A Chinese View: Jewish identity

Jewish Identity in China: A Chinese View

By

An Tifa

Translated from Chinese

By

Tiberiu Weisz

Translator Note

 The original title of this article: “A Group of Jewish Descendents from Kaifeng Want to Immigrate to Israel, but Their Identity is in Doubt” was published in 21st Century World in Chinese and on the internet at: http://www.sina.com.cn/c/2002-08-06.

As the Chinese title indicates, this article is written for Chinese audiences, and the text follows Chinese reporting practices that differ considerably from reporting style in the West. To make the article more reader friendly for Western readers, the translator made some structural changes, eliminated many repetitions, duplications and redundancies, while remaining true to the original article. Background information on the story of Chinese Jews may be found in the endnotes and suggested readings.

Among a group of people studying Hebrew at the Foreign Language Institute at Nanjing University was Zhang Xingwang[i] a teacher from Kaifeng with a small black cap called a kipa covering his head. Zhang said that he does not have a great knowledge of the Jewish tradition, but he wears the kipa in search of spiritual sustenance. Because of this search, he is very attentive when he follows the instruction of the Hebrew teachers.

At the invitation of Professor Xuxin, Director of The Jewish Cultural Studies Department at Nanjing University, Chinese students, historians, teachers, scholars and other interested parties came from all over China to attend a summer program of Israel cultural studies. He also invited several descendents of the Jews from Kaifeng and a Jewish professor and his wife to teach Hebrew and Jewish culture.

Zhang Xingwang introduced straightforwardly the long history of the Jews in Kaifeng. “One thousands years ago”, he said, “[Jewish] ancestors came on the Silk Route from Israel to Kaifeng, capital of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). After the court received them the emperor said; ‘[You] returned to my China. Honor and observe the custom of your ancestors. Bianliang was abandoned.’[ii] These Jews decided to settle down. At the beginning, there were 17 families[iii] but only 7 exist today: Shi, Gao, Ai, Li, Zhang, Zhao and Jin. All these names were transliterations from Hebrew with the exception of Zhao, whose name was bestowed by the emperor. Thus, Li sounded like Levi while Shi [Stone] and Jin [Gold] were translations. ” [iv] According to Zhang Xingwang there were 618 descendents of the Kaifeng Jews, some of them had left, scattered in Uruguchi, Lanzhou[v], Xian, Chengdu, Shanghai, Nanjing, Shenzhen and other cities.

In the past, these Jews marked “Jews” as their nationality in the census. In 1952, two Jewish delegates from Kaifeng went to Beijing to represent the community at the celebration of the National Day [vi] and were received by the leadership of the Central Committee. A few years ago at the time of the census most of the people changed [nationality] to “Muslim” or “Han”.[vii] Zhang Xingwang was obviously not pleased. He said [that the Jews] were obviously not Muslims or Han Chinese, so why ask them to change their nationality? It is unreasonable that they cannot get such recognition.

Zhang Xingwang also maintains that the descendents of the Kaifeng Jews had forgotten the Jewish culture. The original Kaifeng descendents had congregated near the teaching alley (hutong) but after 1958, they moved out. Only the Zhao family remained there. Looking at this from a daily life perspective, they were no longer observing the Jewish tradition. This year is the first time that [the Jews] have celebrated Passover. Although most of the [Jews] are still in the habit of not eating pork, there is no Jewish person who is true to the image of “the sect that extracts the sinew”[viii] of the sheep.  They forgot the traditional customs and therefore came here [to Nanjing] to study Hebrew hoping to return and search for their historical Jewish memories.

[Meanwhile, in the class] these Jewish descendents repeated after the teacher a Hebrew prayer:”In front of the Lord we sing a new song—Hallelujah!” Everybody made great effort to have the correct pronunciation as each one hoped to annunciate every single word of the hard-to-study Hebrew sentence.

With illegal emigration – the family stretches the boundaries.

When the reporter asked Zhang Xingwang about the family who had already immigrated to Israel, he responded without hesitation: “They are different from us, we are patriots”. He also admitted that there were Kaifeng Jews who ran away illegally but this was a matter of purely individual behavior. He also said that just because this family name was Jin, it does not mean that we study Hebrew for the pleasure of the Jin family. “First we are Chinese, but because we have Jewish bloodlines, we are Chinese with Jewish characteristics. We teach this to our children, that first of all of we love our country.”

Outsiders need to understand that this is a sensitive issue. Zhang Xingwang, illustrated this point: “We were the little birds in the forest, without worries and concerns. Later as the cats [hunters] became numerous, we saw the guns’ fowling pieces and ran. Now, many people are looking for us both from China and abroad.” He repeatedly stated that the majority of the Kaifeng Jewish descendents are patriots.

According to Zhang Qianhong[ix], the head of the Institute of Jewish Studies at Henan University, in addition to the Jin’s [who already emigrated] there were the Zhang’s and the Li’s who had wanted to immigrate to Israel in the 1990s. However, only the three members of the Jin family were successful; they moved to Finland and their uncle Jin Guanzhong remained in Kaifeng.

Zhang Xingwang expressed his disappointment that the Kaifeng descendents cannot immigrate to Israel legally: “We would like to go to see Jerusalem, too.” He explained that intermarriage between Jews [in Kaifeng] and Han Chinese was quite common. The descendents of the Kaifeng Jews followed the patrilineal descent in China, and therefore could not immigrate because in Israel the matrilineal descent is followed. “Had the Kaifeng community followed the matrilineal descent, then they would have not encountered any problems. The Jewish community in Spain had a 300 year-old history; they also celebrated Passover, but were not even aware that they were Jews. Only after scholars realized that they were of matrilineal descent, they could immigrate. Jewish blood cannot be forgotten.”[x] 

Zhang Xingwang explained the value of the Jewish presence in China: “The Kaifeng Jewish community has an impact on the world. They often receive Jews from foreign countries and from Israel. The Israelis consider the Jews of Kaifeng especially important, because it serves a testimony to the friendship between China and Israel. We are saying that the Chinese people are good toward the Jews; they do not discriminate against the Jews. Living circumstances in Kaifeng are favorable, and the Jews can survive and flourish for another thousand years.” In conclusion, he said, “it is not important whether or not the government recognizes us as Jews, nor is it important that the census cannot be changed, what is important is that we feel that we are Jews in our hearts. Neither this nor the next generation will forget that we are Jews.” 

But the young generation of Jews has a different view of their Jewish identity

At the Hebrew school [in Nanjing] was another female student, majoring in International Relations at the Elousi Mosque.[xi]  Her name is Shi Han, a second year student who used the summer vacation to go to Nanjing University to study Jewish culture. Although her [maternal] grandfather was a representative of the Jewish descendents at the Beijing [festivities] in 1952,[xii] she has no deep historical affiliation to Judaism and her interest in this class is mostly curiosity.  “I rarely mention that I am Jewish; only when classmates come over to my house and ask about the few books and the pictures in the house, I tell them that I am a descendent of Jews.” When the government allowed [the Jews] to test for their DNA in the 1980s, the proof came back that she had the same DNA traces as an Iraqi Jew. She has no understanding of Judaism and even less of the Bible. But when she was asked about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, she said: “Of course we are on the side of Israel.”

The Jin family obviously went one-step further [in their quest] of their ancestors’ tradition. According to reports, when Jin Xiaojin, who worked at the Institute for Minority Research, found out in the 1980s that he was of Jewish descent, he sent his daughter Qu Yian, who at the time was a reporter in Beijing, to Los Angeles to study Judaism.

The Latest Jewish Records

Kaifeng is an old city; its economy naturally cannot be compared to the coastal area. Song Nushi, who works for the city Migration Assistance Bureau said that, because of the high unemployment rate, many people considered going to work abroad, and last year a number of people asked about Israel.

Zhang Xingwang directed the reporter to the Teaching Alley (jiao hutong). That place is marked on the map as the” remnants of the Jewish Synagogue” but the original synagogue site has been replaced by the Peoples’ Number Four Hospital and the only historical marker is an ancient well in the hospital boiler room.

Cui Shuping, a widower of a Jewish descendent, lives on the southern side of the Teaching Alley.  She is a Han Chinese but her late husband Zhao Pingyu was of Jewish descent.  Everyday she sees local and foreign visitors. On the table in the house, there is a candleholder, and a “Great Six Star” (Magen David) paper cut window decoration that her daughter had cut out and put in the framed mirror. She told the reporter that the paper cut is both a decoration and a reminder. On the sides of the door are hung two traditional Chinese scrolls designated for peace. Apart for these reminders, her house is no different from that of her neighbors.

On the fourth floor of the Kaifeng Museum is the Jewish department, and to gain admission one needs to apply in advance.  Fortunately, the gatekeeper was there and asked the guide to take the reporter to the fourth floor, on condition that she take no pictures nor make any recording. On display in the museum is an extremely important memorial engraving, the original stone stele of “The Record of the Rebuilding of the Pure and Truth Temple” and “The Record in Honor of the Daojing Temple”[xiii]. The floor was very dark and very humid and the mood was somber. Due to the declining number of visitors, Zeng Guangqing, the head of the department, told the 21-Century World reporter that the Kaifeng Jews were a historical phenomenon and that there is no Jewish minority among the 56 national minorities in China. But of course the reporter does knows this. 

The local Kaifeng Jewish descendents, however, welcomed the publicity. Li Suisheng’s wife bought a watermelon to serve the reporter while she showed her two sets of original census documents as proof of their nationality.  The nationality of Li Suisheng was clearly marked “Jew” in the old the Red Book[xiv].  The new census is handwritten and has the word “Jew” for Li Suisheng and his daughter, but a closer look at the census record of Li Suisheng shows that there is a trace of change. His wife explained that the census official wrote it wrong and he immediately corrected it.

Officially, neither country recognizes them as Jews

The reporter followed up with the census registration office. The People’s Police pulled up the record of Li Suisheng on the computer and the reporter could see on the screen that the nationality of the three members of the Li clan is Han Chinese. The deputy director explained that most of the new census is computerized but the transfer [to computerized system] occurred while the census was taken. At the time, the software was not secure and therefore Li Suisheng’s registry was handwritten. But he added that the computerized system has only two nationalities Han or Muslims. China has 56 nationalities and Jews are not among them.

Not only that the local government did not recognize them as Jews, but when the reporter went to the Office of Migration of the Foreign Ministry [in Beijing] inquiring about the application of the Jin family to Israel, an official at the Public Documentation Office admitted that in 1996 the local government made an error issuing those certificates. At the time, the Public Notary Office issued individual IDs that did not constitute legal recognition of the Jews.[xv] Later the Public Notary Office revoked the Jewish certificates and since then IDs with Jew on them were illegal. According to the official, China has only 56 minorities, and the Jewish minority in not among them.

[The reporter went] to the Israeli Consulate in Beijing located on the 4^th floor of the West Trade Center building

The response from the Israeli Consulate was the same. The Public Relations Officer told 21st Century World  that the Israeli Consulate recognizes only the legal procedure of the Foreign Ministry and does not regard the Jewish certificates as legal. He also said that the Consulate had not issued immigration certificates to any Jewish descendents.

Though neither country admits officially that they are Jews, a few organizations assist the Kaifeng descendents to return to their traditional culture. Chou Cailian, a Chinese Canadian, helped many Chinese minority poor children with education. Since he [Chou] suspects that his great-grandmother was of Jewish descent, he had helped several Jewish descendents of Kaifeng. He financed the education of fourteen Kaifeng Jewish descendents among them was Lijing, Li Suisheng’s daughter, who just recently had received a scholarship. In March of this year, Chou Cailian invited the families of the descendents to a restaurant to celebrate Passover. At the same time, other organizations also assist the Kaifeng Jewish descendents to immigrate to Israel. The Jin family only recently immigrated to Israel with the help of such an organization. 

   

The Jewish teacher at the Israel Cultural Training Center of Nanjing University offered some private thoughts to the hopeful few who want to immigrate to Israel: “If one wants to become a Jew, of course you can become Jew. But, this is a very long and slow process. Besides, I want them to think about three things: Is it worth becoming a Jew? Jews have many enemies, a long and sad history of bitterness and strict laws…. But no matter what we say, if they want, we welcome them with open arms.

Are the Kaifeng Jewish descendents Jews?

.

To clarify this question, the reporter interviewed Professor Xuxin from the Nanjing Jewish Cultural Center.

21st Century World: The Jews of Kaifeng are a historical incident. But, from an Israeli standpoint, after some descendent of the Jews of Kaifeng immigrated to Israel it suddenly became reality. Could you put the issue of the Kaifeng Jews in simple terms for us?

Xuxin: The issue of the Kaifeng Jews as was talked about in China in the past actually referred to the remnant of the historical Kaifeng Jews. Some maintain that the Jews settled in Kaifeng in the Northern Song Dynasty [1162 CE] and some of them formed a community conforming to the Jewish customs. At the end of the 19^th century, Chinese scholars started to pay attention to the question of Kaifeng Jews, and in the 1920s, they documented their historical existence.

In the beginning of the 17^th century, the story of the Kaifeng Jews was extensively reported in the West. It attracted the attention of the intelligentsia in Europe creating controversy and debates. During the reign of Yong Zheng [1723- 1735] of the Qing Dynasty [1644- 1911], China expelled foreign religions from China, and the outside world lost its connection with the Kaifeng Jews. After the Opium War in 1850, two Chinese missionaries from Shanghai were sent to Kaifeng and they wrote a report that was widely publicized in the West. According to that report, there was no longer a rabbi in Kaifeng and they estimated that [the community had been without a rabbi] or a successor since the beginning of the 19^th century. Thus, they [Jews] ceased to observe the traditional customs because the role of the rabbi was very important in Judaism.

The Kaifeng Temple had been in disrepair for a long time, and it was evident that the Jews stopped going to the synagogue. Since the synagogue belonged to the descendents of the Kaifeng Jews, the descendents sold the building in 1914. This attracted the attention of the Shanghai Jews.[xvi] Jews have a tradition of helping each other, and when they learned that the Kaifeng descendents sold the Torah scrolls, they were very sad. They established an “Association for the Aid of the Kaifeng Jews” and wrote letters to the world Jewish communities calling for saving the descendents of the Kaifeng Jews. But the outbreak of World War II shelved the issue; they [the Jews] faced other disasters in the world. At the time there were several Kaifeng Jews who went to Shanghai and were well received by the Shanghai Jewish community, they also underwent circumcision, but afterward there were no more attempts to restore the tradition.

21st Century World: The descendents of the Kaifeng Jews called themselves Jews in the past, what is your view about this question?

Xuxin: After the end of the 19^th century, there were no Jewish descendents in Kaifeng, but some people followed the tradition and called themselves Jews. The Kaifeng Jews followed the patrilineal tradition, that is, if the father was Jewish, the offspring were Jewish, too, and they used the father’s surname. In the 1920 census, during the Republican Period [1911-1949] a few Kaifeng descendents wrote “Jew” as their nationality affiliation. They did so out of conviction of historical loyalty and not due to political or economic aspirations. Even on the 1952 census [form], some Kaifeng Jewish descendents wrote “Jew” [as their nationality] even though there were not many [who observed] Jewish tradition at the time, but in that generation, people were permitted to determine their own religious affiliation. The census did not require any proof of ancestry or nationality; descendents knew the origin of their ancestors. This kind of “Jew” was actually [a Jew] in a cultural sense. Interestingly, the descendents of the Kaifeng Jews based their being Jews on the tradition, but other people claim that they are not [Jewish]. This is strange because no other minority, not the Han Chinese nor the Muslims are required to prove their [affiliation], so why are the Kaifeng Jews?

21st Century World: But according to the Law of Return, they are not Jews.

Xuxin: That is correct. I was talking about Jews in a cultural sense. Strictly speaking, I do not regard them as Jews, and that refers to the “Jewish descendents”, too.

 I think that it is ludicrous that they want to immigrate to Israel. According to the Law of Return, only if the mother is Jewish, or the individual is converted to Judaism, he or she is a Jew. Based on these standards, they are obviously not Jews, because the descendents of the Kaifeng Jews follow the father’s lineage. But this is a legal definition, and one cannot suppress these peoples’ traditional right to call themselves Jews. We should not forget that during biblical times the Jewish lineage was patrilineal and only after the exile [586 BCE], the standard changed to matrilineal.

When China examined its definition of national minorities, the status of the Jewish minority was also considered. In 1952, two delegates from Kaifeng represented the Jews in the National Minority Day Celebration. But in 1953 the Central Committee reaffirmed the article [of the basic laws] that maintained that there are only 56 minorities in China, and Jews were not among them, yet the [same article] also protected their rights to preserve their traditional customs.  

 

21st Century World: Now it appears that the Kaifeng Jewish descendents want to immigrate to Israel, how do you look at this?

Xuxin: In the 1990s, the Kaifeng descendents became interested in immigration. Among the Seven Surnames of the Kaifeng Jews, the Jin family went to Beijing and asked to immigrate. The Consulate of Israel, however, refused to consider their application because the Law of Return. Then they [the Jin’s] went to Israel from a third country (from Russia to Finland and to Israel). My understanding is that a Christian organization helped them. But, I doubt that they can become eligible to be Israelis according to the Law of Return unless they convert. Conversion is not easy. If one wants to convert, the Jews will be the first to tell you that becoming a Jew is not fun. If you insist on converting, you need to study, and be under close observation for [at least] a year. Most of the conversions occur because of marriage. Most Chinese do not understand Israel; they think that immigration is good. But, I tell them straightforwardly that immigration is a difficult affair.  I do not approve of immigration, they do not speak the language, they have no skills and life in Israel is very difficult.

Special correspondent An Tifa reports for Jerusalem.

Since 1986, many foreign and Chinese visitors have come to Kaifeng to interview L. (I use the name L. because the interviewee did not agree to use the real name), and the descendents of the Kaifeng Jews. After the establishment of relations between China and Israel in 1992, these kinds of interviews increased daily. And L.’s name started to appear in a few places both in China and abroad. An unexpected opportunity in 1999 changed the fate of L. At the beginning of that year, L. received assistance from an organization that in the 1920’s started to help overseas Jews to immigrate to Israel, and they expressed their willingness to assist L. to be the first Kaifeng Jew to immigrate to Israel.

Once the reporter met L. she asked: Why do you want to immigrate to Israel?

L. said, “Since I was little, I have known that I was Jewish. When I was little, my mother told me that one branch of [the family] is Chinese and one branch is Israelite. Reaching out to the other branch has been one of my dreams since childhood.”

After 1999, L. sought the path of immigration, but that path was not successful. It can be said that behind each emigration from China, there is a complicated story. But in the end they achieved their goal. By the year 2000, they obtained the various permits, spent four months in Finland, and went to live in Israel.

L. explained the process of immigrating to Israel as a Jews. “First, I needed to prove that I was a Jew. Though I wrote ‘Jew’ as my nationality in the 1996 census, officials told me that I had to write either Han or Muslim and could not continue to write ‘Jew’ as nationality because there was no such  name among the 56 names. Then I had to produce an official notarized letter. I went to the Foreign Ministry in Beijing where I was told that [such] a notarized letter needed to be approved by higher levels at the Ministry. After two weeks, I received the approval of the higher officials in the ministry, and in addition, it was also stamped by the Israeli Consulate.”  L. continued: “If one wants to maintain Jewish identity one needs also to obtain a notarized [letter] from one’s rabbi. But there are no rabbis in China. The few Jewish descendents ‘perhaps several thousand people altogether’ are widely scattered throughout China and very few of them are observant Jews.”

Once the identity is recognized, traveling becomes a question of expenses. According to the records, the aid society who helped them immigrate, had already taken into account the expenses and successfully provided them enough financing. Thus in the fall of 1999, L. [and wife] embarked for Finland, where they stayed for four months and in the end they arrived in Jerusalem.

They lived in Jerusalem for two years.

“Because of the sensitivity of the immigration issue, the government hoped that we would not come to Jerusalem directly from Beijing, therefore we adopted a two stage plan. First we went to Finland and then to Israel. Our expenses in Finland and in Jerusalem were covered by the aid society.  For two years after we left Kaifeng we had received about ten thousand US dollars in aid.”  They lived in Jerusalem for two years, and received a monthly stipend of US $ 600 (5000 Chinese yuan) that covered the rent. In addition, they received 6000-yuan ($700) a month for living expenses and medical insurance equal to the [standard of living of a] middle-income family. They were also provided with furniture and appliances. L. did not work. He spent half days, three times a week, at an ulpan, the rest of the time he had free time. He went for walks, watched TV, read books, surfed the internet and cooked. At least three times a week, he went to the synagogue and used Hebrew to read the prayers. L. said that once he felt he could communicate, he was able to look for a job. Gradually the aid society decreased the amount of aid and eventually stopped it altogether. No matter to what standards one compares L.’s living conditions, his two-room apartment is not considered small. On the snow white painted walls, hangs a Chinese scroll. Also displayed in the living room are seven or eight picture frames depicting the old Kaifeng synagogue and the scenery around it.

Observing Jewish rituals

During the interview the reporter asked L.,”To what extent did you observe the Jewish tradition in Kaifeng?

L. said, “In the old days, there was a saying that ‘seven surnames and eight families’[xvii] of Jews lived in Kaifeng.  These surnames were bestowed in antiquity by the emperor. Our surname was historic and our ancestors held a fourth grade official rank in the court. The household was rather prosperous. There were also rather many Jews in old Kaifeng who observed the tradition. We had our own family tree, which also was a proof that we were  Jewish. Before the Cultural Revolution [1966-1969], our family still kept the imperial tablet[xviii] but later we lent it to a display in Beijing. It was never returned to us, and we lost its trace. There are also stone inscriptions left in Kaifeng that had recorded the deeds of our ancestors.[xix]  The graves of our Jewish ancestors near Kaifeng are still are in good conditions. There are approximately 30 tombs. Buried among the bodies of nine generations is [the grave] of my elder brother who recently passed away.

On the door of our house, we had a special Jewish sign that we touched when we entered or left the house. It was a sign of ‘to go and come in peace’. Our family observed the Sabbath from Friday sunset until sunset on Saturday. That time we did no work. Our family had also read the Chinese version of the Jewish prayers.”

L.’s wife is not of Jewish descent but she said that [since her marriage] she had understood and respected [her husband’s] national identity and traditional customs. L. said, “During the ninety years of living in Kaifeng, our family had not eaten pork or shrimp and these customs had been preserved until today.” Before immigrating to Israel, L. ran a rather small factory and his wife used a room in the house to run a barbershop. L. has an elder sister and a younger brother who live near the community housing in Kaifeng. They also follow the same customs as the L. household.

The interview is nearing an end and the reporter asked L: “Do your sister and brother hope to immigrate to Israel? Why did they not come yet? “

L. said: “Of course, they would like to immigrate; they also sent in their application. But two main obstacles are in the way: One, there is no organization that is willing to give them the documentations that they are Jews.  Two, financing is also a problem. You know, immigrating requires a lot of money and the organization that helped and financed us is helping other people.” 

In conclusion, it must be added that L’s family are not the sole Chinese Jews living in Israel. 

During World War I, many Jews sought refugee in Shanghai and other places in China; some of them married to local Chinese. The children of these mixed marriages have Jewish blood. After the liberation, some of them went to Israel with their Jewish mother or father; others came to Israel after the opening of relations between the two countries, in search of their mother or father. In every town or city in Israel, one can find such examples.

About the author

An Tifa is special correspondent for the 21^st Century World, a Chinese periodical.

About the Translator

Tiberiu Weisz, Professor of Chinese and author of two books about China and the Jews: The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China, iUniverse 2006, and The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven: An In-depth Comparative Cultural Study of Judaism and China. iUniverse 2008..

Suggested Reading

Many books and articles have been written about the Jews in China, and below is a very short list that provides interested readers a wide range of views on this fascinating topic.

Goldstein, Jonathan. The Jews of China: A Sourcebook and Research Guide.  2 Volunes. M.E. Sharpe 2000. ( A comprehensive collection of scholarly articles).

Pollack, Michael. Mandarins, Jews and Missionaries: The Jewish Experience in the Chinese Empire. Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia 1980. (A history of the Jewish presence in China for both laymen and scholars).

Xu Xin, The Jews of Kaifeng, China, History Culture and Religion.  Ktav Publishing House 2003. (A view from a Chinese scholar)

Pan Guang, The Jews in China. China Intercultural Press 2003. (Another view from a Chinese scholar)

Eber, Irene. Chinese Jews Encounters between Cultures. Valentine Mitchell Press 2008 (A view from an Israeli scholar. I believe that this book is also available in Hebrew).

Schwarcz, Vera, Bridge Across Broken Time: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory. Yale University Press, 1999. (Cross cultural observations of a Jewish student in China in the 1970’s)

Weisz, Tiberiu, The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China. iUniverse 2006. (Full translation and annotation of the stone inscriptions and their meaning)

Weisz, Tiberiu, The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven: An In-Depth Comparative Cultural Study of Judaism and China. iUniverse 2008.

   

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Notes:

[i] Zhang Xingwang, is the spokesman for the Jewish community in Kaifeng and also goes by the Hebrew name of Moshe. He is very outspoken about Judaism in China and, here, he expressed his views to a Chinese reporter.  He is a Physical Education teacher and a Wushu (martial arts) coach in a high school in Kaifeng. He is also member of the Chinese Communist Party and former city council member. I met him several times, but had never had a chance to talk with him. At one of the dinners, I sat next to his daughter, at the time a high school student, with whom I exchanged a few words. She was very surprised that I could talk in fluent Chinese, and once she realized that we could converse freely, she was very talkative. Unfortunately she was called away to give us a “demonstration of her knowledge of a Hebrew song.”

[ii] Zhang’s remarks referred to a sentence in the 1489 stone inscriptions that was believed to say that the Jews came to China in the Song Dynasty (960-1279) at the invitation of the emperor. It is evident that Zhang quoted Bishop White’s translation. Bishop White, a Chinese missionary who resided in China between 1897 and 1934 and brought the case of the Kaifeng Jews to our attention, translated this sentence to say that:” You have come to our China; Reverence and preserve the custom of your ancestors and hand them down at Pien-Liang (Kaifeng)” (Chinese Jews.). Donald Leslie, an Australian scholar, merely rephrased this: “Come to our China, honor and preserve the custom of your ancestors. Remain and hand them down in Pianliang” (The Survival of the Chinese Jews (T’ong Pao 1972, pg 23).  Xuxin, who is mentioned in this article, and is the author of The Jews of Kaifeng recreated the story of the Chinese Jews based on Bishop White’s  translation without  checking it for accuracy.

But, a closer look at the original Chinese text revealed that the English translation contained two critical errors.  First, Bishop White mistranslated the word “gui” which in Chinese means “return” (and not “come”) implying that the Jews were not new comers to China.  Second, he also mistranslated the word “liuyi” which in the 15^th century referred to the moving of the capital from one city to another and it meant “to abandon, to leave behind [the capital city].” Based on these distinctions, the first sentence was a direct speech by emperor, while the second sentence referred to the fleeing of the Song court in 1127. For a full translation and explanation of the original Chinese text see Tiberiu Weisz: The Kaifeng  Stone Inscriptions.

[iii] The 1489 inscription mentioned seventy families and that was not incidental.  It indicated that the Chinese Jews knew their roots and used it to identify themselves in a Jewish historical context: “all the offspring of Jacob were seventy person” ( Exodus 1:5).

[iv] Some researchers advanced the theory that these names were of Hebrew origin, but as I showed in The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions, these names were bona fide Chinese surnames and not transliterations. 

[v] A very good Chinese friend of mine, who was assigned to a “working brigade” in Lanzhou (Xinjiang/Gansu Province) during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969) and spent nineteen  years there, said  that he knew people of Jewish descends in Lanzhou.   

[vi] What he is referring was the celebration of the National Minority Day in 1952 when the Kaifeng Municipal Government and Bureau of Central South chose two Jewish descendants from Kaifeng, Ai Fenming and Shi Fenying to represent the Jewish minority at the national celebration. Both members became ardent communist and worked later for the government. According to Xuxin, the reason that these two Jews were chosen was “that the local government was aware of the existence of Jews in the city and wanted to ensure equal rights for any ethnic group living in their region. These two Jewish descendants were introduced as Jews while in Beijing and were well received during the celebration.” (For details see: Xu Xin: “Chinese Policy Towards Judaism.” Points East, vol. 19, No 1, March, 2004 pg. 3-4, and Gustavo D. Perednik : “The Chinese of Jewish Descent at Kaifeng.” Points East, vol. 23, No. 1, March 2008, pg. 4).

[vii] Han is the Chinese term for Chinese.

[viii] That is how the Jews were called in the 18^th century when the missionaries visited them. For details, see Pollack, Michael, Mandarin Jews and Missionaries.

[ix] I have met Qianhong on several occasions in China and we are currently collaborating on joint project.  

[x] This is Moshe Zhang’s interpretation of the Maranos in Spain.

[xi] I am not clear about the meaning of this sentence neither certain its exact location. Elousi is a Russian minority between the Uyigur Autonomous Region and Heilongjiang.

[xii] See above fn. 5

[xiii] This is the original stele of the 1489 and on the other side is the engraving of the 1512 inscriptions. For a full translation of the Chinese text, see The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions.

[xiv] An official document.

[xv] For a more detailed explanation of these events, see Xuxin, “Chinese Policy Towards Judaism.” Points East, Vol. 19 No 1, March, 2004.

[xvi] There was a small but wealthy Jewish merchant community in Shanghai, e.g. The Sasoons, Kadoori, Hardouns ect. See Goldstein

[xvii] This is another name for the Jews in Kaifeng.

[xviii] This tablet was displayed at the entrance of the Kaifeng synagogue.

[xix] For a new annotated translation of these inscriptions in Jewish context, see The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions, The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China.  iUniverse 2006.

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.  

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