The Jewish Community of Kaifeng

Kaifeng

开封市

Formerly known as P'ien-Liang

A city in east-central Henan province, China.

Kaifeng was the capital of the song dynasty, and is one of the Eight Ancient Capitals of China.

Judaism is not a recognized religion in China, nor are Jews recognized as one of the country's minority groups. As a result, the situation for the less than 1,000 Jews in Kaifeng can be delicate. Beginning in the late 1980s the descendants of Kaifeng's original Jewish community became increasingly interested in rediscovering their Judaism. By the turn of the 21st century the kiruv organization Shavei Israel, which seeks to return Jews to their heritage, became involved in Kaifeng. A prayer group met in Kaifeng in 2010. Visitors to the Kaifeng Municipal Museum could see the stone pillars from 1489 and 1512 about the city's Jewish community after paying a discreet bribe to unlock the room containing them. A communal Passover seder was held in 2015 that attracted 50 participants, including local government officials. Local residents offered tours to sites of Jewish interest.

However, a crackdown began in 2016. The Shavei Israel learning center was shut down. A well that the Jewish community identified as a mikvah (ritual bath) was allegedly filled and blocked. Jewish tour groups were refused permission to come to Kaifeng, and members of the local Jewish community were reportedly being monitored by the authorities.

A model of the Temple of Purity and Truth, the synagogue of Kaifeng, can be found at the permanent exhibition of Beit Hatfutsot-The Museum of the Jewish People.

HISTORY

Jews probably arrived in Kaifeng from India or Persia (present-day Iran) sometime before 1127, presumably attracted by its prominence as a trading center on the Silk Road. Enough Jews were living in Kaifeng by 1163 that a synagogue was built. Three stone slabs with inscriptions from the Jewish community date from 1489, 1512, 1663, and 1679.

The Jews of Kaifeng spoke New Persian. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) they were assigned one of eight family names by the emperor: Ai, Shi, Gao, Gan, Jin, Li, Zhang, and Zhao. The community flourished until the mid-17th century, when it began to decline, due largely to its total isolation from other centers of Jewish life, as well as assimilation. Indeed, Europeans did not even realize that there was a Jewish community in China until 1605, when a Jew from Kaifeng went to Beijing and met the Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci. By the middle of the 19th century the Jews of Kaifeng had only a rudimentary knowledge of Judaism and the synagogue was damaged beyond repair after years of flooding. By the beginning of the 20th century most of the Zhang family had converted to Islam.

By the end of World War II there remained 200-250 people whose roots could be traced back to the original Kaifeng Jewish community, though none of these descendants had consciously maintained their Jewish heritage. At the same time, however, some families avoided pork and men baked unleavened bread and put rooster's blood on the doorstep without knowing why. It was not until the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Israel in the early 1990s and the subsequent arrival of Jewish tourists to the area, that locals began exploring their own connections to Judaism.