Peony

Afterword by Wendy R. Abraham, Ed.D

THE CHINESE JEWS OF Kaifeng represent one of the most obscure, and one of the most fascinating chapters in the annals of the Jewish diaspora. Throughout Peony, interwoven within the fictional events surrounding the House of Ezra, Pearl S. Buck has managed to convey with historical accuracy the Jews at the twilight of their existence in Kaifeng — a people at once assimilated and yet set apart from their neighbors.

That the daughter of Protestant missionaries could so effectively impart the depth of feeling and concern behind a Jewish family aware of its imminent spiritual demise, yet deeply cognizant of its obligation to carry on the traditions of its forefathers in a foreign land — all the while exhibiting authentic Chinese sensibilities — is a testimony to the greatness of the writer herself.

Origins of the Chinese Jews

The actual history of the Jews in China dates back at least to the 8th century C.E., when Jewish merchants and traders from Persia and India travelled overland along the Silk Road to trade in the Middle Kingdom during the Tang dynasty (618–906 C.E.). Testimony of this early history exists in bits of archaeological evidence which came to light at the turn of this century. A Judeo-Persian business letter, dating to 718 C.E., was discovered in 1901 by the archeologist and Orientalist Sir Marc Aurel Stein, along the Northern caravan route of the Silk Road. Nine years after this discovery, a Selichah, or Hebrew penitential prayer sheet, was unearthed in the Dunhuang Caves of Gansu Province, along what was the Southern Caravan route of the Silk Road. Dating to 708 C.E., it represents the earliest known Hebrew manuscript still extant. What makes these two pieces remarkable is the fact that they were made on paper, which at the time was only made in China, proving a Jewish existence in Chinese territory at least as early as the 8th century.

Some scholars theorize that the Jews came to China by sea, noting the various coastal Jewish communities which sprung up in Canton, Hangzhou, Yangzhou and other cities. Of these, Kaifeng was the grandest, with its opulent synagogue dating to 1163 in what was then the capital of China.

Early information about the Jews in China is scanty. Between the 9th and the 14th centuries, well-known Arab travellers and historians such as Abu-Zaid and Ibn-Battutah reported the presence of Jews in China. Although these constitute the first available observations noted by Westerners, they said little about the daily life of the Jews themselves. Pointing to Moslem countries for the origins of the Chinese Jews — in particular Persia, they confirm that they lived in the same major cities as did the Moslems, having arrived approximately the same time and in the same manner. Indeed, the Chinese often confused the Jews for Moslems, calling the former “blue capped Moslems”, since the real Moslems always wore white skull caps, while the Jews wore blue. (In Peony, David is depicted at one point, as donning a blue silk cap. This was not a chance color chosen by Pearl S. Buck.)

Early European travellers in China during the Yuan dynasty (1280–1367) also reported sighting Jews. Remarkably, Marco Polo made it a point to mention in his memoirs that the Mongol ruler Kublai Khan (for the Yuan was a “foreign” dynasty), celebrated the festivals of the Moslems, Christians and Jews. During the same period European missionaries such as Andrew of Perugia reported Jewish resistance at attempts to convert them, or to be otherwise swayed from their convictions. It is clear that through the 14th century, at least, the Jews in China had contact with other foreigners, and that their religious life and identity as Jews remained intact, undisturbed and unchallenged by the exceptionally tolerant Chinese people and government.

For their part, the native Chinese left negligible information about the foreigners in their midst. Only six references to Jews have ever been found in official government documents, all dating to the Yuan dynasty. Extensive contact with foreign peoples and cultures was one of the unique features of the Yuan dynasty, during which time commerce flourished. It is therefore not surprising that the only bits of information on the Jews found in official Chinese government sources should appear during this dynasty. Mentioning Jews in the same breath as the Moslems, the Statutes of the Yuan Dynasty decreed a prohibition on ritual slaughter on January 27, 1280. Forty years later the same Statutes mention Jews, Moslems and Nestorians with regard to the payment of taxes. The Official History of the Yuan Dynasty contains the remaining instances in which Jews are mentioned, for the years 1329, 1340 and 1354. Jews were prohibited from tax exemption and the ancient practice of having a widow marry her deceased husband’s brother — a practice common to both Moslems and Jews.

Local gazetteers dating to the 17th century indicate that a great number of Chinese Jews attained high rank in the civil service system. While the gazetteers attest to the great success the Jews had in Chinese society by virtue of their disproportionate numbers having passed this difficult exam, they also serve as the first indication in Chinese sources of the tremendous degree of assimilation which must have taken place in advance of the Jews’ ability to master the Confucian Classics by then, for the Classics were essential for any hope of passing the exams and attaining high rank in society.

History Etched in Stone

The bulk of our knowledge of early Jewish life in Kaifeng comes not from the Arabs and not from the Europeans or the native Chinese, but rather from the Jews themselves, in the form of inscriptions found on steles (stone monuments) which they erected in the synagogue’s courtyard as early as 1489.

The steles offer a fascinating glimpse into the way the Jews portrayed their history and customs, both to themselves and to their Chinese neighbors. Dated 1489, 1512, 1663 and 1669, two of these stone monuments are all that is left of this exotic community today in Kaifeng.

The 1489 stele was erected in commemoration of the rebuilding of the synagogue, which had been destroyed in a flood during 1461. It speaks of the Emperor granting express permission to the Jews to build their first synagogue on that very spot in the year 1163. Chronicling the history of the Jewish religion, it mentions at the outset that the patriarch Abraham was the nineteenth generation descendant of “Pangu-Adam.” That the stele was erected at all shows the point at which the Jews can be said to have truly assimilated into their environment, since it was a Chinese, rather than a Jewish, custom to do so in houses of worship. And that the first man in Biblical creation could be combined in one breath with the first person in the Chinese story of creation is further testimony to the degree of assimilation the Jews felt with their Chinese neighbors by the 15th century.

From the 1489 stele we learn that the Jews made no images, fasted four times per month, and observed Jewish laws and rituals — in a language filled with Biblical wisdom, yet interspersed with sayings from the Analects of Confucius! Moses and Ezra are mentioned early on in the stele as well, and seem to take on the qualities of Confucian gentlemen rather than those of wandering Israelites. The Jewish religion, so it goes, came from India. Originally, seventy or more clans came to Kaifeng, where the Emperor of the Song dynasty said to them: “You have come to Our China; reverence and preserve the customs of your ancestors, and hand them down at Bianliang (Kaifeng).”

It is generally believed that 17, rather than 70, was the number of clans meant to have come, since the pronunciation for “70” and “17” in Chinese is so similar that mistakes could have been easily made. Of those clans, only seven particular surnames have remained and are to this day indicative of Jewish origin: Ai, Gao (Kao), Jin (Chin), Li, Shi, Zhang (Chang) and Zhao (Chao).

It is also clear that the Jewish community of Ningbo donated a Torah scroll to the Kaifeng community after the devastating flood of 1461. The contributions of individual members to the reconstruction of the synagogue, and the high civil service ranks attained by others, was duly noted, as was the fact that Judaism was in no way in conflict with the other great religions prevalent in China — Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. In fact, it went out of its way to explain that the Jews were not only loyal to their G-d, who must have seemed so foreign to the Chinese, but also quite loyal to the Emperor. In contrast to this, however, is the fact that above the Imperial Tablet, which was placed in all authorized temples symbolizing the protection and authority of the State (and proclaiming “Long live the great Emperor!”), the Jews placed a Hebrew inscription in beautiful gold letters, which only they could read. It was the Shema, the Hebrew article of faith, proving that although they were respectful of the government, G-d alone was higher than the Emperor.

The second inscription, dating to 1512, was actually carved on the reverse side of the 1489 stele and further details the Jewish religion, taking great pains to note the many similarities between Judaism and Confucianism. In particular, the notion of zedakah, or charity, is explored in detail. “A Record of the Synagogue Which Respects the Scriptures of the Way,” this stele claims the Jews entered China as early as the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-22 °C.E.), but offers little new information about Judaism that was not already described on the first stele. Once again, Jews from other communities (this time a Mr. Jin of Yangzhou, who donated a Torah and set up the second archway to the synagogue) are noted for their donations and efforts on behalf of Kaifeng’s Jewish community.

Although the 1663 stele is now lost, rubbings of it still remain. Commemorating the second rebuilding of the synagogue, which had again been destroyed in a flood by the Yellow River in 1642, this stele was most likely not written by Jews at all. In it, Adam is described as the nineteenth generation descendant of Pangu, and the Jews were said to have entered China during the Zhou dynasty (1100-221 B.C.E.), an even more fantastic claim than that on the 1512 stele. The 1663 stele is replete with quotations from the Chinese Classics — all of which signifies an even greater desire to appear Sinified.

Lastly, there was a stele erected in 1679 by the Zhao clan, commemorating the setting up of the Zhao Family Memorial Archway and enumerating the many contributions this family made to the Jewish community throughout the years. It was discovered built into the wall of a house occupied by a Zhao family, on the southern perimeter of the synagogue enclosure. In fact, this area is where many members of the Zhao clan can still be found today.

That Pearl S. Buck made a point of mentioning the Ezra family was of the Zhao clan is worth noting here, since the Zhao’s have represented the most prominent members of the Kaifeng Jewish community over the centuries. Local gazetteers give us the most information about the Zhao clan, due to their extraordinary success in the civil service exam, and hence, in Chinese society. One Zhao family is the direct descendant of the man who built Kaifeng’s first synagogue in 1163. And in 1421, it was Zhao Cheng who was responsible for the reconstruction of the synagogue. Two Zhao brothers and other leaders of the community are credited with having saved several Torah scrolls after the 1642 flood. In 1653 they actively helped rebuild the synagogue and restore the manuscripts. In the 19th century, two of their members were invited to go to Shanghai to relearn Hebrew and Judaism, as shall be seen shortly. The Zhao’s remain the spokesmen for the history of the Jews in Kaifeng into the 20th century.

Discovery by the Jesuits

Aside from these silent testimonies in stone and early Arab and European sightings of Jews in China, nothing else remains to tell us the story of the Chinese Jews through the 17th century. Then a funny thing happened in 1605…

When the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci entered China in 1583, he could scarcely have imagined that barely a quarter of a century later he would be the first Westerner to come face to face with a Chinese Jew, and bring the continued existence of this community to the attention of the West. One summer day in 1605, a Chinese Jew by the name of Ai Tain was on his way to Peking to take the civil service exam. Along the way he had read a book called “Things I Have Heard Tell” that there were Europeans living in the Middle Kingdom who proclaimed their faith in the one true G-d, yet steadfastly maintained they were not Moslems. What else could they be, he reasoned, but Jews, having never heard of such a thing as Christianity.

Ai Tian determined to locate these men, and when he reached the capital he inquired and was directed to the Jesuit rectory. After knocking on the door and being greeted by none other than Ricci himself, Ai proudly proclaimed himself to be his co-religionist, never once using the term “Jew.” Ricci must have been equally delighted, thinking he had come face to face with a Chinese Christian, even before serious proselytizing efforts were underway in China.

Writing in his diary a few years later, Ricci, referring to himself in the third person, recalls the comedy of errors which then ensued:

“On entering our home he seemed to be quite excited over the fact, as he expressed it, that he professed the same faith that we did. His whole external appearance, nose, eyes, and all his facial lineaments, were anything but Chinese. Father Ricci took him into the church and showed him a picture above the high altar, a painting of the Blessed Virgin and the child Jesus, with John the Precursor, praying on his knees before them. Being a Jew and believing that we were of the same religious belief, he thought the picture represented Rebecca and her two children, Jacob and Esau, and so made a humble curtsy before it. He could not refrain, as he remarked, from doing honor to the parents of his race, though it was not his custom to venerate images. This happened on the Feast of St. John the Baptist.

The pictures flanking the altar were those of the four Evangelists and the Jew asked if they were four of the twelve children of the one represented on the altar. Father Ricci, thinking that he had made reference to the Apostles, nodded in agreement. Actually, however, each one was mistaken as to what the other had in mind. When he brought the visitor back to the house and began to question him as to his identity, it gradually dawned upon him that he was talking with a believer in the ancient Jewish law. The man admitted that he was an Israelite, but he knew of no such word as Jew. It would seem from this that the dispersion of the ten tribes penetrated to the extreme confines of the East. Later on [Ai] saw a royal edition of the Bible … and though he recognized the Hebrew characters he could not read the book. We heard from him also that there were ten or twelve families of Israelites in his home town and a magnificent synagogue, which only recently they had renovated at a cost of ten thousand gold pieces. In this same temple, as he related, the five books of Moses, namely the Pentateuch, had been preserved in the form of scrolls, and with great veneration, through a period of five or six hundred years. In Hamcheu … he claimed there were a far greater number of families, with their own synagogue, and others scattered about, who had no place of worship because their numbers were almost extinct.”

Ricci was also asked to return with Ai to Kaifeng and become their Rabbi, since he knew so much about Judaism — the only stipulation being that he had to promise to abstain from eating pork! Through this chance encounter it was learned that the Jews had a full religious life with a synagogue and a rabbi, and observed all the usual customs and holidays as did their counterparts in the West. Other Jesuits whom Ricci sent to Kaifeng to confirm what the Jew Ai Tian said, did just that. Unfortunately, the great flood of 1642 destroyed the synagogue and scattered Kaifeng’s Jewish inhabitants for close to a decade. The Jesuits who had begun to live in their midst and record what they saw were killed by the waters.

During the early part of the 18th century, several other Jesuits were sent to Kaifeng with the specific intention of procuring a copy of the Torah belonging to the Chinese Jews. At this time in Europe it was believed that the rabbis of the Talmudic era had purposely excised out of the Torah, references to Jesus as the Messiah in specific terms. If they could only locate the Kaifeng Torah, untouched by the corrupt European versions, the specific portions could be found. Thus, the Jews in Europe would see the error of their ways and how their own rabbis had deceived them, and would come to embrace Christianity.

The Jesuits who did get to see the Kaifeng Torah, however, had to concede that, indeed, it was exactly like that of the European Jews, with not one letter altered. The same Jesuits also left a precious legacy in the form of sketches of the synagogue itself, both its interior and its exterior. They noted that the synagogue faced West, towards Jerusalem, and that the Jews turned in this direction when they prayed. From the outside, the synagogue looked as though it were any other Chinese temple, replete with archways and courtyards. Of the many memorial halls, the very innermost one held the Ark of the Covenant. Two marble lions flanked the pathway to the Front Hall, in between which was a large iron incense tripod — a Buddhist, rather than Jewish, convention. There was a hall for the kosher preparation of meals, a Hall of the Founder of the Religion, a Hall of the Holy Patriarchs, ancestral halls of the Zhao and Li clans, and memorial archways of the Zhao and Ai clans.

Inside was a main ceremonial table on which were placed censers, flower vases and candlesticks. Behind this was the Chair of Moses, upon which the Torah was placed for ceremonial reading. Also evident were the Imperial Tablets mentioned earlier, and many wall inscriptions in Chinese.

These early Jesuits were able to preserve for posterity many of the stele inscriptions and writings of the Chinese Jews. Their reports remain the only sources of first-hand information on the daily life of the Chinese Jews which captured their existence in both the heyday and twilight of their lives as a religious community. While their knowledge of Hebrew was said to be somewhat tenuous at this stage, the Jews nevertheless held fast to their religion and to each other, taking great pride in their beautiful synagogue, which was captured for eternity in the sketches made by Father Jean Domenge in 1722. The synagogue had stood by now for 600 years. Although obvious signs of assimilation into their Confucian surroundings abounded, their ties to their Jewish ancestry proved too strong, and attempts to purchase copies of the Kaifeng Torah at this time were futile.

In 1723 the missionaries were forced to leave China, and a general ban on proselytizing was enforced as anti-foreign sentiment began to set in. It would not be until 1850 that foreigners were able to have direct contact with the Chinese Jews again.

Historical Setting of Peony

It is towards the end of this time of suspended communication with the outside world that Pearl S. Buck set the novel Peony. The primary intimation we have for its initial setting as being in the last decade of the 18th century or possibly the first decade of the 19th century, is the fact that the last rabbi was still alive, albeit in his last years. Scholarly research has ascertained that the last rabbi died between 1800 and 1810, thus verifying the time frame in which the story of Peony begins.

At the outset, Madame Ezra is said to be almost fifty years old, which would mean that her own parents were members of the congregation during its heyday, described by the Jesuit missionaries in letters to the Vatican. Madame Ezra’s great love of Judaism is all the more plausible, seen in this light.

Ezra ben Israel’s family was said to be one of seventy families which came scores of years ago through Persia and India, by land and by sea, as merchants and traders, and later surnamed Zhao. This, too, would be historically accurate according to the steles. That Madame Ezra should later on declare to the Rabbi that theirs is the leading Jewish family, is all the more true, since the Zhao’s held a remarkable place in the annals of Sino-Judaic history.

The synagogue, described as falling slowly into ruin, was said to be on the Street of the Plucked Sinew. While that street today is known as South Teaching Scripture Lane, before the early 1900’s it was called just that — the Street of the Plucked Sinew. The rabbi was described as standing beside the Chair of Moses, “upon which the sacred Torah was placed. He wore long black robes and about his black-capped head was wrapped a fine white cloth that streamed down his back.” This description coincides perfectly with a photograph found in Chinese Jews, written by Bishop William Charles White, an Anglican bishop who spent almost twenty-five years in Kaifeng, from 1910–1933. Elsewhere, Pearl S. Buck’s description of the synagogue coincides exactly with that portrayed in sketches by Father Jean Domenge in 1722, which was also reproduced in Bishop White’s book. A partial translation of the 1489 stele is given as well. Thirteen Torah scrolls were said to be in the synagogue, held in long cylinder boxes. References to inscriptions by Jews from other cities in the form of vertical tablets was also made.

Where Pearl S. Buck appears to take literary license is in the time sequence of the story. Although the real last rabbi of Kaifeng was supposed to have died by 1810, she alluded to the period of the Opium War (1839–1842) for the time of his death.

Later, when David ben Ezra journeys with his whole family to Peking, it is said to be at the time of the Empress Dowager, who then asked to see his “foreign” children. Since the Empress Dowager’s influence was most prominent from 1898 to 1908, it is inconsistent with the story that a period of over fifty years could have elapsed between the time of the rabbi’s death (assuming he died during the Opium War), and David’s visit to Peking with small children.

By the end of the novel, the synagogue was finally only a heap of dust. The carvings were gone, and only three steles remained for a time, then later only two. They stood “stark under the sky” until a Christian foreigner bought them. In fact, Bishop White did buy the steles, moving them for safekeeping into the cathedral compound. But this was in the year 1912, and if, as we surmised at the outset, the story was set at the turn of the century with the real rabbi’s death, then the novel would have spanned one hundred years…

Although we are encouraged to picture Madame Ezra, the Rabbi and his children as having distinctly Western features, by the 19th century the Chinese Jews were for the most part Sinified racially. Sketches of two Kaifeng Jewish brothers of the Zhao clan around the year 1850 do show high foreheads and decidedly Semitic profiles, yet exhibit Oriental eyes and hair. Although impossible to verify, by the latter half of the 19th century most likely no Kaifeng Jews retained a strictly Western appearance.

Chronological inconsistencies notwithstanding (and perhaps even because she took such literary license), Pearl S. Buck managed to reveal the sweeping panorama of Chinese Jewish history all at once in this way through the rise and decline of Jewish observance in the Ezra family.

19th Century Contact with the Chinese Jews

The end of Peony is by no means the end of the story of the Chinese Jews, however. Contact with Kaifeng’s Jewish inhabitants resumed after a 130-year hiatus in the year 1850, when the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity Among the Jews sent two Chinese Protestant delegates (converts from Shanghai) to Kaifeng. They reported that the synagogue was in a woeful state of disrepair and that the last rabbi had died about fifty years earlier. The community had some years before petitioned the Emperor to allow them to repair and rebuild their temple, but they had received no reply. Their condition was so desperate that the delegates were able to purchase close to seventy Hebrew manuscripts and six Torah scrolls from the synagogue over the course of two visits to Kaifeng. In addition, they bought the Chinese-Hebrew Memorial Book of the Dead, which was first assumed to be a genealogy. (All of these can now be found in the Klau Library of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.)

The delegates invited two members of the Kaifeng community (the Zhao brothers described above) to return with them to Shanghai in order to relearn Hebrew and Judaism, with the hope of resuscitating the community upon their return. Zhao Wenkui and Zhao Jincheng were circumcised Jews, a custom still practiced in Kaifeng at that time. The latter stayed only briefly, but the former remained until his death, and was buried in the communal cemetery which 19th century Jewish emigrants had established in Shanghai.

Only a year before, a sergeant in the Chinese imperial army, Tie Dingan, wrote to the British Consul in Amoy, T.H. Layton, that eight families still existed in Kaifeng. He reported they were Chinese in appearance, but exhibited “straight features like people in the center of China.” There were no rabbis, and none could read Hebrew.

Once Jews and others outside of Kaifeng learned of their existence, attempts were made to send letters to the Jewish community, but only one was ever acknowledged — possibly the only one ever received. On August 20, 1850, Zhao Nianzi of Kaifeng wrote to T.H. Layton (in response to an 1847 letter by James Finn, a career diplomat and missionary, who was fluent in Hebrew and knowledgeable about Judaism). He described the dismal state of affairs in Kaifeng at that time, mentioning that since 1800–1810 the religion had been “imperfectly transmitted,” though religious writings were still extant. The synagogue, he mentioned, had long been without “ministers.” The structure of the synagogue itself was in ruins, and he mentioned those who were willing to mortgage or sell the synagogue and materials from the Gao, Shi and Zhao clans.

Zhao’s letter was a cry for help from the Jews of the West, as their poverty and by now general ignorance of Hebrew and most of Judaism’s religious tenets had turned them into a desperately isolated community on the threshold of total assimilation into their Chinese surroundings.

In 1860 another catastrophic flood from the Yellow River hit Kaifeng. Perhaps this marks the last time the synagogue was swept away — this time for good. For in 1866 the Reverend W.A.P. Martin visited Kaifeng, at which time he declared that the synagogue itself no longer even stood on the site at which it had been for the past seven centuries, and which, although in a dilapidated state, had been visible to the 1850 delegates.

The plight of the Jews of Kaifeng by this time is poignantly conveyed by Martin when he related learning that after the last rabbi had died, the Jews still cared enough to leave a copy of their Torah in the marketplace in the hopes that a Jew from afar who might perchance be in Kaifeng would notice it and teach them once again its contents. All he reported standing at the time was a solitary stone.

Western Jewish Contacts with Kaifeng

The first Western Jew to visit Kaifeng did so for ten days in July of 1867. Jacob L. Liebermann, an Austrian Jewish merchant, went not on behalf of a religious organization, but of his own accord, and wrote a series of ten letters to his father. He described that while the Jews lamented their degree of assimilation, they also recounted stories of a brighter past.

It was not until the turn of the century, however, that Jews, then living in Shanghai, made a concerted effort to establish close contact with the Chinese Jews in Kaifeng, attempting to help resuscitate the community. This was in response to their discovery that a year earlier, in 1899, the Jews sold the last remaining Torah scroll to the Apostolic vicar of the Henan Mission, a Monsignor Volonteri.

Until the turn of the 20th century, relatively few Jews had heard of the Kaifeng community, and even fewer made the journey there, since they had not the financial backing afforded representatives of missionary groups.

The successful Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews who had taken up residence in Shanghai during the 19th century, represented best by the Sassoons and the Kadoories, however, became alarmed when they learned of the sale of Torah scrolls and the generally decayed state of the Kaifeng Jewish community.

Banding together, they formed the Shanghai Committee for the Rescue of the Chinese Jews in 1900, hoping to save the Kaifeng Jews from spiritual oblivion. Communication with Kaifeng thus took place, prompting several Kaifeng Jews to travel to Shanghai where they reported that they still observed some of the Jewish dietary laws, and that some were even circumcised, but that the community no longer consisted of practicing Jews. They expressed the fervent hope that their synagogue could be rebuilt with the help of Shanghai’s Jews, which might revive even a semblance of the sense of community that once united them.

When pogroms and immigration of the Russian Jews began to occur soon after, however, attention and funds were diverted from the original intention of rebuilding a synagogue for the Kaifeng Jews. Almost all those who had come to Shanghai hoping to find some Western Jews who could help rebuild their community, returned to Kaifeng with their hopes dashed and their hearts heavy, realizing that the former grandeur of their synagogue and pride as a Jewish community were never again to be.

Bishop White

From 1910–1933 the Chinese Jews had in their midst the Canadian Church of England’s first Anglican Bishop of Henan Province. No other Westerner lived among the Chinese Jews as long as did Bishop William Charles White, whose magnum opus Chinese Jews was published in 1942. White succeeded in getting the heads of the seven clans agree to have his church take over protection of the two extant stone inscriptions in 1912. Two years prior to this, the Jews would not agree to give up legal title to the synagogue site. A year later, however, after a conflict over the possession of the steles with the local authorities, White was able to purchase the stones on the condition that they not leave the province. And in 1914 the site of the synagogue itself was sold by the Jews to the Mission, representing the first time in over seven centuries that someone other than the Chinese Jews owned the site.

By now no more scrolls of the Law were left, and parts of the synagogue were already being used by others in Kaifeng. A Confucian temple had obtained one of the marble balustrades of the former synagogue for over fifty years; two stone lions were said to be outside one of the Buddhist temples, and even the green roof tiles were now part of the local mosque.

In May of 1919, Bishop White held a series of meetings with the Chinese Jews to try to educate them and revive some kind of communal ties between them. Heads of all seven clans were present, and forty families out of the estimated 200 participated. They did not know one another, and only the Shi clan was reported to have kept family records.

The many Chinese-Jewish artifacts which Bishop White purchased while in Kaifeng have since passed into the hands of the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, where they now remain. Among those bits of Chinese-Judaica in the Museum’s possession are a black marble chime used to call the Jews to prayer, two stone lotus-carved bowls and a large, cylindrical case for the Torah scroll.

One of White’s main contributions while in Kaifeng was to attempt to revive the community by bringing together the seven major clans, documenting the occasion with photos and articles. However, nothing came of these meetings, as the Jews had by now lost all sense of community and all hopes of rebuilding their synagogue or re-learning Judaism, much less practicing it.

As a community the Jews had by now come to an end, although a strong individual sense of ethnic identity has remained with them, even through the 20th century.

Between the downfall of the Qing dynasty in 1911 and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, Kaifeng saw an array of visitors during the turbulent first years of the Republic of China. Some claimed to still notice physical characteristics among the Chinese Jews which stemmed from their Semitic origin, but all noted the tremendous amount of assimilation into their Chinese environment which had by then taken place. Nevertheless, it can be seen from conversations with the Chinese Jews that they still longed for some contact with Jews from the West which would enable them to revive at least their knowledge of Judaism. In particular they asked for schools for the young. Their numbers fairly decimated, the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng proved nevertheless to be resilient and driven to retaining whatever sense of ethnic identity they still possessed.

Chinese Jewish Descendants into the 20th Century

After the creation of the People’s Republic of China, little contact was had with the Jewish descendants in Kaifeng. In 1952, a census of all minority peoples in China was carried out, “minority” being defined as a group whose members spoke a common language of their own, and retained common traditions and cultural traits different from the Han ethnic majority. As Michael Pollak explained in his Mandarins, Jews and Missionaries, “several hundred inhabitants of Kaifeng, apparently unaware that Jews did not fit into any of the minority classifications set up by Peking, trooped to the various census centers, where, to the utter bewilderment of the clerical staffs, they attempted to register as members of a minority that, officially at least, did not even exist. Their efforts were of course to no avail.”

The decade of turbulence and violence which began with the Cultural Revolution in China in 1966 prevented most Westerners from making their way to Kaifeng until the late 1970s. A UPI journalist in 1980 was the first Westerner to visit the Jews of Kaifeng since the 1960s, meeting several members of the Ai and Shi clans who told of the existence of dozens of other Jewish descendants in the city. Although claiming to be Jews on the basis of their ancestry alone, none were said to observe any of the Jewish customs or rituals. The existence of the steles in a safe place in the warehouse of the Kaifeng Municipal Museum was confirmed.

A flurry of activities ensued in 1981 in attempts to contact or research the subject of the Chinese Jews. A survey was conducted by the former curator of the Kaifeng Municipal Museum, Wang Yisha (who is arguably the one person in Kaifeng today who personally knows more Chinese Jews than anyone else), which concluded that there were still 140 families of Jewish descent with six surnames. Of these, 79 families live in Kaifeng and 6l have moved to other parts of China. The 79 families in Kaifeng numbered altogether 166 persons.

The year 1981 saw the publication of an article by Jin Xiaojing, entitled “I am a Chinese Jew.” Jin, a sociologist at the National Minorities Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, only discovered her Jewish roots in 1980 while attending a professional conference. At that time she learned that two of the men whose names were mentioned by others as being Jews, were actually paternal uncles of hers. Although her ancestral home was Kaifeng, it never dawned on her that she might be of Jewish descent, since she was raised as a Moslem!

My own visits to Kaifeng began in 1983 with special interest tours I led for the American Jewish Congress. Each of my groups was allowed to meet with three particular individuals, representing the Zhao and Shi clans. We went to South Teaching Scripture Lane, where the synagogue once stood but where now only a hospital exists to mark the spot. We also saw the 1489/1512 and 1679 steles, stored in a warehouse of the Kaifeng Municipal Museum.

Although discussions with the Jewish descendants were fairly formal, and no mention of Israel was allowed, we were able to glimpse for the first time those people whose ancestors and ours once spoke the same language in prayer, and equally longed for a return to their ancestral homeland.

In 1985 I returned to Kaifeng alone, and managed to speak with six heads of Jewish-descended families and some of their family members, representing the Ai, Li, Shi and Zhao clans. Each day in Kaifeng was an adventure in discovery of this remnant community. I gathered informal oral histories, testaments to how much has lingered on for some, and how much has been forgotten by others.

One member of the Ai clan could not recognize a Star of David as relating to Judaism, and knew nothing of the religion or history of the Jews in Kaifeng. He knew only that he was of Jewish descent because his father had told him so, and for some reason he, too, believed it important to pass down this knowledge to his sons. This, I surmised, was more representative of the Chinese Jewish descendants in Kaifeng, than those few brought before groups of tourists to recount their family’s and people’s history in China and religious customs.

Another member of a different Ai family, the oldest, being in his late seventies, had one of the most interesting stories of all. He was chosen in 1952 by his neighborhood committee to go to Beijing to represent the Chinese Jews as one of the national minorities, for a ceremony held by the three-year-old government of the newly created People’s Republic. Ai met and shook hands with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping. This leads one to believe that the Jews were at one point, soon after the establishment of the PRC, close to being declared a national minority.

An elder statesman for the Zhao clan — the clan which figured so prominently throughout Chinese Jewish history and in Pearl S. Buck’s novel — has begun to build his own mini-museum to commemorate the many contributions of his family’s ancestors to the Kaifeng Jewish community. To this end, he has built a model of the old synagogue as his father and grandfather told him it looked, including the two stone lions which are missing on the model of the synagogue found in Israel’s Museum of the Diaspora.

One of the most enterprising of the Chinese Jews, he and one of this daughters had begun to make Chinese-style yarmulkas which they hoped to be able to sell to visiting tourists within the next few years. Zhao, in fact, found himself in a peculiar position with five daughters, since Judaism had been passed down patrilineally in Kaifeng for centuries. As one of the few Chinese Jewish descendants with an extensive knowledge of his people’s history, he has decreed that any children which his daughters have should be registered as “Youtai,” (meaning Jewish, rather than “Han,” for ethnic Chinese) even if their fathers are not of Jewish descent, on all Certificates of Registry next to the space allotted for nationality. The Zhaos still live on South Teaching Scripture Lane, near the hospital where the synagogue once stood.

A senior member of the Shi clan I met exhibited a deep desire to recover his heritage. His childhood memories were still vivid, recalling yarmulkas made in six sections (in honor of the six days it took G-d to create the universe, so his mother had told him), brass Stars of David kept locked in a medicine chest but lost over the years, and Passover rituals … red paint mixed with water, a substitution for the traditional chicken’s blood, was spread over the doorpost of his home with a Chinese writing brush. This festival was combined with the Chinese New Year, while a second, separate custom taking place a month later called for the baking of cakes without yeast.

Shi has been working closely with Wang Yisha to reconstruct the genealogies of the Kaifeng Jews, in particular those of the Shi clan. To this end, Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati agreed to donate two microfiches of the Chinese-Hebrew Memorial Book of the Dead to Kaifeng — one to the Kaifeng Municipal Museum and another directly to Wang Yisha.

I returned to Kaifeng for the last time in 1988, and came away feeling that a renewed sense of purpose had taken root, both in those Chinese Jewish descendants actively pursuing knowledge of their past, and in the Westerners who have been lucky enough to reestablish contact at this crucial time, when the last generation who can even purport to have such memories, still lives.

In June of 1985, two months before my own solo journey to Kaifeng, the Sino-Judaic Institute was created in Palo Alto, California to promote scholarly research and exchange of information on the subject of the Chinese Jews around the world. In support of the creation of a Judaica Wing of the Kaifeng Municipal Museum, it publishes a newsletter to disseminate information, old and new, on the Chinese Jews, as well as accounts of recent visits to Kaifeng.

Reminiscent of the Shanghai Committee for the Rescue of the Chinese Jews established at the turn of the century, it attempts to focus attention on this miniscule remnant of the Jewish diaspora so that their story may be made known, and efforts on behalf of the promotion of friendship and understanding between the Chinese and the Jews may succeed.

As for Chinese interest in the subject, since 1988 the Shanghai Judaic Studies Association and the China Jewish Studies Association in Nanjing have been established. The latter organization is planning an exhibit of Chinese scholarship on Judaic studies, and the former is amassing a Judaica library to be shared with scholars and others interested throughout China, among other projects.

Other indications that the Chinese are officially interested in fostering closer ties with Jews around the world is the fact that for the past four years a pilot Hebrew program has been conducted at Peking University for six undergraduate Chinese students. Other older scholars from various Chinese universities have also been to Israel from time to time. A tour of the exhibit on the Chinese Jews is being planned in China for the near future as well.

Although the Chinese government has long sought to avoid mention of Israel between Jewish visitors and the descendants in Kaifeng, 1990 has seen the establishment of Academic Exchange offices between China and Israel in Beijing and Tel Aviv. Just how long it will be before formal diplomatic relations are established between the two countries is impossible to predict, but the likelihood appears to be greater each year.

Pearl S. Buck’s knowledge of the Chinese Jews can only be explained by a possible association with missionaries who were in Kaifeng while she was growing up in Nanjing at the turn of the century, or in her discovery of Bishop White’s Chinese Jews, published just six years before Peony was written. The details of daily life and customs prevalent among the Chinese Jews which were incorporated in the story of the Ezra family can only be described as uncanny. In writing Peony, Pearl S. Buck did much to foster greater cultural understanding between the Chinese and the Jews. And in republishing Peony at this particular point in Chinese-Jewish relations, one cannot help but imagine what the future holds in store for continued contact between the two oldest civilizations on earth.

WENDY R. ABRAHAM, Ed.D., author of the Afterword for this edition, is a scholar of the history of the Jewish descendants of Kaifeng. Her dissertation at Teachers College, Columbia University was on the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, 1605–1985.

A frequent lecturer on the topic, she serves on the Board of the Sino-Judaic Institute, Palo Alto, CA., and is currently teaching Asian studies at NYU and the New School for Social Research in New York City. She has visited China six times since 1981, and in 1985 recorded oral histories of the oldest descendants of Chinese Jews in Kaifeng which she hopes to publish.