The Jews of Kaifeng

TRAVEL: Tracing ancient Jewish influences in China (Eileen Wingard, San Diego Jewish World).

SAN DIEGO — A highlight of my recent trip to China was in Xian, once the largest city in the ancient world and capital of China throughout 11 dynasties. After arriving by bullet train from Beijing, we had dinner at a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant and spent the evening listening to three speakers whose subject was the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, a city on our original itinerary, but cancelled due to security reasons.

Professor Xu Xin , China’s leading scholar on the Jews of China, as well as the founder and director of the Diane and Guilford Glazer Institute for Jewish and Israel Studies at Nanjing University, gave us an overview of the history of the Jewish community of Kaifeng. Although historians may differ on the exact beginning of Jewish immigration to China, some dating the first arrival of Jews as far back as 220 BCE, what is definitely known is that during the Tang Dynasty, 618-906 CE, a poem and other records confirm the presence of Jews. Also, it is known that the Jews came on the Silk Road as traders.

In fact, a document, written on paper in a Judeo-Persian language, using Hebrew characters, was found on the Chinese-Tibet border. At that time, paper was only produced in China, so the Jewish trader had obviously been to China. These were Mizrahi Jews from Persia and Babylon. Some may also have come from India. Keifeng was then the major metropolis at the beginning of the Silk Road.

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I would take that 220 BCE arrival date with a grain of salt, but the Jewish community in Kaifeng does seem to have been there by around 900 CE and it still exists today. Ms. Wingard heard a lecture by one of its leaders when she was in Xian. Past posts on the Jews of Kaifeng are here, here, and here. And there's more on that Chinese Judeo-Persian text here.