ISBN: 9781156241394

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: … Altro …

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Mandarin Chinese and some Hebrew (modern)Judeo-Persian (historic) The Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community that has existed in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China, for hundreds of years. Jews in modern China have traditionally called themselves Youtai (, from Judah) in Mandarin Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Mandarin Chinese and some Hebrew (modern)Judeo-Persian (historic) The Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community that has existed in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China, for hundreds of years. Jews in modern China have traditionally called themselves Youtai (, from Judah) in Mandarin Chinese which is also the predominant contemporary Chinese language term for Jews in general. However, the community was known by their Han Chinese neighbors as adherents of Tiaojinjiao (), meaning, loosely, the religion which removes the sinew (a reference to kashrut). According to historical records, a Jewish community lived in Kaifeng from at least the Northern Song Dynasty (9601127) until the late nineteenth century and Kaifeng was Northern Song's capital. It is surmised that the ancestors of the Kaifeng Jews came from Central Asia. It is also reported that in 1163 Ustad Leiwei was given charge of the religion (Ustad means teacher in Persian), and that they built a synagogue surrounded by a study hall, a ritual bath, a communal kitchen, a kosher butchering facility, and a sukkah. . During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), a Ming emperor conferred seven surnames upon the Jews, by which they are identifiable today: Ai, Shi, Gao, Jin, Li, Zhang, and Zhao. Interestingly, two of these: Jin and Shi are the equivalent of common Jewish names in the west: Gold and Stone. The existence of Jews in China was unknown to Europeans until 1605, when Matteo Ricci, then established in Beijing, was visited by a Jew from Kaifeng, who had come to Beijing to take examinations for his jinshi degree. According to his account in De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas, his visitor, named Ai Tian (Ai T'ien) () explained that he worshipped one God. It is recorded that when he s. More: Books, , History-of-Kaifeng~~Books-LLC, , , , , , , , , , General Books LLC<