History of the Jews in China

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 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 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.

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.

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.

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 oldest, dating from 1489, commemorates the construction of a synagogue (1163) (bearing the name Qīngzhēn Sì, 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 "un-named" Song-dynasty emperor, and it finally lists the transmission of their religion from Abraham down to the prophet Ezra.

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.

Historically, the Chinese people called the Jews Tiao jin jiao (挑筋教), loosely, "the religion which removes the sinew,"[30] probably referring to the Jewish dietary prohibition against eating the sciatic nerve (from Genesis 32:32).

[citation needed] The oldest evidence of the presence of Jews in China dates back to the beginning of the 8th century: a business letter which was written in the Judeo-Persian language, discovered by Marc Aurel Stein.

The letter (now housed in the British Museum) was found in Dandan Uiliq, an important post along the Silk Road in northwest China during the Tang dynasty (618–907).

[33][34] Ibn Zeyd al Hassan of Siraf, a 9th-century Arabian traveler, reports that in 878 followers of the Chinese rebel leader Huang Chao besieged Canton (Guangzhou) and killed a large number of foreign merchants, Arabs, Persians, Christians and Jews, resident there.

[35] China was a destination for Radhanite Jews who brought boys, female slaves from Europe to sell to any local according to the Book of Roads and Kingdoms by ibn Khordadbeh.

Famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who visited China, then under the Yuan dynasty, in the late 13th century, described the prominence of Jewish traders in Beijing.

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 Hebrew Scripture.

It was later discovered that the Jewish community had a synagogue (Libai si), which was constructed facing the west, and housed a number of written materials and books.

[55] In 1948 Samuel Stupa Shih (Shi Hong Mo) (施洪模) said he saw a Hebrew language "Religion of Israel" Jewish inscription on a tombstone in a Qing dynasty Muslim cemetery to a place west of Hangzhou.

Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East came as traders via India and Hong Kong and established some of the leading trading companies in the second half of the 19th century.

These included, among others, Dr. Abraham Kaufman, who played a leading role in the Harbin Jewish community after 1919,[59] and the parents of future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

[60] Soviet Russian Jew Grigori Voitinsky played an important role in the establishment of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1921 through the Comintern.

Notable Jews during the Second Sino-Japanese War include Dr. Jakob Rosenfeld, Stanisław Flato, Ruth Weiss, Eva Sandberg (photographer and wife of Communist leader Xiao San), and Morris Abraham Cohen.

[69][better source needed] On June 27, 1985, an international group of scholars and activists gathered in Palo Alto, California to establish the Sino-Judaic Institute.

In 1997, the Kadoorie-residence-turned Shanghai Children's Palace, had their spacious front garden largely removed in order to make room for the city's overpass system under construction.

[citation needed] In May 2010, the Ohel Rachel Synagogue in Shanghai was temporarily reopened to the local Jewish community for weekend services.

[75] Synagogues are found in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong, serving both native Chinese Jews, Israelis and diaspora Jewish communities across the world.

[74] Kehillat Beijing continues its practice of conducting weekly lay-led Shabbat services, regular holiday observance, and community activities including retreats and celebrations.

In 2007, the Sephardic community of Shanghai opened a synagogue, study hall, kosher kitchen, and educational classes for children and adults.

[78] As of 2019, Harbin could claim a single Jewish inhabitant, professor Dan Ben-Canaan, who helped advise the local government on restoring the city's synagogues and other Jewish-related buildings.