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Detailed History of Kaifeng Jews

by Michael Pollak (z”l), revised and updated by Jordan Paper and Anson Laytner (Summer 2018)

Overview         
For 166 years, beginning in 960 C.E., China was ruled by the emperors of the Song Dynasty from their capital at Kaifeng, then a bustling metropolis along the banks of the Yellow River, which connected the city via the Grand Canal to the seaports on the Chinese coast.  Contrary to popular belief, Kaifeng was not on the legendary Silk Road, which in earlier times (and subsequently as well) linked China to trading partners in the West. [It is some 550 kilometers (350 miles) to Xi’an, the actual terminus of the Silk Road.

While some Jews may have arrived earlier, the first time that they referred to their own presence in China was in the Song Dynasty (960-1127). According to the 1489 stele, or commemorative stone tablet, a band of Jews, probably maritime merchants speaking Judeo-Persian and hailing from either the seaports in Ningbo or Yangzhou, was granted an audience in the imperial palace and the emperor graciously accepted the tribute of cotton goods they had brought to him, saying, “You have come to my China. Honor and observe the customs of your ancestors”.  Most scholars believe this indicates the formal start of the Jewish community of Kaifeng.

This same stele, which also detailed their rituals and core beliefs, was placed in a place of honor in the courtyard of the synagogue that had been constructed in the year 1163 at the intersection of Kaifeng's Earth Market and Fire God Streets. This monument is now among the holdings of the Municipal Museum of Kaifeng. (Read more ...)

Abraham, Wendy Robin. The Role of Confucian and Jewish Educational Values in the 

     Assimilation of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, Supplemented by Western Accounts, 

     1605-1985 (EdD Dissertation: Teacher's College, Columbia University, 1989)

Bernstein, M.Y. Globalization, Translation and Transmission: Sino-Judaic Cultural 

     Identity in Kaifeng, China (Maryland: Lexington Books, 2017)

Buck, Pearl S. Peony [novel] (1948)

Chan, Sui-Jeung. Jews in Kaifeng: Reflections on Sino-Judaic History (HK: Hong 

     Kong Jewish Chronicle, 1986)

Kublin, H. (comp.), Jews in Old China: Some Western Views (1971)

_____, Studies of the Chinese Jews: Selections from Journals East and West (1971) 

Laytner, A. The Jews of Kaifeng: Yesterday and Today (Lecture Video, August 2021)

Laytner, A. and Paper, J., eds. The Chinese Jewish of Kaifeng: A Millennium of 

     Adaptation and Endurance (2017)

Leslie, D. D. The Survival of the Chinese Jews: The Jewish Community of K'aifeng 

     (1972)

Loewenthal, Rudolph. Jews in China: A bibliography (1939)

______. Jews in China: An annotated bibliography (1940)

_____. Early Jews in China: A supplementary bibliography (1946)

Paper, J. The Theology of the Chinese Jews, 1000-1850 (2012)     

Perednik, Gustavo, "The Chinese of Jewish Descent at Kaifeng," in Alternative 

     Orientalisms, (UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007)

Pollak, M. The Torah Scrolls of the Chinese Jews (1975) 

_____. Mandarins, Jews, and Missionaries: The Jewish Experience in the Chinese 

     Empire (1980 and 1998) 

Rebouh, Caroline. The Jews of China: History of a Community and its Perspectives 

     (2018)

Shapiro, S., trans. and ed. Jews in Old China: Studies by Chinese Scholar (1984 and 

     2001)

Simons, C. Jewish Religious Observance by the Jews of Kaifeng China (2013)

_____. A History of the Kaifeng Israelites (2018)

Urbach, Noam. “What Prevented the Reconstruction of the Chinese Synagogue? 

     Kaifeng Jews between Revival and Obliteration,” in P. Kupfer, ed. Youtai— 

     Presence and Perception of Jews and Judaism in China, (Frankfort am Main: Peter 

     Lang, 2008)
_____. "Kaifeng Judaism Today: Revival or Reintroduction," in Tudor Parfitt and 

     Netanel Fisher, eds., Becoming Jewish: New Jews and Emerging Jewish 

     Communities in a Globalized World (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge 

     Scholars, 2016)

Weisz, Tiberiu. The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community 

     in Ancient China (New York: Universe, 2006) (Points East, A Publication of the Sino-

     Judaic Institute, Vol. 23,  No. 2, July 2008)

White, William Charles, comp., Chinese Jews: A Compilation of Matters Relating to

      the Jews of K'ai-feng Fu (1966)

_____. Chinese Jews (1962)

Xu, Xin, The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion (2003)

_____. Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng (1995)

Zhou, Xun. "The 'Kaifeng Jew' Hoax: Constructing the 'Chinese Jew'," in Ivan 

Davidson Kalmar and Derek J. Penslar, eds., Orientalism and the Jews (Waltham: 

     Brandeis University Press, 2005)

(Note: Although most scholars accept a Tang or Song dynasty date for the entry of Jews into China, a few scholars, both Chinese and Western, hypothesize a much earlier arrival time, in the Han dynasty.)

Films:

Steven E. Calcote and Jonathan M. Shulman, Minyan in Kaifeng (Waltham, MA: The 

     National Center of Jewish Film, Brandeis Univ., 2001)

Yossi Turisky, Chinese Jews on the Banks of the Yellow River (Waltham: The National 

     Center for Jewish Film, 1980)