THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
We wish our family and friends a
very healthy, happy and prosperous
New Year
LILLIAN and HARRY KOMER .
We wish our family and friends a
very healthy. happy and prosperous
New Year
MR. & MRS. HARRY A. NORBER
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MR. & MRS. IRVING WEINGARDEN & FAMILY
wish all their friends and relatives
a happy and healthy New Year
We wish our family and friends a
very healthy, happy and prosperous
New Year
MARTY and FAE WEINSTOCK & FAMILY
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ETHEL & HAROLD BOBROFF
would like to wish all our family
and friends a healthy and happy
New Year
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Modern Chinese Unaware
of Tradition-Laden Past
By MICHAEL POLLAK
From Reform Judaism Magazine
"You have come to our
China. Revere and preserve
the customs of your ances-
tors, and hand them down in
Bianliang" (modern-day
Kaifeng) — inscription on
a stone monument erected
by the Jews of Kaifeng in
1489.
With these hospitable
words, a Sung emperor who
reigned sometime between
960 and 1126 invited a band
of wandering Jews — quite
likely of Persian origin — to
settle in Kaifeng, then the
capital of all China. Later,
in 1163, the descendants of
these immigrant Jews,
many of them by this time of
mixed Caucasian and
Oriental countenance,
erected the first of several
synagogues to which some
two dozen generations of
their descendants would
come to worship.
The last of these
synagogues was demolished
about 125 years ago. This
demolition, undertaken by
a despairing'and leaderless
congregation whose last
rabbi had died 50 years ear-
lier, removed whatever
meager chances there may
still have been for a re-
surgence of Judaism in the
city.
Although a few scat-
tered reports of Jewish
settlements in parts of
China had reached the
West between the Ninth
and 16th Centuries, they
were generally ignored
or treated as myth. Then,
in 1605, Ai Tien, a Jewish
district magistrate visit-
ing Beijing from Kaifeng,
walked into what he
thought was a synagogue
and introduced himself
to the man he took to be
its rabbi. When the ensu-
ing comedy of errors was
finally' sorted out, the
Jewish mandarin dis-
covered that not only was
he standing in a Catholic
church"; but the man to
whom'he was talking pre-
ferred to be addressed as
"Father" rather than as
"Rabbi."
The priest, for his part,
was amazed to learn that
his guest was a Jew, a Jew,
moreover, who belonged to a
resplendent synagogue lo-
cated deep in the heart of
China boasting a member-
ship of 1,000 individuals.
This congregation, he
learned, had rabbis,
shokhtim, teachers, books
and virtually all the other
communal and cultural
facilities that one might ex-
pect to find in a prosperous
Jewish community.
Father Ricci promptly
notified his superiors in
Rome that he had "dis-
covered" a flourishing
Jewish settlement in
Kaifeng. The repercussions,
stretching out over a period
of three centuries, were as-
tonishing.
Ricci had come to China
to convert its "heathen" in-
habitants to Christianity.
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that task
sotied, could ma e"
easier; for the Chinese
Jews, as one zealous Angli-
can was to put it, might well
prove capable of "dis-
seminating a saving knowl-
edge among the heathen."
Missionaries tried vai-
nly to convert the Jews of
Kaifeng, and even to
make them unwitting col- -
laborators in their drive
to christianize the
Chinese people. Chris-
tian theologians, con-
vinced that the rabbis of
the talmudic era had
"corrupted" the Hebrew
scriptures by excising or
altering a number of pas-
sages allegedly foretel-
ling the birth and minis-
try of Jesus of Nazareth,
dispatched missionaries
to Kaifeng'in the hope of
securing a Torah.
Believing that the Jews of
Kaifeng had come to the city
before the birth of Jesus and
had ever since been cut off
from communication with
Jews in other parts of the
globe, they assumed that
the text of the Kaifeng
Torah would be "pure," con-
taining the lost or altered
Christological passages.
When shown to the Jews of
the world, these theologians
reasoned, the Jews would
have no alternative but to
convert to Christianity.
Only in 1851, when the
Kaifeng scrolls were at last
made available to Wester-
ners, did the last diehards
among these theologians
concede that their
centuries-long quest for a
Chinese Torah that was
"different" had been ill con-
ceived.
As for the Jews who lived
in Kaifeng, they remained
unaware of this effort. Un-
like their brethren in the
West, they were never sin-
gled out for persecution by
the authorities. They ate
kosher food, observed the
Sabbath and the traditional
Jewish holidays, and lived
out their lives guided by the
same halakhic rules as Jews
elsewhere. What destroyed
them was assimilation.
They were few in number
and enjoyed no contact with
foreign Jews from about
1500 to the 1860s.
If you visit Kaifeng to-
day, you may run into
Chinese who still call
themselves Jews. Al-
though they know little
or nothing about the
Judaism of their ances-
tors, they are neverthe-
less ethnically Jewish
and, like the members of
other Chinese minority
groups, are entitled to a
nationality status of their
own.
They will identify them-
selves to you by any of the
seven surnames their an-
cestors bore: Shin, Jin, Li,
Ai, Jang, Xiang or Zhao.
And they may live on the
street called "The Lane of
the People Who Teach the
Scriptures."
While lecturing at the
medical scnool in Kaifeng a
few months ago, Dr. Ronald
L t Kaye of Palo Alto was in-
tt oduced to one member of
tfre4111%eittaroand ,two•Shin • •
Friday, September 25, 1961 95
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WE WISH OUR FRIENDS
AND RELATIVES A
HAPPY . HEALTHY
TO ALL OUR
FAMILY AND FRIENDS
NEW YEAR
SZYM011 & BELLA PALMA
& FAMILY
MR. & MRS. JOSEPH ERMAN
& FAMILY
WE WISH OUR FRIENDS
AND RELATIVES A
HAPPY HEALTHY
Mlle 11.1V75
NEW YEAR
TO ALL OUR
FAMILY AND FRIENDS
MR. & MRS. JACK TAYLOR
MR. and MRS. TED WEISS
We wish our family and friends a
very healthy, happy and prosperous
New Year
MAURIE & FLORENCE CASCADE
nzrizri rizuo rue,5
MR. & MRS. BENJAMIN NAGEL
wish all their friends and relatives
a happy and healthy New Year
CAROL, CHUCK
and MELISSA ELLSTEIN
Wish Their Family and Friends
A Happy & Healthy
New Year
nzrizri mslio nnr5
LILLIAN & LOU ROSEN
St. Petersburg, Florida
would like to wish all our family
and friends a healthy and happy
New Year
MICHAEL ARAKELIAN
of the
INVISIBLE THREAD
wishes his family and
friends a year filled with
health, happiness, joy
and peace
The Residents of
HAVERIM — DEVONSHIRE
HAVERIM — KINGSHIRE
HAVERIM — MARLOW
HAVERIM — MEADOWLARK
HOMES
Sponsored by the Jewish
Association for Retarded Citizens
• • 4
Wish All of Their
Friends. in the
Community
A Happy, Healthy
and Prosperous
Hein- Year'