The history of the Jewish people in China goes back to antiquity. Modern day Jews in China are predominantly composed of Sephardic Jews and their descendants. Other Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented, including Ashkenazi Jews, Mizrahi Jews and a number of converts to Judaism.
The Jewish Chinese community manifests a wide range of Jewish cultural traditions and it also encompasses the full spectrum of Jewish religious observance. Though a small minority, Chinese Jews have had an open presence in the country since the arrival of the first Jewish immigrants during the 8th century CE. Relatively isolated communities of Jews developed through the Han and Song dynasties (7th to 13th centuries CE) all the way through the Qing dynasty (19th century), most notably the Kaifeng Jews (the term "Chinese Jews" is often used in a restricted sense in order to refer to these communities). In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish merchants from around the world began to trade in Chinese ports, particularly in the commercial centres of Hong Kong, which was for a time a British colony; Shanghai (the International Settlement and French Concession); and Harbin (the Trans-Siberian Railway). 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. Since 2015, descendants of the Kaifeng Jews have come under government pressure and suspicion.
Overview The presence of a community of Jewish immigrants in China arguably began sometime in the Song dynasty, but a number of scholars have argued for its presence in China during the earlier Tang dynasty. In the 9th century, the Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh noted the travels of Jewish merchants called Radhanites, whose trade took them to China via the Silk Road through Central Asia and India. He mentioned the presence of Jewish merchants in a number of Chinese cities, and the important economic role they played transporting merchandise as well as transmitting scientific and technological expertise all the way from Spain and France via the Middle East to China by land and by sea. The medieval Italian explorer Jacob of Ancona, the supposed author of a book of travels, was a scholarly Jewish merchant who wrote in vernacular Italian, and he reached China in 1271,David Selbourne. The City of Light. Abacus, London 1998. although some authors question its veracity.J.R.S. Philips. The Medieval Expansion of Europe. Oxford University Press, 1998, p.289.
When the Ming dynasty closed off the Silk Road by land, Ningbo became an important trading port on the Maritime Silk Road. The 1489 stone tablet stated that the Jewish communities of Ningbo and Kaifeng had a very good relationship with each other and that after the Kaifeng Jews lost their holy texts during a flood in 1461, the Ningbo Jews gave two Torah scrolls to their brethren in Kaifeng. The tablet stated, "When the synagogue was rebuilt, Shi Bin, Li Rong, and Gao Jian, and Zhang Xuan went to Ningbo and brought back a scroll of the Scriptures. Zhao Ying of Ningbo brought another scroll to Kaifeng and respectfully presented it to our synagogue". It is believed the Ningbo Jewish community was fairly sizable for a smaller one would not be able to spare two Torah scrolls. The availability of these scrolls could also mean the Ningbo Jewish community was vibrant and observant. The descendants of the Ningbo Jewish community moved out of Ningbo to Shanghai and Hong Kong in the early 20th century due to war and to seek better economic opportunities; they have built a reputation for achieving immense success in the business, science and media industries.
During the period of China's opening to the West which coincided with the period of British quasi-colonialism, the first group of Jews who settled in China consisted of Jews who arrived in China under British protection following the First Opium War. Many of these Jews were of Indian or Iraqi origin, due to significant British colonialism in these regions. The second Jewish community settled in China during the first decades of the 20th century when many Jews arrived in Hong Kong and Shanghai during those cities' periods of economic expansion. Many more Jews arrived as refugees from the Russian Revolution of 1917. During the late 1930s and 1940s, a surge of individual Jews and a serge of Jewish families settled in China for the purpose of seeking refuge from the Holocaust in Europe and they were predominantly of European origin. Shanghai was notable for its special area established for the housing of Jewish refugees, most of them left after the war, the rest of them relocated either prior to or immediately after the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
Some Jews who lived in China converted to Islam and became Hui Muslims.
A manuscript states that they prayed in both Hebrew and Chinese. Ancient Jewish communities in China adapted well to the Han Chinese customs, including patrilineal descent and intermarriage with Han Chinese, while maintaining their Jewish identities. Over the centuries, most of the Jewish community came to be virtually indistinguishable from the Han and Hui Chinese population. Due to the fact that Chinese Jews historically hold a strong Chinese identity, the current government does not recognize them as one of the 56 ethnic minorities.
Since their religious practices are considered functionally extinct, under the Law of Return, they are required to undergo conversions to Orthodox Judaism in order to become eligible for expedited immigration to Israel."The Truth About Matrilineal Descent"
Some international Jewish communities are beginning to search for the descendants of these Jews in an attempt to help them revive their interest in their Jewish roots.
Since the expansion of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China in Zhejiang province, more Jewish scholars have moved there in an attempt to reach out to the Jewish Communities of Zhejiang, including a prominent tribe which lives in Ningbo.
Contrary to a popular belief in the Western world, the Kaifeng Jews are not the only Chinese Jewish community. The Kaifeng Jews are recognized as Jews because they have become more observant in modern times, but they are just one of many ancient Jewish communities which live in China. The Ningbo Jews are also known for their contributions to their Jewish Heritage, but nowadays, they are non-practicing Jews. The term "Kaifeng Jews" is not interchangeable with "Chinese Jews".
History Some scholars have claimed that the ancestors of the Jews who have historically resided in various places in China were members of the Ten Lost Tribes of the exiled ancient Kingdom of Israel which relocated to places which were located in present-day China. The observance of some ancient Jewish rituals has been documented in some places.
One well-known group was the Kaifeng Jews, who are purported to have traveled from Persia to India during the mid-Han dynasty and later migrated from the Muslim-inhabited regions of northwestern China (modern day Gansu province) to Henan province during the early Northern Song dynasty (960–1127). Kaifeng Jews were most prominent between the tenth and eighteenth centuries.
Origins
According to an oral tradition, the first Jews immigrated to China through Persia after the Roman Emperor Titus's capture of Jerusalem in 70 CE. A large number of Jews emigrated from Persia during the reign of Emperor Ming of Han (58–75 CE). Writing in 1900, Father Joseph Brucker hypothesized that Jews came to China from India by a sea route in ancient times.
Three steles with inscriptions which were found at Kaifeng bear some historical suggestions. The oldest, dating from 1489, commemorates the construction of a synagogue (1163) (bearing the name Qingzhen Si, a term for a mosque which is frequently used in Chinese), states that the Jews entered China from India in the Later Han dynasty (25–220 CE), the Jews' 70 Chinese surnames, their audience with an "unnamed" Song dynasty emperor, and it finally lists the transmission of their religion from Abraham down to the prophet Ezra. The second tablet, which dates back to 1512 (found in the Xuanzhang Daojing Si synagogue) contains a detailed description of the Jews' religious practices. The third tablet dates back to 1663 and it commemorates the re-rebuilding of the Qingzhen Si synagogue and it also recaps the information which is written on the other two steles.Weisz, Tiberiu. The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China. New York: iUniverse, 2006 ()
Father Joseph Brucker believed that Matteo Ricci's manuscripts state that only approximately ten or twelve Jewish families lived in Kaifeng in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and that they had reportedly resided there for five or six hundred years. The manuscripts also state that a larger Jewish community lived in Hangzhou. The Jewish community of Hangzhou was larger than the Jewish community of Kaifeng because loyal Jews fled south to Hangzhou along with the soon-to-be crowned Emperor Gaozong. In fact, the 1489 stele states that the Jews "abandoned Bianliang" (Kaifeng) after the Jingkang Incident.
Many Jewish communities were established in China during the Middle Ages. However, not all of them left evidence of their existence. The following is a list of the names of those Jewish communities which are known about today: Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Yangzhou, Ningxia, Guangzhou, Beijing, Quanzhou, Nanjing, Xi'an and Luoyang.
Names Today, the Chinese term for Jews is Youtairen (). The proper pronunciation of these terms is similar to the proper pronunciation of the term Yehudai (יהודאי)—the Aramaic word for Jew—and to Iudaios (Ἰουδαῖος), the Greek word for Jew.
Historically, the Chinese people called Judaism Tiaojinjiao (), loosely translated as "the religion which removes the sinew," probably referring to the Jewish dietary prohibition against eating the sciatic nerve (from Genesis 32:32).Catholic Encyclopedia.
Jewish dietary laws (kashrut), which forbid the eating of, among other foods, non-ruminant mammals, shellfish and reptiles, would have most likely caused Jewish communities to stand out from the surrounding mainstream Chinese population, as Chinese culture is typically very free in the range of items it deems suitable for food.
Jews have also been called the Blue Hat Hui (), in contrast to other populations of Hui people, who have identified with hats of other colors. The distinction between Muslim and Jewish Hui is not, and historically has not been, well recognised by the dominant Han population.
A modern translation of the "Kaifeng Steles" has shown that the Jews referred to their synagogue as Qingzhen Si (), which is the same as the modern Chinese term for mosques. Qingzhen Si and Libai Si () were used as names both for Jewish synagogues and Islamic mosques.
According to an oral tradition which was documented 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 Yicileye jiao (). Yicileye is a transliteration and partial translation of "Israel". Xu Xin translates this phrase as "Chosen people, endowed by God, and contented with their lives and work".
Early record