#Kaifeng Jews

[gliklofhameln]

8th Century Judaeo-Persian letter from Kaifeng, Henan province, China

This document fragment from the British Library is one of the oldest items of Jewish history in Britain. It was discovered by Sir Aurel Stein at Dandan-Uiliq in 1901. The letter is written in Judaeo-Persian, i.e. Persian written in Hebrew script. However since the beginning and end of each line is missing, there is only a limited amount of contextual information to be deduced. Mention of sheep trading and cloth indicates the document’s commercial nature and a reference to the author having written “more than 20 letters” attests perhaps to a thriving trade. There is also an intriguing request for a harp required for instructing a girl how to play.

[journeytothewestresearch]

A Modern Journey to the West Sequel

Joel Bigman has written The Second Journey (2024), a modern sequel to Journey to the West (Xiyouji, 西遊記, 1592), which is being touted as “The World’s First Chinese-Jewish Historical Fantasy.” The story is framed as the contents of a lost 7th-century CE scroll discovered inside a buried jar while city planners investigate a watermain leak in modern Xi’an, Shaanxi province, China. A subsequent translation of the Aramaic text reveals a second, unknown journey undertaken by Xuanzang, Sun Wukong, and Zhu Bajie (but not Sha Wujing or the Dragon Horse) five years after their original return. This new quest is initiated by the Bodhisattva Guanyin, who requests that the Tang Monk seek knowledge outside of China for the benefit of the Kaifeng Jews, who have assimilated so much into Chinese culture that they’ve forgotten how to read their Hebrew scriptures. The trio travels past India and into Central Asia, where they procure the services of “Bear” (a.k.a. the “Second Samson“), a supernaturally strong Jew with knowledge of the various routes and personages of Historic Palestine. Together with a mysterious donkey, they travel from town to town looking for a holy man willing to return to China and become the Kaifeng Jewish community’s new teacher, thereby reigniting their religious life. Bear arranges for the pilgrims to meet and stay with several such holy men—allowing them to learn Hebrew and Jewish culture and religious history along the way—but the search for the right candidate is quite difficult.

I give The Second Journey four and a half out of five stars. The book is well-written, with smooth and oftentimes thought-provoking dialogue. The worldbuilding is very creative and yet still respectful to both Jewish beliefs and Chinese mythos. It’s definitely a great way to introduce someone to Jewish culture and religious history via Journey to the West. I highly recommend it!

[cottoncandytrafficcones]

Hey Jumblr,

What are some non-Ashknazi marriage traditions/rituals that y'all do? I was reading up on weddings and a lot of stuff (the bedeken, the walking around the groom) was written to be Ashkenazi tradition. I know a lot about henna, but that's basically it.

[sefaradweb]

Los judíos de Kaifeng

🇪🇸 Los descendientes de la comunidad judía histórica de Kaifeng, China, están redescubriendo su herencia judía tras siglos de asimilación en la sociedad local. Kaifeng, antigua capital del Imperio Chino con una población en su apogeo de 600,000 habitantes, albergó a una pequeña pero próspera comunidad judía desde al menos el siglo VIII. A lo largo de sus 800 años de existencia, los judíos de Kaifeng nunca enfrentaron persecuciones ni discriminación, siendo bienvenidos por las autoridades y la población en general. Aunque la comunidad se integró completamente hace unos 150 años, aproximadamente 1,000 descendientes actuales han comenzado a revitalizar sus prácticas religiosas y culturales judías. Algunos han emigrado a Israel y establecido pequeños centros de enseñanza judía en Kaifeng para preservar sus tradiciones.

🇺🇸 The descendants of the historical Jewish community of Kaifeng, China, are rediscovering their Jewish heritage after centuries of assimilation into the local society. Kaifeng, the former capital of the Chinese Empire with a peak population of 600,000 inhabitants, housed a small but thriving Jewish community since at least the 8th century. Throughout its 800 years of existence, the Jews of Kaifeng never faced persecution or discrimination, being welcomed by the authorities and the general population. Although the community fully integrated about 150 years ago, approximately 1,000 current descendants have begun to revitalize their Jewish religious and cultural practices. Some have emigrated to Israel and established small Jewish teaching centers in Kaifeng to preserve their traditions.

[chanaleah]

jews 🤝 stew

sephardim 🤝 stew

kaifeng jews 🤝 stew

amazigh jews 🤝 stew

bukharian jews 🤝 stew

mountain jews 🤝 stew

mizrahim 🤝 stew

ashkenazim 🤝 stew

teimani jews 🤝 stew

italkim 🤝 stew

musta'arabi jews 🤝 stew

romaniote jews 🤝 stew

beta israelis 🤝 stew

cochin jews 🤝 stew

[we-left-egypt-for-this]

Thinking about the shabbes goy at my hillel again.

This kid has done so much for our community post 7-10, helping to organize petitions against hate and coordinating with our dean and uni president to make conversations happen.

I was also talking to him yesterday and he said "that first shabbat dinner became a Core memory."

That first shabbat dinner I was just hanging around at hillel, so I helped with set up. So did he. I go to a big school, and I don't know everyone, so I just assumed he was some new guy. And so I was taken aback when we were setting up tables together and he said "yea, I know I don't look very jewish."

He's east Asian. So was my friend David in Hebrew school. He was in a Jewish space, so my immediate assumption was you are jewish. And I said as much. "You don't look very Ashkie," I said, "but that doesn't mean you don't look jewish."

(I elaborated about kaifeng jews and Japanese jews and the cochin jews.)

And he was shocked, but excited. He listened to us discuss how rough things had been on campus the past week (it was Oct 13th). He asked questions. He listened.

That's what allyship is. Coming into a space, and just expecting to listen, not be heard. Choosing to learn. Face ideas that threaten your assumptions.

[spacelazarwolf]

tbh people acting like jews are the epitome of whiteness is it’s own form of antisemitism like everybody is really out here ignoring nonwhite jewish cultures (ethiopian jews, bene israel, kaifeng, this list goes ON) just to act like we are The Definition of White Privilege (aka rule the world.) i wish you strength in surviving all this goy nonsense 🙏

yep it’s really frustrating.

[infiniteglitterfall]

I think it'd be fun to sort of liveblog looking for countries that haven't abused/exiled Jews

I haven't found a list. So I'm making one.

Let's start with China. China has Jewish communities, and maybe not enough of them to become a target! The perfect amount?

Wow, Jews have lived in China since the 7th century CE. I've heard of the Kaifeng Jews!

Oh, this is ominous: "In the first half of the 20th century, thousands of Jewish refugees escaping from pogroms in the Russian Empire arrived in China. By the time of the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, only a few Jews were known to have maintained the practice of their religion and culture."

Wow, fun fact:

According to an oral tradition dictated by Xu Xin, Director of the Centre for Judaic Studies at Nanjing University, in his book Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, the Kaifeng Jews called Judaism Yīcìlèyè jiào (一賜樂業教), lit. the religion of Israel. Yīcìlèyè is a transliteration and partial translation of "Israel".

Surprising and cool:

Famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who visited China, then under the Yuan dynasty, in the late 13th century, described the prominence of Jewish traders in Beijing.

Neither surprising nor cool:

Genghis Khan called both Jews and Muslims Huihui when he forbade Jews and Muslims from practicing kosher and halal preparation of their food, calling both of them "slaves" and forcing them to eat Mongol food, and banned them from practicing circumcision.

In the late 1800s a lot of Jews emigrated from India and Iraq to China; they "took a considerable part in developing trade in China, and several served on the municipal councils."

In the early 1900s, 20,000 Jewish refugees from Russian pogroms emigrated to Harbin, in northeast China and "and played a key role in the shaping of local politics, economy and international trade."

Surprisingly:

Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China, admired the Jewish people and Zionism, and he also saw parallels between the persecution of Jews and the domination of China by the Western powers. He stated, "Though their country was destroyed, the Jewish nation has existed to this day ... [Zionism] is one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of democracy cannot help but support wholeheartedly and welcome with enthusiasm the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserve [sic] an honorable place in the family of nations."

Wow. It really doesn't go into any more detail about the SMALL gap between "40,000 Jews moved to China from 1845-1945," and "most of these Jews emigrated to Israel or the West... by the time of the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, only a few Jews were known to have maintained the practice of their religion and culture."

That's four years.

Let's look at other sources.

At first, life in Shanghai was peaceful for its newest residents. The Jewish refugees were welcomed by Shanghai residents and they created a strong community with schools and a vibrant social scene. Some refugees began working as dentists and doctors, while others set up shops, cafes and clubs in the neighbourhood.

What the refugees couldn't foresee was they would travel across the globe only to fall into the clutches of the Nazis' most powerful ally. In 1941, Japan seized Shanghai. Acting under instruction from the Nazis, Japanese troops rounded up all of the city's Jews and confined them in Tilanqiao. Shanghai's Jewish ghetto had been born....

According to [historian Dvir] Bar-Gal, even prior to the Japanese invasion, many Jewish refugees in Tilanqiao lived in poverty compared to their comfortable lifestyles back in Europe. Conditions worsened greatly after Japanese soldiers gathered Jews from across Shanghai and forced them to all live within the borders of this newly formed ghetto. Jews were banned from leaving the area, even for work, unless they received permission from Japanese officers, which rarely happened.

Disease and malnutrition plagued the many heinously overcrowded group homes. "It went from a poor neighbourhood to an extremely poor neighbourhood," Bar-Gal said. "Many people had no jobs and lived in communal housing with many other beds and common bathrooms and kitchens. They had zero privacy and almost no food."

Yet, while six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, and up to 14 million Chinese soldiers and civilians were killed during their nation's war with Japan from 1937 to 1945, the majority of Shanghai's Jewish refugees survived. This remarkable feat was described by Holocaust historian David Kranzler as the "Miracle of Shanghai", and according to Bar-Gal, they survived because Jews weren't a primary target of the Japanese forces.

In 1945, when World War Two ended with the defeat of Japan and Nazi Germany, Japanese troops retreated and most of Shanghai's Jews quickly left, relocating to places like the US, Australia and Canada. But had Shanghai not taken these refugees in, many of these more-than-20,000 Jews may have never survived the Nazi death squads....

The first structure I came across was the imposing old Tilanqiao Prison. During World War Two, the Japanese incarcerated dozens of Jewish refugees and Chinese dissidents behind its thick stone walls. The brutality of the Japanese gave the Jews and the Chinese a common enemy and a shared experience. This connection remains strong, according to Tian.

That still leaves at least another 20,000, though? (I would say almost 20,000, but for the ones who already lived in China.)

Hmm. Here's a paper that says Jews "not only took part in the revolution but had also helped igniting it and then stayed on or joined later. While dealing with this puzzle in my paper, I’ll try to offer a typology of Jewish activists and revolutionaries in China, to explain their motives (by choice or not), and to evaluate their contributions in perspective. It appears that their Jewish identity did not play a direct role in their revolutionary activism, but it did play an indirect role. Included in this study are Grigorii Gershuni, Grigorii Voitinski, Boris Shumiatsky, Michail Borodin, Adolf Joffe, Pavel Mif, David Crook, Sidney Rittenberg, Israel Epstein, Sidney Shapiro, Solomon Adler, Sam Ginsbourg, Michael Shapiro, and more. Their main value to the revolution was mainly writing, translation, communication and publication. Although they were all deeply committed to the Chinese Communist revolution, some of them were jailed – for years – and occasionally more than once. Nonetheless, they continued to believe in, and even to justify, the Chinese Communist Party."

Wait, waaaaait. I was about to try to find the full paper (titled "Combining contradictions: Jewish contributions to the Chinese revolution"), but I ran across this first:

A century ago, the Communist International and the then-Russian Communist Party dispatched several agents to help foment revolution in China, including Russians like Grigori Voitinsky and Vladimir Neiman-Nikolsky and the Dutch Communist Henk Sneevliet. In addition to their shared commitment to Communism, all three were of Jewish heritage.

O rly??

They came with SKILLS!

On the evening of July 30, less than a month after the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC), members of the CPC’s First National Congress met for a vote on a new party program. Suddenly, an unfamiliar middle-aged man barged into the meeting hall. “Sorry, I’m in the wrong place,��� the man declared before hurrying off.

Sneevliet, well-versed in the techniques used by the police around the world to crack down on revolutionary activities, suggested that the meeting be adjourned and urged members to leave. By the time police arrived 10 minutes later, the building was already cleared out.

If you think that's impressive, try this!

Richard Frey... was an Austrian Jew who fled to Shanghai in the late 1930s. He worked for a hospital in the city until 1941, when he moved to a Communist military base in North China to teach medicine. In 1944, Frey was transferred to the central Communist base in Yan’an in China’s northwest Shaanxi province, where he soon succeeded in producing a crude but much-needed form of penicillin. 

He just. Made up his own penicillin for them.

What the entire fuck.

HERE we go!

International Journal of China Studies, December 2020. "Combining Contradictions: Jewish Contributions to the Chinese Revolution," by Yitzhak Shichor, University of Haifa and Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Fun Fact:

Jewish Lithuanian activist Grigory Gershuni emigrated from Russia to China by hiding in a barrel of sauerkraut.

Yeah okay, I think China's number one on the list of Hey, Some Countries Didn't Try That!

Next time: Japan? Or Brazil? Hmmmm.

[thoughtportal]

Kaifeng Jews 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews

[beardedmrbean]

A lot of people: I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti-Zionist!

A lot of people: [assume that every single Zionist they encounter is Jewish, if not Israeli]

Well.

A lot of people: Jews are white

Jews

Kaifeng Jews

Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews)

Indian Jews in Israel

INB4: segregated neighborhood bullshit,

Short list for Los Angeles

Chinatown

Koreatown

Little Tokyo

Olvera Street

Thai Town

Little Armenia

Historic Filipinotown

Little Bangladesh

Little Ethiopia

Tehrangeles

London Short list

Chinatown - Chinese

Camden - Latin American

Brixton - Jamaican

Waltham Forest - Pakistani

Tooting - Indian

New Malden - Korean

Tower Hamlets - Bangladeshi

Enfield - Turkish and Greek

NYC just about has the globe covered I think

Maybe someone can tell me how it's totally different between where it happens in other parts of the world and in Israel, not you anon

[pargolettasworld]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxOQ90tMHWI

The story of the Kaifeng Jews is just fascinating.  The city of Kaifeng is in central China, in the Henan province, if you know your Chinese geography.  You can also look it up on Google Maps, which I always do, because I often forget exactly where in China it is, and I keep thinking it’s further west than it actually turns out to be.  But what’s interesting about Kaifeng was that, for quite a long time, it had a small but tough Jewish population.  It’s very likely that Judaism came to Henan province by way of the Silk Road, but it stuck around for long enough that the Jews of Kaifeng are Chinese.  This was never a large community, but it did manage to survive fairly well in its isolation for multiple centuries.  There are some legends that the community’s survival was helped along by the fact that the Han emperors didn’t quite grok what, exactly, Jews were, and thus left them more or less to their own devices.

Unfortunately, isolation did take its toll, and the community was pretty small by the nineteenth century.  And then the Communist takeover nearly did them in completely.  But even through the forced assimilation and eradication of religion, the Kaifeng Jews never quite forgot that they were Jews, even if they did mostly forget what that meant.  But around the end of the twentieth century, various groups, mostly Israeli, reached out to them and began encouraging them to re-learn their Jewishness.  There’s a lot of specifically Kaifeng Jewishness that’s been lost, largely because it was never written down, so the Jewishness being re-introduced is much more Western . . . but the Kaifeng Jews themselves really don’t seem to mind.  They seem highly enthusiastic about rediscovering this aspect of themselves.

That’s one thing that I love about videos like this.  The hazzan here is singing a portion of the Passover Haggadah that describes how, in every generation, enemies rise up to destroy us, but we survive it all.  It’s a sentiment that both he and his listeners can clearly relate to, and I love that this is a project that they’re all plugging away at.  This community could so easily have let itself fade away, but they did not.  They insist on being Jews, of whatever variety, and I love that for them.

[magnetothemagnificent]

What are your thoughts on white Jews who refuse to identify themselves as white? Obviously Nazis will never treat us like white people as we aren't the same race in their eyes. But I've seen a lot of white Jews in other contexts, begging and pleading people to not call them white, not say they have white privilege etc. because they're ethnically Jewish and therefore don't identify as white.

If you ask me I think this is a bullshit way for white Jews to try and avoid taking responsibility for their white privilege. Being Jewish does not erase my whiteness just as being Jewish does not erase a black Jew's blackness, or an Asian Jew's Asianness, and it doesn't override any other Jew of colour's ethnicity. For me to say I'm not white because I'm ethnically Jewish feels like a racist sham. White people can be Jewish. Jewish people can be white. Whiteness or lack thereof isn't something you get to choose for yourself.

Being Jewish gives me a dual ethnicity. I am Jewish and white. To say I'm not white seems unfair to Jews of color who don't get the opportunity to shrug off racism in the same way some white Jews try to shrug off their whiteness. To me it just screams that the person doesn't want to admit they're white because they don't want to acknowledge that they're more shielded from racism and racialized antisemitism than many others. Or maybe they think being white makes them less Jewish. Thoughts?

You've seen many Jews chime in, including myself, and say that even though they pass as white *sometimes*, they're victims of racialized antisemitism too. Race and ethnicity isn't so simple, and what's considered white is also different from country to country. It's not so simple. If you want to identify as white, that's your prerogative. But for many Jews, they are deeply uncomfortable with identifying as such because they know it's conditional and they know it's weaponized. Also it's interesting that you mention Asian Jews because what do you mean by Asian? On a genetic level, most Jews are West Asian, we are from the Levant. Or do you mean Indian Jews? Or perhaps Kaifeng Jews? Afghani Jews? Russian Jews? None of these groups of Jews "look" alike. What do you mean by "Asian"? Do you mean in the way race science claims there's only four "colors", and everyone else is a racial mutt? (Which by the way, is how Jews have historically been classified- racial mutts of "Oriental", "African", and "White"). Is that the system you want to abide by?

And if you claim that Jews not identifying as white is "shrugging off claims of racism", are you saying that only white people are racist? Really? Are you saying East Asian people can't be antiblack and colourist? Are you saying Black people can't be sinophobic? Are you serious?? Is that what you're implying??

Racism isn't a binary of "only white people are racist" and "all PoC are incapable of being racist towards other racial groups or ever towards themselves". Jews can be non-white and still take accountability for intracommunity racism, just like other racial groups can still take accountability for their own racism. It's not "shrugging off claims of racism", it's refusing to abide by a racist system of classification.

Ever since "race" became a topic of discussion, Jews haven't been considered white. Jews and Roma were murdered during the Holocaust because they weren't white. If it was about religion, then Jews who had converted to Christianity would have been spared. But they weren't. It's only recently that some Jews have been able to access some white privilege, but even then, it's entirely conditional on them behaving. And in Leftist circles, our conditional whiteness is used as an excuse for them to ignore the racialized antisemitism we face. Because yeah, they still have the same narrow ideas about race as Hitler did, just with a fresh coat of paint.

So go ahead, be the "good Jew" all you want to be, anon, try to police the language your Jewish brethren use (because for some reason the way other people identify bothers you). But I warn you....your good graces are conditional, and when the people you try to please turn on you, the Jewish community, even the ones you think are identifying themselves wrong, are the only ones left who will defend you.

[misskriemhilds]

in the process of working on a continuation for a fanmade losh season 3, i ended up making an oc :D anyways, here's a quick doodle/bio chan juan zhao, also known as lunar lass! (i want to make something more polished later, but you can get a sketch of my girl for now)

(while i'm jewish myself, i'm not chinese jewish, nor specifically from kaifeng. i'm doing extensive research into chinese customs, practices, and the history/traditions of the kaifeng jews of china - ideally, i'd like to get a hold of a beta reader but i'm not sure how i'd go about that.)

[sefaradweb]

重建清真寺记

🇪🇸 La inscripción de piedra de 1489, conocida como "Registro de la Reconstrucción del Templo Puro y Verdadero" (重建清真寺记), se erigió en julio de 1489 en Kaifeng, China. Es una de las primeras inscripciones de la comunidad judía de Kaifeng y conmemora la reconstrucción de la sinagoga después de ser destruida por una inundación del Río Amarillo en 1461. Esta inscripción fue escrita por Jin Zhong, un judío de Kaifeng, y mide 60 x 30 x 5 pulgadas, hecha de piedra caliza gris oscuro. La inscripción describe tres temas principales: el origen e historia del judaísmo, las prácticas de oración y arrepentimiento, y la trayectoria del judaísmo en China y su relación con el confucianismo. Destaca cómo los judíos de Kaifeng se adaptaron a las costumbres chinas y cómo las similitudes culturales con la comunidad musulmana Hui a menudo llevaron a confusiones entre las dos. La inscripción también menciona figuras históricas clave, como el rabino Levy y los hermanos Jin, y detalla la integración de conceptos chinos y judíos, fusionando figuras como Pangu y Adán. La estela aún existe y fue trasladada a la Catedral de la Trinidad por la Misión Anglicana Canadiense en 1912.

🇺🇸 The 1489 stone inscription, known as the "Record of the Rebuilding of the Pure and Truth Temple" (重建清真寺记), was erected in July 1489 in Kaifeng, China. It is one of the earliest inscriptions from the Kaifeng Jewish community and commemorates the reconstruction of the synagogue after its destruction by a Yellow River flood in 1461. This inscription was written by Jin Zhong, a Kaifeng Jew, and measures 60 x 30 x 5 inches, made of dark gray limestone. The inscription covers three main themes: the origin and history of Judaism, practices of prayer and repentance, and the trajectory of Judaism in China and its relationship with Confucianism. It highlights how Kaifeng Jews adapted to Chinese customs and how cultural similarities with the Hui Muslim community often led to confusion between the two. The inscription also mentions key historical figures, such as Rabbi Levy and the Jin brothers, and details the integration of Chinese and Jewish concepts, merging figures like Pangu and Adam. The stele still exists and was moved to Trinity Cathedral by the Canadian Anglican Mission in 1912.

[shatar-aethelwynn]

Today I learned about the existence of the Kaifeng Jews and I am unhappy I have to work and can't immediately go dive into reading more about them

[queerasaurus-rexx]

if we're gonna race swap the scooby gang, let's try something different.

velma as a mixed mohave/mestizo woman whose interest in science was inspired by the agricultural practices of her peoples.

fred as a black man whose fascination with nets and traps stems from an appreciation of fine craftsmanship and engineering.

daphne as chinese jewish woman, a descendant of kaifeng jews who immigrated to california and clawed their way out of poverty. her parents are self made union lawyers who sometimes ask the gang to investigate known union busters. her ingenuity and penchant for getting herself out of trouble are inspired by both of her cultures.

shaggy as a punjabi indian from a traditional sikh family who do extensive outreach work in the community. he met scooby through one of these programs and they bonded immediately.

why did i make the suggestions i did? coolsville/crystal cove are stated to be located somewhere in southern california, so i narrowed down the possibilities to that and looked at population demographics from that region. therein, i chose groups who don't seem to have much/much positive representation. i tried to avoid stereotyping where i could.