For two thousand years thave were Jews in Kaifeng, Chinese in speech, dress and fashions but Hebrew in their religion, their kittels, tallisses and twillims, not being forgotten. That fact forms the subject of a_fasci ing sketch in the current number of "Tien Hsia," by Dr. Walter Fuchs, formerly in the German. Consular service here. Coming mainly from Persia in the time of the Han Dynasty (200 B.C.) they settled down in Kaifeng and found hospitality denied to them in other lands at that time:
Chinese citizens they were, free and never Secluded in a ghetto or quasi-ghetto, but Jews in faith, giving loyally to the Emperor what was the Emperor's and piously to God what was God's. They read their thoros and taught their children the old language. They had their boys circumcised and they did not intermarry with those not of their race. Following the Bible even to the time-honoured eating-rules as laid down by Moses, they disdained the ritually "unclean" and it is in this way that they came to be called in China Tai Chin Chiao, meaning "those who extract the sinews"—clean dietitians. And this was a term of commendation, for respecting a time-honoured law or custom has ever been in China a subject of esteem.
In_the 7th Century the importance of the.community induced the Emperor to appoint a special mandarin for Jewish affairs. In the 15th Century the great Synagogue was renovated with the help of @ grant from the Imperial exchequer. In the 17th Century when Father Ricci was the first European to come into contact with the community it had suffered from*the natural and political misfortunes which had overtaken Kaifeng, but subsequent Jesuit visitors brought back reports of the colony, the habits and the scriptures of its people. By the 19th Century, however, it had virtually disappeared, although, as Dr. Fuchs shows, some efforts were made by pious Jews in Shanghai to ascertain whether there still remained authentic descendants of the once vigorous Jews of Kaifeng. In 1901 about 140 adults' at Kaifeng called themselves Tai Chin Chiao, but except that they did not wor: ship idols or eat pork there was no difference between them and the rest of the population. They had no knowledge of Hebrew, nor did they observe any Mosaic or Rabbinical Law. Their synagogue was no longer existing. In the event for various reasons, including lack of funds, it was decided that Tai Chin Chiao had all intents and purposes ceased to be Jewish. The holders of the title deed of the Synagogue sold it to a Christian Mission at Kaifeng.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.