[quote]edmontonalberta wrote:
Could you give more insight on the Chinese Jewish community?
Its history, culture etc and perhaps some other not well known Jewish communities that vanished.[/quote]
Sure, there are four known “waves” (more like ripples) of Jewish immigration into China.
- Refugees from the Roman destruction/war (60-70CE)
- Various traders during the middle ages/dark ages
- Russian Pogroms in the early 1900s
- World War II
Not much is left of #1. There is the remnant of a synagogue and some records and placards. Various European missionaries came across one group and discovered a very, very old Torah, which could not be read by the population, which had intermarried. The population maintained Jewish dietary laws (in fact, Judaism was known in China as Tiao jin jiao — "the religion which removes the sinew) — it’s now Youtairen as I learned on a recent trip to China (on business).
A page of that Torah (Genesis 1) had been inscribed on a monument in Hebrew with a request for anyone who could read it to stop and help the people so they could read their holy book.
A Catholic priest saw it, recognized it for what it was, and somehow snagged the Torah in the 1600s. It’s now in the Vatican, I believe.
As for #2, Marco Polo, the famed explorer who “discovered” China found the marketplace in Beijing to be run by Jewish people in the 1300s. They had followed the Silk Road and prospered.
3 and 4 are interesting. Literally 10s of thousands of Jewish people fled to China during this time — helped by Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” The Chinese read this book, decided Jews were hard working and had magic influence with money, and were ideal immigrants and leaders.
Having been to China 8 times in the last decade, I will tell you that that belief still is pretty common among Chinese. They also like Israel because it is an “old” country like China.
The Communist were pretty hard on the Jews and many fled to Israel.
++++++++
Today, there are various non-Chinese Jewish people in China in the various ports and big cities.
The last remnant of the ancient Jewish immigrants are largely mixed with the native populations, such that they appear ethnically Chinese. This group is called the Kaifeng Jews.
They are of Jewish origin, but are probably not Jewish under Jewish law or even the law of return for Israel, in that Judaism is maternally-passed and the records were not kept. Long story short, there are a lot of Jewish people in China who don’t know they are Jewish and a lot of people who identify as Jewish who might not be.
They do keep some traditions: no pork, no shellfish, a form of Passover, and tend to wear a yarmulke.
This group experienced a lot of persecution by the Communist (who are atheists and, as such, have a natural dislike of Jewish people) but starting in the last 20-30 years, have begun learning Hebrew, having a proper bris and (because lineage is unclear) conversion to Judaism. A handful have immigrated to Israel, in fact.