84. Origins of the Jews of China (Jewish History Lab)

i have to tell you i am really excited  about this particular video because   i am so fascinated with the presence of the jews  in china they had a community there for well   over a thousand years and uh it's a really unusual  kind of you know combination of jewish culture and   chinese culture and quite fascinating ways today  i'd like to focus specifically on the origins of   the jews of china but perhaps we'll take a little  bit of time at the end of this short video to talk   about the nature of that unusual chinese jewish  synthesis so first of all when do we first hear   about the jews of china so the uh first encounter  of the jews of china with the western world was   in the person of matteo ricci that was the first  important meeting and mateo ricci was a jesuit   priest who had come to china with the goal  of converting the indigenous population to   christianity they had a lot of challenges with  that we'll look at some of those in particular but   there's a fascinating encounter that it happened  in 1605 when a jew from the city of kaifeng with   a very important jewish population and a long  jewish history came specifically to meet with   richie in peking and it was like it's hard to uh  you know if this wasn't actually well documented   i think it was a comedy skit apparently itien this  jewish guy from kaifeng thought that matteo ricci   must be jewish because he had heard about this  person and peking who came from far away and he   knew a lot about this particular religion and he  said okay must be a jewish guy mateo richie at the   same time thought that itin must be evidence of  early christianity in china which is absolutely   fascinating and the two of them had this you  know really funny encounter where uh mateo ricci   is is discussing things with itn and itn happens  to see this painting of the uh the madonna with   jesus and saint john the baptist it happened  to be a saint john baptiste day or his   anniversary something like that and so itien  knowing nothing about christianity they are   completely shut off from the entire phenomenon of  christianity he assumed that this must be rebecca   and her sons jacob and esau he says what a nice  painting and then they see another painting   that represents the four evangelists matthew  mark luke and john of course wrote the first   four gospels the first four books of the christian  bible and uh itien thinks oh look at that this   must be the uh the four of the twelve sons  of jacob where are the other eight sons and   it's just this hilarious thing eventually they  figured out that in fact i-10 was not a christian   he was jewish and this was ha fascinating unto its  own right now from itan's perspective he wasn't   entirely clear on what christian meant and in  fact in communications with richie and with later   jesuits who actually came to kaifeng there was  a suggestion that perhaps you know someone like   mateo ricci could take over as the chief rabbi  because he obviously knew a lot of tanakh and one   of the challenges that the kaifeng community  was experiencing even in the 17th century   was a decline in literacy and a decline in hebrew  literacy specifically and in familiarity with   rabbinic tradition they were looking for a new  chief rabbi apparently as the story goes the chief   rabbi of kaifeng was very happy with allowing  someone like matteo ricci to take over for him   the christian stuff really didn't bother him  too much it's just what it's another kind of   like ancient story but the uh the fact that  the jesuits were still eating pork that was   very problematic so there's no way you can  become our rabbi if you're still eating pork   by the way when uh the jesuits asked the jews  of kaifeng have you heard ever heard of jesus   they thought about it for a while and they said  oh yeah sure sure we know about jesus uh and   but when they went and discussed it further  they were not referring to jesus of nazareth   the kaifeng jews were familiar with jesus ben sira  an ancient author who wrote the apocryphal work   ecclesiastica says it's known in the tradition or  the safer ben sera the the the wisdom of benseera   in english which was a work which was incidentally  lost in hebrew for uh many many generations and   was only found in the 19th century so they  knew about a different jesus not the jesus   of nazareth which anyways these things are just  hilarious i think but uh you know historians have   to get funds sometimes at any rate uh the jesuits  maintained a very strong interest in the jews of   kaifeng to a large degree even more than than  jews would with this unusual jewish community   they were especially interested in learning about  the safer torahs that the jews of kaifeng had   they wanted to see in particular if they were  the same as the torahs that were read in western   europe because one of the uh the thoughts that  richie had was that there was more evidence for   christianity in the hebrew bible but that it  had been tampered with by the jews to remove   that evidence and if he could find uh biblical  books that predated the uh you know that went   all the way back to the posited arrival of the  jews which by the way uh was argued to be as   far back as about the first or second century the  common era we'll talk about that in just a second   so if these texts had references to jesus in it  that would be incredibly important of course they   didn't find such things and when they actually  got to kaifeng and they discussed a little bit   more about what they were interested in the jews  of kaifeng were really quite upset and refused to   show them their texts and obviously there  was also a deep interest in converting the   jews of kaifeng to christianity in some ways  the jesuits thought they had more of a chance   with the jews of china than with the  non-monotheistic chinese of china and of   course that's a long story that goes way beyond  the discussion we have today but we do have an   extended effort of various christian missionaries  coming to china to specifically try to convert the   jews to christianity at any rate what they did  find was a lavish and very cherished synagogue   in kaifeng here is a drawing from an early 18th  century jesuit father domenge who visited it and   he also not only drew the architectural layout of  it the jews were definitely very attached to this   particular facility the some of the historical  records indicate that they rebuilt it many many   times that it was originally constructed in the  12th century perhaps on an earlier site and he   also recorded you know graphic images like this of  uh jews of kaifeng reading the torah on a special   kind of chair they called the seat of moses they  would put the sephardic-style ark on top of it   and open up the box and they would read the text  from the inside um in in that manner it's quite   fascinating they had a a really quite active and  vibrant community for many many centuries so our   task for us today however is to try to understand  where did these jews of china come from so   here is a map that shows the various locations  the kaifeng is the most well known and the   most well documented however even the kaifeng  documentation refers to its relationships with   other communities such as yangchao where they  for example received the gift of a safer torah   as you can see that quite a few of them are all on  the eastern region of china but you have some to   the west as well and judging by the numbers this  map by the way comes from the encyclopedia judaica   you can see that the some of them date all the way  back to the 9th century but that's like the first   clear documentation of that community they have  roots that go back possibly much much further   we have for example several travelers accounts  that refer to the jews of china benjamin of   tudela never actually got there and referred to  china specifically but he did come very close or   at least he collected reports from people who  came very close and could easily have been in   contact with them marco polo the famous traveler  has passing references to jews in china and we   have some fascinating chinese tax regulations  from the 14th century in which there are   you know just scattered references to jews  unfortunately don't tell us a lot about   how large the communities are or how active  they were or what they were like but they there   is clear reference to jews being present  there along with muslims by the way   with whom they were frequently associated uh and  in the mind of chinese administrators is often   very little distinction made between jews and  muslims they're often referred to in the same   sentence we also have some muslim historians who  refer to the presence of jews sometimes in the   context of chinese massacres as well now the  most likely the jews came to china along the   silk road which you can see here's a map from  wikipedia that shows some of the most important   you know routes upon which silk traveled from  the east to the west it's also called the spice   road because spices were also a very important  commodity that was imported to the west from the   east the map is a little bit strange because it  refers to other caravan routes and those are many   of them are through the oceans uh to my knowledge  camels don't swim especially well especially when   they're laden down but it does indicate that  yeah there was a lot of maritime trade as well   and what's important about this particular silk  route is you can see that in this round circle   here this is where the massive population of  mesopotamian jewry lives this is where the great   talmudic centers are located and there's a very  significant jewish population right there along an   important spot on the silk route and jews were  involved in much of the trade that went from   east to west the talmud speaks of a considerable  amount of trade that would happen in this region   and presumably bringing things from much further  east this received even more attention when aurel   stein a fascinating individual who as you can  guess by the last name was actually born jewish   uh he was an explorer um and a specialist in a  lot of these ancient languages eastern languages   his parents ironically baptized him and his  brother all which was very common for german jews   at the time although they and uh their daughters  remained unbaptized jewish at any rate stein   who went far away from his native germany to  to explore this region uh was exploring in the   region of dunhuang which is on the silk road and  he discovered an amazing thing he found a huge   cache of medieval documents and scattered among  these documents which were mainly written in   asian languages he found also this eighth  century uh carefully folded piece of paper   paper which was actually a hebrew slicha meaning  a penitential prayer possibly associated with the   high holidays but the traveler who carried it very  lovingly folded it and kept it with him as he was   traveling along the spice route the uh document  can be dated with reliability to the eighth   or ninth century indicating that here was clearly  someone uh who was attached to jewish prayer who   was traveling along the spice route as early as  this period and that's most likely how most of the   jews came to china because along this route many  of them would have settled in places like kaifeng   according to kaifeng tradition this would have  happened significantly earlier in the han dynasty   which ended around the year 200 it's impossible to  know exactly when the jews settled there but they   were certainly there for centuries before they  were discovered by the west now let's take just a   couple of minutes to to learn about what was this  unusual community like so the documents that we   have to tell us about the internal life of kaifeng  jewry that is documents which were composed   by the jews themselves as opposed to accounts  by travelers which are fascinating to themselves   as well we have several stellai meaning stone  blocks which were established in the synagogue   to record important historic dates many of them  associated with the rebuilding of the temple   rebuilding excuse me of their synagogue and  by the way in modern uh jewish parlance if you   go to a synagogue you'll find the exact same  thing they're plaques honoring the people who   spent money uh and worked hard to rebuild the uh  building or to refurbish it and so on so we have   four different texts we have the earliest dates  from 1489 and on the reverse of that stone block   there's another text written in 1512 and then  another one in 1663 and a third a fourth one   really three blocks but a fourth text in 1679 the  last one doesn't tell us a lot about the community   is very difficult to read but the earlier  ones tell us a lot about how the community   you know cherished the temple and rebuilt it and  these are the people who are involved with it   and and also how the community had to endure  some terrible disasters like a massive   flooding of the yellow river that overwhelmed the  town and the the synagogue was destroyed and had   to be rebuilt and so on things like that we also  have this unusual text called the memorial book   which is dated to the 17th century you can see a  page of it over here and this memorial book lists   a lot of the prominent people in the town and  gives us some sense of their genealogy as you   can see from the document it's written in both  chinese characters and in hebrew letters and if   you look on the fourth list of names down you  see on the right ben and then ben israel moshe   and that israel moshe under the word moshe which  is right in the center of the document it has an   interesting kind of phrase that says he's called  a jinshi i.e he received a phd he was a doctor   of advanced learning it's a lot of fascinating  things about how the the jews of kaifeng basically   lived with seven distinct uh surnames and uh one  particular family was honored with a particular   surname by the emperor for their service to the  uh to the empire as a whole and that they achieved   high levels of education and a lot of fascinating  things but i think when you look at all this   evidence together in this brief video i'd like  to point out three distinct phenomena that i read   into the text first of all i was fascinated by the  fidelity of the kaifeng jews to jewish tradition   for example the jesuits note that they were called  among other names they didn't use the term jew   they sometimes used the term israelite but they  were called chiao jin zhao please forgive my   pronunciation or the group that excises the sinew  which is a clear reference to the observance of   the loss of kashrut because the sciatic nerve  has to be removed from animals before they are   consumed there's a lot of discussion of how the  the jews of kaifeng for example would only eat   meat that they had slaughtered themselves they  would not rely on other group slaughter and so   on fascinating many many references to these kinds  of things where they are practicing judaism as it   would be understood in the rest of the jewish  world secondly however and this is especially   interesting i think they had some really unusual  adaptations to chinese culture for example one of   the things that's described in the sources is how  you know it was customary to establish a tablet   that would have the emperor's name on it and that  people would show it symbolic obeisance you know   like kowtow before bowing before and things  like that very problematic in jewish tradition   to bow before anyone or certainly to bow before a  block of stone its smacks of idolatry and jewish   tradition very problematic so how did the jews of  kaifeng deal with this it's very clever what you   would say in yiddish yiddish cup right jewish  head they wrote the verse shema israel hashem   hear o israel the lord our god the lord is  one on the top of the uh this particular brick   uh underneath on top of the emperor's name kind of  like a decorative element and then with whatever   bowing they were doing it was like they were  bowing to god because it had this verse on the top   i mean i love this stuff also very problematic  for the jesuits incidentally was the problem of   ancestor veneration matteo ricci he he reported to  the pope in rome that you know they're one of the   issues is that the the chinese have a very very  strong ritual of honoring their ancestors and uh   you know there was a major debate in the church  the pope actually went back and forth on this   as to whether or not this could be tolerated  for many of the more doctrinaire catholics   this also smacked of idolatry to worship  dead ancestors whereas ricci and others   were arguing no it's just the culture they're  just respecting them and so on so for the jews   it was no problem because of course this  is really baked into jewish thought not   necessarily worshiping the ancestors but appealing  to god on the merit of the ancestors in hebrews   that's a very very traditional thing you look at  jewish prayers and there's constant references   so to speak reminding god that jews are the  descendants of abraham isaac jacob sarr rebecca   rachel and leia look at what they did remember  their actions and so on and provide kindness   for their descendants so the idea of ancestor  veneration was not really problematic to chinese   jews at all quite fascinating to see how you know  chinese culture confucian culture in particular   and jewish culture was able to find  points of contact and even synthesis   but at the same time we have to recall that  there is significant degrees of assimilation   that would be unacceptable certainly in north  africa or in european jewish communities   for example the there are many many examples of  degrees of assimilation uh the jews especially as   they were suffering more and more from a lack  of leadership and a lack of contact with the   outside world specifically the rest of the jewish  diaspora they're having you know problems finding   people who could read and write the torah and  interpret it and so on so they they tended to   gravitate to neighbors that they had for many  centuries the muslims there is a significant   muslim minority in china and in fact there are  you know photographs from the 19th 20th century of   jews of kaifeng and elsewhere worshiping in  muslim mosques because after all they were   you know sort of theologically much closer to  islam than they were to confucianism islam is   of course intensely monotheistic and worshipping  the same god so the uh the jews would uh would   frequent muslim mosques they were neighbors uh in  fact they were almost indistinguishable in dress   but the muslims would wear white caps and jewish  males would wear blue caps so one of the names   for jews was in fact blue caps because  that distinguishes them from the muslims   for confucian chinese it was often  like you know who are these people and   oh yeah right you've got two flavors you've  got the white flavor and the blue flavor   okay fine also noted in the genealogical tables  that they record there that of those seven clans   some of them intermarried with chinese and  it's you know actually recorded in their   geological tables it's unclear to us uh what  sort of conversion process if any would happen   we do note uh that males jewish males were  far more likely to marry chinese women   than jewish women were to marry chinese  males and in those genealogical tables there   was a clear distinction made between those  women who were born jewish they were called   bhat israel right daughter of israel and those  women who were born to non-jews were called   bat adam the daughter of adam they were married  however and their origins were recorded and so on   so there's definitely some degrees of  assimilation and it varies certain families   were far less likely than others to do so which i  guess is broadly similar to american jewry as well   the last thing that it's a sad point in many  ways but the um the the community of course   fell into significant decline in the early  modern and into the 19th 20th centuries and   one of the saddest things was that they lost  the ability to clearly copy their torah scrolls   to read their torah scrolls and ultimately they  ended up selling their torah scrolls to christian   missionaries who then brought many of them back to  western europe and in fact even one torah scroll   is in toronto the this is an example of a kaifeng  scroll which is held by the british library people   who have analyzed their torah scrolls and a  scroll of esther that comes in this region   indicates that they were losing their ability  to actually copy the torah scroll effectively   it's clear from the confusion of some of  the letters that sound very similar like   or aleph and ayan that they used a method  where one person would read the torah scroll   and the scribe would actually transcribe  it based on what he was hearing   hence there would be errors between those two  letters by the way mateo ricci did not find   any of the evidence that he was so hoping to  find of uh you know christian prefigurements   in the torah that were not an extent the  the torahs are identical to western torahs   except for these obvious kinds of typographical  errors you know the the letter v uh overused that   that's the word and or but and these uh you know  confusions of aleph and ion and things like that   so with the the loss of these tourist scrolls  the communities fell into a very steep decline   although there are still remnants of the  communities even into the 21st century and i   think by way of conclusion it seems to me that we  see in the kaifeng jewry just how important it is   for the scattering of jews to remain connected  to one another and even more importantly how   it's crucial that they remain connected to the  core texts of the bible and the commentaries   without these two things it's very difficult  for a community to last although the kaifeng and   chinese jewry in general demonstrated remarkable  resilience over many centuries and hopefully they   will have a renaissance and the last thing i got  to say for those of you who have been following   my lectures i want you to appreciate how hard it  has been for me to get through this entire lecture   without once mentioning the jewish  predilection for asian cuisine i   just want you to know i really restrained  myself okay thank you very much for watching

Channel: Henry Abramson

Views: 56,492

Rating: 4.8367929 out of 5

Keywords: Jewish, History, Judaism, Torah, Henry, Abramson, Hebrew

Id: D10QgYVmDqs

Length: 25min 52sec (1552 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 29 2021