About Us
The Sino-Judaic Institute
Jews have been a part of Chinese history for hundreds of years;
there are traces of a Jewish presence starting at least in the 8th
century. The most enduring community was that in Kaifeng (central
China) dating back to the 11th century. There are stone inscriptions
from 1489, 1512, 1663 and 1674 which celebrate the repair of their
Synagogue. This community finally disintegrated in the 1850's, but
some descendants of those Kaifeng Jews survive until today. Baghdadi
Jews established a Sephardi community in Shanghai (1845) after the
opening of the Treaty Ports. Later, Russian Jews escaping pogroms
founded Ashkenazi communities in Shanghai, Harbin and Tientsin.
In the 1930's desperate refugees fleeing the Nazis found Shanghai
to be the only place in the world which accepted them without visas.
By the 1950's most Jews had left China, but the buildings they built,
the records they kept, their economic and their cultural contributions
are a monument to that historical experience.
The Sino-Judaic Institute is a non-denominational, non-profit,
and non-political organization, founded on June 27, 1985,
in Palo Alto, California, by an international group of scholars
and lay persons, to promote friendship and understanding between the Chinese
and Jewish peoples and to encourage and develop their cooperation
in matters of mutual historical and cultural interest. Its objectives are:
- .
- The study of the ancient Jewish community of Kaifeng and assisting its descendents as appropriate.
- The study of Jewish life in Shanghai, Harbin, Tianjin and elsewhere in the 19th and 20th centuries.
- The support of Jewish studies programs in China.
- The study of cultural intersections between Chinese and Jews, for example adoptions, literature, diasporas, etc.
- The study of Sino-Israeli relations.
- To cooperate with other groups whose interests lie in Sinitic
and Judaic matters.
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