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Anti-Semitism… An Unknown Phenomenon In China’s History
BY JOY KATZEN-GUTHRIE
Synagogues set ablaze, Sabbath worshippers attacked and beaten, Jewish cemeteries
defaced, neo-Nazis rallying while
both left-wing and right-wing columnists
and political radio and television commentators throughout Europe spout
a stream of venomous Jew and Israel
hatred. Anti-Semitism stews in the West as vehemently as it ever has for two
millennia.
Yet in China, synagogues and otherJewish artifacts are lovingly being restored.
Jewish Studies thrive at universities across the mainland. The municipal
government of Harbin recently re-opened
both its newly-restored Jewish cemetery
and New Synagogue — the latter serving
as a museum of Harbin’s extensive Jewish history since the mid-1800s.
Chinese symposiums, seminars, and conferences, attended by descendants of Jews in China in addition to scholars, teachers, and researchers worldwide, examine the history of the Jewish Diaspora in China with presentations on modern and ancient Chinese Jewish communities, relations between the Chinese and Jewish people, and future perspectives of Jews in 21st century China. With their long and significant history of welcoming Jews without persecution for their faith, China’s inclusive faith communities and dynasties have embraced other religious heritages as universal truths. As a result, anti-semitism in China is unknown, and the Chinese today continue to embrace Jewish history, the Jewish people, and Jewish values.
Having traveled to China five times in recent years to lead Jewish heritage tours,
I am continually touched by the many
connections between Chinese and Jews.
Any of us can see from month to month and year to year the remarkable changes
in Chinese society — yet the Chinese
people maintain an immovable appreciation
for all things Jewish. The number of
Chinese students studying Sino-Jewish
history rises every year. Three campuses at Nanjing, Shanghai and Jinan, a city in
Shandong Province — the province of
Confucius’ birth, serve China’s expanding Center For Jewish Studies.
The Chinese have likely welcomed Jews for at least a thousand years, though
the precise period in which Jews first settled in China is a matter of debate. It
appears that Jewish refugees, traders,
and adventurers entered China in numerous waves. Welcomed by emperors to
make China their home, Jews celebrate
with the Chinese a mutual respect for one another’s moral principles, love of education,
scholarship, charity, wisdom, and
spirituality — though each shares dramatically
different expressions of faith.
While the presence of Jews in China may date several centuries BCE to the
scattering of descendants of the Lost
Israelite Tribes, and again to the early
years of the common era following the
destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in
70 CE, positive written evidence of the Jewish presence in China dates to the
early 8th century. Finding their way via
the Silk Road, by ocean passage into port cities, and over the Northern Steppes of
the Himalayas through Tibet, Jews settled
throughout the country over more than a millennium.
The once-thriving ancient Jewish community
of Kaifeng and the 19th and 20th centuries of Shanghai, Tianjin, and
Harbin are continually in a state of restoration.
In Kaifeng, growing exhibits display the Jewish community’s former
glory. In Shanghai, Asia’s largest remaining
synagogue, Ohel Rachel, built in 1920 by Sir Jacob Elias Sassoon in
memory of his wife Rachel, was restored
in 1998 and contains a photographic display of the Jewish community, although
it continues to serve as home to
Shanghai’s Bureau of Education. A portion of Ohel Moishe Synagogue
in Shanghai was restored several years
ago and the building serves now as a meeting house and museum of Jewish
history in Shaghai. The former Elly
Kadoorie home known as Marble Hall — today a “Children’s Palace” where
gifted students study arts, calligraphy,
dance, and music — recently reopened after an immense restoration. The world renowned
Peace Hotel, built by Sir Victor
Sassoon, is under an extensive renovation. In the port city of Tianjin, restoration
of the former synagogue will soon
be underway. Today’s modern Jewish communities
in Beijing, Shanghai, Pudong,
Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong
are growing as well. Beijing is served by Kehillat Beijing, a Reconstructionist
community founded in 1979, the year
China’s Open Door policy went into effect. Chabad of Beijing opened its new
Jewish Center and mikveh in recent years,
and an active Montessori Jewish Day School is run by the entire Jewish community.
Expatriates from the U.S. and
Canada, Australia, England, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Luxembourg,
Poland and Russia are served by these
congregations, with Beijing’s first glatt kosher restaurant, Dini’s Restaurant, having
just opened in spring 2007.
Once home to a Jewish community of some 25,000 refugees of Russia, Poland,
and Nazi-occupied Europe, Shanghai
was, during the Nazi reign, the only port
in the world that opened its doors to Jewish refugees without a visa, both when
the city was under Chinese control and
Japanese occupation. Thousands who would have met certain death were given
shelter here during years of Czarist
pograms, Russian Revolution, and the Holocaust. Following the war, virtually all of Shanghai’s Jewish residents emigrated
to the U.S., Canada, Australia and
the new state of Israel. Some 12 synagogues
that served the community from
the mid-1800s through the Holocaust
years were converted into government
offices, many torn down over the decades
that followed. In the 1990s, a growing international
Jewish community once again took root
in Shanghai, bringing Chabad emissaries Rabbi Shalom and Dina Greenberg to
serve the diverse congregation in 1998.
Their efforts brought about the opening in 2002 of the Shanghai Jewish Center, a
full educational and spiritual complex
with kosher facilities. Recently, a Chabad
House opened across the Huangpu River
in Pudong, Shanghai’s astounding new
financial metropolis. Annually, some 50,000 Jews visit the Shanghai region.
As in Shanghai, the Jews of Hong
Kong developed many of the city’s most respected institutions, including the Star
Ferry Company and Harbor Tunnel that
connect Kowloon and Hong Kong Island, the Peak Tramway — carrying visitors
to the magnificent view of Hong
Kong from Victoria Peak — as well as the elegant Peninsula Hotel. The city’s
famous thoroughfare, Nathan Road, took
its name from Hong Kong’s first and only Jewish governor, Sir Matthew
Nathan, who designed it. Sephardic Orthodox,
modern Orthodox, Chabad- Lubavitch, Progressive (Reform) congregations,
and a seven-story JCC complex
serve one of the world’s most diverse Jewish communities.
In March/April of 2008, I will join
Temple Beth El’s Jewish Heritage Tour
Beijing, Xi’an, Shanghai, and Suzhou –
of China as tour leader and scholar. Together we will discover the Jewish connection
to China and experience sights in ancient and modern. From the Forbidden
City to the Olympic Village… from wine
and challah on the Great Wall to Kabbalat Shabbat with Kehillat Beijing and the
Jewish Community of Shanghai… from
the ancient Terra-Cotta Warriors of Xi’an to the architecturally innovative and
award-winning new Xintiandi &
Taipingqiao Redevelopment Project in Shanghai to China’s historic “Venice of
the East” with its man-made marvel, the
Grand Canal and its world-renowned silk and embroidery artisans… a blend of
history, culture, and Jewish presence in a
land where Jews have been welcomed and appreciated for centuries.
Temple Beth El’s “Magnificent Treasures
of China Tour: A Jewish Discovery of China” travels to Beijing, Xi’an,
Suzhou, and Shanghai from March 25 to
April 7. An additional extension is being offered to Kunming, Dali, and Lijiang
from April 7-15.
To read more about this tour, China’s Jewish History, or to see photographic
displays of my visits throughout China
and its Jewish communities, visit www.joyfulnoise.net/tours/china7.html.
Call Temple Beth El at 727-347-6136
or email
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Joy Katzen-Guthrie is an award-winning singer/songwriter, concert and recording artist and writer.
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