholars. The Sinologists Chen Changqi and Wei Qianzhi argue that the Jews went to China in 998, because the Song History records that in the year 998, a monk named Ni-wei-ni (僧你尾尼) and others had spent seven years traveling from India to China in order to pay homage to Emperor Song Zhenzong. However, they believe that Ni-wei-ni was a Jewish rabbi rather than a Buddhist monk.[67][68] Zhang Qianhong and Liu Bailu even cite one statement in the Song History as proof that a large population of Jewish expatriates, having followed monk Ni-wei-ni all the way from India, arrived in Kaifeng on 20 February 998.[69] However, after carefully researching Fo-zu Tong-ji (佛祖统计 Buddha Almanac), a Buddhist book composed by monk Zhi-pan (志磐) in the Song Dynasty, Yu Peng finds the following statement: "In 998, the Central Indian monk Ni-wei-ni (沙门你尾抳) and others came to China to meet Emperor Song Zhenzong with Buddhist relics, scriptures, banyan leafs and several banyan seeds."[70] The description in the book uses the term Sha-men (沙门) Ni-wei-ni rather than Seng (僧) Ni-wei-ni, as used in Song History, though both words mean "Buddhist monk" in Chinese. That said, monk Ni-wei-ni did not bring Western cloth with him, and that he was not a Jewish rabbi.[66]

Yu Peng proposes a Yuan-entry theory which claims that the Kaifeng Jews entered China together with the Hui-hui people (Muslims) during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, because Chinese sources do not mention the existence of Chinese Jews until the Mongol Yuan Dynasty.[71] He argues that the Kaifeng Jews were from Persia.[66]

Based on a sentence on the 1679 stela which states that the An-du-la of Kaifeng Jewish Chao clan was named Jin-yi Gong (锦衣公), Yu points out that rather than being rebuilt or restored in 1421, the synagogue was initially built in 1421, and he also points out that two figures in the 1489 inscription, An-du-la who lived during the Song Dynasty and An Cheng who lived during the Ming Dynasty, were actually one person. According to the genealogical sequence of the Kaifeng Jewish Li clan in a book, the Diary of the Defence of Pien, he ascertains that the Jews arrived in Kaifeng during the Hung Wu Period (1368–98) of the Ming Dynasty. Yu also claims that the imperial policy which discriminated against the Semu people (色目人) and forced them to assimilate into the Chinese population during the early Ming Dynasty also accelerated the assimilation of the Kaifeng Jews. In order to avoid becoming victims of anti-foreign sentiment, discrimination and persecution, the Jews made it seem that they had lived in China for almost as long as the Han Chinese had lived there by dating the history of their immigration to China from the Mongol Yuan Dynasty back to the Song Dynasty, the Han Dynasty or even to the Zhou Dynasty.[66]

Books and films

Kaifeng Jews, National Geographic, 1907

Literary references

The American novelist Pearl S. Buck, raised in China and fluent in Chinese, set one of her historical novels (Peony) in a Chinese Jewish community. The novel deals with the cultural forces which are gradually eroding the separate identity of the Jews, including intermarriage. The title character, the Chinese bondmaid Peony, loves her master's son, David ben Ezra, but she cannot marry him due to her lowly status. He eventually marries a high-class Chinese woman, to the consternation of his mother, who is proud of her unmixed heritage. Descriptions of remnant names, such as a "Street of the Plucked Sinew", and descriptions of customs such as refraining from the eating of pork, are prevalent throughout the novel.

The Broadway musical Chu Chem is a fictional tale which revolves around the Kaifeng Jewish community. In the show, a group of European actors joins a troupe of Chinese performers in order to present the story of Chu Chem, a scholar who journeys to Kaifeng with his wife Rose and his daughter Lotte because he wants to learn about his ancestors and find a husband for Lotte.

Documentary films

In his 1992 documentary series Legacy, historian Michael Wood traveled to Kaifeng and walked down a small lane which he said is known as the "alley of the sect who teach the Scriptures", that is, the alley of the Jews. He mentioned that there are still Jews in Kaifeng today, but they are reluctant to reveal themselves "in the current political climate". The documentary's companion book further states that one can still see a "mezuzah on the door frame, and the candelabrum in the living room". Similarly, in the documentary Quest for the Lost Tribes, by the Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, the film crew visits the home of an elderly Kaifeng Jew who describes the recent history of the Kaifeng Jews, shows some old photographs, and shows his identity papers which state that he is a member of the Jewish ethnic group. A recent documentary, Minyan in Kaifeng, covers the present-day Kaifeng Jewish community in China during a trip to Kaifeng which was taken by Jewish expatriates who met for weekly Friday night services in Beijing; upon learning about the Jews of Kaifeng, the members of the expatriate Jewish community decided to travel to Kaifeng in order to meet some of the descendants of the Kaifeng Jews and hold a Shabbat service.[72]

See also

References

  •  This article incorporates text from Chinese and Japanese repository of facts and events in science, history and art, relating to Eastern Asia, Volume 1, a publication from 1863, now in the public domain in the United States.
  1. ^ "Taking the Silk Route Back Home". Haaretz. Retrieved 2021-09-08.
  2. ^ Winer, Stuart. "5 Chinese women immigrate to Israel, plan conversion". Times of Israel. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
  3. ^ Laytner, Anson (2011). Baskin, Judith R. (ed.). China. Cambridge University Press. pp. 100–2. ISBN 978-0-521-82597-9. Retrieved 2012-02-01. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  4. ^ Fishbane, Matthew (March 30, 2010). "China's Ancient Jewish Enclave". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2012-07-20. Retrieved 9 May 2020.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
  5. ^ The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion, pp. 26-27
  6. ^ Ehrlich, M. Avrum, ed. (2008), The Jewish-Chinese Nexus: A Meeting of Civilizations, UK: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-45715-6.
  7. ^ "Record of the Reconstruction of the Ching-Chen-Si", Dartmouth Digital Collections
  8. ^ Malek, Roman (2017). From Kaifeng to Shanghai: Jews in China. Routledge. p. 123. ISBN 9781351566285.
  9. ^ Chinese and Japanese repository of facts and events in science, history and art, relating to Eastern Asia. Vol. 1. Oxford. 1863. p. 48. Retrieved 2011-07-06.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)(Original from the University of Michigan)
  10. ^ Ricci, Matteo (1953), "11", in Gallagher (ed.), De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas [China in the Sixteenth Century: The Journals], vol. one, New York: Random House, pp. 107–11.
  11. ^ Ricci, Matteo; Trigault, Nicolas (1617), De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas suscepta ab Societate Jesu (Google Books) (in Latin), vol. one, pp. 131ff.
  12. ^ Leslie, Donald (1972-01-01). The Survival of the Chinese Jews: The Jewish Community of Kaifeng. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-03413-6.
  13. ^ a b Ricci 1953, p. 109.
  14. ^ a b Weisz, Tiberiu. The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China. New York: iUniverse, 2006 (ISBN 0-595-37340-2) Google books
  15. ^ a b De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas, p. 108 in Gallagher's English translation (1953)
  16. ^ a b c d Pfeffer, Anshel (2008-06-27), Taking the Silk Route back home, Haaretz, archived from the original on 24 January 2010, retrieved 2009-12-28
  17. ^ Chambers's encyclopædia, 1868, p. 155
  18. ^ Dawid, Heinz (1998), "From Berlin To Tianjin", in Goldstein, Jonathan (ed.), The Jews of China, vol. 1, p. 117, ISBN 9780765601032
  19. ^ Kupfer, Helmut Karl Peter (2008). Kupfer, Peter (ed.). Youtai - Presence and Perception of Jews and Judaism in China. Vol. 47 of FASK, Publikationen des Fachbereichs Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz in Germersheim: Abhandlungen und Sammelbände, Universität Mainz Fachbereich Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft. Peter Lang. p. 47. ISBN 3631575335. ISSN 0941-9543. Later, in the 19th and 20th centuries, it is likely, as suggested by many scholars, that several of the Kaifeng Jews did convert to Islam rather than simply being swallowed up in the Buddhist or Confucian multitude. Today, a number of Muslims (and possibly non-Muslims) have discovered that their ancestors were Kaifeng Jews.108... 108 Jin Xiaojing 金效靜, 1981 , translated in Points East 1.1 ( Jan 1986 ) , 1 , 4-5 . She discovered she was of Jewish descent when on the hajj to Mecca !
  20. ^ 金效静;;中国的犹太人[J];社会科学战线;1981年04期
  21. ^ Kupfer, Helmut Karl Peter (2008). Kupfer, Peter (ed.). Youtai - Presence and Perception of Jews and Judaism in China. Vol. 47 of FASK, Publikationen des Fachbereichs Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz in Germersheim: Abhandlungen und Sammelbände, Universität Mainz Fachbereich Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft. Peter Lang. p. 196. ISBN 3631575335. ISSN 0941-9543. Islamic works translated into Chinese played a very important role in the popularization of Islam . At the same time , many Jews who did not like to abandon their tradition converted to Islam and were known as the " Huihui with blue hats A 藍帽回回" . The missionary work of Christians from the beginning of the 17th century and the Chinese Bible did not affect them .
  22. ^ Kupfer, Helmut Karl Peter (2008). Kupfer, Peter (ed.). Youtai - Presence and Perception of Jews and Judaism in China. Vol. 47 of FASK, Publikationen des Fachbereichs Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz in Germersheim: Abhandlungen und Sammelbände, Universität Mainz Fachbereich Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft. Peter Lang. p. 106. ISBN 3631575335. ISSN 0941-9543. Others said he may indeed be from the Zhang clan, but that the clan (one of the "Seven Surnames") had apparently converted to Islam over a century ago.
  23. ^ Kupfer, Helmut Karl Peter (2008). Kupfer, Peter (ed.). Youtai - Presence and Perception of Jews and Judaism in China. Vol. 47 of FASK, Publikationen des Fachbereichs Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz in Germersheim: Abhandlungen und Sammelbände, Universität Mainz Fachbereich Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft. Peter Lang. p. 18. ISBN 3631575335. ISSN 0941-9543. 26 Some of those who converted to Islam, like the Zhang family, still seem to cherish this past as well and consider themselves as "fake Moslems". This has been confirmed by Zhang Qianhong and Li Jingwen in "Some Observations ...," 2000, p. 165.
  24. ^ Kupfer, Helmut Karl Peter (2008). Kupfer, Peter (ed.). Youtai - Presence and Perception of Jews and Judaism in China. Vol. 47 of FASK, Publikationen des Fachbereichs Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz in Germersheim: Abhandlungen und Sammelbände, Universität Mainz Fachbereich Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft. Peter Lang. p. 48. ISBN 3631575335. ISSN 0941-9543. "This also involves a difficult study of the relations that existed between the Kaifeng Jews and Muslims there. A number of Jewish descendants converted to Islam rather than melting into the general populations. What is their attitude to Judaism now?
  25. ^ Kupfer, Helmut Karl Peter (2008). Kupfer, Peter (ed.). Youtai - Presence and Perception of Jews and Judaism in China. Vol. 47 of FASK, Publikationen des Fachbereichs Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz in Germersheim: Abhandlungen und Sammelbände, Universität Mainz Fachbereich Angewandte Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaft. Peter Lang. p. 50. ISBN 3631575335. ISSN 0941-9543. It is clear from Shi's later descriptions that many of the tombstones he saw were Muslim rather than Jewish, though one, he claimed, read "Religion of Israel" in Hebrew. In Hangzhou, according to Ricci in 1608, there had been a synagogue. We can only wonder whether the Jews there had a separate cemetery of their own or were accepted by the Muslims in their special cemetery.
  26. ^ Lieberman, Phillip I., ed. (2021). The Cambridge History of Judaism: Volume 5, Jews in the Medieval Islamic World. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781009038591. ... the Jewish presence in the city predates this year.242 According to the 1489 inscription, the founders of the Kaifeng ... while others state that the Jews of Beijing and Nanjing converted to Islam.249 The same Ricci was the first to ...
  27. ^ Ehrlich, M. Avrum; Liang, Pingan (2008). "Part V KAIFENG JEWISH DESCENDANTS 14 THE CONTEMPORARY CONDITION OF THE JEWISH DESCENDANTS OF KAIFENG". In Ehrlich, M. Avrum (ed.). The Jewish-Chinese Nexus: A Meeting of Civilizations. Routledge Jewish Studies Series (illustrated ed.). Routledge. p. 194. ISBN 978-1134105533. Out of the seven original clans of Kaifeng Jews, the Zhang clan was said to have converted to Islam in the beginning of the twentieth century with the decline of the community and the problems in that period of China's history.
  28. ^ Dubov, Kalman. Journey to the People's Republic of China; Review & Analysis. Kalman Dubov. Most of the Zhang converted to Islam. Jews who managed the synagogues were called mullahs. A high number of Kaifeng Jews passed the difficult Chinese Civil Service examination during the Ming Dynasty. Four inscriptions from 1489, 1512, ...
  29. ^ Xu, Xin; Gonen, Rivka (2003). The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion. KTAV Publishing House, Inc. p. 55. ISBN 0881257915. Two families intermarry with Chinese Mohammedans only . The Jews give their daughters to the Mohammedans ; the Mohammedans do not give their daughters to the Jews . The Jews do not know from whence they came , or the period of their ...
  30. ^ Goldstein, Jonathan, ed. (1998). The Jews of China. M.E. Sharpe. p. 119. ISBN 076563631X. A 1757 regulation in the Paradesi record book stated : " If an Israelite or a ger [ apparently , a convert from outside Cochin ] marries a woman from the daughters ... of the mshuchrarim , the sons who are born to them go after the ...
  31. ^ Goldstein, Jonathan; Schwartz, Benjamin I. (2015). The Jews of China: v. 1: Historical and Comparative Perspectives (illustrated ed.). Routledge. ISBN 978-1317456049. Some ancestor rituals may still be carried out by Kaifeng Jewish descent groups today; it is hoped that ongoing ... a convert from outside Cochin] marries a woman from the daughters ... of the mshuchrarim, the sons who are born to them ...
  32. ^ Baron, Salo Wittmayer (1952). A Social and Religious History of the Jews: Late Middle Ages and the era of European expansion, 1200-1650. Vol. 18. Columbia University Press. p. 617. ISBN 0231088558. Characteristically , however , the Jewish people did not observe special memorial days for most of its ancient and ... No one seems to have seriously questioned the permissibility of the Kaifeng Jews marrying more than one wife .
  33. ^ LESLIE, DONALD DANIEL (2017). "INTEGRATION, ASSIMILATION, AND SURVIVAL OF MINORITIES IN CHINA: THE CASE OF THE KAIFENG JEWS". In Malek, Roman (ed.). From Kaifeng to Shanghai: Jews in China. Routledge. p. 68. ISBN 978-1351566292. In any case, the Kaifeng Jews did not stand out as an exotic community, for there were a large number of Muslims there, ... and they did not intermarry.93 According to most authorities, many Jews finally assimilated to Islam.
  34. ^ Shapiro, Sidney (2001). Jews in Old China: Studies by Chinese Scholars. Hippocrene Books. p. 233. ISBN 0781808332. Muslim religious strictures required anyone , whether man or woman , who married a Muslim to convert to Islam . ... An San , a Kaifeng Jew , was awarded a rank of Third Grade , because of services he had rendered to the court ... -followers were not assimilated into the Han population. Jews who married Muslims had to embrace Islam. This is one of the reasons the Jews were assimilated.
  35. ^ Goldstein, Jonathan, ed. (1999). "Contributors Benjamin Isadore Schwartz, Frank Joseph Shulman". The Jews of China: Historical and comparative perspectives. East Gate book. Vol. 1 of The Jews of China. M.E. Sharpe. p. 119. ISBN 0765601036. A 1757 regulation in the Paradesi record book stated : " If an Israelite or a ger ( apparently , a convert from outside Cochin ) marries a woman from the daughters ... of the mshuchrarim , the sons who are born to them go after the ...
  36. ^ Points East, Volumes 1-7. Sino-Judaic Institute. 1986. p. 8. Even the first generation of a mixed marriage will often find the offspring only too happy to escape into the non ... Though the Jews converted to Islam , they apparently retained a Jewish coloration , much like Jews to convert to ...
  37. ^ Contributors Michael Pollak, Bet ha-tefutsot (Tel Aviv, Israel) (1984). קהילת קאפינג: Chinese Jews on the Banks of the Yellow River. Bet Hatefutsoth, The Nahum Goldman Museum of the Jewish Diaspora. The community was also weakened by repeated natural, military and economic catastrophes that Kaifeng experienced over the centuries. Fire and flood took their toll, {{cite book}}: |author1= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  38. ^ "The Sino-Judaic Institute". Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  39. ^ Jüdische Nachrichten. "Youtai – Presence and Perception of Jews and Judaism in China". Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  40. ^ "Are There Really Jews in China?: An Update". Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  41. ^ "China Virtual Jewish History Tour". www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org.
  42. ^ "Hadassah Magazine".
  43. ^ Epstein, Maram, American The Jews of China. Volume 1, Historical and Comparative Perspectives (review), China Review International — Volume 7, Number 2, Fall 2000, pp. 453–45
  44. ^ "CHINESE WRITER STUDIES JEWISH ROOTS". The New York Times. 18 June 1985. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  45. ^ Jackson, Madison. "The Jews of Kaifeng: China's Only Native Jewish Community". My Jewish Learning. 70/Faces Media. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  46. ^ Song, Xi; Cambell, Cameron D.; Lee, James Z. (May 31, 2015). "Ancestry Matters: Patrilineage Growth and Extinction". American Sociological Review. 80 (3): 574–602. doi:10.1177/0003122415576516. PMC 4813328. PMID 27041745.
  47. ^ Burke, Sarah; Jabari, Lawahez (March 2, 2016). "Chinese Kaifeng Jews Seek New Lives in Israel". NBC Universal. NBC News. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  48. ^ "Eligibility for Aliyah". The Jewish Agency for Israel. The Jewish Agency. 17 September 2013. Retrieved 4 July 2021.
  49. ^ Kaifeng Jews Celebrate Hannukah on YouTube
  50. ^ From a Village in China. To the Wedding Canopy in Jerusalem. Arutz 7
  51. ^ "箱根の楽しみ方ガイド". Archived from the original on 20 April 2018. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  52. ^ From Kaifeng to kibbutzim. Jerusalem Post
  53. ^ Descendants of Chinese Jews arrive in Israel, Jewish telegraphic Agency news service, 10//26/09.
  54. ^ Kaifeng Jews study in Israeli yeshiva, On road to full Orthodox conversion, seven dedicated Chinese Jews plan to exchange their visitor permits for aliyah visas to make their trip to Israel a permanent one, by Rebecca Bitton, 08/24/10.
  55. ^ Anson Laytner, "Between Survival and Revival: The Impact of Western Jewish Interaction on Kaifeng-Jewish Identity," in Anson Laytner & Jordan Paper, The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng: A Millennium of Adaptation and Endurance (Lexington Books, 2017)
  56. ^ Dalsheimer Rare Book Exhibit Archived 2010-05-28 at the Wayback Machine Jews of Kaifeng Manuscripts
  57. ^ "Jews of Kaifeng ~ Rare Book Exhibit". Hebrew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion. Retrieved 2020-11-20.
  58. ^ Stern, David (Spring 2013). "Why Is This Haggadah Different?". Jewish Review of Books. Archived from the original on 26 November 2019.
  59. ^ Wong, Fook-Kong; Yasharpour, Dalia (2011). The Haggadah of the Kaifeng Jews of China. Brill. doi:10.1163/9789004208100. ISBN 9789004208100.
  60. ^ a b "Sacred Texts: Kaifeng Torah". Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  61. ^ Roth, Norman. Medieval Jewish Civilization: An Encyclopedia. Routledge, 2002, p. 394
  62. ^ Review of The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions. Retrieved 09-26-2009
  63. ^ a b c d Zhuo, Xun (2005). "The Kaifeng Jew Hoax: Constructing the 'Chinese Jews'". In Kalmar, Ivan Davidson; Penslar, Derek Jonathan (eds.). Orientalism and the Jews. UPNE. pp. 68–80. ISBN 978-1-58465-411-7.
  64. ^ The Orphan Colony of Jews in China, 1874
  65. ^ See Jordan Paper, "The Theology of the Kaifeng Jews, 1000–1850" (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2012); Xu Xin, "The Jews of Kaifeng China" (KTAV, 2003); Sidney Shapiro, "Jews in Old China" (Hippocrene, 2001); Anson Laytner and Jordan Paper, "The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng" (Lexington Books, 2017); and Chaim Simons, "Jewish Religious Observance by the Jews of Kaifeng China" (Sino-Judaic Institute, 2010).
  66. ^ a b c d Yu, Peng (Autumn 2017). "Revising the date of Jewish arrival in Kaifeng, China, from the Song Dynasty (960–1279) to the Hung-wu period (1368–98) of the Ming Dynasty". Journal of Jewish Studies. LXVIII (2): 369–86. doi:10.18647/3330/JJS-2017.
  67. ^ Chen,Changqi.‘Buddhist Monk or Jewish Rabbi?’, in Shapiro (ed.), Jews in Old China, pp. 139–42
  68. ^ Wei, Qianzhi. ‘Investigation of the Date of Jewish Settlement in Kaifeng’, Historical Monthly 5 (1993), pp. 36–41; p. 39.
  69. ^ Zhang, Qianhong and Liu, Bailu. ‘A Study on the Social Condition of Kaifeng Jews from the Remaining Stone Inscriptions’, Journal of Henan University 46:6 (2006), pp. 97–100; p. 97.
  70. ^ Zhi-pan, Fo-zu Tong-ji (Buddha Almanac), vol. 44; in Fo-zu Tong-ji CBETA Electronic Version (: Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association, 2002), p. 444, http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/BDLM/sutra/chi_pdf/sutra20/T49n2035.pdf
  71. ^ Chen, Yuan. ‘Study of the Israelite Religion in ’, in Z. Wu (ed.), Selected Historical Essays by Chen Yuan (Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1981), pp. 84–5.
  72. ^ "Minyan in Kaifeng: A Modern Journey to an Ancient Chinese Jewish Community". Retrieved 14 June 2016.

Further reading

  • Anson Laytner and Jordan Paper, The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng: A Millennium of Adaptation and Endurance (Lexington Books, 2017).
  • Loewe, Michael (1988). "The Jewish Presence in Imperial China". Jewish Historical Studies. 30: 1–20. JSTOR 29779835.
  • Patricia M. Needle (ed.), East Gate of Kaifeng: a Jewish world inside China, China Center, U. of Minnesota, 1992, ISBN 978-0-9631087-0-8.
  • Jordan Paper (2012), The Theology of the Kaifeng Jews, 1000–1850 (Wilfrid Laurier UP).
  • Michael Pollak, Mandarins, Jews, and Missionaries: the Jewish experience in the Chinese Empire, (New York: Weatherhill, 1998), ISBN 978-0-8348-0419-7.
  • Shlomy Raiskin, "A Bibliography on Chinese Jewry", Moreshet Israel (Journal of Judaism, Zionism and Eretz-Israel), No. 3 (September 2006), pp. 60–85.
  • Sidney Shapiro, Jews in Old China, Studies by Chinese Scholars, (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1984), 2001 ISBN 978-0-7818-0833-0.
  • Chaim Simons, Jewish Religious Observance by the Jews of Kaifeng China (Sino-Judaic Institute, 2010).
  • William Charles White, Chinese Jews, 2nd edition (New York: Paragon, 1966).
  • Xu Xin, The Jews of Kaifeng, China, (Jersey City: KTAV, 2003), ISBN 978-0-88125-791-5 Google books.
  • Xu Xin, Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, (Hoboken: KTAV, 1995), ISBN Google books.
  • Nicholas Zane, Jews in China: A History of Struggle, (N House Publishing, 2019). ISBN 978-1-9161037-0-2. Google Books.
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