Activities in Kaifeng

By Al Dien, SJI President

1. Books to Kaifeng
Scott A. Savitz, a graduate student in chemical engineering at the University of Pennsylvania and who has visited Kaifeng, has volunteered, on his own initiative, to send books in Chinese concerning Judaic studies to members of the Jewish community in Kaifeng. He is well aware of the sensitivities this involves and will select books which cannot arouse official concern because of religious content. He has already sent a translation of Chaim Herzog's "The Jews" and Zhu Weizhi's "Hebrew Culture," also in Chinese, to a contact he has there, and has received words of appreciation. I have agreed that the SJI will subsidize this project, which will not cost more than a few hundred dollars over the next several years. We still have a budget of unspent funds for the purpose of sending books to China, and this qualifies under that heading. We will also alert Profs. Xu Xin and Pan Guang to recommend to us appropriate titles. Prof. Xu's "A Catalog of the Chinese Books about Israel and the Jewish Culture" will facilitate this program.

2. Minyan in Kaifeng
This was the brainchild of a group of fourteen people, mostly Jews, now stationed in China in one capacity or another who, accompanied by Prof. Xu Xin, went to Kaifeng last December to learn more about the Kaifeng Jews and to explore their own Jewish identity. In their report, they said:

Adventures in Kaifeng

The three days of exploration in Kaifeng began with an examination of the physical remains of a past community, and ended with a discovery of the spiritual legacy of the present community. At the Tri-provincial Meeting Hall, the Minyan viewed a model of the Northern Song capital, scrolls and photos of Jewish sites long past. From there, the Minyan climbed to the fourth floor of the Kaifeng Museum, where they inspected stone steles, rubbings, drawings of the ancient synagogue, and a map of the migration of Jews throughout China. The Minyan then strolled down "South Teaching the Torah Lane" through the Jewish quarter, past the synagogue site, now a hospital, through a construction area to a well, which once sat inside the synagogue grounds.

Friday evening, the Zhang family invited the Minyan into their home for a kosher Chinese dinner. The Minyan, in turn, created a Kabbalat Shabbat service complete with candles, wine, and challah. Saturday morning, the Minyan visited with other Kaifeng Jewish descendants at the Zhao and Ai family residences and shared Shachrit services with the Shi family. Many of the group felt the highlight of the trip occurred when five members from the Zhang and Shi families were called up to the Torah, and slowly repeated the Hebrew words of their aliyot after acting rabbi Ben Fox. At sundown, the Minyan concluded the Shabbat with a Havdalah service underneath a winding pagoda bridge.

On Sunday, the Minyan said Kaddish at the Jin family burial site. Prior to their departure, the group visited the Dragon Pavilion, the imperial seat of the Northern Song where Jews had been given their first audience with a Chinese emperor.

Throughout their stay in Kaifeng, their activities were recorded on film with the intention of producing a documentary. Again, in the words of the report:

For the filmmakers, goals changed as well. They began the trip hoping to chronicle a distant branch of the Jewish Diaspora. By the end of the journey, however, they realized that the true power of their film would be to inspire others to have similar debates on assimilation, identity and related problems confronting world Judaism. The participants experienced not a passive Judaism, but the excitement and passion of Judaism in the field. It is this element of the experience that the filmmakers most wish to impart upon their viewers.

The filmmakers are at present seeking funds to complete the film. In response to an enquiry whether the Sino-Judaic Institute would be willing to make a contribution, I said I would need more information and would need to bring the matter before the Board.

The whole affair has raised some serious concerns. No one doubts the good intentions and genuine enthusiasm of the group, but the Chinese government does not recognize the existence of Jews in Kaifeng, only that they are descendants of Jews. Further, there is a prohibition against foreigners proselytizing religion.

I think the best course for the Institute is to adopt one of wait and see. The film goes against the policy of the Institute up to this time which has been to avoid any encouragement of the Kaifeng Jews to believe that they can rely on foreign support for reviving religious practices, because any such support historically has never prevailed against governmental retaliation. On the other hand, I do not think we want to encourage any perception that we are against the revival of religious practices by the Kaifeng Jews, which could be the unintended result of an official SJI statement against the film.