A stele is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief A stele ' onMouseout='HidePop("95820")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Qingzhen">Qīngzhēn
Qingzhen is a county-level city under the administration of Guiyang in Guizhou province of the People's Republic of China.-External links:*...
Sì, a term often used for mosques in Chinese). The inscription states that the Jews came to China from India during the
Han DynastyThe Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
period (2nd century BCE-2nd century
CECommon Era, abbreviated as CE, is a designation for the calendar system most commonly used world-wide for numbering the year part of the date...
). It cites the names of 70 Jews with Chinese surnames, describes their audience with an unnamed
Song DynastyThe Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
emperor, and lists the transmission of their religion from
AbrahamAbraham is the founding patriarch of the Israelites, Ishmaelites, Midianites and Edomite peoples, as described in the book of Genesis. He is widely regarded as the patriarch of Jews, Christians, and Muslims....
down to the prophet
EzraEzra was a Jewish priestly scribe who led about 5,000 Israelite exiles living in Babylon to their home city of Jerusalem in 459 BCE. Ezra reconstituted the dispersed Jewish community on the basis of the Torah and with an emphasis on the law...
. 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 steles.
Two of the stelae refer to a famous tattoo written on the back of
Song DynastyThe Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a...
General
Yue FeiYue Fei was a famous Chinese patriot and military general who fought for the Southern Song Dynasty against the Jurchen armies of the Jin Dynasty...
. The tattoo, which reads "Boundless loyalty to the country" , 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.” The same source even claims that Israelites served as soldiers in the armies of
Yue FeiYue Fei was a famous Chinese patriot and military general who fought for the Southern Song Dynasty against the Jurchen armies of the Jin Dynasty...
.
Father Joseph Brucker, a Roman Catholic researcher of the early twentieth 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 sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries, 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' is a sub-provincial city located in the Yangtze River Delta in the People's Republic of China, and the capital of Zhejiang province. Located southwest of Shanghai, as of 2004 the entire Hangzhou Region or Prefecture-level city had a registered population of 6.4 million people...
. This could be taken to suggest that loyal Jews fled south along with the soon-to-be crowned Emperor Gaozong to
Hangzhou' is a sub-provincial city located in the Yangtze River Delta in the People's Republic of China, and the capital of Zhejiang province. Located southwest of Shanghai, as of 2004 the entire Hangzhou Region or Prefecture-level city had a registered population of 6.4 million people...
. In fact, the 1489 stele mentions how the Jews "abandoned Bianliang" (
KaifengKaifeng , formerly known as Bianliang , Bianjing , Daliang , or simply Liang , is a prefecture-level city in eastern Henan province, People's Republic of China...
) after the
Jingkang IncidentThe Jingkang Incident , the Humiliation of Jingkang , or the The Disorders of the Jingkang Period took place in 1127 when invading Jurchen soldiers from the Jin Dynasty besieged and sacked Bianjing , the capital of the Song Dynasty of China...
.
Despite their isolation from the rest of the
Jewish diasporaThe Jewish diaspora , the presence of Jews outside of the Land of Israel, is a result of the expulsion or emigration of Jews from Israel...
, the Jews of Kaifeng preserved Jewish traditions and customs for many centuries. In the seventeenth century, assimilation began to erode these traditions. The rate of intermarriage between Jews and other ethnic groups, such as the
Han ChineseHan Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and, by most modern definitions, the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92 percent of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98 percent of the population of the Republic of China , 75 percent of the...
, and the
HuiThe Hui people are a Chinese ethnic group, typically distinguished by their practice of Islam.Hui is the abbreviation of the full name Huihui "回回", which is the diminutive form of HuiE "回纥 / 回鶻". They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China...
and
ManchuThe Manchu people are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the seventeenth century, with the help of Ming rebels , they conquered the Ming Dynasty and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which established a...
minorities in China, increased. The destruction of the synagogue in the 1860s led to the community's demise. However, J.L. Liebermann, the first Western Jew to visit Kaifeng in 1867, noted that "they still had a burial ground of their own". S.M. Perlmann, the 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".
Today, 600-1,000 residents of Kaifeng trace their lineage back to this community. After contact with Jewish tourists, the Jews of Kaifeng have reconnected to mainstream Jewry. With the help of Jewish organizations, some members of the community have emigrated to Israel.
Account of Matteo Ricci
In 1605, a Kaifeng Jew named Ngai T’ien visited the Jesuit missionary and scholar Matteo Ricci in Peking. Ricci’s account of the discovery of Israelites in East Asia sparked a flurry of research by Christian missionaries. Ricci wrote that they numbered only a few families and their only known synagogues were in Kai-feng Fu, the capital of Honan province, and Hangchow fu, the capital of Chekiang province. In the Kaifeng synagogue there was a Pentateuch of Moses on rolled up sheepskin parchment. He related that they had preserved the ceremony of circumcision and abstained from eating pork or any kind of meat with sinews.
A Jew from the province of Honan whose surname was Ai came across Ricci's book, and sought him out. During his visit, he related that there were 10-12 Jewish families living in Kaifeng. Their synagogue consisted of courtyards, pavilions and a central enclosure on the north side where ablutions were performed. On the south side was a slaughterhouse, where synagogue authorities slaughtered meat in the prescribed way. The Pentateuch of Moses, written on sheepskin parchment, was rolled in five scrolls. Other Jews lived in Hangchow and elsewhere, going back at least 600 years in that region.
Skepticism
One scholar, Dr. Xun Zhou, doubts the authenticity of the Kaifeng community, believing it to have been largely a Western cultural construct. Xun Zhou, a research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, maintains that the community had no Torah scrolls until 1851, when they suddenly appeared to be sold to eager Western collectors. 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.
Kaifeng Jews today
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. The establishment of diplomatic relations between China and
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
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
NaziNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
period.
The Kaifeng Jews intermarried with local Chinese, and are thus indistinguishable in appearance from their non-Jewish neighbors. Within the framework of contemporary rabbinical Judaism, only matrilineal transmission of Jewishness is recognized, while Chinese Jews based their Jewishness on patrilineal descent. As a result, they are required to undergo conversion in order to receive Israeli
citizenshipCitizenship is the state of being a citizen of a particular social, political, or national community.Citizenship status, under social contract theory, carries with it both rights and responsibilities...
under the
Law of ReturnThe Law of Return is Israeli legislation, enacted in 1950, that gives Jews, those of Jewish ancestry, and their spouses the right to migrate to and settle in Israel and gain citizenship.-Law:...
. Most descendants of Kaifeng's Jewish community are only vaguely aware of their ancestry. Some, however, say their parents and grandparents told them that they were Jewish and would one day "return to their land." The one trait that differentiated them from their neighbors was not eating pork. They also have celebrated Jewish events such as Chanukah.
The last
censusA "census" is the procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population. It is a regularly occurring and official count of a particular population.In other words every 10 years...next one would be in 2010 The term is used mostly in connection with...
revealed about 400 official Jews in Kaifeng, now estimated at some 100 families totalling approximately 500 people, to 1,000 residents have ties to Jewish ancestry, though only 40 to 50 individuals partake in Jewish activities. It is difficult to estimate the number of Jews in any country, but in China it is nearly impossible. Numbers may change simply because of a change in official attitudes. For example, the number of ethnic
ManchuThe Manchu people are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the seventeenth century, with the help of Ming rebels , they conquered the Ming Dynasty and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which established a...
s during the reign of the last Manchu emperor was estimated at 2 million; after the fall of the Manchu Empire, Manchus, fearing persecution, virtually disappeared and only 500,000 were counted in the succeeding census. When official policies regarding minorities were changed, affording them protective rights, the number of ethnic Manchus jumped to 5 million. Thus far, some overseas Jewish communities have been indifferent toward the putative descendants of the Kaifeng Jews. However, the Sino-Judaic Institute based in California is involved in ongoing research on the history of the Jewish communities in China, promoting educational projects related to the history of the Jews in China and in assisting the Jews of Kaifeng (Recently a family of Kaifeng Jewish descendants have formally
converted to JudaismConversion to Judaism is a formal act undertaken by a non-Jewish person who wishes to be recognised as a full member of the Jewish community. A Jewish conversion is both a religious act and an expression of association with the Jewish people...
and have become Israeli citizens. Whether or not more Kaifeng Jewish descendants will follow in this family's path remains a matter of speculation.
The upcoming documentary film,
Kaifeng, Jerusalem, by Dr. Noam Urbach, describes the ordeal of this family.
Documentary films
In his 1992 documentary series
Legacy, historian Michael Wood walked down a small lane in Kaifeng that he said is known as the "alley of the sect who teach the
ScripturesThe Tanakh is a name for the Bible used in Rabbinic Judaism, also known as the Masoretic Text. The name "Tanakh" is a Hebrew acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
", that is, of the Jews. He mentioned that there are still Jews in Kaifeng today, but that they are reluctant to reveal themselves "in the current political climate." The documentary's companion book further states that one can still see a "
mezuzahA mezuzah is a piece of parchment inscribed with specified Hebrew verses from the Torah...
on the door frame, and the candelabrum in the living room." Similarly, in the documentary
Quest for the Lost Tribes, by Canadian filmmaker
Simcha JacoboviciSimcha Jacobovici is an Israeli and Canadian controversial film director, producer and free-lance journalist and writer. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from McGill University and an M.A. in International Relations from the University of Toronto. He hosted the The Naked Archaeologist on VisionTV in...
, the film crew visits the home of an elderly Kaifeng Jew who explains the recent history of the Kaifeng Jews, shows some old photographs, and his identity papers that identify him as a member of the Jewish ethnic group. A recent documentary,
Minyan in Kaifeng, documents and covers the present-day Kaifeng Jewish community in China during a trip to Kaifeng that was taken by some Jewish tourists.
Books about the Kaifeng Jews
In
The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China, Tiberiu Weisz, a teacher of
HebrewHebrews are an ancient people defined as descendants of the prophet Eber, son of Shelah.In the Bible, the patriarch Abraham is referred to a single time as the ivri, which is the singular form of the...
history and Chinese religion, presents his own translations of the 1489, 1512, and 1663 stone stelae left by the descendants of the Kaifeng Jews. Based on the new info gleamed from this translation, Weisz theorizes after the Babylonian exile of the sixth century BCE, disenchanted Levites and Kohanim parted with the
ProphetIn religion, a prophet is a person who has been contacted by, or has encountered, the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other humans...
EzraEzra was a Jewish priestly scribe who led about 5,000 Israelite exiles living in Babylon to their home city of Jerusalem in 459 BCE. Ezra reconstituted the dispersed Jewish community on the basis of the Torah and with an emphasis on the law...
and settled in Northwestern
IndiaIndia, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the west, and the Bay of Bengal...
. Sometime prior to 108 BCE, these Jews had migrated to Gansu province, China and were spotted by the Chinese general
Li GuangLĭ Guăng , born in Tianshui, Gansu, was a famous general of the Han Dynasty. Nicknamed The Flying General by his Xiongnu enemies , he fought primarily in the campaigns against the Xiongnu peoples to the north of Han China...
, who was sent to expand the borders of
Han DynastyThe Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms . It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty of the former regent Wang Mang...
China. Centuries later, the Jews were expelled from China proper during the
Great Anti-Buddhist PersecutionThe Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution initiated by Tang Emperor Wuzong reached its height in the year 845 CE. Among its purposes were to appropriate war funds and to cleanse China of foreign influences. As such, the persecution was directed not only towards Buddhism but also towards other foreign...
(845-46), where they lived in the region of
NingxiaNingxia , full name Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region , is a Hui autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located on the northwest Loess highland, the Yellow River flows through a vast area of its land. The Great Wall of China runs along its northeastern boundary...
. Weisz believes they later returned to China during the Song Dynasty when its second emperor, Song Taizong, sent out a decree seeking the wisdom of foreign scholars. 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—
TorahThe term "Torah" , refers either to the Five Books of Moses or to the entirety of Judaism's founding legal and ethical religious texts...
, 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 AsiaAsia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west to central China in the east, and from southern Russia in the north to northern India in the south. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent.Various definitions of its...
during the eighth century, 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.
Kaifeng manuscripts
Little of the written works of the Kaifeng have survived. A significant portion, however, are kept in the library of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. 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 fascinating 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 Hebrew is generally written without vowels, a literate Hebrew speaker can disregard these markings, as the consonants are written correctly, with few scribal errors.
Literary references to Chinese Jews
Pulitzer-prize-winning 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 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 cannot marry him due to her lowly station. He eventually marries a high-class Chinese woman, to some consternation of his mother, who is proud of her unmixed heritage. Descriptions of remnant names, such as a "Street of the Plucked Sinew", and of customs such as refraining from the eating of pork, are prevalent in this novel.
Sources
- Xu Xin, The Jews of Kaifeng, China, (Jersey City: KTAV, 2003).
- Xu Xin, Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, (Hoboken: KTAV, 1995).
- Sidney Shapiro, Jews in Old China, Studies by Chinese Scholars, (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1984).
- William Charles White, Chinese Jews, 2nd edition (New York: Paragon, 1966).
- Pollak, Michael, Mandarins, Jews, and Missionaries: the Jewish experience in the Chinese Empire, (New York: Weatherhill, 1998).
- Shlomy Raiskin, "A Bibliography on Chinese Jewry", Moreshet Israel (Journal of Judaism, Zionism and Eretz-Israel), No. 3 (September 2006), pp. 60-85.
External links