Jewish Kaifeng

About a thousand years ago a community of Jews somewhere, likely Persia, got word of a pending persecution. They decided to migrate east and wound up in Kaifeng, China. The Emperor recognized them and granted them protection, and for the next several centuries a small community thrived in complete isolation from the rest of world Jewry. Acceptance led to assimilation. Members of the community intermarried with the locals. With no barriers as were the norm in Europe, young men prepared for the imperial exams, neglecting their Jewish studies. By the 1800s the last rabbi had died and no one could read Hebrew or lead the community. It slowly faded away.

Henan University has a Jewish studies department. One of the professors showed me the center, a couple of rooms with a modest library and small collection of Judaica. Given the difficulty of obtaining relevant books, most of them in English they’ve made an admirable start.

The graduate program currently has six students, one of whom gave me a tour of Jewish Kaifeng on Saturday. We first saw the site of the old synagogue. A Canadian missionary bought the land and funded the replacement of the old building with a hospital. In the alley named Teaching the  Torah Lane lives a widow of one of the descendants, as they are locally known, and her granddaughter. The young woman maintains a tiny collection of artifacts and gifts and hopes

eventually to establish a museum. A few tourists have made their way to the house as you can see at http://hi.baidu.com/yisrael.

She told me a brief history of the community and the synagogue and of her vigorous preservation efforts. Tears ran down her cheeks as she remembered how her grandfather urged her to keep her Jewish heritage alive.  It was very moving.

Later we visited Shi Lei, a activist intent on promoting interaction among the descendants. He speaks excellent English and has lectured in Israel and the USA. Shi Lei has a room dedicated to a display of pictures, gifts, and a few artifacts. He also is energetic and emotional in his dedication to his unique heritage. In addition to billing as the Curator of Mini-Jewish Museum on Kaifeng Jewry, his card lists him as the

Head of the Kaifeng Jewish Community, China’s only Jewish-Chinese Lecturer on Chinese Jewry, and China’s only Jewish-Chinese tour guide. His father is friendly but the language barrier prevented us from doing much more than smile and laugh together.

I’ve been invited to do some presentations at the Jewish Studies Department. We’ll invite Guo Yan and Shi Lei, both graduates of Henan University, so they can come if they’re interested. I hope to see everyone again while I am here.