Kaifeng Inscriptions Revisited

The Kaifeng Stones Revisited

Tiberiu Weisz

[Originally published in : The Covenant, Global Jewish Magazine 

Volume 1, Issue 3 (October 2007 / Cheshvan 5768)]

Abstract: Our knowledge of the Chinese Jews derives from two primary sources: one is the stone inscriptions, carved in grey limestone by the Jews and the other the eyewitness reports of missionaries, travelers and adventures who encountered Jews in Kaifeng in the 18th century and later. Scholars scrutinized both sources and reported many inconsistencies in the eyewitness reports. The inscriptions, however, were a source of puzzlement. The Chinese text posed particular challenges, and scholars had to rely on the translation of Bishop Charles White, a missionary who resided in China for forty years and had a good command of the Chinese language but little knowledge of Judaism. Weisz’s new annotated translation of the Chinese text identifies many biblical sources veiled in the intricacies of the Chinese language. This article is a summary of his findings.-ed.

What are the Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions and why are they important? Why the need for a new translation? And most important of all, is there anything that the inscriptions tell us about ancient Judaism that can serve as a lesson for today?  These are just some of the questions that any sophisticated reader today has on his mind when thinking of the ancient stone carvings that the Jews in China engraved over five hundred years ago. For one thing, after living in China for over fifteen hundred years devoid of any contact with other Jewish communities, the Chinese Jews felt that the community was on the verge of extinction. They were determined to record their existence in China and remind future generations that at one time some Jews played an important role in the Chinese society; some acquired an education and competed in the examination system to become scholars; others earned the highest academic degrees to become officials and gained respect in the society. There were also prominent shopkeepers, artisans, traders and military officers.

But acceptance in the Chinese society came at the expense of Judaism. Though the Chinese had never exerted any pressure on the Jews, or on any other minorities to convert, the social structure of the Chinese society put enormous demands on the Jews and required them to accept and act according to local customs. Jews had to adapt to the Confucian lifestyle that often seemed to overlap the Jewish customs. In addition, the rigid administrative system caused further erosion of Jewish lifestyle. To climb the administrative and social ladder, Jews needed to devote considerable time and effort to the study of the Chinese Classics. All this came at the expense of the study of the Torah. When the Jews felt that the end was near, they pooled their resources and inscribed their religious beliefs on a stele that was dated 1489. This was perhaps the most comprehensive and informative of the inscriptions, but to our disappointment it was long on rituals and short on historical details. This stele can be seen today encased in glass in the Kaifeng Museum of Jewish History. It is five feet tall, about thirty inches wide and about five inches thick and sits on a base that is about twenty inches high. Some of the characters are still decipherable; others are so faded that it is hard to read them. This inscription contains about 1800 characters. Its content is divided into three sections, the first tell us about the Chinese version of the biblical story of Abraham and how the religion was born. The second section tells us about the rituals and worship of the Chinese Jews at that time. The third segment recaps the imperial audience that was handed down in oral tradition. Each segment seems to be composed by someone knowledgeable in his field. On the back of this stele is another inscription dated 1512 comprising of over 1000 characters. This inscription was composed by a Jew or someone who knew about Judaism. He stated that Judaism would not exist without the Torah.  This inscription was perhaps the most puzzling to scholars as it appeared to contain no historical indicators and therefore was considered of very limited historical value. But from a Jewish perspective, it provided a wealth of information about the life of the Jews at the time and it constantly compared Judaism with Confucianism, perhaps the first ever attempt to compare the two cultures. 

The other stele dated 1663 on one side and has not been seen since its disappearance from the gate of the Anglican Church where it had been placed by Bishop White in 1912.  On the obverse side is engraved an incomplete text that appears to be the middle section of a text that largely pays tribute to the Jews who contributed to the restoration of the temple. This stele, according to White, is about two feet taller than the earlier stele. Fortunately, Bishop White made an ink rubbing that had been preserved and was reproduced in his book The Chinese Jews. Side one contains about 2200 characters written by a non- Jew who had Jewish friends or neighbors and made some very interesting observations about Jewish customs and rituals. It provided more historical details regarding the temple and the community in action. The composer also pointed out many similarities between Judaism and Confucianism.  The back side of this stele is an acknowledgment of those Jews who had contributed to the restoration of the synagogue and the community. Since the introduction and the ending are missing, we have no way of dating it so by default it was dated 1663b, though it is more likely that it was composed at a later period.

The Chinese Repository (July 1851) published a translation of the 1489 and 1512 inscriptions and Bishop Charles White improved it with his own translation in the 1940’s. In addition, he also annotated the text, identified some of the Chinese sources and expressed his surprise that the inscriptions contained no biblical references. That was, as far as I know, the last English translation of the stele and it became the accepted, if not the “official” guide to the inscriptions. Many scholars and researchers intrigued by the topic of the orphaned colony of the Chinese Jews published articles and books on the subject and they based their research on White’s translation. Then in 1972 Donald Leslie, an Australian scholar published a monograph The Survival of the Chinese Jews that was intended to be the ultimate resource book about the Jews in China. It dealt with the many facets of the Jewish presence in China, and it incorporated many new details derived from local gazetteers but as far as the inscriptions were concerned, the White’s translation was the standard. Leslie also agreed with White’s conclusion that “we hardly find passages from the Jewish Law translated into Chinese” (pg.102), and expressed his frustrations that the inscriptions lacked any solid historical landmarks. He attached little importance to 1663a inscription as most of the material seemed to be addressed in the 1489 stele. He also wondered why the 1512 inscription was written. I addressed these issues and reported my preliminary findings in two articles published in Points East (July 2003 and November 2003) a newsletter of the Sino-Judaic Institute. 

So why was there a need for a new translation? Differences of opinions would not justify such an endeavor, but when inaccuracies and mistranslation of characters went undetected for almost a century, that prompted me to take a closer look at the Chinese text. I came upon those errors while researching my book on a comparative study of Jewish and Chinese cultures. Detailed analysis of Chinese and Hebrew sources pointed to an indirect but unmistakable link between the land of Israel and China as early as the seventh century BCE. The Wisdom of Solomon (965- 926 BCE) had reached the ears of Laozi (604- 531 BCE) and the latter had incorporated several of Solomon’s sayings in his writings. (This material will be published in my forthcoming book The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven). This prompted me to re-examine the stone inscriptions with a Jewish and Chinese historical context in mind. To my disappointment, neither Western nor Chinese literature published on the Chinese Jews correlated the inscriptions to any historical context, let alone in a Jewish context. I asked myself, why not?  The obvious reason could be that the original text did not contain history, and the uninterrupted and unpunctuated text left us a story that we did not understand. Some of the style was standard Chinese but some extended segments contained irregular grammatical structures that appeared completely meaningless and incomprehensible. Could it be that those segments held the key to the inscriptions? They puzzled researchers and they went unexplained until now.

To start with, I broke the Chinese text into individual phrases and sentences and set each phrase on a new line. The key was in the details and I kept an open mind to every possibility. The text contained many parallel structures and incomplete quotes that I found to be traceable. As I traced those quotes to their source, I started to get a picture that was very different from any previously translated texts. The 1489 inscriptions, for instance, revealed three different styles that I attributed to three different composers. I made a note of this in the introductory chapter on the “Testimony of the Inscriptions” (pg. xix) in my book The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions. Then the style of 1512 inscription reminded me of the writing of some Chinese neo-Confucians that depicted a tapestry of daily life in China.  But the real revelation came when I realized that the last segment of this inscription resembled a Hebrew prayer. This particular segment puzzled many scholars because it contained a peculiar structure that hardly related to anything. It portrayed a vision and by invoking the name of Heaven, I realized that it was a prayer. And indeed when I juxtaposed it with the Hebrew prayer book, I realized that it was the Chinese version of the Amida, a prayer that the Chinese Jews had memorized, and as time passed, they composed their own version. Nevertheless it was the Eighteen Benedictions. This information also shed some light on the antiquity of the Jews in China: the text emulated a pre-Jabneh version that was composed in exile by members of the Great Assembly (Knesseth Hagadol c.a. 500-300 BCE). It did not include the birkat haminim (benediction against the heretics) or the nineteenth benedictions which was added later in the first century CE. I also realized that the English language compounded the problem. The Chinese Jews did not know English or any other Western languages, and they handed down the prayer through oral tradition in the original Hebrew. As time passed they remembered less of the Hebrew but still remembered the spirit of the Amida and composed a Chinese version. The Chinese Jews added the text of the prayers to remind future generation of their tradition.

The 1663a inscription confirmed my findings. It was composed by a non-Jew who described either what he had seen or what he had been told by his Jewish neighbors. Like the previous inscriptions, the 1663a stele described the rituals but unlike the other stele, it did not repeat the actual words of the prayers. The reason: the composer was a bystander who neither knew the prayers nor understood them. He jotted down his observation and noted that the Jews prayed three times a day and that was “when man was to see Heaven”. What he added after this observation was interesting. He recapped what he had heard the Jews say or chant at the conclusion of the ceremonies and when I juxtaposed this with the Hebrew text, I realized that it was the pronouncement of the birkat hacohanim (Lord’s Blessing). That custom was prevalent during the Temple periods when the cohen hagadol (high priest) performed the sacrificial rites and then he came down from the altar and raising his hands over the whole assembly of Israel, he pronounced the Lord’s blessing or the birkat hacohanim (Numbers 6:24-26). Though the words in the inscriptions were Confucian in nature, the structure and the intent coincided with the biblical Hebrew version. Another interesting aspect of this inscription was the composer’s descriptions of some of the practices of the Jews that corresponded to similar practices in China. He often quoted from Chinese literature to show that the Jews practiced something that was not too different from the Chinese. Inadvertently, he created the first comparative study of Judaism and China. 

Long on rites and prayers and short on history, the inscriptions seemed to be of little historical significance. None of them elaborated on the past or on how and when the Jews settled in China. The little they did say about their past was hard to corroborate and their origin was shrouded in mystery. Even more puzzling was the fact that they mentioned an audience with a Song emperor (960- 1279) without further explanation. This sentence became critical in recreating the history of the community, and unfortunately, a mistranslation diverted the attention of scholars who then built on the incorrect translation. Once I corrected the translation, the text displayed evidence of the roots of the community that could be traced to antiquity and their history could be corroborated by both biblical and Chinese sources. After captivity and exile, a group of Levites and Cohanim (priests) left Babylon and wandered east, first headed towards India where they stayed for several generations. Several generation later, the descendants continued their journey northwards where they came across a place that answered a biblical description. (Psalms 104:8-10). Being devout believers, they saw a biblical prophecy come true. They settled there and lived in isolation for several more generations until they were accidentally discovered by a Chinese military expedition in 108 BCE. They would have stayed anonymous had not the Chinese general left us a sentence describing their appearance as strange. That description was deemed insignificant in the massive amount of Chinese annals and very few scholars paid any attention to it. But from a biblical point of view that description depicted the features of observant Jews who lived by the precepts of the Torah. When the Chinese army withdrew from the Western Regions, they encouraged the more domesticated tribes to come and live under the protection of the Chinese administration. For the Chinese this was a policy of pacification, the tribes would serve as a buffer zone between them and the Huns, and at the same time they would be exposed to the Chinese culture. This was the first step of sinicization.  Many, if not most of the domesticated tribes preferred the protection of the Chinese to the uncertainty and unpredictability of the Tatars. They migrated and settled in the area of Gansu Province of today. At the beginning of the second century CE, when the Han Dynasty (206 BCE- 220 CE) started to disintegrate, the Chinese abandoned the Western Regions and the settlers followed their journey unobstructed into the heartland of China.  Thus the descendents of the isolated Jewish community, who left Babylon several centuries earlier and established a settlement at the outskirts of the Western Regions, found itself migrating again, this time into China proper. Based on the reading of the inscriptions, part of the community remained in the Gansu area while others dispersed to other regions. With the rising anti Buddhist sentiments in the Tang Dynasty (609- 960 CE), the Jews joined the mass exodus of religions out of China and went back to the Western Regions. Then, at the invitation of Emperor Taizong (976- 998), the second Song emperor, the Jews returned to China and were bestowed land to build their place of worship. They remained in obscurity until 1605 when Matteo Ricci, a Jesuit missionary, reported an encounter with a Chinese Jew in Beijing. Later missionaries also confirmed the existence of the community, but the strongest evidence of the legacy of the Jews in China was contained in the stone inscriptions.

Three of the four inscriptions were dedicated to the rebuilding of the temple. The community went to extraordinary lengths to preserve and restore the temple and one may wonder what was so important about the temple to deserve such dedication? Reading the existing literature, the impression is that it was an ordinary synagogue; it functioned as a place of worship and community center. But when the text was juxtaposed with biblical history, it revealed that the temple played a far more important role. The Jews in China continued the biblical tradition that accorded the servicing of the temple to the Levites and cohanim (priests) who performed the rituals that were associated with the First Temple (960- 586 BCE). The temple became the focal point of the community. Besides being used as a place of worship and sacrifice, it was also a source of pride that provided the Jews a sense of belonging, and they attributed their long survival to the Temple. In the absence of the temple, the function of the cohanim would have ceased to exist and the community would have vanished without a trace. In addition, the temple work (avodat kodesh) supplemented the income of the cohanim who received a salary from local sources and from teaching. Each time the temple was destroyed, the cohanim lost this source of income and they could barely provide the necessary services to keep the community together. After each disaster, the community lost members and some of them dispersed never to return.  To rectify this situation, the entire Jewish community in China contributed resources to rebuild the temple. Some contributed their salary; others contributed labor while the cohanim contributed their skill to restore the scriptures.

 

Each time the temple was rebuilt it was in Kaifeng, even though that city ceased to be the seat of the Chinese emperor after 1126 CE.  The Chinese court relocated to Hangzhou to establish the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), and Kaifeng became the abandoned capital. Yet the Chinese Jews built and rebuilt the Temple in Kaifeng. Why?  From a Jewish perspective, the events that led to the destruction and the fall of Kaifeng and the subsequent fall of the dynasty in 1126 CE, was reminiscent to the Jewish experience in antiquity. The First Temple that was built by King Solomon in c.a. 960 BCE was looted and destroyed along with the sacred city (Jerusalem) in 586 BCE. That also brought an end to the Kingdom of Israel and the Ten Tribes were led into exile. Seventy years later, Ezra, the last prophet that the Chinese Jews mentioned, rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem and asked the exiles to return. These events were ingrained in the mind of the Chinese Jews, and they sensed that the conditions in China at the time (circa between 1100 – 1163 CE) were a prophecy come true. They mirrored the events that led to the exile of their distant ancestors in the Land of Canaan. Kaifeng suffered the same fate as Jerusalem, it was destroyed the course of conquest, the Chinese emperor was driven into exile and the dynasty fell into the hands of the Jurchen “barbarians” to establish the Qin Dynasty. The Temple in Kaifeng became the symbol of Jewish persistence in China, and it directly epitomized their fate and indirectly the fate of the sacred city (Jerusalem). Equipped with the biblical blueprint of the temple envisioned in Ezekiel, it was completed in 1163 and was modeled to be as imposing as the Beth Hamikdash (Temple).  

In light of the new translation and readings of the inscriptions it is evident that the orphaned colony was Jewish in origin with roots that went back to the exile period. Does that mean that the Jews in Kaifeng today and their offspring are Jewish? Efforts were made by some Jewish organizations to recognize them as Jews but most of the Jewish authorities refused to recognize them as such. Their objection is based on the hallacha (law) that says that every male Jew must be circumcised on the eight day after birth (or after conversion), and follow the dietary laws of the Torah. A further obstacle was imposed by the “Who is a Jew” clause that stated that a Jew is a Jew only if born to a Jewish woman. Since none of these conditions prevailed, they are not Jews. The former commandment was biblical in nature while the latter one was hallachic, meaning that it originated in the Oral Law. Since they could not perform circumcision safely, they had to abandon that practice. The 1512 inscription indicated that the Jews in China made every effort to follow the biblical commandment of the dietary laws. And since marrying a foreign woman was not a biblical precept, the Chinese Jews continued the tradition that was widely practiced in exile. They followed a tradition that was pre-rabbinic, and they had never heard of any development in Judaism that was post-exilic. The hallacha started to develop after Ezra returned to Jerusalem and did not become the Oral Law until several centuries later, by which time the Chinese Jews had already been isolated for generations. They had never heard of Mishna, Midrash, Talmud etc., these terms were unfamiliar to them. They were unaware of the split between Judaism and Christianity and they still called themselves Israelites.  In a sense we have a pure sect of observant Jews that lived according to the precepts of the Torah and not the oral tradition.  Circumstances forced them to adapt to the environment, and to maintain their beliefs, they formulated their own hallacha that incorporated many of the local customs. They did the same thing that our sages did in Jerusalem and Babylon; they developed a set of rules that accorded with the local conditions without compromising the sanctity of the Torah. They followed their own hallacha for over 1500 year in isolation and even as late as the 18^th century, when the missionaries encountered the Jews of Kaifeng, the Jews still lived by the same precepts. They never abandoned the ways of the Torah and never ceased to believe in Elohim; they built and rebuilt the temple, the symbol of their existence and they left the stone inscriptions so that future generations know how to be a Jew in the sea of Chinese culture.

Tiberiu Weisz, is the author of The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China.  

Judasim and China: personal perspective

Judaism and China is a topic that is close to me both personally and professionally: personally because I was raised as an orthodox Jew, and professionally because I have studied Chinese and China for most of my adult life. I have a very close affinity to China and an almost native insight. Having said that, I feel that I made a unique contribution to this field by writing three insightful books about the relationship between these two cultures. There is little doubt in my mind that these two cultures are closely related, and witness to it is the large amount of literature published lately. Unfortunately this literature seems to me lopsided, the authors know one culture in depth and the other one only superficially.
Western writers, including many  Jewish ones, compare the two culture with heavy emphasis on the Jewish point of view. Undoubtedly, they are familiar with Judaism, but their knowledge of China is quite superficial. Chinese writers publish papers on Judaism, mostly Western works translated into Chinese. Content wise the articles are tightly regulated and heavily censored.  Quite often the articles are published under the name of the Chinese "writer", leaving out the author of the original western work.  Plagiarizing is common in China and there is no legal remedy. Most of these articles are distributed in China only, rarely, if ever, seen by Westerners. Accidentally I came across my own work  published under the name of one of my "Chinese colleagues". I remember that instance since we discussed the issue of plagiarism and I was assured that "we (Chinese) do not plagiarize".

But I have seen and read some of these publications and I am here to relay my own observations.  I used to collaborate with several Chinese writers and scholars on translating articles into English and I also used to read their articles in Chinese for historical accuracy, meaning and context. Unaware at the time, I was actually helping the Chinese to plagiarize my works! I have never received credit for my input, because the general Chinese policy is to forbid Westerners to publish in China.
I used to travel to China on business and sometimes attend seminars.  A word about the seminars that I attended. They are usually packaged with an organized tour. From the Chinese perspective the emphasis is on the tour while the seminar is secondary.  Officially, the tour organizers arrange for tourist visas. In between tours, time is allotted for seminars. It quickly became  apparent to me that that the entire event was staged for the benefit of the foreign guests. As long as the Chinese did not realize that I am fluent in Chinese, everything was nice and clean. Gradually as they realized that my fluency afforded me unlimited access to the Chinese "invited guests", the situation took a dramatic turn. I was not allowed to interact freely with the Chinese audience without an "official translator". But it was too late. I had already found out what was behind the so called "seminars on Judaism" and the Jewish studies in China.
These seminars were part of "group tours" to attract Jewish tourists to visit China (and spend money), and while there talk about the Chinese Jews.
To fill these events with a live audience, the Chinese organizers have invited many Chinese scholars, students or fellows from throughout China to attend. The minimum qualification to be invited was to know where Israel is, or knows the word "shalom"or knows the Chinese word of yotairen (Jew).  Preference was given to those Chinese who knew some in English.
I had the privilege of mingling with the Chinese students and audiences. Initially I spoke freely with them in Chinese. It was a pleasure to converse with them since they did not have enough command of the English language to carry on a conversation, let alone for a more in depth exchange of ideas. That pleasure did not last long. The organizers, lead by Prof. Xuxin, Director of the Nanjing Jewish Project, realized that my ability to converse freely in Chinese with guests  probably worried the Chinese officials. It did not take long before I found out that I was given one or two escorts or rather "interpreters" and my contact with the audience was completely cut.
I was also scheduled to give a talk on my then forthcoming book "The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions" and my findings of biblical relevance. Before I even had a chance to talk, I was told in no uncertain terms that I was to speak in English, and not allowed to address the audience in Chinese. Of course I immediately protested, pointing out that very few in the audience would understand. That was not important to them and I was sternly warned to talk in English.
I did. But I cut my speech short, to about five minutes from the allotted twenty minutes. I also made an impromptu change: instead of talking about my research I talked about the mistake that I saw on a map in the Kaifeng Jewish Museum. The Caspian Sea bordered Romania on the Chinese map!  The Chinese did not care, the audience had no idea what I talked about and that was the end of the story.
For them but not for me.
I kept in touch with several scholars through e-mail and I did some translations and for them, edited articles, exchanged ideas. In exchange I wanted to get copies of their studies in Chinese about Judaism, which the scholars were more than happy to share. I obtained quite a few articles and books published in China in Chinese. I read all of them and a picture emerged in my mind that there is a duplicity of what the Chinese say to us Westners and what they say to the local audiences. In short, the Jewish studies programs were a tightly controlled subject, and in my mind, is nothing more than a sham.
One day when I was collaborating with a Chinese scholar on an article, I asked to get a copy of the Chinese version. The Chinese scholar called Prof. Xuxin to ask pemission and all hell broke lose.  Apparently  Xuxin was very upset and he immediately forbade any contact between Chinese scholars and me. Suddenly, the Chinese tour guide, expert in Judaism and "friend of" the Jews, former Red Guard "teacher" member of the Communist Party revealed his true identity. He was but an agent who was  permitted to attract Jewish tourists and business to China. In the process he befriended many Jews, spent months in the US talking in synagogues about Judaism and China, was a welcome guest among Jewish communities who did not realized that he was just a good cadre following the party line. 

Alina Patru: The Covenat (Review in Romanian)

REVISTA TEOLOGICĂ 1 / 2011

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Tiberiu Weisz, The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven. An In-Depth Comparative Cultural Study of Judaism and China [Legământul şi Mandatul cerului. O analiză comparativă de profunzimi a iudaismului şi a Chinei], Ed. iUniverse, New York, 2008, 243 p., ISBN 978-0-595-44450-2.

Tiberiu Weisz este un autor evreu de origine română, de formaţie sinolog. Preocupările sale ştiinţifice s-au îndreptat spre legăturile istorice dintre evrei şi China, domeniu în care volumul său „The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions. The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China” [Inscripţiile pe piatră de la Kaifeng. Moştenirea Comunităţii evreieşti în China străveche], apărut în 2006, s-a impus ca o lucrare de referinţă în cercetarea de specialitate. În spectrul aceloraşi preocupări se înscrie şi opera sa prezentă, o analiză de conţinut a reperelor principale ale iudaismului şi ale culturii chineze, realizată pe baza juxtapunerii surselor primare, a textelor sacre din cele două spaţii culturale, dar şi a materialelor istorice şi critice de dată mai recentă, mergând pe filonul istoriei până în ziua de azi.

Reflecţii asupra similitudinilor şi a diferenţelor celor două culturi ale omenirii cu cea mai veche existenţă neîntreruptă până astăzi s-au mai produs. Tiberiu Weisz este însă primul care realizează o comparaţie amplă, fundamentată pe surse şi bazată pe o muncă asiduă de peste 10 ani de zile şi pe o vastă erudiţie în domeniul ambelor culturi. Autorul are meritul de a cunoaşte iudaismul din interior, însă în acelaşi timp de a fi şi foarte bine familiarizat cu cultura chineză, înţelegându-i subtilităţile aproape ca un nativ. „Scopul meu este de a invita cititorii către un mod unic de a privi atât China, cât şi iudaismul, şi anume din interior, aşa cum sunt ele văzute de cei care trăiesc în culturile respective”, mărturiseşte el în „Introducere” (p. XVIII, trad. n.). Mai mult decât atât: Tiberiu Weisz cutează să propună ideea (de tip teologic) a unei unice surse din care ar proveni cele două culturi: „La nivel personal, scrierea acestei cărţi m-a provocat constant prin legătura implicită dintre cele două culturi. Nu am mai putut privi iudaismul dintr-o perspectivă pur evreiască, nici credinţele chineze dintr-una strict chinezească. Undeva şi cândva în trecutul îndepărtat, cele două culturi au izvorât dintr-o unică sursă”. (p. XVII, trad. n.)

Rezultatul demersului comparativ este o lucrare sintetică ce se opreşte asupra câtorva elemente centrale ale celor două religii şi culturi. Pe acestea însă le scrutează până în mari adâncimi, descoperindu-le intenţionalitatea mai puţin evidentă şi stabilind conexiuni la acest nivel al înţelegerii realităţii. Bun mânuitor al instrumentelor lingvistice, Tiberiu Weisz îşi retraduce, acolo unde este necesar, termenii în engleză sau alege dintre mai multe variante recurente în traduceri şi literatura secundară pe cea mai aptă să redea sensul primar.

Cartea urmează o cronologie aproximativă, tratând aspectele vizate în ordinea în care ele au apărut ca problematică religioasă. Primele sunt temele de conţinut cu caracter general: morfologia sacrului, legământul sau mandatul, mijloacele prin care se realizează acesta. Sunt tematizate apoi, în ordine, provocările exterioare generate de întâlnirea cu alte religii, epoca de aur a raţiunii, formele de mistică, reformele şi reformatorii, provocările timpurilor moderne, iar în final statalitatea.

Dincolo de paralelismele obişnuite pe care le-ar putea stabili cu uşurinţă orice cercetător (Elohim – Shangdi; Legământul lui Dumnezeu cu poporul Său – Mandatul pe care Shangdi îl încredinţează Fiului Cerului, împăratul, şi prin el poporului; Tora – cărţile Liji; shekhina – ta), Weisz lansează nişte ipoteze revoluţionare, cum ar fi, de exemplu, aceea că Laozi (604-531 î.Hr.), înţeleptul daoismului, în călătoria sa spre Vest, ar fi intrat în contact, pe Drumul mătăsii, cu ideile biblice şi mai ales cu istorisiri despre Israelul din vremea lui Solomon. Weisz este primul care susţine că anumite idei din „Daodejing”, lucrarea fundamentală a daoismului, atribuită în mod tradiţional lui Laozi, idei care sunt considerate originale în lumea chineză, ar fi de fapt de provenienţă veterotestamentară, că mica ţară cu o populaţie redusă, dar care trăieşte în prosperitate şi pace (Daodejing, par. 80) ar fi de fapt Regatul lui Solomon, ba chiar că stilul sentenţial al cărţii ar fi împrumutat de la „Proverbele lui Solomon” (p. 13 ş.u.). Dao, Unul, cel dincolo de orice conceptualizare, se suprapune în maniera în care este descris în Daodejing peste Elohim Unul, mai ales atunci când Acestuia I se atribuie caracteristici apofatice. Weisz îşi susţine teoria indicând locurile biblice ale căror formulări se regăsesc întocmai în Daodejing. Ele nu sunt puţine, iar identitatea de expresie e, într-adevăr, frapantă. Rămâne de văzut în ce măsură iopteza sa va câştiga adepţi şi va reuşi să se impună în lumea ştiinţifică internaţională.

Vom alege spre exemplificare şi o interpretare inedită a lui Weisz din spaţiul istoriei mai recente, şi anume aceea în care Hong Xiuquan (1814-1864), liderul militar şi harismatic al Rebeliunii de la Taiping (1851-1864), autodeclarat fratele mai mic al lui Iisus Hristos, este înţeles în spiritul mesianismului ebraic. Hong luptă pentru realizarea planului lui Dumnezeu în interiorul acestei lumi, ceea ce pentru chinezi s-ar traduce prin înlăturarea dinastiei de origine străină Qing şi refacerea regalităţii chineze cu centrul în vechea capitală Nanjing. Printre textele sacre cu ajutorul cărora Hong se legitimează se numără şi o traducere rudimentară a unor părţi din Biblia creştină în limba chineză. Tiberiu Weisz este însă de părere că valorile pe care şi le însuşeşte de aici Hong – cele zece porunci, monoteismul, misiunea mesianică – sunt mult mai apropiate de iudaism decât de creştinism (p. 148 ş.u.). Însuşi mesianismul său intramundan îl înscrie pe Hong cu uşurinţă pe linia personalităţilor mesianice evreieşti, în ceea ce priveşte atât expresia sa personală, cât şi urmările pe care apariţia unui asemenea fenomen le lasă asupra propriei culturi. Textele biblice la care face apel Hong Xiuquan sunt veterotestamentare, cu precădere cele ale profeţiei lui Isaia, motiv pentru Weisz se întreabă dacă nu cumva Hong face o confuzie între Isaia şi Iisus.

Mesianismul de factură iudaică al lui Hong este valorizat ca un nou argument pentru legătura inefabilă dintre cele două culturi. În acelaşi registru se înscrie întregul proces comparativ al lui Weisz. Adoptând o terminologie chineză, el sugerează că iudaismul ar putea fi considerat complementarul de tip yang pentru cultura de tip yin a Chinei. Iudaismul, unul dintre pilonii esenţiali ai civilizaţiei occidentale, capabil şi astăzi să îşi dinamizeze adepţii spre o solidă implicare în social, ar avea drept pandant civilizaţia chineză, rămasă izolată şi neînţeleasă vreme de milenii, favorizând retragerea, contemplaţia şi integrarea în ritmurile naturii…

Interpretările lui Weisz se propun lumii intelectuale ca nişte reflexii deosebit de interesante şi cu un grad ridicat de originalitate. Trebuie aşteptată apariţia altor specialişti cu un nivel similar de erudiţie în cele două domenii şi preocupare pentru analiza lor profundă. Doar atunci când va exista o pluralitate a interpretărilor va putea fi evaluat cu mai multă precizie aportul academic al lui Tiberiu Weisz. Meritul incontestabil al lucrării e aceea de a fi deschizătoare de drumuri, şi avem convingerea că va rămâne mult timp de acum încolo o piatră de hotar în cercetarea de specialitate.

Ca un minus al cărţii poate fi semnalată lipsa concluziilor sau a notiţelor rezumative, atât la încheierea fiecărui capitol, cât şi la final. Acestea ar fi facilitat cititorului procesul de ordonare a vastului spaţiu informaţional.

Pentru publicul român, lucrarea se prezintă ca o lectură plăcută şi care îmbogăţeşte, deschizând noi orizonturi nu doar spre înţelegerea a două spaţii şi culturi de o deosebită importanţă în istoria umanităţii, ci şi spre cunoaşterea modalităţilor prin care se poate realiza un demers comparativ fecund, capabil să contribuie la comunicarea interculturală a zilelor noastre.

Lect. Univ. Dr. Alina Pătru

Prof. Vera Schwarcz Reviews: The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven

 The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven: 
An In-depth Comparative Cultural Study of Judaism and China (iUniverse 2008)

By Tiberiu Weisz

Reviewed by : Prof. Vera Schwarcz,
 Director/Chair, Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University, CT.

Reprinted in: Points East, A Publication of the Sino-Judaic Institute, Vol. 23 No. 2, July 2008

This is, simply put, a bold visionary book. It invites readers to contemplate distant and disparate events and thinkers in a way that weaves a common tapestry. The author is generous minded, erudite and provides readers with all the information needed for this cross-cultural journey. The challenge of this adventure remains daunting nonetheless. Kang Youwei’s words to Guangxu emperor in 1898 (quoted by Weisz on p 177) apply to reading this book as well: It is indeed like “climbing a tree to seek fish”- tough, but not foolish. In the end, the reward in understanding both Chin and Judaism is immense.

Tiberiu Weisz is not a newcomer to cross cultural dialogues.  With origins stretching back to Transylvania (like myself), he is familiar with the mixtures of languages and religions from back “home.” A long time scholar of the Kaifeng stones inscriptions and of the Jewish communities of ancient China, he was well prepared for a more wide ranging inquiry into the similarities between Chinese and Jews. To his great credit, Tiberiu Weisz took a full decade to assemble and re-translate key original documents from each of these different traditions in order to show a compelling complementarity between them. In the preface to The Covenant and The Mandate, he confesses “trepidation” at the scope of his inquiry.  This is understandable since Weisz’ book ranges from the ancient Liji and Tanach to the Cultural Revolution and the Holocaust. Even if one does not fully agree with author’s conclusion that Judaism is the “yang” to China’s “yin”-there is much in this important work to challenge, and to enrich, a wide variety of readers.

The focus throughout this carefully constructed book is upon similarities that never quite devolve into a forced identity between Chinese and Jewish cultural values. Starting with ideas of holiness embodied in Elohim and Shangdi, Weisz invites readers to follow the travels of Lao Zi “beyond the pass.”  Whether the Chinese and Jewish commitment to the one force underlying all natural phenomena or shared understanding of benevolent kingship can be traced to news of Solomon’s rule spreading through Central Asia is not, in my view, the central question. Rather what is most startling in this book is a symmetry of historical experiences that does indeed lead Chinese and Jews to become experts in cultural survival.  Weisz’ study goes beyond our current understanding of Chinese and Jewish traditions as the two oldest, uninterrupted cultures in the world. Many previous works (including my own Bridges Across Broken Times: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory) have circled this theme. What is fresh, and important in The Covenant and The Mandate, is the detailed, textual proof of exactly how Chinese and Jews confronted historical catastrophe and survived with renewed vigor.

Three key moments, Weisz argues, defined and shaped Jewish and Chinese worldviews. For Jews, the exile to Babylon in 586-516 BCE, the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and the 20^th century Holocaust provided fiery moments for self-definition and renewal. For Chinese, it was the imperial unification in 221 BCE, the Mongol conquest (1279-1368) and the more recent Cultural Revolution that challenged Confucianism and led to a new nationalist consciousness.  Each of these events (as well as many others) is discussed at length and documented in terms of the thought-legacy that it provided for two civilizations growing more and more skilful in adaptation and survival. Weisz’ analytical paradigm is most effective when he creatively juxtaposes important thinkers who are rarely considered side by side.  For me, reading about the Han Dynasty poet-statesmen Han Yu alongside the French biblical commentator Rashi provided new insight into both. In a later chapter, comparing the great rationalist synthesis of the Rambam with that of the Song dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi, I found that Weisz book provides both depth and an overview utterly unique.  This chapter is true eye-opening in terms of how two great traditions met the challenges of alien religions (Buddhism, Christianity and Islam) in a way that left each stronger and more compelling of the best minds of their days.

Subsequent comparisons between the maskilim of the Jewish enlightenment movement and the zhishi fenzi of China’s new culture movement in the 20^th century also shaped greatly my understanding of the dilemmas of modernization in a cross cultural context.  Large themes that we broach with our students about the global implications of cultural adaptation and social change are here put in a textual, philosophical and religious context that should gain for this book the attention of many readers.  Even where I disagree with Weisz parallelism between China’s communist revolution and Israel Zionist revival, I could not but acknowledge the boldness- and the utility- of thinking through such well-anchored comparative framework.  How Jewish and Confucian orthodoxies became challenged, and revived in the 19^th and 20^th century is hardly parochial question. Understanding the literary renewals as well as the political revolutions enacted (at great cost) by Jews and Chinese alike will help us grasp much better what lies ahead for humanity I future cultural adaptations.

The final value of Weisz study, I believe lies not in the majestic sweep of the arguments and conclusions. It does not really depend upon his tables, aligning Jewish and Confucian text or, even, upon the answer to his concluding question: “Will China succeed where Judaism “failed?” (a phrasing with which I disagree profoundly).  This is not what matters most.  Rather, the significance of this work lies in the possibility that it may- and I hope will! - be read by many Chinese and Jews seeking new insights into other cultures, as well as their own.  Imagine, Chinese students of Judaism learning for the first time the complex meaning of Shechina (God’s presence in the world below) in a way that few Jews are able to explain it even to themselves. Imagine Jewish readers being led along the path of familiar usage of mentsch to much deeper Chinese views of what it means to be fully human, wai ren.  By inviting us to think fresh about such key notions as teshuva (repentance in Hebrew) and fu gu (return to the ancients in Chinese), Weisz has raised the bar for substantial cross-cultural dialogue.

By bringing alive key moments such as Kang Youwei’s 1908 visit to the Wailing Wall, this book reveals to a broad reading public the prolonged, complex struggle of Chinese and Jews to hold on deeply humanistic civilization that cherish scholarly learning over military might.  As we stand on the verge of a bellicose 21^st century, books such as The Covenant and The Mandate may become our best hope for rescuing the sparks of human wisdom that Weisz shows to have been so plentiful in Jewish and Chinese tradition. Difficult as it may be to imagine, it is possible to climb trees in search of fish. In fact, as crises between nations and religions worsen all around us, there may be no way out other that to risk the deepest, most difficult inquiry into culture far apart.  This Weisz had done with courage, and success.

Book review

Jewish Religious Observances by the Jews of Kaifeng China

By Rabbi Dr. Chaim Simons

Reviewed by Tiberiu Weisz

Kiriyat Arba, Israel,  June 2010

This book Jewish Religious  Observances by the Jews of Kaifeng China by Chaim Simons (Observances) is an alternative story of the customs of the Kaifeng Jews in China.  It explores the theory of how the Jews of Kaifeng would have observed the Jewish customs had the physical evidence survived. Very little hard evidence had been preserved from the Kaifeng Jewish community and Simons took on the daunting task of trying to prove that ““there is a source in the rabbinical literature for almost all the activities which the Jews of Kaifeng considered to be Jewish practice (Pg 7). “   

Simons’ assumption is that the religious practices of the Jews in Biblical times (pre - 586 BCE) were the same as in later times during the Rabbinic period (from c.a. 300 BCE ). He treats the hallacha (rabbinic code/Oral Law) in Observances as being the source of Judaism rather than making it clear that the Oral Law emerged as an interpretation to the Torah (Bible). Thus he neglects to differentiate between Judaism in biblical times, centered on the Temple and the services/ceremonies performed by Levite and Cohanim (priests) and Judaism in the rabbinic period centered on individual communities lead by Rabbis. This important transition in Jewish history is disregarded.  Instead the author has attributed Jewish religious practices of the Kaifeng Jews to rabbinic roots ignoring the evidence that pointed to biblical roots.

To substantiate his theory, Simons applied very loose interpretations to a rather large bibliographical material. Included are a few scholarly works, eyewitness accounts, observations, rumors and opinions. Though the bibliography is extensive, the Observances often emphasize opinions and unsubstantiated rumors by placing them in the realm of possibility. For example, Simons ponders whether or not the two ponds on the side of the old synagogue “could possibly be a mikva?” (ritual bath). He chose to believe that they served as mikva, one for men and one for women, which was in compliance with the rabbinic code. He dismissed the eyewitness’s accounts that stated clearly they did not see a mikva in Kaifeng. 

In another example, the author tried to show that the Jews of Kaifeng wore Tallith [prayer shawl], or Tsitsit (an everyday undergarment with fringe) or tefilin,  etc… in compliance with the rabbinical code. He detailed the hallacha of these garments and rejected the eyewitness accounts that: [they/eyewitnesses] “might have missed them”.  Or, in the case of the amida prayer, Simons had detailed the hallacha, but neglected to mention that the Chinese version was inscribed in the 1512 inscriptions and that the two versions were quite different. The Chinese version derived from biblical source, while Simons version was composed by the rabbis in exile. Similarly, many of Jewish concepts, prayers, and customs are detailed in the Observances according to the hallacha but with little relevancy to the Kaifeng Jews.

Dubious were also his sources for the mezuza. The Observances quotes a paper by Dr. Leslie Malkin from California entitled The Jews of China: “Ai [presumably the Ai who met with Ricci at the beginning of the 17th century] mentioned Hebrew character (sic) on the door frames of the homes, perhaps confirming that the Jewish families had a representation of the mezuzah on the doorpost. Though Malkin did not give his source of this information”, Simons treated Malkin’s opinion as fundamentally solid evidence. Furthermore, in the next paragraph, the author quoted from   “a book on mezuzot written by Dr. Belle Rosenbaum…” who “…does not state whether or not it (mezuza in Kaifeng) has been examined.” Yet, Simons assumed that: “Possibly this is the parchment inside the mezuzah” and proceeded as though it was evidence.

Even more questionable is Simons choice of translations. He chose to accept Bishop White’s translation despite the warning that “the Chinese scholar Wang Yisha claimed that he had found 123 errors or misleading statements in White’s book on China.” (pg. 13). One of the errors is the translation of the Chinese character for Liehwei (Levites). Bishop White translated it as a surname “Levi”, therefore by extension Rabbi Levi. But Leslie, an Australian scholar quoted extensively in the Observances, had his doubts and put a question mark after the world  “Levi?” Simons failed to include Leslie’s doubts. Another questionable choice of the translation was the strange interpretation offered by another Chinese scholar, Chen Changqi. Chen, a scholar of Buddhism with a very superficial knowledge of Judaism, wrote that: “since the Levi clan traditionally had always served as High Priests and Chief Rabbis, he too must have been a "Rabbi Levi" (pg.48 fn. 433). Apparently, Levites, priests and rabbis were the same to Chen, but what is troubling that Simon chose to ignore this obvious misinterpretation and use it as supporting evidence. Needless to say that Chen’s explanation was omitted in the Observances.

Historically, the book is inconsistent with the timelines. Although Simons mentioned in the introduction that the Kaifeng community preceded the rabbinic period (pre 300 BCE), he still proceeded with the “possibility” that the Kaifeng Jews observed the codes of Rambam (12^th century CE) and the Shulchan Aruch (16^th century CE).  He assumed that the Jews of Kaifeng observed these codes and then proceeded as though that might be true. Then he outlined the essence of Rambam and the Shulachan Aruch but neglected to frame in the historical context of the Kaifeng Jews He also failed to explain how these works had reached the isolated community in Kaifeng, or to tie them to the Chinese Jews.

These are just a few of the many examples that I found to be the norm in the Observances.  Primary sources are often paraphrased to comply with the author’s theory, and by and large out of context. If they do not support his theory they are ignored or dismissed. Secondary sources, opinions and general articles are given more weight as “possibilities” that, according to Simons, should have been taken into account. Other “possibilities” that, for instance, the Kaifeng Jews were Levites and Cohanim, or that they followed the tenets of the Torah were rejected offhand.

Simons displays a great knowledge of Judaism in the Observances, particularly in the area of rabbinic Judaism, and at the same time, he reveals a very rudimentary knowledge and understanding of China in general and the Chinese Jews in particular. His explanations of the hallacha are comprehensive, yet the corresponding explanations of the Chinese observances fall short.  In summation, the Observances contains very little unbiased information to advance our knowledge of the observances of the Jews of Kaifeng.  

Antiquity of the Chinese Jews

Antiquity of the Chinese Jews

 by Tiberiu Weisz

[Also see The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions (iUniverse 2006) available on Amazon ]

Seventy years[1] (seventy- “All the offspring of Jacob were seventy persons “ Ex 1:5), inscription) after being taken in captivity in 586 BCE, the Israelites in Babylon (today Iraq and Iran), became free men and were allowed to wander wherever they wanted. And wandering they did. Some of them returned to Jerusalem, with a purpose to rebuild the temple, others were so well entrenched in the local life in Babylon that they preferred to stay. The majority stayed. Though the prophet Ezra enticed the Israelites to return to Jerusalem, he also issued an edict that, if implemented would change the life of many of the Israelites. Ezra decreed that to keep the purity of the Israelites, the men were to separate from their foreign wives. They were to leave with only wife of Jewish birth but the sons and daughters of all their wives, Jewish or not, were welcomed to return. That was a tall request at the time. Many of the clerics, the Levites and the Cohanim had many wives, most of them not of Jewish origin.

 

It seems that seventy in the stone inscriptions (1489) was a reference to the Israelites, and indirectly, a reference to the relations with the Chinese.  “After the death of Confucius, seventy of his disciples scattered to various kingdoms. At The higher level/successful ones became teachers, tutors, high ranking officers/officials. At the The lower level [ones ] befriended teachers, scholars and local officials while others disappeared never to be seen again. …“ [Shiji : Rulin lie chuan 121, also Eugene Chou, Mingjia 35).

Weighing on the gravity of this decree, the Israelite community in Babylon was divided. The least affected by this decree, were ready to return, the wealthier class preferred to stay and engage in commerce, a fact that played an important role in later development of Jewish history, while those most affected, the priests, dispersed and spread Judaism to the four corners of the world.

Some of them migrated South and West and reached the heart of Africa, where only recently they were discovered that they had Jewish roots. The Falasha in Ethiopia proved to be of Jewish origin and Israel resettled them in Israel.  Other migrated East, and reached India. The tribe of Menashe is a good example. They have lived in isolation for centuries observing the biblical mizvot of the Torah. “Most of the customs, ceremonies and religious practices of the Arabic speaking Jews in India followed the Baghdad rite, which can claim to be one of the oldest in Jewry. Outside the Holy Land the most ancient settlement was that of the Jews of Iraq” (On the banks of Ganga pg. 188). They were also resettled in Israel.

Lost were the traces of those Israelites that migrated north from India alongside the Hindu –Kush mountain ranges.  They were called the Lost Tribes. Many articles and books have been written about them, more fictional than factual, yet the discovery of an entire Jewish community in China in 1605 had raised some interesting questions and theories.  How and when did they come to China? Who were they? How did they preserve their Jewish identity? Were they really one of the lost tribes? These are just a few of the questions that had been explored in numerous publications, yet the answers are still elusive.

In order to answer these questions, we need to cross reference the history of Central Asia with that of China, from both Chinese and  Western sources. More specifically we need to trace the interaction between China and the West in this region. Central Asia hosted the most active trade routes in antiquity and all the land routes passed through what is today Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The Chinese called this area the Western Regions, or Xiyu . Numerous tribes of unknown origin lived there which was conquered by Alexander the Great of Macedon in 330 BCE. After a short-lived Greek conquest (325 BCE) this crossroad region was overrun by a number of different tribes. Most notable was Parthian of which very little is known from Western literature more from, yet untapped, Chinese literature. 

On the heels of the Parthians (anxi) were the Yuezhi (Kushan) people from the Northern borders of the Taklimakan Desert. In 128 BCE a Chinese emissary noted that the Yuezhi had occupied Sogdina with the largest city in Jianshi (Samarkand today).  In 126 BCE Yuezhi conquered the kingdom of Gaofu (high plateau- Kabul?) of which The Records of the Latter Han Dynasty) commented that: “The way of life of people of gaofu is similar to that of Tianzhu (India), but they are weak and easy to subdue. They are excellent traders and are very wealthy.” (Hou Hanshu ch. 88

No sooner had the Yuezhi settled, the Xiongnu  (who later became the Huns) defeated them and forced the Yuezhi to move to Daxia (Bactria). Lacking of a strong “great chief”, the kingdom split among five xihou (Allied Princes). Among the allied princes was the King of Fergana (Dawan) ruling over a kingdom that was made up of independent tribes, many of them unidentified.  Fergana was the farthest kingdom from China, and a good place to hide from the turbulent Central Asian nomadic warriors. The Chinese called the people of Fergana and Kashgar (Afghanistan today) Se (color) most likely because of the color of their eye and hair. Later in the Mongol Dynasty (1279-1368) every foreigner was called semu- colored eyes. They spoke various dialects in addition to the lingua franca of the time an East Iranian dialect  (Stein). The Se overran Sogodina (the country north of the Wei River, that is north of the Oxus) and then Bactria (Daxia) between 140-130 BCE that was inhibited by nomad tribes among them indentified in Chinese annals as wusun, and se (Saka, Saraucae) (Grousset, pg 29). The tribes lived in relative peace and isolation, engaged in agriculture, domestic husbandry, raising grapes for wine, but they were best known for breading the finest warhorses.

The fame of these warhorses was already known to King Solomon in antiquity and later became highly prized by the nomad warriors and China. King Solomon was interested in horses, especially warhorses (I Kings 4:26), and he had also received some as gifts from visiting foreigners (I kings 10:24; 2 Chr. 9:28). He also imported horses from Egypt  “and the king’s traders received them from Keveh (Kue) at a price”(I Kings 10:28).  Biblical scholars placed (Keveh) Kue in southern Anatolia and pointed out that although no horses were bred there they brought them in from the north.

Those warhorses were bought in Kucha in the kingdom of Fergana (Northern Afghanistan today). Kucha was the marketplace for “heavenly horses” in ancient times and gradually developed into the geographical crossroad of the Silk Road (Caravan Road). The north road led to Tianshan Mountains and the south route led to Khotan , Dunhuang and eventually to Changan (Xian today), the capital of ancient China   By the second century CE , Kucha had a population of 150,000 and three centuries later its population doubled (Liu and Chen 1996). The people of Fergana were the prime breeders of warhorses and they sold their horses to traders from far away places.  Trade between China and the West was not direct but through many intermediaries mostly of Central Asian origin. Among those buyers were the traders of Solomon in antiquity and the Chinese military. China needed the warhorses to combat the persistent Huns that were harassing the Chinese borderland and they were ready to go to war to obtain them.  

In 108 CE, a Chinese emissary came to negotiate the purchase of warhorses with the King of Fergana. The King reasoned that China was too far to offer any protection to his kingdom and any deal with the Chinese would bring the Huns wrath. He ordered the emissary killed. In retaliation, China dispatched Deputy Commander Li Guangli to Fergana with the intent to conquer and kill the King.  With the fall of Fergana the interaction between China and the West under Chinese control. 

Indirect contact between China and the West through the Western Region dates back to antiquity. Chinese records indicate that Laozi, the founder of Daoism in China spent the last twenty years of his life in the Xiyu in the 7^th century BCE. Though he did not say much about his experience there, his writing had exhibited some similarities to biblical wisdom literature.  He wrote a five thousand-character book of wisdom that rivaled the bible in wisdom and depth. Though the Book of the Way and Virtue (Daodejing) had been translated to almost all the languages in the world, every translator would agree with the assessment that it is untranslatable. Laozi wrote about such concepts of Dao is One, Dao is intangible; it is beyond human comprehension etc. abstract concepts that were strange at the time in China. In addition he had inserted a chapter in his book that was contrary to the conditions in China. He wrote about a small country with few people that make weapons but do not use them. These people enjoyed unprecedented security and prosperity, that despite having an army, they have never engaged in war. The neighbors can hear each other dog barking and they died of old age (chapter 80). Conditions like these were very uncharacteristic in China and it seems to have emanated the conditions in Jerusalem under the rule of King Solomon (c.a. 960 BCE)

Another sage that went to explore the Western Region was Mencius (372-289 BCE), the second most influential Chinese sage after Confucius. He had also spent twenty years “beyond the borders” (Western Region), and had encountered a tribe that he described them as: “though among them are wicked people, but if they fast and bathe, then they can sacrifice to Shangdi” (Legge 1975, 330).  Shangdi was the Chinese Almighty equivalent only the Israelite Elohim (Weisz 2008, ch.1). Evidently Mencius came upon a tribe that practiced a religion that believed in one God and had to purify the body before praying. He did not identify the tribe; neither did Chinese nor Western sources. But, Biblical Hebrew literature had already mentioned such a custom among the Levites and the Cohanim (Priests): “Wash yourselves, cleanse yourselves, put your evil deeds out of my sight!” (Carmi 1981, 159; Isaiah 1:16). The Levites and the Cohanim (priests- sons of Aaron) had to purify and cleanse before making their offerings to Elohim/(Shangdi: “For this day atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you, of all your sins before the Lord. And when the priests and the people… hear the name of the Elohim come from the mouth of the high priest, in sanctity and purity, they bow down and prostrate themselves” (Carmi 1981, 213).

Two hundred years later in 104 BCE, the Chinese expeditionary force of Deputy Commander Li Guangli encountered a tribe in Fergana, describing them having: “big eyes, high noses and [distinctive] headdress” (Jian 1964, 198)[2]. “Big eyes and high nose” have long been attributes associated with the Israelites and the Jews, and headdress or turban was a common head cover among the Central Asian people. But apparently the headdress described by the Chinese was not an ordinary turban, nor was it a commonly worn head cover, but a distinctive one that caught the eyes of the Chinese Deputy Commander. Such a distinctive headdress was worn by the Levites and Cohanim to fulfill the mizvot  of the Torah: “And for the sons of Aaron [priests/cohanim] you shall make coats and girdles and caps, you shall make them for glory and beauty” (Exodus 28:40)… “and bind the caps on them” (Exodus 29:9)… “and the turban of fine linen and the caps of fine linen” (Exodus 39:28} While the High Priest, Cohen Hagadol  wore “the crown on his head… a turban-diadem of the fine linen, for dignity and beauty” (Carmi 1981, 212). 

Chinese sources tell of of that contact between the Roman Empire and Han China reached the borderland of China in the first century BCE. Excavations in the 1980’s in the village of Liqian (Young Chang  Prefecture, Gansu Province) revealed buildings, a temple, a street and an amphitheater modeled on  ancient Roman town. Chinese historians researching the biographies of Chen Yang and others in the Han Shu focused their attention on a battle between Chinese border guards and military garrison that utilized Roman fighting techniques in 36 BCE. Both Chinese and European historians think that this garrison was the remnants of the Roman army of 50,000 legionaires that Crassus dispatched in 53 BCE to Central Asia. Chinese history mentions that the Roman garrison was surrounded and defeated and about 6000 soldiers disappeared. The excavations indicated that this garrison settled at the foot of the Mountain Qilian  and took on the name of Liqian. At that time that how China called Rome.

Ancient Han maps place Liqian administrative center near the village of today Liqian. Several villagers today still resemble Ancient Roman villagers and are called “Roman descendants”.

Fa Xian, Buddhist monk who traveled to India in 399 CE in search of Budha crossed the Himalyas into India and from there he traveled north to the "Sandy Desert" and in 404 CE reached the Middle Kingdom. He left us a description of a tribe the custom of which resembles some tenets of the Torah. "The only exception is that of the Chandalas. That is the name of those who are wicked men, and live apart from others. When they enter the gate of a city or market-place, they strike a piece of wood to make themselves known and avoid them and so not come in contact with them. In that country they do not keep pigs and fowls, and do not sell live cattle; in the market there are no butchers' shop and no dealing with intoxicating drink. In buying and selling they use cowries. Only the Chandalas are fishermen and hunters and sel flesh meat." (Travels of Faxian ch 16). - Fa xian might have called these people Chandalas - outcast/lowest cast in India- but his description of these people in the Middle Kingdom is closely associated with following the dietary laws of the Torah. )

Local Afghan oral tradition recounted that some of the people who dwelt in the mountains of Ghor were called Benei Israel or Benei Afghana. Very little was known about them, the belief was that they came from India in antiquity and kept for themselves. (Bellew, Henry  193).  This belief was reinforced by Prophet Isaiah’s who believed that Israelites lived in all corners of the world including the “land of Sinim”: “Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim" (49:12).  For a long time Biblical scholars indicated that ”the land of Sinim” referred to a   place in Anatolia, because they could not fathom a connection between biblical places and China.

Yet, when all these circumstantial evidence is juxtaposed with the Chinese accounts, the existence of an Israelite tribe at the outskirts of China cannot be denied. Laozi’s depiction of the existence of monotheism, Mencius description of a tribe that cleanses before praying, the multi -ethnic region of Fergana where Indians Sogodians, Khotanese, Turfanese Chinese and other unidentified tribes lived alongside Kucheans (Liu and Chen 1996), and the sighting of a tribe that observed the laws of the Torah, all this pointed to the existence of an Israelite community that adhered to Jeremiah’s prophecy: “Build houses and dwell in them and plant garden and eat fruit of them, take wives and beget sons and daughters… multiply there and not be diminished. “ (On the banks of Ganga pg. 188).

 Not just that but they also settled in valleys of remote area where they lived by the mizvot of the Torah

[1] Seventy years in exile, seventy descendants of Jacob, seventy nations of the world from Adam to the Diaspora, seventy clans returned to China in the Song Dynasty.

[2] It is unclear if he saw headdress, a cap, a diadem, a hairdo or even perhaps males with the tefilin on. What he had seen must have been quite out of the ordinary to mention it.

KABUL (Reuters) - A cache of ancient Jewish scrolls from northernAfghanistan that has only recently come to light is creating a storm among scholars who say the landmark find could reveal an undiscovered side of medieval Jewry.

The 150 or so documents, dated from the 11th century, were found in Afghanistan's Samangan province and most likely smuggled out -- a sorry but common fate for the impoverished and war-torn country's antiquities.

Israeli emeritus professor Shaul Shaked, who has examined some of the poems, commercial records and judicial agreements that make up the treasure, said while the existence of ancient Afghan Jewry is known, their culture was still a mystery.

"Here, for the first time, we see evidence and we can actually study the writings of this Jewish community. It's very exciting," Shaked told Reuters by telephone from Israel, where he teaches at the Comparative Religion and Iranian Studies department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The hoard is currently being kept by private antique dealers in London, who have been producing a trickle of new documents over the past two years, which is when Shaked believes they were found and pirated out of Afghanistan in a clandestine operation.

It is likely they belonged to Jewish merchants on the Silk Road running across Central Asia, said T. Michael Law, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University's Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.

"They might have been left there by merchants travelling along the way, but they could also come from another nearby area and deposited for a reason we do not yet understand," Law said.

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Judaism& China 2: Pre exilic Jews

Pre exilic Israelites/Jews

Follows is a short version of the Talmudic/rabbinic debate of "who is a Jew". According to the bible, a non Jewish partner in pre-exilic (c.a. 586 BCE) inter-marriage was accepted as a Jew. Change was made during the Talmudic period ( from 300 BCE-) when rabbis interpreted  the Torah and redefined the meaning of the word Jew to be applied exclusively to children born to Jewish mother. This interpretation is the law in Israel today, but this reasoning raises the question whether or not the descendants of major biblical Jewish personalities are Jews? Judah married to a Canaanite, Joseph married to an Egyptian, while Moses married to a Midianite and an Ethiopian, and King David a Philistine, while his son King Solomon had women of every description. What these people have in common is that they had non Jewish wives and I wonder why the Talmud did not address this issue. 

"For he will cause your son to turn away from following me." (For they will turn your sons away from me..Deut. 7:4)) 

 4 For he will turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods

In the argumentative fashion of the Talmud, Who is "he?" Who does it mean by "your son?"

"He," explains the Talmud (Yevamos 23a; Kiddushin 68b), means the Gentile son-in-law. Your son means your daughter's son. Since your daughter is Jewish, her daughter is Jewish. But your Gentile son-in-law might turn your grandson away from Hashem. In other words, if you let your daughter marry a Gentile, your son-in-law will cause your grandson to turn away from Hashem.

But what if it's your son who married a Gentile woman? Well, the Torah does not say "she will turn your son away from Hashem." The Torah does not warn us that the Gentile woman will turn the Jewish man away from Hashem. Why not? I'm not sure, but perhaps it's because if your son marries a gentile woman, he has already turned away from Hashem!

Okay, but what about your son's children? Won't their Gentile mother turn them away from Hashem? The answer is that the children of a Gentile mother are not Jewish in the first place, so the Torah is not worried about them being turned away from Hashem.

To make it clear: why doesn't the Torah say "she will turn your son away from Hashem?" Why isn't the Torah worried that your Gentile daughter-in-law will turn your grandson away from G-d? The answer, says the Talmud, is because the son of your Gentile daughter-in-law is not Jewish, and he is not considered your grandson (or son) at all."

The writer then went on to make the 'leap' I was talking about.  "But what if it's your son who married a Gentile woman? Well, the Torah does not say "she will turn your son away from Hashem." The Torah does not warn us that the Gentile woman will turn the Jewish man away from Hashem. Why not? I'm not sure, but perhaps it's because if your son marries a gentile woman, he has already turned away from Hashem!"

To say the least, I am totally blown away.  There is no mention whatsoever about even if this Talmudic understanding is based from the Mishna or Gemora

 "Numerous Israelites heroes and kings married foreign women: for example, Judah married a Canaanite, Joseph an Egyptian, Moses a Midianite and an Ethiopian, David a Philistine, and Solomon women of every description. By her marriage with an Israelite man a foreign women joined the clan, people, and religion of her husband. It never occurred to anyone in pre-exilic times to argue that such marriages were null and void, that foreign women must "convert" to Judaism, or that the off-spring of the marriage were not Israelite if the women did not convert."

"You shall not intermarry with them: do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from Me to worship other gods, and the Lord's anger will blaze forth against you and He will promptly wipe you out (Deuteronomy 7:3-4).

The Talmud (Kiddushin 68b), which was compiled in the 4th and 5th centuries, explains that the law of matrilineal descent derived from the Torah. The Torah passage (Deut. 7:3-4) reads: "Thy daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor shalt thou take his daughter to thy son. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods." 

Deut 7:1-4

כִּי יְבִיאֲךָ, יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-אַתָּה בָא-שָׁמָּה לְרִשְׁתָּהּ; וְנָשַׁל גּוֹיִם-רַבִּים מִפָּנֶיךָ הַחִתִּי וְהַגִּרְגָּשִׁי וְהָאֱמֹרִי וְהַכְּנַעֲנִי וְהַפְּרִזִּי, וְהַחִוִּי וְהַיְבוּסִי--שִׁבְעָה גוֹיִם, רַבִּים וַעֲצוּמִים מִמֶּךָּ. 1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations before thee, the Hittite, and the Girgashite, and the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Perizzite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite, seven nations greater and mightier than thou; ב  וּנְתָנָם יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, לְפָנֶיךָ--וְהִכִּיתָם:  הַחֲרֵם תַּחֲרִים אֹתָם, לֹא-תִכְרֹת לָהֶם בְּרִית וְלֹא תְחָנֵּם. 2 and when the LORD thy God shall deliver them up before thee, and thou shalt smite them; then thou shalt utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them; ג  וְלֹא תִתְחַתֵּן, בָּם:  בִּתְּךָ לֹא-תִתֵּן לִבְנוֹ, וּבִתּוֹ לֹא-תִקַּח לִבְנֶךָ. 3 neither shalt thou make marriages with them: thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. ד  כִּי-יָסִיר אֶת-בִּנְךָ מֵאַחֲרַי, וְעָבְדוּ אֱלֹהִים אֲחֵרִים; וְחָרָה אַף-יְהוָה בָּכֶם, וְהִשְׁמִידְךָ מַהֵר. 4 For he will turn away thy son from following Me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and He will destroy thee quickly. ה