Talk:History of the Jews in China

See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Judaism.

Rework necessary?

Does anyone else feel the article (esp. first segment) should be re-organized, in more encyclopedic fashion? ~ Dpr 01:10, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Does my "yea" count as vote 1 or vote 2? Tomer ^TALK 07:43, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Diao jin jiao

Can we get a confirmation on which characters would be correct for this phrase? Thanks ~ Dpr 05:40, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Chinese Wikipedia gives only 挑筋教 tiao jin jiao, which means "the religion that picks away the sinew". (Actually, the Chinese Wikipedia gives a very long list of ancient terms for the Jewish community, but no diao jin jiao.) Still looking... -- ran (talk) 06:56, Jun 22, 2005 (UTC)

This must be the same phrase; it is the same meaning of the one I was looking for. The pinyin error must have been mine. Thanks! ~ Dpr 17:01, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

No mention of the crusades

Somewhere in my collection of Judaica I have a book about the Jews in China. From what I can remember, it indicated that a large number of Jews migrated to China during a Christian crudase (my memory thinks it was 1066 CE).

According to my poor memory, the Emperor welcomed the Jews, and assigned them seven last names. Some people in the 20th century are just discovering their Jewish heritage.

I will look for the book, if anyone is interested.

Jeffrey

drexpert@comcast.net

Jeffrey, any information you had would be great! Thanks! ~ Dpr 16:59, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I think the book you are thinking of is either "Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng" or "The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History , Culture, and Religion", both of which are by Prof. Xu, Xin, professor of Judaic studies at Nanjing University. As I'm sure you know, the First Crusade didn't take place until 1095 which is well after 1066. Actually, in the book in question it states the "1090's". The stories and histories from each book are based on "oral" traditions passed on by descendents of the Kaifeng jews. However, the book, "The Kaifeng Stone Inscpritons: The Legacy of the Jewish Community In Ancient China" gives a more plausible history for when the Jews came to China. SEE Kaifeng_Jews#Literature.

挑筋教 or 扚筋教

Which is the correct spelling? Tomer ^TALK 23:21, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

• I've changed it to the former spelling, as that is what is apparently used in the chinese wp. Tomer ^TALK 23:26, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

Functionally extinct?

Dpr, I see you've revisited this page. You changed the article a while ago to say that Judaism in China is "functionally extinct". I pointed out to you at the time (on your talk page) that there are a number of synagogues in China: in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. How can Judaism be "functionally extinct" (whatever that means) if synagogues are being maintained in at least 3 synagoguescities? Tomer ^TALK 23:25, July 18, 2005 (UTC)

To be frank I don't know if it was I who introduced that language or not; if it was, I don't know where I got it from. Regardless of what I or anyone else wrote in the past, I completely agree that this language is incorrect and should be removed. Thanks for your hard work on this page. ~ Dpr 01:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

My hard work?! Yours is phenomenal! :-) I like your rework so much that I took the {{clean}} tag off the article. Tomer ^TALK 05:19, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Title

Should this page really be History of the Jews in China? Why is Jews in China not preferrable? I maintain the latter to be preferrable since, as we just discussed above, there are still Jews in China, therefore unless we are to create a new, distinct article for Jews in China or Judaism in China (all of which current redir. to this one, now), this presents an ambiguity, since the topic is not merely "history" but also a current-day development. ~ Dpr 01:21, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

This is following the current naming convention for articles about the Jews in various places. See History of the Jews in the United States, History of the Jews in Poland, History of the Jews in France, and about 20 others. Many of these articles cover the present community as well, but they are focused on telling the whole story of the presence of Jews in the relevant country, just as this one does. Consistancy in naming conventions is worth preserving. --Goodoldpolonius2 01:31, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Now I understand. Thanks for explaining this. Sorry for my ignorance on the convention. ~ Dpr 02:06, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Clean-up tag

Should the clean-up tag be now removed? ~ Dpr 02:12, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

Done. Thanks again for your hard work.  :-) Tomer ^TALK 05:23, July 19, 2005 (UTC)

Names for Jewish Chinese

Can we get a source for the Lanmao Hui? Pretty interesting addition! ~ Dpr 02:01, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, my source is the old man who runs a little shop around the corner from where the Kaifeng temple used to be and keeps a box of related memorabilia. A google search yields only one hit, in Japanese. I know no Japanese, but looking at the pictures and the kanji, it does seem to offer some corroboration. — Pekinensis 16:42, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there is confirmation at zh:犹太人. — Pekinensis 15:09, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Check References

Someone added two references:http: http://jewcn.com and http://jewcn.org Can someone who reads Chinese have a look at these? The fact that they flash "hot" in a bunch of places make me doubt their legitimacy. DHR 03:30, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate content with Kaifeng Jews

There's a bit of duplicate content on this article with Kaifeng Jews, especially in the history section. Should the duplicate content be merged? --- Hong Qi Gong 17:37, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that the duplicate content is brief enough and relevant enough to this article that it ought to stay. If it was going into extensive detail about the Kaifeng situation, and including significant amounts of material not relevant to the overall History of the Jews in China, I'd say get rid of it. But as it stands, I'm not really sure what would be removed without damaging the continuity and thoroughness of the article. LordAmeth 02:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

New Assessment Criteria for Ethnic Groups articles

Hello,

WikiProject Ethnic groups has added new assessment criteria for Ethnic Groups articles.

I rated the History of the Jews in China article: B-Class, with the following comments (see link to Comments page in the Ethnic groups template atop this talk page):

• This article is unusually well-developed.
• It only lacks referencing. With proper referencing, I would have rated it class=A.

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-->How to assess articles

Revisions of assessment ratings can be made by assigning an appropriate value via the class parameter in the WikiProject Ethnic groups project banner {{Ethnic groups}} that is currently placed at the top of Ethnic groups articles' talk pages. Quality assessment guidelines are at the Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team's assessment system page. After rating the article, please provide a short summary to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses. To add the summary, please edit this article's ratings summary page. A link to this page can be found in the {{Ethnic groups}} template on the article's talk page.

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Another way to help out that could be an enjoyable pastime is to visit Category:Unassessed Ethnic groups articles, find an interesting-looking article to read, and carefully assess it following those guidelines.

Thanks!
--Ling.Nut 16:25, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Literature

This was recently deleted from the article; I'm not sure whether or not I think it belongs in the article, but it is interesting, and so rather than lose it, I'm recovering it to here. LordAmeth 09:52, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

- In the book, The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China (ISBN 0-59-537340-2), Mr. Tiberiu Weiz, a teacher of Hebrew history and Chinese religion, presents his own translations of the 1489, 1512, and 1663 stone steles left by the descendents of the Kaifeng Jews. (These steles were left to preserve their religion and to briefly touch on their origins, since the Jewish community was slowly dying out from Chinese assimilation). His translation reveals one of many proposed origins of the Kaifeng Jews. - - According to Mr. Weiz, after the Babylonian exile and Diaspora of the 6th century BCE, disenchanted Levites and Kohanim parted with the Prophet Ezra (because of a prohibition against taking foreign wives and the decree encouraging “intermarriage” within the Jewish tribes) and disappeared never to be heard from again. Mr. Weiz believes these Jews settled in Northwestern India or 天竺 Tiānzhú (“Heaven India,” as it is called in one of the Kaifeng steles), where they lived for centuries. - - Prior to 108 BCE, these Jews had migrated from northwestern India to the Ningxia region of modern day Gansu province, China and were spotted by a Chinese general, Li Guangli, who was sent to invade the “western region” (西域 Xīyù in Chinese) to expand the borders of Han Dynasty China. From this time until the latter part of the Tang Dynasty, the Jews slowly dispersed throughout China, taking Chinese wives, and siring “half-Chinese, half-barbarian” children. In the "Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution" (845-46), Buddhism and other foreign religions—Zoroastrianism, Manichaeanism, Nestorian Christianity, Islam and Judaism—-were forced from China proper back to its outlying territories under the supervision of the Khitan tribes (including the Ningixa region) and all foreign temples were burnt to make way for their Confucian and Taoist counterparts, the native religions of China. - - It was not until the early Northern Song Dynasty, when Emperor Taizong, a man with a great thirst for knowledge, sent out envoys to every corner of Asia to learn from and recruit foreign scholars, did the Jews return to China. According to former translations of the steles, the Chinese word Guī 歸 (in the Emperor’s speech to the Jews) was wrongly translated as “come,” leading most western and Chinese historians to believe the Jews first came to China during the Song dynasty. However, Mr. Weisz translates Guī 歸 as the proper “return,”[1] meaning the Emperor was aware of the Jews’ former Chinese citizenship and was welcoming them back to China. He then allowed them to stay under the protection of the Song Empire and to continue to practice the religion of the fore-fathers.

Ricci and Ngai

The story of Ricci and Ngai is repeated in many secondary sources, but I would really like to read the original contemporary account of this incident. None of the secondary sources seem to say where this anecdote was first published. Can anyone help me find this? --Iustinus 06:05, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Holocaust vs Extermination

'Holocaust' is an inaccurate, as well as religiously denoted term to describe the ethnic cleansing policies of Germany (1933-1945). The term 'Extermination' is both etymologically and historically more consistent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Laocoont (talk • contribs) 08:21, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What section of the page is this in reference to? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Whatever shortcomings, the term holocaust is consistently used, and understood, to refer to the Nazi policy of extermination of the Jews. It was so used, and wikilinked, in this article. To replace this with the term extermination, with a wikilink to a disambiguation page, is unhelpful. RolandR (talk) 11:44, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Kubo

The article cites Israelites Came To Ancient Japan, a website by Arimasa Kubo. What are the grounds for taking this as a RS? -- Hoary (talk) 05:01, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I've quickly scanned through the page and the material is in line with what I've read in various books or seen on the Nova tv series website. However, since the article does not list any sources, it does not pass WP:Reliable. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 09:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it would pass even if it did list sources. (One would have to look at the sources and see if they passed.) -- Hoary (talk) 02:43, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

The stone inscriptions left by the Jews mentions Judaism reaching China during the Han Dynasty. Several past researchers have taken this to mean that Kaifeng Jews settled in China during this time. But the consensus among scholars is that these researchers read the passage incorrectly. Some researchers believe mentioning the Han, and the Zhou in later inscriptions, is just a way of redacting their entry in order to say "I'm just as Chinese as you."

As far as the lost tribes are concerned, this subject was disproven as far back as the 18th century. Western church scholars believed the original Hebrew version of the Old Testament had been defaced by Jews because they thought it was impossible that it didn't specifically lay out the birth, life, ministry, and crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And because they couldn't find any pre-Christian additions of the Hebrew bible without the supposed redactions, they figured all Jews were in on the conspiracy. But when news of the Kaifeng Jews reached Europe, Church leaders thought they were one of the fabled lost tribes and no doubt had virgin editions of the Old testament. They sent representatives to China to procure these in order to compare them with bibles of Europe. However, they were exactly the same, meaning the Jews were definitely not one of the lost tribes. If you would like some citations, I would be happy to oblige. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 05:20, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

No thank you, although I do thank you for the offer. How about this simple statement in the introductory paragraph? Jewish settlers are documented in China as early as the 7th or 8th century CE, although it was once believed that they arrived much earlier. Then the section "Origins" would provide sourcing, not for the possibility that they arrived much earlier, but for the earlier belief among a significant number of scholars (working intelligently with assumptions, research methods, etc that we would now question) that they arrived much earlier. -- Hoary (talk) 10:36, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

There are scholars who still hold fast to the Han entry theory, so the "although it was once believed..." section should be rephrased a little to reflect this. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 11:22, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

[Bouncing left] Can we be told who these scholars are?

Looking a bit longer at the article, I notice that in three places it cites The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions by Tiberiu Weisz. The book sounds very sober, the kind of thing put out by a university press (if the author is lucky) or academic publisher (Brill) or anyway in installments in academic journals. This one, however, comes from a publisher called iUniverse. This seems to be undiscriminating, promoting itself as a vanity publisher (though of course this term is never used) for the discerning or ambitious. Now, I have some sympathy for vanity publishing (I've bought several such books that are excellent), but if a book is published in this way then Wikipedia should surely not be citing it other than in unusual circumstances; e.g. that it's an anthology of material that has previously reached the public via peer review in journals. Googling for the author (whose name is conveniently unusual) doesn't take me to any scholar. Am I missing something? -- Hoary (talk) 23:55, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Too many famous Jews

Can we please stop bombarding the page with links to famous Jews in China. That section has steadily grown to a list of 73 people. I think a split off article/list should be created to prevent the current page from being downgraded to simply a dumping site for links. Whoever writes the split off article should include a paragraph here and an accompanying link. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 04:43, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I have already voiced my opinion above. If a "cap" is not instituted, the page will just become a huge list. I would also like to remind user:Mibelz of WP:Civil. I only have the page's best interest in mind, it is not an "arrogant" move. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 00:13, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I thought of an idea that would satisfy both of us. Why not make a category called "Famous Jews in China"? That way all a reader has to do is click the category on a given article and they can view the list. A link to the category can be left on this page. Thoughts? --Ghostexorcist (talk) 10:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

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Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:History of the Jews in China/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

*This article is unusually well-developed. It only lacks referencing. With proper referencing, I would have rated it class=A. --Ling.Nut 16:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC) I reaffirm the comments made in the above assessment. --Danaman5 22:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 22:23, 12 January 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 18:05, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Song Dandan and Jiang Wenli

Are Song Dandan and Jiang Wenli actually Jewish? If so, please provide a source. 2601:644:8100:A68C:5DFB:A3A0:CB8D:CBBB (talk) 09:58, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

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"Overview"

In "Overview" the last paragraph should be removed unless it can be documented to reliable sources, since it constitutes editorial opinion. Any thoughts out there? American In Brazil (talk) 11:59, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Tone and Impartiality of Opening Paragraph

It seems that a minor edit war or the potential beginning of an edit war has broken out over the past few days. In my view, the issue is that the first paragraph both is extremely partial and greatly over-generalizes. It's most contentious parts appear to have mostly been written by user @Backendgaming:, who has reverted both my edit and the edit of @72.143.74.246: which removed this opening paragraph.

The tone of the paragraph is far from encyclopedic, describing Chinese attitudes towards Jews as "congenial", "friendly", and even "warm"–all highly subjective and loaded terms. Furthermore, many of these statements are directly contradicted by the cited sources, such as this JPost article reporting about a local (Chinese) govt crackdown against Jewish religious freedom. Later in this article it also mentions how the Yuan dynasty banned circumcision as well as Kosher foods.

In light of this, @Backendgaming:, would you please allow the opening paragraph to be deleted or dramatically reworked? Connorboyle (talk) 22:34, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

I'll move the opening paragraph to a different section and change the subjective and overgeneralized toning. Backendgaming (talk) 00:52, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

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Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:History of the Jews in Abkhazia which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 05:05, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 20 August 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) ASUKITE 23:17, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

---

History of the Jews in China → Judaism in China – This would seem to be the more straightforward title. It appears that there are other pages with a similar title structure, which may be worth considering moving as well. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:42, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Although I don't feel extremely strongly about it, to me the history of Jews as an ethnic group or population is different from the topic of the religion and how it operated in a given country. Taking a glance at the article it seems to mainly discuss the history of people and not of religion. --Dan Carkner (talk) 18:29, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

  @Dan Carkner: Yeah, the question of Judaism as religion vs. ethnicity is a perennial one. For here, Judaism in China is currently a redirect, so there's no broader page besides this one. I'd like to see this page expanded so that it covers demographics and other contemporary stuff more, and I think renaming might help encourage that. The page already uses "Jews and Judaism in China" as its bolded opening and has demographics in the infobox, so it's already partly there. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:39, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

True, about the redirect. My feeling though is that "History of X People in Y Place" article titles are very clear even if for social or cultural reasons the same concept could be expressed in another manner and would probably be received in the same way. I definitely understand that there is not a huge difference between the two so it's more a matter of clarity of the topic for me, especially for people who are coming to this with little preexisting knowledge (as is the case with many Wikipedia readers on a variety of topics). Just my take, anyways. Dan Carkner (talk) 20:30, 20 August 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose. It seems to me that "Jews in China" is a broad topic which would cover the religion as well as other information about the ethnic/cultural group, whereas "Judaism in China" would only cover the religion. On that basis I prefer the current title. It's worth noting that other articles use titles similar to this one: History of the Jews in Germany, History of the Jews in Innsbruck, History of the Jews in South Africa, etc – maybe a broader discussion is needed at WT:WikiProject Judaism. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:50, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.