Jewish Asian Times (Taiwan)

TIBERIU WEISZ LINKING JUDAISM INTO CHINA’S CULTURE Jessica Zwaimam, Editor Jewish Asian Times (Taiwan) September 2010

As China’s Kaifeng J e w s r e c e n t l y became yeshiva students in Israel early this year, a series of overlooked stone  inscriptions are bringing the story of Jews in China to life – Tiberiu Weisz investigates. Mr Weisz, or Tibi as he likes to be called, was born in Eastern Europe and made aliyah when he was 14. He served in the Israeli army for three years and then moved to the US. He took East Asian Studies and Chinese and followed by a same field Masters degree. “My interest in China is a very long one, “ he says, “I was a student at Tunghai University in the mid 1970s and recorded Hebrew biblical texts at Tainan University.” In the US, Weisz taught Chinese as well as Chinese philosophy and religion at various Minneapolis Community Colleges and he also consulted with numerous international fi rms that were doing business in China. Weisz read Professor Vera Schwarcz’s book Bridge Across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory, but felt “the topic needed much more work.” He believed he was qualifi ed to explore the subject in depth because he says, “I have an above average knowledge of Chinese and Hebrew and I also have a good background in Chinese history and biblical history. Above all, I can read classical Chinese and Hebrew fluently, including biblical Hebrew. So it was natural for me to take on this project and go with it.” While teaching Chinese philosophy Weisz always felt the Chinese tenets were very similar to biblical literature and Judaism and he often wondered if the two might have come from the same source. The combination of his curiosity, interest and abilities led him to start writing his first book The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven: An In-Depth Comparative Cultural Study of Judaism and China. In his book, which is question-based, he gives answers relating to the connections between Judaism and China. The author uses Chinese and Hebrew texts, both translated to English “and placed side by side so the reader can easily see the similarities and the contradictions between the two cultures. It’s like yin and yang. Readers will see these two cultures in a new light; not as fossils, but rather as two vibrant cultures tied by invisible bonds that have allowed them to survive and fl ourish until today.” This is where the story becomes increasingly interesting. As part of his research for the book, Weisz came across the Kaifeng stone inscriptions, which had been reproduced and translated. There are four stones carved with approximately 6000 Chinese characters in total. The fi rst stone is from 1489, the second was carved in 1512 and the third and fourth in 1663. According to Weisz, about 100 years ago there was a translation made by a Chinese missionary, which he says, “was pretty good, except nobody understood the text because it didn’t make sense. We have these four documents that had been put aside by researchers because the translation didn’t make sense. For 500 years they went misunderstood.” Even researcher Donald Leslie who had done  extensive research on the stones couldn’t understand why they were written. Conversely Chinese researchers only addressed issues that they could understand. For example: where the stones speak about  intermarriage, the arrival of the Jews in China and their assimilation. “This was because there was a sentence that said the Jews had come to China during the Sung Dynasty. Everybody was trying to fi gure out what that meant and did research on it and wrote about it, but that was the sum of the inscriptions.” “When I was reading the inscriptions I suddenly realised that what I was reading about was the pre-Talmudic time Judaism from about 300 BCE. That was interesting and it certainly got my attention.” Weisz put his book The Covenant... on hold while he researched and translated the content of the stones in a deeper way. Weisz realised that previous research “never explained or referred to the fact that the 1498 inscription was written in three different styles, because it was written by three different people. They never pointed out that the second inscription was written in very beautiful Chinese, in neo-Confucius style, that was very prevalent at the time of the Sung Dynasty. And for the third inscription, in the text it was written that the writer was a non-Jew, but what wasn’t mentioned was that he was a neighbour of the Jews and he describes what he saw there, their Jewish customs and behaviour. That was fascinating and it was missing from the other translations.” He realised after hours of translation and comparison that the reason the inscriptions were not understood was “because they basically included the translation of prayers from Hebrew and that is what threw many people off. Unless you really know the biblical reference, you wouldn’t know what they were talking about.” And that is the reason why Weisz believes so many researchers thought the Chinese text on the stones was written a little bit funny. “I realised I was reading a Jewish manuscript.” On the stones Weisz found the word for word translation from Hebrew into Chinese of “the entire Shemonei Esrei/ the Amidah. When I finally realised it and looked at the prayer book, it was just exciting. I didn’t want to believe it at fi rst, but then I realised there was no other way as all the components of the Amidah were there,” he said. The Birchat Kohanim – the priestly blessing is also part of the inscriptions. “The Birchat-ohanim I fi gured out differently. I went to the  Hebrew text and compared it. It is almost verbatim. It is written in Hebrew grammar but in Chinese words. All the biblical references where there.” And fi nally, Weisz claims he found a third prayer, “which was the original biblical Aleinu.” In addition, the inscriptions also included multiple quotes from Chinese literature; among them were quotes from Confucius and Lao Tzu. According to Weisz, the third part of the 1498 inscription clarifi ed the timeline of “when the Jews came to China.” The third segment reproduces a conversation that the Jews had with the Chinese emperor around 998 CE, about 500 years before the inscription was written; a conversation that was likely passed on through oral history. Weisz theorises that the Chinese Jews are the original Jews who came to China over 1000 years ago. “They likely reached China at about 108 BC. They assimilated and kept their religion and beliefs. There was no anti-Semitism at that time and they were more like a curiosity. I think this is very important because I think it’s the fi rst time ever that the Jews flourished in a society without being prejudiced. The only other place they can do that now is Israel.” “So all this information was missing in the previous translations. As far as I’m concerned, I have a document here, which has been buried and is as important as the Dead Sea scrolls. But because they couldn’t decipher it and they couldn’t understand it, they put it aside and nobody really paid attention to it. I think it’s time we looked at it very closely again. So I hope this new translation of the inscriptions will open up a new venue to do more research on the history of the Chinese Jews.” This research became Weisz’s second book The Kaifeng tone Inscriptions: The legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China. The book contains the entire text of the new translation of the four stone inscriptions. The first part of the book is the new annotated translation that traces the origin of the Chinese text to biblical sources. Part two gives you a summary of the meaning of the inscriptions, and examines the origin of the community, their first encounter with the Chinese, their dedication to the temple and their life as Jews in the sea of Chinese culture. The book incorporates many original Chinese and Hebrew sources and it highlights the cross-cultural currents that challenged the Israelites in China. It takes the reader into uncharted territory of the Jews in ancient China. Weisz is the fi rst to note, “The inscriptions are definitely tied to Judaism and proof that they are a Jewish text.” The University of Southern California interviewed Weisz during the production of a documentary about the Jews of Kaifeng. At the time of the interview the project was in the final stages of editing. It took Weisz ten years to research and write The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven. In between, he stopped for four years to work on The Kaifeng Stones Inscriptions. Weisz took an early retirement and currently sits on the board of the Sino Judaica Institute. He will be speaking in Taiwan in October and is exploring potential joint projects with Tunghai University. (Issue September 2010)