Archeological evidence points to a Jewish presence in China as early as the 8th century, when Jewish merchants traveled the Silk Road from Persia and India. Many travelers, including Marco Polo in the 13th century, reported meeting Jews. During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a Ming emperor conferred seven surnames on the Jews, which still identify them today: Ai, Lao, Jin, Li, Shi, Zhang and Zhao. Shi and Jin are the equivalent of common Jewish names in the west: Stone and Gold.
An ancient stele (stone memorial pillar) notes that 1421 was a turning point for the acceptance of Jews into C
hinese society when they were allowed to take civil service exams and enter government professions. Local gazetteers from the 16th to 20th centuries note that Jews were successful in mainstream Confucian society beyond proportion to their small number.
It is also reported that in 1163 Ustad Leiwei was given charge of the religion (Ustad means 'Rabbi' in Persian), and that they built a synagogue surrounded by a study hall, a ritual bath, a communal kitchen, a kosher butchering facility, and a sukkah.
Ironically, the discovery of Jews in Kaifeng interested European Christians more than Jews. While the Kaifeng Jews lost contact with their brethren, it was Jesuit Priests who discovered and made contact with the Jewish Kaifeng colony in the17th century. They reported that the surviving Kaifeng Jews observed synagogue practices and most festivals, abstained from pork, circumcised their sons and followed Moses' laws like Jews in Europe.
Assimilation
The basic reasons for their loss and assimilation was their lack of rabbis, lack of a Chinese Torah translation, loss of Hebrew language knowledge and the repeated destruction of their Synagogue by Yellow River floods. In the middle of the 19th century, poverty caused the remaining Jews to sell their synagogue building and manuscripts to Protestant missionaries.
Their synagogue relics include a chime for calling worshippers, two stone bowls and a drain mouth for ritual washing before worship, and a wooden cylindrical torah case. These, as well as copies of the above mentioned Stele are at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.
During the Middle ages, European theolo gians were very interested in the Kaifeng Torahs. They wanted to compare those bibles with their own because certain Christian theologians accused Talmudic Era Rabbis of having expunged or altered a number of verses in the Torah, which led to a raging dispute in 16th century Europe. The retrieval of a "pure and true" bible would solve the problem, and if lost passages were found, it would prove that the rabbis had indeed altered the text.
Christian organizations located and bought six of the Kaifeng Torah scrolls. Needless to say, the Kaifeng scrolls were found to be identical to the Torahs in Europe.
Ignorance
The community withered, as seen in this mid-19th century letter from a Kaifeng Jew to the west: "Morning and night, with tears in our eyes and with offerings of incenses do we implore that our religion may again flourish. We sought everywhere, but could find none who understood the letter of the Great Country (Hebrew) which causes us deep sorrow." The Kaifeng community once even displayed a Torah scroll in the public marketplace with a sign offering a reward to any traveler who could interpret its text for them.
Rescue Attempts
In 1900, the Jews of Shanghai became interested in the plight of the Kaifeng community and started a Shanghai Society to Rescue the Chinese Jews, said to consist of 50 families of about 250 people. The society wrote a letter begging those Jews not to sell any more of their scrolls. and offered to help them rebuild their temple, but nothing came of it all.
When Bishop William White, a Canadian Missionary, worked in Kaifeng, he tried to revitalize the Jewish community. In 1919 he called a conference to bring them together. There was much discussion and social fellowship, but the conference failed. An interesting picture of Jewish women who came to the conference shows that all, including the children, had bound feet. It was then that they sold their Torahs, the synagogue was razed and the land sold to Canadian missionaries.
Dr. Beverly Friend, Executive Director of the China Judaic Studies Association reports:
"Our visit to Kaifeng was, sadly, too late to meet Zhao Pingyu, whose great grandfather had been the last rabbi.
"Zhao, who died several months earlier, was able to recall some rituals from his childhood. We visited his home on Teaching Torah Lane South, formerly the main Jewish street, and saw the religious objects he collected in an attempt to create a Judaic library and museum.
" But other descendants from the Zhang, Shi and Jin families had no such memories. Living in a secular country, they have no religious rituals, although some refrain from eating pork. A Jin family member took us to the burial mounds of eight generations of his family, where we said kaddish at the tombstone."
Rabbi Neil Brief of Chicago did the same on a trip a year earlier, and told us that tears formed in the eyes of his non-Jewish tour guide. When asked why he wept, he said that although he wasn't Jewish, he was moved by the respect shown to deceased ancestors.
In spite of a lack of formal religious practice, Kaifeng Jews have a sense of ethnic identity. Some list their children as "Youtai" (Jewish) on government documents next to a spot where they might have written "Han" (Ethnic Chinese), and are happy to meet foreign visiting Jews. Learning about their heritage is difficult as very little about Judaism is available in Chinese.
On our last day in Kaifeng we celebrated a Shabbat dinner with them. We sat around the table, reciting prayers in Hebrew that were then translated via English to Chinese, and tried to connect with this long lost Asian link. It was an unforgettable experience."
Jewish activity centered in the home until Sir Jacob Sassoon dedicated the Ohel Leah synagogue in 1902 in his mother's memory. Another Jewish dynasty developed when Sir Elly Kadoorie from Iraq settled in Hong Kong. In the 19th-century his son Lord Lawrence Kadoorie purchased Torahs found by a Catholic friar on Cat Street for $5,000. Lord Kadoorie's son Michael owns the Peninsula Hotel, and serves as a Jewish community trustee. The congregation's first president was Sir Matthew Nathan, Hong Kong's Jewish governor and the civil engineer who built Kowloon's main commercial artery, known today as Nathan Road. Later waves of Jewish immigration reached China after 19th-century Russian pogroms, during World War I and after WW II. A strategic trade and finance center, Hong Kong attracted foreigners from the 1960s onward, including Jews from the U.S., Israel, England, Australia and Canada. Several years ago, After a century and a half under Britain, Hong Kong reverted to Communist Chinese rule last July. The business community is confident about the change, said Anne Godfrey, the JCC spokesperson, but there are human rights concerns. She says there's no anti-Semitism: "Chinese like Jews because they share enthusiasm for business, education, family and good food." Hong Kong's 2,500 Jews are 40 percent American, with the remainder mostly European and Australian. The large Jewish Community Center contains recreational facilities, a swimming pool and a kosher supervised restaurant. There is also a newly built state of the art Mikvah at 70 Robinson St. The JCC library contains fascinating history on early Jewish Chinese communities, and a Judaica Corner that offers gifts for young and old. The Carmel School, founded by Chabad, teaches 200 Jewish children up to eleven years old, and also offers a summer and winter Camp Gan Israel. Travelers and Visitors Services The Chabad Eishel Menachem synagogue in the Furama Hotel serves thousands of travelers during the year. It welcomes resident and transient Jews, Ashkenazic or Sefardic, observant or not, who pray in unity and friendship. Chabad conducts 3 minyans daily, caters Shabbat dinners, and publishes a full color glossy L.I.F.E. (Lubavitch In the Far East) magazine. It organizes Kosher stands at the commercial (jewelry/electronic/toys etc.) fairs, and a Jewish booth at China's bi-annual Canton Fair. Chabad Rabbis Mordechai Avtzon and Shimon Freundlich can be visited at: www.chabdhk.org.
Hong Kong Jews Today
Hong Kong's present Jewish community began in the 1800's with the arrival of several families from Baghdad who contributed to Hong Kong's development. 
the government wanted to demolish the historic White domed synagogue to build a high-rise building. The local Jewish community protested, and a compromise was reached. They built high rise apartments owned by the JCC, which is housed on the first two floors with a Baghdad style synagogue. The JCC rents out the 40 upscale apartments above, which are a primary source of income.
Rabbi Greenberg, Chabad emissary in Shanghai, in prayer near the Great Wall of China
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