I first became aware of, and interested in, Chinese Jews, in a rather unusual way. About 20 years ago, in the course of my practice as an   Obstetrician-Gynecologist, in Santa Clara, CA, a young girl came to me to be examined concerning an unwanted pregnancy. It was a time when abortions were generally not legal or acceptable in California, except as warranted for psychiatric distress of the patient. It was therefore a somewhat less than comfortable situation for both doctor and patient.

The patient was of rather obvious Philippine extraction, and during the course of the physical exam, I noticed that she was wearing a Jewish star. During the consultation afterwards, I asked her why she was wearing a Jewish star. She replied, “Because I am Jewish.” I replied, “I never met a Filipino Jew before.”

And she responded, “Oh, yes; there are many Asian Jews.” This was all an enlightenment for me, because I had never considered Filipinos as Asian before; and because I had never heard of Asian Jews.

Shortly thereafter, finding myself in Hawaii on vacation, I went to the University of East West Studies in Honolulu, only to find the place closed for renovation. Later by mail, I was given a very short bibliography of articles of a general nature, and also a recommendation to apply myself to the Judah Magnes Museum Library in Berkeley, CA.

For a few weeks I went to the Library at the Magnes Museum on my days off following  nights on call delivering babies. I extracted a rather large bibliography of books and articles on the subject of Asian Jews. Most were about the Bene Israel, Jews of India, especially  Cochin. [I question the ethnicity of the people of India as Asians, rather than Aryans, but I leave this to greater minds than mine.] However, when I came upon the book entitled, Chinese Jews, by Dr. William Charles White, the Anglican missionary, the subject was generally open and shut and I ceased writing the bibliography.

HISTORICAL SOURCES

Since the late 19th century, when articles of general interest began to be published about the curious colony of Chinese Jews in the city of  Kaifeng, Hunan Province, China, there has been a considerable amount of speculation about the origins of  this group.

In DIASPORA, by Werner Keller, it is mentioned that in the mid-5th century, at about the time of the completion of the Babylonian Talmud, Jews who were used to living peaceably in Babylonia, began to be persecuted under the auspices of fire worshippers, or magi, who had achieved ascendancy. By 480 CE  Jewish schools and courts were closed. Open rebellion began. Repression by the King was vigorous, with execution of the Exilarch and rabbis of the community.

Great numbers of the Jewish population fled, to Arabia, India, and elsewhere. In India, around 490 CE, a wealthy and learned man named Joseph Rabban reached the coast of Malabar, in southwest India, accompanied by many other families. There they encountered co-religionists, Jews who had settled there long before, in the days when Jews had also reached China

Further on, in the book  DIASPORA, Keller explains the facility of the Jews in establishing the caravans of the time of Charlemagne, around 750 C.E.  I quote: “ The Jews were among the first Europeans who established vital contacts with the Far East, long before the days of Marco Polo, and William of Rubrowk. Nearly four centuries earlier than those celebrated travelers, pioneering Jewish merchants had regularly traveled to China and India.

An Arab Chronicler, Ibn Chodadbe, chief of Police and Postal administration in the province of Jibal, Iraq, wrote in his book: BOOK OF ROADS AND KINGDOMS, in speaking of caravans: “This is the road of the Jewish merchants called Radanites ... they leave France and Germany, for Egypt, then via Suez and the Red Sea to Arabia; and continue on to Sind and China. A description of the routes of the Radanites follows. Then “All four of these routes terminated in China. That famous empire reached its greatest extent under the famous Tang Dynasty, 618-907 CE Its frontiers reached Persia. And even there, in the Middle Kingdom, (China) the Radanites from remote Europe encountered fellow Jews.”

To briefly mention Father Ricci, Keller also mentions that in 1605, a Jew visited Ricci during one of Ricci’s  trips to Kaifeng. The Jew stated that there was an old tradition that after King Tamerlane captured Persia, he also conquered China, and that many Mohammedans, Christians and Jews came to China with him.

(Ricci referred to Tamerlane, but the timing is wrong. Perhaps he mixed up a reference to Genghis Khan, who conquered China, and then encouraged the migration of Jews, Christians, and Muslim artisans and merchants into China and by 1219 was building a system of highways to facilitate internal movement from the west. But the Jews may have already been there by then!)

Ricci found the remains of a great synagogue in Kaifeng. By archeological evidence he showed the forecourt to have been built by the 13th century. This predates Tamerlane by 100 years.

Suleiman, an Arab merchant of the 9th century, notes in an account written before 900 CE that he met Jews in all the larger cities of China, and that they spoke Hebrew, and had afforded lavish hospitality.

A Jewish merchant named Eldad ha-Dani, had been carried off from Kairouarr to China as a prisoner. After a time, a fellow-Jew bought his release, in 880 CE In his narrative, he mentioned Jewish tribes living in China. Around the same time there were Chinese accounts of  Jews in Canton.

There are many  ancient documents containing mention of Jews. However, so far, they have not been systematically combed or catalogued. A definitive history of the Jews of  China will not be written till this has been accomplished.

Examples:  pre 851 CE  Suleiman, Arab Traveler 851 ibn Khurdadhbik, postmaster of Baghdad early 10th century: ibn al-Faqih, Arab geographer

                  878  Abu Zaid al-Sirafi, Muslim
                          chronicler                   

                  880  ibn Wahab, Arab traveler

                  880  Eldad haDani, (that is, of the lost
                          tribe of Dan) Jewish traveler, told
                          of being captured by cannibals,
                          taken to China, where a Jewish
                          merchant of the tribe of Issacher
                          ransomed him free. (This story was
                          questioned at the time)

                912       Burzurgibu Shahriyar, Persian
                            author        

                 943       al-Maseidi, Arab
                              chronicler

                1100      ibn al-Athir, Arab
                             chronicler

                 1179     Benjamin of Tudela, Jewish traveler, noted that Jews lived near the border of China, whence they may have traveled freely in and out of the country.

             1286 Marco Polo met Jews in China and stated that Kubla Khan observed Muslim, Christian, and Jewish festivals with his subjects.

             1290 John of Montecorvino, Franciscan in
                      China

              1300  Ab’LFada,  Arab chronicler

              1326  Andrew of Perrugia, Bishop of
                       Ch’iian-Chou

               1342 John of Mariquolli , priest in Peking

               1346 ibn Battutta,  Arab traveler

               1546 Francis Xavier, later sainted and
                        more. (Compiled  in part by Saadiah
                        Gaon, in 10th century.)

 

A Yuan Dynasty Archive records:

                 1280 JEWS were ordered to cease ritual
                          slaughter of meat, and to cease
                          circumcision.

                 1329 JEWS mentioned, to be taxed.

                 1340 JEWS prohibited from marrying
                          maternal cousins.

                 1354 JEWS summoned for military
                          service.

Though the Talmud does not specifically mention China, there are many references that point to early Jewish associations with India. However, there are references to spices and herbs which occur naturally only farthest east, in other words, China. 

This reflects the international exchange of commerce of that age, though it may alternatively be a reflection of interaction with Chinese co-religionists at the time or earlier.

Pollak opines, “The prayer books reflected the theosophical values of the Talmud” though no tractates were ever found.

[The “theosophical values of the Talmud” were written down in the first 500 years CE but the ideas evolved in the oral tradition during the previous 1000 years.]

Pollak also mentions that there were uniquely Maimonidean aspects of the Halachic tenets among the Kaifeng community.

[ Maimonides was only 26 years old when permission was given for building the first temple in Kaifeng in 1163.]

It should also be mentioned that the Chinese name for the Chief Rabbi was WU-SSU-TU, a Chinese transliteration of USTAD, master or rabbi in Persian.

The surviving Kaifeng Haggada (Passover prayer service document) has rubrics in Judeo-Persian (i.e. Directions: Serve the meal)

Likewise the synagogue liturgical texts are written in Judeo-Persian.

Because of these references, most writers have favored a Persian origin of the Kaifeng Jews. The synagogue inscriptions hint at an Indian homeland. The synagogue liturgical texts point to a Yemenite background.

[Or did Chinese and Yemenites both have a common origin?]

Persian: Kaifeng Jews used Judeo-Persian rubrics in the synagogue manuscripts; retained speaking knowledge of Persian all the years of contact with the Jesuits; and pronounce their Hebrew in a manner betraying their Persian influence.

Yemen: The Kaifeng prayer books and the Passover Haggadas closely resemble those of the Jews of Yemen, who were themselves strongly and directly influenced by Maimonides.

Two Haggadas, now in the Hebrew Union College, omit Dayyenu (prayer); and also include hymns unfamiliar to the western Jews, but similar to Haggadas used in Yemen, Aleppo (Syria) and also fragments in the Cairo Geniza. And some in the liturgy compiled (from prior sources?) by Soadiah Gaon in 10th century Baghdad.

Despite this golden age of international interrelationship from Spain and Frankish Europe in the west to China and India in the east, around 900 the Radanite commerce came to a sudden end. The fall of the Tong Dynasty, in 907, abruptly severed all relations with the west. 

The Slavs destroyed the Jewish Khazar Kingdom between the Caucasus and the Black Sea. Tatar raiding parties cut off other roads. Once again the Jews of  China and India were isolated.

[I am not enough of a scholar of the development of the ritual prayer service and the stages of canonization of the books of the Bible. By such scholarship it might be possible to more accurately date the origins of the Chinese Jews. Though their scrolls and artifacts were transferred to the archives of Christians, I assume they are available to authenticated scholars for study; and besides, numerous copies have been made of parts of their relics.]

[I believe the scrolls and other artifacts are now in the hands of the Jewish Community in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. LMMD 1999]

However, pending such scholarship, there are earlier eras from which to speculate early emigration to China and elsewhere in Asia.

During the reign of King Solomon, 950 BCE, a mercantile development program was initiated that led to the creation of expensive overland and maritime trade routes to many parts of the known world, and concomitantly, to the implanting of supportive settlements along the way.

Within 100 years of the unification of Israel, under the rule of David and Solomon, around 1000 BCE, the state split off into two kingdoms. Soon thereafter, Assyrians rose to power in that land. Tiglatpileser III, the Phul of the Bible, invaded the land of Israel, and carried many inhabitants into captivity.

Ten years later, Sargon II conquered Samaria, capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and transported the majority of the remaining inhabitants, especially the upper classes, to distant provinces of the empire. The ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom, as such, were never heard from again.

 150 years later, the Kingdom of Judah was likewise decimated. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, ruler of the Chaldeans, which supplanted the Assyrians after their collapse, conquered Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, and carried off most of the Jewish Nation, mostly into Babylonia. Some escaped into Egypt. Only tillers of the soil and vineyards were allowed to remain.

 Thus 700 years after arrival into the land of Canaan, the Jews had left the area, but thrived and survived.

 When Babylonia fell to King Cyrus of Persia in 538 BCE, the Jews of Babylonia slowly returned to the land, in continuing small groups, and even rebuilt the Temple.

 Despite further trials, the Jews as a nation persisted into the first century of the Christian era. At that time, the Land of Israel [Palestine] was a key province of the Roman Empire. In addition to travel throughout the Roman Empire, during the viable duration of Jewish Palestine, thousands of Jewish prisoners of war were marched into Rome in captivity, after Titus destroyed the Temple, Jerusalem, and thousands of Jews in 70 CE.

 At this time, many more were also removed as prisoners of war to other far-flung corners of the Roman Empire. And thousands more fled beyond the reach of the Roman armies, undoubtedly some to the Far East.

 During the reign of Herod, (first century, CE) a 500 man band of Jewish cavalrymen from Babylonia arrived in Judea. Herod assigned them Bathyria in East Jordan as a place of residence. They assumed the task of escorting pilgrims, who were often imperiled by robbers on the long caravan trails from the Euphrates. I  have no doubt that they were already long experienced from guarding caravan trails into the Far East, specifically India and China.

 In 1899, one Captain Jonas Lehman, traveling in China with German forces, reported that he had met a money changer/merchant who claimed to be the Jewish High Priest. He claimed that the Jews had arrived in China at the very end of the Han Dynasty, (58-75 CE), about three years after the destruction of the Second Temple, in 70 CE The refugees had traveled to China though Khorosan and Samarkland.

 In 1901, 37 lines of Judeo Persian text was found in Chinese Turkistan : The Dandan-Uliq find.

It was Persian language written in Hebrew characters. Written on paper.

(In 718 CE , the date of the document, paper was only produced in China.)

 In 1908, in the Caves of the Thousand Bulls, in Western Kansai Province, a Hebrew penitential prayer was found among 25,000 manuscripts (from the 8th or 9th century.)

 In 1950, one Lieutenant Colonel Shih Hung-mo, of the air force of the Republic of China (Formosa), testified in an interview, as follows:

_The first batch of Jews came to China about 620 CE

_In 1056 BCE 114 people left Israel, and traveled to Babylonia.

_In 139 CE after the Romans defeated Judea, and destroyed the 2nd Temple, this batch, now numbering      

   160, went east, arriving in India. Centuries later, they left the Ganges Valley, and slowly migrated east,           

   arriving in 620 CE at Chang-an City (Scan) in China proper.

_200 years later, (820 CE) they moved east to Shangchiu City, stayed 500 years, and then at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, they moved to Yunnan Province, and settled at Kunming City. and Talifu.

_In Yunnan Province there were (are?) 85 individuals, of four clans: Shih; Li; Ai; and Ha families.

_A second batch came to China from India in the 8th century CE Chinese history books say they came

   from East Turkistan in the 12th century as the bearers of tribute to the Emperor of China and then settled in the capital city, Kaifeng-fu.

_200 of this batch survive in Kaifeng, most living in the Lane of Scripture-Teaching. They have a rabbi, and the Talmud in the Chinese Language. (Doubtful! ed.)

_The second batch were divided into 8 families of  7 clans with 6 different names: Chao; Chin; Chan; Ai; Kao; and Li.

Shih Hung denies any relationship to the Kaifeng Jews, stating his family has resided in Kunming for centuries. Shih Hung explains away the anonymity of Kunming Jews and other colonies: “Jews hide their identities because their neighbors persecute them as foreigners!” 

He said Mr. Ai only revealed the Jews of Kaifeng because he thought Father Matteo Ricci was a Jew. Shih Hung did not find  any Jewish references in formal Chinese Historical Works, but states,  “Some information is present in the historical records of the Mongols, and in the folk tales of Eastern Turkistan.” 

From these superficial references it can be readily accepted that Jews of China are authentically acceptable as Jews of antiquity, (from before the era of Rabbinic Judaism,) and not as dropouts from caravans in the late first millennium. 

Jews accompanied Columbus, to interact with Jews he expected to find present in his western route to the Far East. And likewise, Jews were in charge of the caravans to the Far East in the early centuries of the first millennium, because they expected to interact with their co-religionists who were already there.

Thus we have evidence that there were Jews throughout the country. The earliest recorded evidence of the  presence in Kaifeng, however, is the permission given to build the synagogue in Kaifeng in 1163 C.E.

(The Jews of Kaifeng applied for permission to build the synagogue in 1163 in clans. This gives some credence to the theory that they migrated there in families, not as individual traders. But this migration may have been from another part of China, by imperial edict, for resettlement for power base, rather than as a primary migration from India, Persia, etc.) 

There were large synagogues in other communities, too, but with the demise of their congregations. their records were lost, so that the time of establishment, and place of origin before China, is not known. (One of the stone steles at the synagogue in Kaifeng recorded a large synagogue in Hangchow! 

This Kehila in Hangchow, large enough to support its own synagogue, had by 1600 withered to non-existence.) However, according to oral tradition, the Jewish colony was Egyptian, Persian, Yemenite, and Indian in origin.

Though definite, albeit sporadic, contact, with foreign Jewish visitors continued until the sixteenth century, there is considerable controversy concerning contact and knowledge, of Kaifeng Jews, with Talmudic or Rabbinic Law.

FIRST CHRONICLES

Though there is evidence of commerce, between China and the rest of the world, though the ages, there apparently never were Chinese nationals traveling abroad. The commercial and cultural intercourse seems to have been conducted by foreign travelers going into China.

By the opening decade of  the seventeenth century, however, there had been a prolonged absence of any medium of communication between Chinese Jewry, and the extensive settlements of  Central Asia, or any other foreign Jewish settlements, due to the vicissitudes and attitudes of the reigning (Ming) dynasty 

In 1605, a limited number of Occidentals were living here and there throughout China, tolerated because of specialized  technical skills they possessed, or as a price that had to paid by China, to maintain minimal relationships with a few outside nations, situated thousands of miles beyond her borders.

In the spring of 1605, an elderly mandarin named Ai T’ien traveled from his home in Kaifeng, Hunan Province, to the imperial capital, Peking. His primary purpose was to apply for a more desirable position in the imperial civil service. Later the same year, Chinese chronicles record that he became superintendent of schools in another province.

While in Peking, Ai sought out a group of foreigners, religious enthusiasts who had come to Peking in 1601. He was fully aware that outsiders, especially Caucasians, were not welcome in his country. It could be assumed that never before in his lifetime had he encountered anyone of foreign birth. Matteo Ricci and his Jesuits had wandered about in various parts of China for 18 years before being given permission to settle in Peking (the national capital) in 1601.

However, Ai had read about this group in a book called THINGS I HAVE HEARD TELL, back in Kaifeng. What attracted Ai to these outlanders was that they professed a faith based on the premise that there was only one god. 

In a culture permeated by Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, the rigid monotheism of these aliens was bizarre and parochial to his countrymen. But Ai had been taught the same doctrine, while still a child. He knew that there were already two religious denominations in China that demanded an unswerving commitment  to the concept of the ONE GOD from their adherents. These faiths were Islam and Judaism. 

But in the book he read, the newcomers had forcefully denied that they were Muslims. Ai reasoned, therefore, knowing nothing about Christianity, that the newcomers were Jews like himself.

Ai saw the new colony in Peking not only as a new settlement of co-religionists, but more as an avenue through which he and his congregation would obtain news of Jews in the rest of the world. At a time of misfortune in his Kehillan, he felt support from Jews elsewhere could help forge links to the mainstream of Judaism and boost the ebbing morale of the Kaifeng  Jewish Community.

Having done with his administrative business in Peking, Ai proceeded to the westerner’s house of worship, and introduced himself to a dumbfounded group of bystanders as a co-religionist from Kaifeng.

Ai thought he was in a synagogue, and his listeners thought him to be a Christian; the first indigenous Chinese Christian they had ever seen.

THUS BEGAN THE MODERN AWARENESS OF THE KAIFENG COMMUNITY OF CHINESE JEWS

Ai was ushered into the presence of  Father Matteo Ricci, the superior of the foreign mission. Ricci was the Senior Cleric in China. He was a man of tact and wisdom, renowned in China for his academic and scientific attainments. 

Ricci eyed Ai as a Chinese of  Christian faith, the presence of  whom he had heard rumors, scattered throughout the remote China interior. To Ai, Ricci appeared as he expected, vaguely resembling a fair number of  the members of the Kaifeng community who still retained signs of  their Caucasian ancestry.

Ai, Ricci suspected, was almost surely a descendant of one or another of the Christian sects which had found their way to China a thousand years earlier: perhaps a Nestorian. It never occurred to Ricci that Ai considered him a rabbi, and thought he was standing in a synagogue.

Ai happened to arrive in Peking on the festival of St. John the Baptist. A painting of the Madonna and Child had been placed on one side of the altar, and a portrait  of  the young  St. John on the other. 

Ricci approached the altar and genuflected. Ai assumed the paintings represented Rebecca and her sons Jacob and Esau, and also genuflected as a courtesy to his host.

He told Ricci that it is not a custom of his community to venerate images, but he himself saw no harm in paying homage to ones ancestors.

Ai then noticed pictures of the 4 evangelists on the walls of  the chapel, and, still thinking of Jacob, asked if the figures might represent 4 of the 12 sons, of the infant whose portrait he had seen at the altar. Ricci thought Ai confused the evangelists with the apostles, and also was referring to the apostles as the spiritual sons of Christ, and tactfully refrained from correcting Ai.

The two men then retired to Ricci’s quarters. Both suspected something was amiss, but neither could quite understand precisely what was a wrong. Finally Ricci, to his utter amazement, realized that his visitor was, of all things, a Chinese Jew. Ai, for his part, found himself , for the first time, face to face with a Christian. 

Ricci knew a great deal about Christians and Jews. Ai could only suspect that, though adhering to certain doctrines and practices that were completely strange to him, a Christian was a member of a Jewish sect which was as much a part of the House of Israel as his own community in Kaifeng.

Ai told Ricci that Jews had been living in China for centuries, and that Jewish communities had  been dispersed throughout the country, but that at that time only the settlement of Kaifeng continued as a structured community, a Kehila. The Kaifeng community, he reported, contained 6 or 8 clans, a total of about 1000 persons. They called themselves adherents of the religion of YI-TZ’U-LO-LEY (Chinese transliteration of Israel,) and they did not know the word JEW!

Ai stated that the synagogue had recently been rebuilt, and that it contained numerous scrolls, some over 600 years old. The Jews of Kaifeng, he stated, observed most traditional festivals, refrained from eating pork, circumcised their infant sons, and generally followed the Laws of Moses, as similar to observant Jews Ricci had seen in Europe.

Ricci sent two delegates to Kaifeng to entice Kaifeng Jews and their Rabbi, by telling them that in Peking were kept all the books of  the  Hebrew Bible. And also a set of later scriptures called the New Testament , which documented the coming of the Messiah some 16 centuries earlier. The Kaifeng Rabbi (R. Abishai,) responded that the Messiah had not yet arrived, and was not due for another 10,000 years! 

Rabbi Abishai, old and failing, sought to obtain the services of  Ricci as chief Rabbi and teacher of the community. He insisted, however, that Ricci would first have to give up his practice of eating pork! 

Within two years R. Abishai died. His son Jacob was not fit to succeed him. Ricci intended to send a mission to Kaifeng to convert the Jews to Christianity, before they assimilated into the surrounding heathen tribes.

(The stated policy of the Ming emperors was to prohibit movement of Chinese subjects to and from foreign lands; and also to keep as many foreigners as possible out of China. This had resulted in the utter isolation of the Kaifeng Jews for a century or possibly much longer.)

In 1613, Guilio Aleni, a Jesuit who could read Hebrew arrived in Kaifeng. He was rebuffed from seeing the sacred writings (Torahs.) Perhaps  because he had expressed a desire to purchase rather than to study them. Or perhaps because of miscommunication. Also, perhaps he was over-zealous in trying to bring about conversions to Christianity. Or maybe he insulted his hosts for being so stupid in their reluctance to accept Christ.

Six or seven years later, Aleni’s superior, Nicolo Longobardi, Ricci’s successor, accompanied by Father Jean Fernandez, also visited Kaifeng. He spoke Persian, which was understood by a few of the people as the language of their homeland. 

The warm welcome they gave him turned cold, when, upon seeing pictures in his bible, they realized he was just another Christian!!! He was a Christian of  the Cross who worshipped Jesus, whom they called ISAI (Ersa) a name taken from the Moors.

Ricci’s journals, relating to his relationship with the Jews of Kaifeng, were edited and translated into Latin by Nicholas Trigault in 1615, and then continued through five editions. 

By 1648 they were being translated into German, Spanish, and Italian. (The publication of Ricci’s journals was part of a ploy to stimulate the Roman Catholic Church to invest more money into its China missionary program.)

Thus, by the mid 17th century, everybody in the West with an interest in the far flung missionaries of Christianity, or the condition of world Jewry, had an ample opportunity to be aware that the Jewish Diaspora had spread to the interior of the Chinese Empire.

Of course, as seen above, previous reports had already indicated that there were Jews in the Flowery Kingdom.

At the time of  Ricci, Christian theologians had insisted that the Hebrew Bible had been tampered with, to exclude those portions supportive of Christianity:

               a)   New Testament quoted Old Testament, but the passages were never found in the Old Testament.                                                       

               b) Old Testament did not foretell the coming of Jesus. The Christian theologians thought that         the Kaifeng scrolls, being the very oldest  Torah scrolls in existence at that time, might contain those references, from before the time of  the Talmudists (who they thought had edited and censored the Torah!) (Mohammed himself had co-opted that lie, to include  New Testament having excluded him too.)

The 16th century was the era of the “false book” burning (everything in Hebrew.) But how could the book burners justify burning the Old Testament Scripture, the source of the New Testament?  This was the great dilemma.

The Catholic interest in Jews was to find an ancient, virgin, unedited Torah, which would provide the allegedly lost references mentioned in the New Testament; and also references to the coming of Jesus.

A second purpose for studying the ways of Chinese Jews was to discover their secret of living in harmony with their co-nationalists, and Muslims, so that the Catholic missionaries could utilize their methods to live side-by-side with same, to become in a position to proselytize: To learn how much they could accommodate the ways of Chinese  and Muslims in bringing them into the Catholic fold. (This became a dispute of  long standing between the Jesuits on the one hand, and Dominicans and Franciscans on the other: it became  known as the Chinese Rites Controversy.)

For the purpose of obtaining early untainted Old Testament Bibles and Torah Scripture, starting with Alvarez  Semmedo in 1642, missionaries to China began to collect [bought or otherwise] Bibles and Torahs.

In 1700, Gottfried Liebniz, co-inventor of the calculus, urged clerics to obtain scrolls in China, to compare with the European scrolls.

[Once having shown the discrepancies to the world, the Christians expected mass spontaneous conversions.]

In 1710, the Jews were visited by a priest named Father Jean-Paul Gozani. In the course of his visit he asked the Jews if they had ever heard of Jesus. 

He was pleased to hear that they had, till they explained that the only Jesus they had heard of was Jesus of Sira, (Sirach), the author of the Book of Ecclesiastics, also known as the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sira. (Written in Jerusalem in 180 BCE)

(The Hebrew text was lost early in the first millennium. Only the Greek translation by the grandson survived. In 1896 Solomon Schecter found a fragment in the Geniza in Cairo. It showed hundreds of  years of difference from the rest of the Bible, refuting much of the claims by “The Higher Criticism” that the Bible was a later work than Moses, etc.

Gozani reported the observance of Sabbath, Passover, and other festivals. The Chinese Jews were known as “THE SECT WHICH PLUCKS OUT THE SINEWS”.

(“They do not eat blood and they cut the nerves and veins so that the blood drains out”)

      1) They drained the blood in order to make the meat Kosher.

      2) They cut the sinew following Genesis: 25-33

                  JACOB STRUGGLED WITH THE ANGEL AT PENIEL.

                  THE ANGEL WRENCHED JACOB’S HIP AT ITS SOCKET, SO THAT THE SOCKET OF HIS HIP WAS STRAINED AS HE WRESTLED.

     (The children of Israel to this day eat not the thigh muscle that is on the socket of the hip, since Jacob’s socket was wrenched at the thigh muscle.) Genesis: 32-33

Gozani wrote: “They make no fire, nor cook, on the Sabbath. They prepare food on Friday. They cover their face with a transparent veil when they recite the Bible, in memory of Moses, who covered his face when he descended the mountain to promulgate the Law of God to his people.”

(They also made offerings to Confucius and ancestors, with oxen and sheep, but no pork.)

They told Gozani they came to China in the Han Dynasty (206 BCE - 221 CE) but were diminished to 7 clans (Chao; Chin; Shih; Kao; Chang; Li; and Ai.) They said they came from HSI-YU (or SIYU), regions west of China; (India or Persia. ) Or maybe the Middle East. 

That their kingdom in the West is called Judah, which was conquered by Joshua after deliverance from Egypt, and crossing the Red Sea, and the desert. And those who left Egypt numbered 600,000!

The Jews told Gozani that they were descended from the tribes of Benjamin, Judah, and Levi. (The tribes dispersed by the Babylonians (586 BCE), and Romans (70 CE), and others no longer remembered.)

Gozani noted that the Jews started to read Hebrew from childhood, and many knew how to write it. Gozani related that they circumcised the males; observed Sabbath; Pesach; Purim and other festivals.

(He disapproved of their pronunciation of the Shema, and they knew nothing of Jesus of Nazareth.)

Jews and Jewish Law were used  for procedural conflicts of Catholics and others. The Laws of Levirate Marriage were related to the Marriage of King Henry VIII to Catherine, widow of Henry’s brother Arthur. [Which led to the Anglican Schism.] 

The Chinese Rites controversy, related to Jews’ relations with Confucius, which kept Catholics from converting Chinese Nationals till W.W.II [Which related to the Jesuit-Dominican/Franciscan antagonism.]

But there was no concern by Jewish intellectuals concerning the Kaifeng Jews. Given Deuteronomy verse 4:2:

   “YOU SHALL NOT ADD ANYTHING TO WHAT I COMMAND YOU OR TAKE ANYTHING AWAY FROM IT.”

they had no thought of any variance between the Torah of Europe and that found in Kaifeng.

In 1650, a renowned Jewish scholar in Amsterdam wrote a pamphlet containing his views concerning the Chinese Jews. For Manasseh ben Israel, in the time of Cromwell, this was part of an attempt to have Jews readmitted to England, which had expelled all the Jews in the 1200’s.

(The Jews were expelled from England in the 13th century, after the mysterious death of Little St. Hugh of Lincoln. The Jews were accused of crucifying him.)

As known by its Hebrew title, mikva'ot'oth ISRAEL, it has been published in 6 or more languages, and in at least 26 editions.

Manasseh suggested that for the Messiah to come, the Jews would have to come from all four corners of the world, and since the Jews were seen to be present in Asia, South America, and other far-flung corners of the world, the only place that they were absent was England. And once the Jews were admitted to England, then all the Jews could come to one place and maybe then the Messiah would come.

(Of course, if England would admit Jews, it would be a safe haven for Jews fleeing the inquisition in Spain, and other European pogroms) (Chmielnik in Poland, etc.)

Manasseh ben Israel also held the Jews in China as a geographic stepping stone to the finding of Reuben-tribe Jews in the Cordillera Mountains of  South America, near Honda (Columbia) and Quito (Ecuador.)

The book relates the tale of Antonio de Montezenos, who purported to have found Jewish descendants of the tribe of the tribe  of Reuben  in the jungles of  South America. Manasseh suggested that these tribesman had come to China after the Assyrian destruction of the Kingdom of Israel, and then eventually emigrated further to South America. Quoting Isaiah (Isa. 49:12) :

   “LOOK! THESE ARE COMING FROM AFAR, THESE FROM THE NORTH AND THE WEST, AND THESE FROM THE LAND OF SINIM.”

Manasseh quotes Ptolemy, who identified Sinim as Chinese, though Biblical commentary places Sinim on the southern border of Egypt.

[Indeed in a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the crucial word is SEVANIYYIN, not SINIM; a reference to Syenians, who lived in Southern Egypt.]

[Of course, Cyrus Gordon would say that the South American tribes showing a possible Jewish connection were remnants of  Phoenician travelers, much earlier than the Assyrian or Roman conquests.]

Manasseh visited Cromwell, in 1655, unsuccessfully, but thereafter the Jews started to emigrate in, in small groups, through the surreptitious back door.

In  January, 1724,  a new emperor ascended the throne of  the Yung-Cheng Dynasty. He put an end to further proselytization. (Christian) He closed all the churches except 4 in Peking, and shortly expelled to Macao (a Portuguese colony) all the missionaries.

The Kehilla of Kaifeng temporarily disappeared from history. Foreigners were sequestered in a small compound  near Canton.

In 1842, the Opium War ended with the Treaty of Nanking. The British ceded Hong Kong, and were allowed into 5 treaty ports. However, travel within China was still interdicted. 

ABOUT KAIFENG

In 1858, the Treaty of Tientsin was signed, permitting free travel of foreigners throughout China.

Many Jews, when restrictions were removed, moved up the academic and civil service ladder. But they were routinely assigned to a district far from home, a precaution to discourage nepotism, favoritism and other undesirable practices. BUT IT ALSO LED TO THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE TEACHER OF THE COMMUNITY, BECAUSE HE WAS A CIVIL SERVANT AND TRANSFERRED AWAY.

DECLINE OF THE COLONY

In 1760, Isaac Nieto sent a letter requesting information  about the Kehilla. It is not known if it was ever received. Others sent before and after, likely were likewise never received.

In 1850 two Chinese converts visited Kaifeng at the request of the Anglican Church, and the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. They returned to the colony in 1852.

The convert delegates mentioned above were shown two letters, one from the Jews of London, dated 1815.

The second was from James Finn dated 1844. Finn was a member of the Society to Convert the Jews, but was also a learned scholar of  Hebrew language and customs.

(A correspondent from China to Finn, in 1850, reported that there were no priests and no form of worship of any kind.)

Another letter in 1851 pleaded for help, to prevent total decay of  the community. MISSIONARIES KEPT IT, AND NEVER TRANSMITTED IT TO ITS INTENDED JEWISH RECIPIENTS!

In 1850, and thereafter, the Directors (Jewish) of the Shanghai branch of the Bank of  Sassoon, were informed of the plight of the Kaifeng Jews. Numerous meetings of the board were held, through 1925: NO HELP WAS EVER GIVEN!

In 1867 three Kaifeng Jews went to Peking, and thereafter sent pleas, persons, and letters. To no avail.

In 1866 W. A. P. Martin visited Kaifeng, but the synagogue had already been destroyed, and the community was reduced to few, in poverty, not observing  the Laws of Moses.

In 1900 it was reported that Jews met in private homes, kept the Sabbath and a couple of the festivals, and still performed circumcision.

In 1900, texts were removed to Christian missions in Shanghai. The Shanghi Jews, severely smitten with guilt, seeing Jewish artifacts in Christian possession, sent a letter over 44 signatures, chiding the Kaifeng Kehilla for having strayed so far from the path of Judaism!

In 1901 Li Ching-Sheng of Kaifeng and his son went to Shanghai for three weeks. They reported that they no longer extracted the sinews from the meat; no longer celebrated Sabbath or the festivals; no longer circumcised the males, but still did not eat pork or worship idols.

A rescue mission was formed in Shanghai, but failed. (Precise actions not known.)

Attempted British and American intervention was attempted and died.

A request for a rabbi for Kaifeng was neglected.

From 1910 to 1933 Bishop William Charles White, of the Canadian Church of England, presided at the church mission in Kaifeng. Thereafter he was the Chinese curator at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. 

He published “The Chinese Jews” in 1942. The Jews of Kaifeng resisted his conversion efforts, but also resisted his attempts at reconstituting a congregation. (Propaganda?) He thought it would be a great triumph to build his mission house on the old synagogue grounds, but to their eternal credit, the Kaifeng Jews repulsed him. 

He did, however, in December, 1912, obtain the 1489/1512 and the 1679 steles, for safekeeping, promising never to remove them from the province (Hunan.)

(An unconfirmed report dated 1957 stated that the steles were seen in Kaifeng by Goldman.)

Visitors from 1905 to 1914 reported that 6 of the 12 clans still claimed to be Jewish, though no religious functions persisted. A few ran small shops; some were poverty stricken.

THE STELES

There were in the courtyard of the synagogue, in Kaifeng , two stone monuments, which summarized the community’s history, and religious beliefs, that preceding generations had erected for posterity.

1489 - relates construction of the synagogue compound after the 1461 flood of the Yellow River.

1489 -1512- more information on the back of the same slab.

1679 - 7 foot high, badly disfigured. (names were chiseled off after the visit of  threatening nature of foreigners.)

1489-rebuilding the synagogue and precepts of Judaism..

       -17 surviving clans: Li; An; Ai; Kao; Mu; Chao; Chin; Chou; Chang; Shih; Huang; Li; Nieh; Chin; Chang; Tso; and Pai.

       1) 1163 C.E. Sung Dynasty, permission first given to build a Temple.

           (The Sung Dynasty ruled 960-1126 in Kaifeng, then transferred the capital to Peking?)

[Kaifeng, in the Sung era, numbered over 1,000,000 inhabitants. As such, it may have been the largest city in the world]

       2) Earlier, Sung Dynasty emperor received a gift of western cloth as tribute. Thereupon he invited Jews to come to Kaifeng to preserve their traditions.

       3) Records that there were Jews residing in Ningpo, Ningsia, and Yangchow (named cities) and they communicated with each other.

[Thus we can assume the cloth was presented to an emperor whose reign fell between 960 and 1126 C.E.]

[These Jews who emigrated to Kaifeng came from T’ien-Chu, but we do not know where that is (India? Middle East?)]

1489-the synagogue was rebuilt in 1279, during the reign of the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty, at the old site        on Earth-Market Character Street (350 foot square lot.) 

       -records that in 1421 a plaque pledging fealty to the Ming Dynasty was installed.

      -Judaism is described: the Purity and Truth religion.

1512-At the instigation and expense of Jews living elsewhere than Kaifeng, to preserve their devotion in the last standing and functioning synagogue [in China?] [gave money?]

       -Records that the synagogue was built in 1163 C.E.

       -Records that the synagogue was rebuilt in 1279.

       -Records that the synagogue was rebuilt in 1512. (or the stone was installed?)

       -Records that Judaism was brought to China during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E.-221 C.E.)

       -mentions the Path of Torah:

               From Adam (A-tan)

                    to Noah (Nu-wo)

                    to Abraham (A-wu-lo-han)                     to Abram (Lo-han)                     to Isaac Yi-ssu-hoke                     to Isaac (Ho-ke)                     to Jacob (Yo-ho-chiieh-wu)  
                    to Jacob (Chiieh-wu)
                    to the 12 tribes                     to Moses (Moieh-shi)                     to Aaron (A-ho-lien)                     to Aaron (Ho-lien)
                    to Joshua (Yueh-shu-wo) 
                    to Joshua Shu-wo                     to Ezra (Ai-tzu-la)

      -In each one the religion shone with renewed brilliance.

      -It is stated that the adherents of the religion are found in many places under the heavens and they communicated with each other.

1642- At least one of the floods of Kaifeng was the result of the breaking of the dikes by two opposing  forces, rebel and imperial, with the community and the synagogue being the major victim.

1663- Jews arrived in China during the Chou Dynasty (1122-221 B.C.E.)

          [This may have been propaganda to convince the neighbors in Kaifeng that the Jews were not newcomers. To establish antiquity of the Jewish community as a bulwark against official antagonism to foreigners.]

       - Lists the staff of the synagogue: Chief Rabbi.

                                                           8 Spiritual Leaders    (man-la)

                                                           5 Novice Spiritual Leaders   (man-la)

                                                           5 Ritual Slaughterers.   (man-la)

                                                           2 Incense and Devotion Leaders.   (man-la)

      - Mentions the origin and history of THE WAY (the law of Moses)

CUSTOMS AND CEREMONIES

I would like to tell now about the customs and rituals of the Kaifeng community. But first I would like to mention two facts, which will give a better frame of reference through which we might view, but not judge, these people.

First, most , if not all, of the Kaifeng Jews, possibly at the time of their discovery by Matteo Ricci, but surely in our century, are not Jews at all, by the Halachic laws, as we now know them. 

The clan in Kaifeng, over the years, was not able to continue a Jewish matrilineal desendence, due to the small size of the Jewish community; and because of the cessation of continued contact with foreign Jewish communities, by virtue of imperial decree. And also secondary to internal politics and peer pressures. 

There were just not enough  Jewish women available to marry. Patrilinear descent, as is customary in China, became the practice of the Jewish community. So that, the children of  Jewish fathers, not Jewish mothers, continued in the Jewish community, accepted and functioning Jews as long as this continued possible, according to the clan of the father; whereas children of non-Jewish fathers, most frequently Muslim or Confucianist, left the Jewish community.

The second point is much briefer: The Kaifeng community had probably been the most intensely missionized focus of Judaism ever known in history. Though admittedly never treated to the adventures of the inquisition, despite the ravages of poverty, and decimation of the years following the loss of Rabbi, and teacher, and lack of other learned individuals in the community, for many despite the slightest remnant of Jewish knowledge, or custom, NO record of ANY conversion to Christianity can be found, till the conversion of the Shi clanin 1924. 

(It should be mentioned, however, that the Chinese nationals considered the Jews to be ‘Blue Capped Moslems,” and on their part, Jews from recorded times lived and migrated internally in China amidst the Moslem populations, though usually in their own enclaves. 

After years of philosophizing  about the similarities and accommodations between the sects,  conversions to Mohammedanism became frequent.)

My description of customs and ceremonies pertains to the time when the rabbi and the teacher were still present. The synagogue was the focus of the community. The Jews of  Kaifeng  were given permission to build a synagogue in 1163. 

Before that date they presumably met for prayer in rented facilities or in private homes. Thereafter, following fire, or flood, three or more of which occurred, records attest to the complete rebuilding of the structure. 

The intrigues which permeate the records of obtaining funds and  permission for rebuilding and remodeling are the stuff of Gilbert and Sullivan, but are too involved to include here. 

The building was present in 1851, having survived since the last rebuild following the flood in 1642. However, by 1866 the building was gone, its construction materials being subsequently found in the floors and walls of edifices of various denominations in Kaifeng, as were many synagogue books, manuscripts and artifacts. One concludes that these materials may have been sold off the alleviate the abject poverty of the remnants of the community at that time.

The synagogue may have been planned, but was certainly constructed, by non-Jewish artisans, but certainly at the direction of Jews. Instead of facing south, as Chinese temples do, the “Ark of the Revered Scriptures” was close to the western wall, requiring the worshippers to face WEST, in the direction of Jerusalem.

The synagogue was constructed on what was later known as the “Lane of the Sinew Extracting Religion.” 

Over the gate was inscribed in Chinese: “The Temple of Purity and Truth.” Two large stone lions stood guard at the entry, one at each side. (They were later found in the Buddhist Temple.) Through the East Gate, under the memorial archway, of the Chao clan, though the Great Gateway, we enter the first courtyard.

Through the second gateway, under the Ai clan memorial arch, into the third courtyard, between the 1512 and the 1663 steles, past two marble lions, a large incense tripod of iron, two carved stone bowls, and a well, we enter an open terrace with balustrades, in which the communal sukkah was set up at the Feast of Tabernacles.

Stopping at a lattice in the front veranda, one now proceeds into the synagogue proper. Numerous other memorial halls and buildings can be seen in the illustration (in "Chinese Jews", by W. C. White.) The Torah scrolls  and other scriptural works were kept in a hall behind and part of the synagogue proper.

To the south of the main synagogue was a hall of the holy patriarchs, in which was burned incense as tribute to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, some of the ancestors of the Kehila, and Confucius.

In the main synagogue structure was the “Chair of Moses”, the Lectern on which the Torah was positioned, upright, and read to the congregation during worship services. There were displayed tablets honoring the Ch’ing (Manchu) Emperor and the Ming Emperor, as required in all sanctioned houses of worship in China. The words of the Shema were emblazoned in gold and placed above the honorary imperial tablets.

Deeper into the nave of the sanctuary was the Bethel, or Ark of the Revered Scriptures. In it were stored the 13 Torah scrolls, used in the synagogue services, each enclosed in a Torah case. A recessed rack inside the Ark held the individual portions (Parashioth) of the Scriptures read on the Sabbath; Mondays and Thursdays; and Festival Days.

 

Throughout the halls adjoining the main sanctuary was a large array of incense bowls, in honor of Israel’s great men of the law, and also more recent ancestors, plus one as a tribute to Confucius. Confucius was selected  because the congregation considered him a universal sage and one of the history’s foremost legislators.