WELCOME

SJI NEWSLETTER:  POINTS EAST

• Points East, the journal of the Institute, has been published three times a year since 1986.  It is the only newsletter devoted exclusively to topics relating to Jewish life and Jewish history throughout Asia. Back issues are now available on the SJI website. 

JEWISH ARTIFACTS: KAIFENG CITY MUSEUM

• SJI worked with staff of the Kaifeng City Museum to improve its third-floor display of Jewish artifacts, which include two key steles, dated 1489/1512 (one stele, with each side written in one of those years),  and 1679, written by the Chinese Jews themselves, documenting their history and religion. SJI also installed an exhibit on the Kaifeng Jews in the Song Dynasty Park in Kaifeng. 

SCHOLARLY JOURNAL: SINO-JUDAICA

• SJI has published five volumes of Sino-Judaica: Occasional Papers of the Sino-Judaic Institute, which contains scholarly articles on Jews in China and the rest of Asia. The most recent issue was a monograph by Rabbi Dr. Chaim Simons, Jewish Religious Observance by the Jews of Kaifeng China (2010).  

• Among subscribers to Sino-Judaica are a number of libraries including the Library of Congress, Princeton University, Harvard University, the British Library, Yeshiva University (New York), the Jewish National University Library (Jerusalem), Ben Zvi Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences Library (St. Petersburg) and the University of California at Los Angeles.

ENCYCLOPEDIA JUDAICA: CHINESE EDITION

• The Chinese abridged version of the Encyclopedia Judaica, edited by Professor Xu Xin of Nanjing University, and funded in part by SJI, is a handsome volume of over 800 pages, copiously illustrated. A private donation through a philanthropic fund administered by SJI made possible donations for the dissemination of the encyclopedia to fifty libraries in China and fifteen in the United States.

SINO-JUDAIC TRAVELING EXHIBITION

• SJI produced “The Jews of Kaifeng," a portable display of photographs, documents, maps, and drawings for exhibition in cities throughout the United States. It has often provided the focal point for educational and cultural programming that bridges local Chinese and Jewish communities. Past venues have included the Jewish Museum in New York and the Palo Alto Jewish Community Center in California.

SINO-JUDAIC BIBLIOGRAPHY: COMPREHENSIVE SET

• In association with the Hebrew Union College, SJI published The Jews of Dynastic China: A Critical Bibliography, compiled by Michael Pollak (1993), which combines with the previously published Sino-Judaic Bibliographies of Rudolf Loewenthal (1988) to form a set. The second volume includes a composite index to the contents of both volumes.

SINO-JUDAIC ARCHIVES

• Under arrangement with the Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, archival material donated to SJI concerning the Jewish communities in China is housed there. The collection includes letters from Jews who grew up in Shanghai during the War, documents from former refugees who lived in the Hongkou District, and tapes of interviews with the last generation of Jewish descendants in 1985 who were born in the early 1900s and had seen, observed, and lived life firsthand with knowledge of Jewish religious observances and practices.

SUPPORT FOR SCHOLARS

• SJI has enabled outstanding Chinese leaders and scholars to carry out research or other scholarly activities at such places as the Truman Institute or at the Jaffe Institute of Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv, as well as YIVO in New York,  and/or to attend conferences outside China.

DONATIONS OF BOOKS TO CHINESE RESEARCH CENTERS

• SJI has donated Jewish books to scholars and institutions in China, including the Shanghai Judaic Studies Association, the museum in the former Ohel Moishe synagogue in the Hongkou District of Shanghai, the Center for Judaic Studies at Shandong University in Harbin, the Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, and the Jewish Studies Institute at Henan University in Kaifeng.

JEWISH STUDIES INSTITUTE IN KAIFENG

• SJI has helped develop the Jewish Studies Institute at Henan University in Kaifeng and is providing scholarships for students in the Jewish studies program.  

• SJI arranged with the Hebrew Union College's Klau Library to digitize its collection of Kaifeng manuscripts with the purpose of sharing them with scholars and members of the Kaifeng Jewish community.

JEWISH STUDIES TEACHERS IN KAIFENG

• SJI joined with Shavei Israel to send teachers to Kaifeng when it was possible to teach the community about Jewish culture and heritage. By 2015, six Judaic studies teachers had spent time in Kaifeng teaching Hebrew and Jewish religious practice to the Jewish descendants, whose Jewish identities only strengthened in the interim.