Jews and Judaism in China have had a long history. Jewish The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation. Converts to Judaism, whose status as Jews within the Jewish ethnos settlers are documented in China China is seen variously as an ancient civilization extending over a large area in East Asia, a nation and/or a multinational entity as early as the 7th or 8th century CE Common Era, abbreviated as CE, is one of the designations for the world's most commonly used year-numbering system. The numbering of years using Common Era notation is identical to the numbering used with Anno Domini notation, 2010 being the current year in both notations and neither using a year zero. Common Era is also known as Christian Era and, but may have arrived during the mid Han Dynasty The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms (220–265 CE). It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of the former regent Wang Mang. This, or even as early as 231 BCE[1]. Relatively isolated communities developed through the Tang The Tang Dynasty (June 18, 618–June 4, 907) was an imperial dynasty of China preceded by the Sui Dynasty and followed by the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. It was founded by the Li (李) family, who seized power during the decline and collapse of the Sui Empire. The dynasty was interrupted briefly by the Second Zhou Dynasty (October 16, and Song The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first Dynasties (7-12th cent. CE Common Era, abbreviated as CE, is one of the designations for the world's most commonly used year-numbering system. The numbering of years using Common Era notation is identical to the numbering used with Anno Domini notation, 2010 being the current year in both notations and neither using a year zero. Common Era is also known as Christian Era and) all the way through the Qing Dynasty The Qing Dynasty , also known as the Manchu Dynasty, was the last ruling dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 (with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917). It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China (19th cent.), most notably in the Kaifeng Jews The Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community that has existed in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China, for hundreds of years. Although Jews in modern China have traditionally called themselves Youtai in Mandarin Chinese — also the predominant contemporary Chinese language term for Jews in general — the community was known by (the term "Chinese Jews" is often used in a restricted sense to refer to these communities). By the time of the establishment of the People's Republic of China b. ^ Simple characterizations of the political structure since the 1980s are no longer possible in 1949, few if any native Chinese Jews were known to have maintained the practice of their religion and culture. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, however, some international Jewish groups have helped Chinese Jews rediscover their heritage.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish immigrants from around the world arrived with Western commercial influences, particularly in the commercial centers of Hong Kong Hong Kong[note 3] is one of two special administrative regions (SAR) of the People's Republic of China; the other is Macau. Situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With a land mass of 1,104 km2 (426 sq mi) and a population of seven, which was for a time a British colony, Shanghai Shanghai is the most populous city in China and one of the most populous cities in the world. A global city, Shanghai exerts influence over global commerce, finance, culture, art, fashion, research and entertainment. The city is located at the middle part of the coast of mainland China, it sits at the mouth of the Yangtze (the International Settlement The Shanghai International Settlement (1854–1943) was an entity that was formed by the merger of the British and the American foreign concessions in Shanghai, China. As more foreign powers entered into treaty relationships with China, their nationals also became part of the administration of the settlement, although it was always a predominantly and French Concession), and Harbin Harbin (simplified Chinese: 哈尔滨; traditional Chinese: 哈爾濱; pinyin: Hāěrbīn; Wade-Giles: Ha-erh-pin; Mandarin pronunciation: [xɑ˥˥ɑɻ˩pin˥˥]; Russian Харби́н ), is a sub-provincial city and the capital of the Heilongjiang Province in Northeast China. It lies on the southern bank of the Songhua River. Harbin is the tenth (the Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway or Trans-Siberian Railroad is a network of railways connecting Moscow and European Russia with the Russian Far East provinces, Mongolia, China and the Sea of Japan. It is the longest railway in the world. Today, the railway is part of the Eurasian Land Bridge). In the first half of the 20th century, thousands of Jewish refugees escaping from the 1917 Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution is the collective term for the series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. In the first revolution of February 1917 , the Tsar was deposed and replaced by a Provisional government. In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional and the Holocaust The Holocaust , also known as The Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, Romanized HaShoah, "calamity"; Yiddish: חורבן, Romanized Churben or Hurban, from the Hebrew for "destruction") was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany in Europe Europe is one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus region (Specification of borders) and the Black Sea to the southeast. Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean and arrived in China.
Today, with the current expansion of trade and globalization Globalization describes a process by which regional economies, societies, and cultures have become integrated through a global network of communication, transportation, and trade. The term is sometimes used to refer specifically to economic globalization: the integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, foreign, Jews of many ethnicities from multiple regions of the world have settled permanently and temporarily in China's major cities. Jews may be considered one of the officially undistinguished ethnic groups in China.
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Overview
China's Jewish communities have been ethnically diverse ranging from the Jews of Kaifeng and other places during the history of Imperial China, who, it is reported, came to be more or less totally assimilated into Chinese culture, to 19th and 20th century Baghdadis, to Indians, to Ashkenazi Sephardi Jews, Mizrahi Jews, and other Jewish ethnic divisions Jews from Europe.
The presence of a community of Jewish immigrants in China is consistent with the history of the Jewish people during the first and second millennia CE, which saw them disperse and settle throughout the Eurasian landmass, with an especial concentration throughout central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north. It is also sometimes known as Middle Asia or Inner Asia, and is within the scope of the wider Eurasian continent[2]. By the ninth century, ibn Khordadbeh Abu'l Qasim Ubaid'Allah ibn Khordadbeh (c. 820 – 912 CE), author of the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography, was a Persian geographer and bureaucrat of the 9th century. The son of a wealthy Persian family in northern Iran, he was appointed "Director of Posts and Intelligence" for the province of Djibal in noted the travels of Jewish merchants called Radhanites The Radhanites were medieval Jewish merchants. Whether the term, which is used by only a limited number of primary sources, refers to a specific guild, or a clan, or is a generic term for Jewish merchants in the trans-Eurasian trade network is unclear. Jewish merchants dominated trade between the Christian and Islamic worlds during the early, whose trade took them to China via the Silk Road The Silk Road (or Silk Routes) is an extensive interconnected network of trade routes across the Asian continent connecting East, South, and Western Asia with the Mediterranean world, as well as North and Northeast Africa and Europe. The Silk Road gets its name from the lucrative Chinese silk trade, a major reason for the connection of trade through Central Asia and India. Jacob of Ancona, the supposed author of a book of travels, a scholarly Jewish merchant who wrote in vernacular Italian, had reached China in 1271,[3] although some authors question it.[4][5][6]
During the period of international opening and quasi-colonialism, the first group to settle in China were Jews who arrived in China under British protection following the First Opium War The First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War,[nb 2] was fought between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Qing Dynasty of China, with the aim of securing economic benefits from trade in China. In 1842, the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chinese called the unequal treaties—granted an. Many of these Jews were of Indian Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four major religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated here, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam or Iraqi Iraq , officially the Republic of Iraq (Arabic: جمهورية العراق (help·info) Jumhūrīyat Al-Irāq, Kurdish: كؤماری عێراق, Komara Îraqê) is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert origin, due to British colonialism in these regions. The second community came in the first decades of the 20th century when many Jews arrived in Hong Kong Hong Kong[note 3] is one of two special administrative regions (SAR) of the People's Republic of China; the other is Macau. Situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour. With a land mass of 1,104 km2 (426 sq mi) and a population of seven and Shanghai Shanghai is the most populous city in China and one of the most populous cities in the world. A global city, Shanghai exerts influence over global commerce, finance, culture, art, fashion, research and entertainment. The city is located at the middle part of the coast of mainland China, it sits at the mouth of the Yangtze during those cities' periods of economic expansion.
Many more arrived as refugees Under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees from 1951, a refugee is a person who , "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such from the Russian Revolution of 1917 The Russian Revolution is the collective term for the series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. In the first revolution of February 1917 , the Tsar was deposed and replaced by a Provisional government. In the second revolution, during October, the Provisional. A surge of Jews and Jewish families was to arrive in the late 1930s and 1940s, for the purpose of seeking refuge from the Holocaust The Holocaust , also known as The Shoah (Hebrew: השואה, Romanized HaShoah, "calamity"; Yiddish: חורבן, Romanized Churben or Hurban, from the Hebrew for "destruction") was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored extermination by Nazi Germany in Europe and were predominantly of European origin. Shanghai was notable for its volume of Jewish refugees, most of whom left after the war, the rest relocating prior to or immediately after the establishment of the People's Republic of China b. ^ Simple characterizations of the political structure since the 1980s are no longer possible.
Over the centuries, the Kaifeng community came to be virtually indistinguishable from the Chinese population and is not recognized by the Chinese government as a separate ethnic minority. This is as a result of having adopted many Han Chinese Predominantly Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. Small Christian, Muslim, Xiantian and other religious minorities. Background of Confucianism and Chinese folk religion customs including patrilineal descent Patrilineality is a system in which one belongs to one's father's lineage; it generally involves the inheritance of property, names or titles through the male line as well, as well as extensive intermarriage with the local population. Since their religious practices are functionally extinct, they are not eligible for expedited immigration to Israel under the Law of Return The Law of Return is Israeli legislation, enacted in 1950, that gives Jews, those of Jewish ancestry, and their spouses the right to migrate to and settle in Israel and gain citizenship unless they explicitly convert.
Today, some descendants of Jews still live in the Han Chinese Predominantly Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. Small Christian, Muslim, Xiantian and other religious minorities. Background of Confucianism and Chinese folk religion and Hui In modern People's Republic of China, the term "Hui people" refers to one of the officially recognized 56 ethnic groups into which Chinese citizens are classified. Under this definition, the Hui people are defined to include all historically Muslim communities in People's Republic of China that are not included in China's other ethnic population. Some of them, as well as international Jewish communities, are beginning to revive their interest in this heritage. This is especially important in modern China because belonging to any minority group includes a variety of benefits including reduced restrictions on the number of children The one-child policy is the population control policy of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Chinese government refers to it under the official translation of family planning policy. It officially restricts the number of children married urban couples can have to one, although it allows exemptions for several cases, including rural couples, and easier admission standards to tertiary education Tertiary education, also referred to as third stage, third level, and post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary education, such as a high school, secondary school, university-preparatory school, or gymnasium. Higher education is taken to include undergraduate and postgraduate.
The study of Judaism in China has been, like other Abrahamic religions, a subject of interest to some Westerners, and has achieved moderate success compared to other western studies in China.
History
It has been asserted by some that the Jews who have historically resided in various places in China originated with the Lost Ten Tribes of the exiled ancient Kingdom of Israel The Kingdom of Israel ) was one of the successor states to the older United Monarchy (also often called the 'Kingdom of Israel'). It existed roughly from the 930s BC until about the 720s BC, when the kingdom was conquered by the Assyrian Empire. The major cities of the kingdom were Shechem, Tirzah, and Shomron (Samaria) who relocated to the areas of present-day China. Traces of some ancient Jewish rituals The 613 Mitzvot are statements and principles of law and ethics contained in the Torah or Five Books of Moses. These principles of Biblical law are sometimes called commandments (mitzvot) or collectively as the "Law of Moses" (Torat Moshe, תורת משה), "Mosaic Law", or simply "the Law" (though these terms are have been observed in some places.
One well-known group was the Kaifeng Jews The Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community that has existed in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China, for hundreds of years. Although Jews in modern China have traditionally called themselves Youtai in Mandarin Chinese — also the predominant contemporary Chinese language term for Jews in general — the community was known by, who are purported to have traveled from Persia Iran (Persian: ایران [ʔiˈɾɒn] ), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran is a country in Central Eurasia and Western Asia. The name Iran has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was also known to the western world as Persia. Both Persia and Iran are used to India Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four major religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism originated here, while Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam during the mid-Han Dynasty The Han Dynasty was the second imperial dynasty of China, preceded by the Qin Dynasty (221–206 BCE) and succeeded by the Three Kingdoms (220–265 CE). It was founded by the peasant rebel leader Liu Bang, known posthumously as Emperor Gaozu of Han. It was briefly interrupted by the Xin Dynasty (9–23 CE) of the former regent Wang Mang. This and later migrated from the Muslim-inhabited regions of northwestern China (modern day Gansu Gansu (simplified Chinese: 甘肃; traditional Chinese: 甘肅; pinyin: Gānsù; Wade–Giles: Kan-su, Kansu, Kan-suh) is a province located in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It lies between Qinghai, Inner Mongolia, and the Huangtu plateaus, and borders Mongolia to the north and Xinjiang to the west. The Yellow River passes the province) to Henan Henan , is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the eastern central part of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is 豫 (pinyin: yù), named after Yuzhou Province (豫州 Yù Zhōu), a Han Dynasty province (zhou) that included parts of Henan. The name Henan means "south of the (Yellow) River" (Huang He) province during the early Northern Song Dynasty The Song Dynasty was a ruling dynasty in China between 960 and 1279; it succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, and was followed by the Yuan Dynasty. It was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or paper money, and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first (960-1127).[7]
A massacre of Jews in Canton Guangzhou (simplified Chinese: 广 , China occurred during the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the 9th century during the Huang Chao Rebellion.[8]
Origins
Jews of Kaifeng, late 19th or early 20th c.There is an oral tradition that the first Jews immigrated to China through Persia following the Roman Emperor Titus's capture of Jerusalem in 70 CE. A large number of Jews emigrated from Persia during the reign of Emperor Ming of Han (58-75 CE).[9] Writing in 1900, Father Joseph Brucker hypothesized that Jews came to China from India by a sea route during the Song dynasty between 960 and 1126.
Three steles with inscriptions found at Kaifeng bear some historical suggestions. The oldest, dating from 1489, commemorates the construction of a synagogue (1163) (bearing the name Qīngzhēn Sì, a term often used for mosque in Chinese), states 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 finally lists the transmission of their religion from Abraham down to the prophet Ezra. The second table, dated 1512 (found in the synagogue Xuanzhang Daojing Si) details the Jews' religious practices. The third is dated 1663 and commemorates the re-rebuilding of the Qingzhen si synagogue and recaps the information from the other two steles.[7]
Two of the stelae refer to a famous tattoo written on the back of Song Dynasty General Yue Fei. The tattoo, which reads jǐn zhōng bào guó (simplified Chinese: 尽忠报国; traditional Chinese: 盡忠報國 "Boundless loyalty to the country"), first appeared in a section of the 1489 stele talking about the Jews’ “Boundless loyalty to the country and Prince”. The second appeared in a section of the 1512 stele talking about how Jewish soldiers and officers in the Chinese armies were “Boundlessly loyal to the country.” One source even claims that Israelites served as soldiers in the armies of Yue Fei.[7]
Father Joseph Brucker believed Matteo Ricci's manuscripts indicate 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 loyal Jews fled south along with the soon-to-be crowned Emperor Gaozong to Hangzhou. In fact, the 1489 stele mentions how the Jews "abandoned Bianliang" (Kaifeng) after the Jingkang Incident.
Section of the 1512 stele which mentions Yue's famous tattoo.Many Jewish communities were established in China in the Middle Ages. However, not all left evidence of their exinstence. The following are those known today: Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Yangzhou, and Ningxia.[10]
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