Shlomo and Dina's ancestors belong to the lost Jewish community of China that ceased to exist in the 19th century as a result of assimilation and intermarriage, which started just a few decades after the last rabbi of the community passed away.
Jewish traders, travelers of the silk route, arrived in Kai Feng and established a synagogue in 1163. About 5,000 lived there through the mid 1800's. To this day about 500 descendants of the community live in Kai Feng.
"They still maintain a strong Jewish identity but during the communist regime all traces of Jewish rites and customs were abandoned," said Michael Freund, chairman of Shavei Israel, an organization dedicated to "reconnecting 'lost Jews'" who have a historical connection with Judaism, like the descendants of the conversos of Spain.
On a related note, A Taiwan human rights group is campaigning "to stop the "discriminatory" way that characters for "Jewish people" are written in Mandarin."
The character set currently being used "refers to an animal of the monkey species, and has the connotation of parsimoniousness," Chien Hsi-chieh, director of the Peacetime Foundation of Taiwan, said recently." Some things never change.
And, from Norm, a link to a history of Jews in China.
No comments:
Post a Comment