Jews in China have historically been divided into several populations of Chinese Jews.

• It has been asserted by some that the Jews that have historically resided in various places in China originated with the Lost Ten Tribes of the exiled ancient Kingdom of Israel who relocated to the areas of present-day China. Traces of some ancient Jewish rituals have been observed in some places.
• One group of particular note, the most well-documented and well-known throughout the world, were the Kaifeng Jews, who lived in Kaifeng (Henan province), and immigrated there during the Song dynasty (11th century CE).
• After the Russian Revolution of 1917, several thousand Russian Jews moved to Harbin in northern China (former Manchuria).
• During Shanghai's period as a trading center in the early 20th century, Jews from many Western nations resided and worked there.
• Another wave of 25,000 Jews, from Germany immigrated to Shanghai in the 1930s. Shanghai at the time was an open city and did not have restrictions on immigration. After Japanese invasion of Shanghai in 1941, these Jews were detained by the Japanese in few concentration camps in Hongkou District in northeastern Shanghai. The total number of Jews entering Shanghai during this period equaled the number of Jews fleeing to Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa combined.

After World War II and the establishment of the Communist regime in 1949, most of these Jews immigrated to Israel or the West, although a few remained. It should be noted that one of the most prominent non-Chinese to have lived in China from the establishment of the People's Republic of China to the contemporary period, Sidney Shapiro, an American emigre, is of Jewish descent.

Contents

1 History 1.1 First modern record 1.2 Origins 1.3 Jews in the 19th century 2 Name 3 See also 4 External links 5 References

History

First modern record

Jews in China were often mistaken for Muslims, and were reportedly mentioned under the appelation Zhu-hu in the Annals of the Yuan Dynasty in 1329 and 1354.

The first modern Western record of Jews residing in China is found in the records of the Jesuit missionaries in Beijing.

The prominent Jesuit Matteo Ricci received a visit from a young Jewish Chinese named Ngai in 1605, who explained that he worshipped one God. It is recorded that when he saw a Christian image of Mary with the child Jesus, he took it to be a picture of Rebecca with Esau or Jacob, figures from Scripture. Ngai declared that he had come from Kaifeng, and stated that it was the site of a large Jewish population.

Ricci sent a Chinese Jesuit to visit Kaifeng; later, further Jesuits also visited the city. It was later discovered that the Jewish community had a synagogue (Libai si), which was constructed facing the east, and possessed a great number of written materials and books.

Origins

It has been asserted in oral tradition that the first Jews immigrated to China through Persia following the Roman Titus's capture of Jerusalem in 76 CE, during the Han dynasty. A European researcher, writing in 1900, hypothesized that Jews came to China from India by a sea route during the Song dynasty between 960 and 1126.

Three tablets with inscriptions found at Kaifeng bear some historical suggestions. The oldest, dating from 1489, commemorates the reconstruction of a synagogue (bearing the name Qingzhen si, a term often used for mosques in Chinese), and states that 70 Jewish families entered China during the Song period (10-13th centuries). The second table, dated 1512 (found in the synagogue Xuanzhang Daojing Si), was allegedly taken to China during the Han dynasty (3-5th cent. CE). The third is dated 1663 and commemorates the rebuilding of the Qingzhen si synagogue and states that Judaism came to China from India during the Zhou dynasty (1122-955 CE), which has been declared to be impossible to be true.

One Catholic researcher of the early 20th century showed, that Ricci's manuscripts indicate that there were only approximately ten or twelve Jewish families in Kaifeng in the late 16 - early 17th century, 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. This could be taken to suggest that the Jews did indeed arrive during the Song, based on the timeframe indicated, and in fact the dynasty's capital was Hangzhou.

Jews in the 19th century

During the Taiping rebellion of the 1850s, the Jews of Kaifengapparently suffered a great deal and were dispersed. Following this dislocation, they returned to Kaifeng, yet continued to be small in number and to face hardships.

Name

It has been recorded that the Jews in China called themselves Diao jin jiao (扚筋教??), loosely, "the religion which removes the sinew," referring to the Jewish prohibition against eating sinew (from Genesis 32:32). Jewish dietary law would have most likely caused Jewish communities to stand out from the surrounding Chinese population, as Chinese culture is typically very free in the range of items it deems suitable for food.

See also

• Religion in China
• Lost Ten Tribes

External links

• http://www.gluckman.com/index.htm
• Jews of china.org
• The Sino-Judaic Institute: The Jews of Kaifeng
• Chinese Jews - History of Jewish Community in China
• Jews of China
• China's historic Jews, synagogue honored in 'Silk Road' exhibit
• Chinese Jews

References

• http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03669a.htm