Portrait of an LBX

One of our hosts in Kaifeng, Li Bo, in the group's community center.

By Andy

The New York Times today has an article on the Jews of Kaifeng, Henan province, with whom we spent some time, what seems like ages ago. The NYT piece includes some additional historical perspective than what’s available in Evan’s post on our visit (which continues to be one of the most popular posts on our site), including something that I believe we missed at the time, which is that Judaism is not one of China’s five officially recognized religions. The Jews are also not one of China’s officially recognized ethnic minorities, something we did touch on when we were there, but neglected to elaborate on in our post. The Kaifeng Jews, therefore, do not officially exist.

Overall, I’d say that with the exception of the NYT reporter getting to spend Passover with the community in Kaifeng, we had a more intimate and interesting experience with the Li family.

It is interesting to contrast one passage of the NYT piece with our own:

From the New York Times:

On Friday evening, after buying some bread from a Muslim street stand, Ms. Guo took Mr. Audan and me into a half-completed shopping center. She marched purposefully around several corners, past closed shops, to a second-floor balcony of empty stores. Smoggy daylight was waning, but through a curtain in one of the shops came the distinct yellow glow of candles. An Israeli flag was just visible through the glass door. And inside, around a simple gray table, sat a dozen people bowed before ritual books in both Chinese and Hebrew, about to begin their Sabbath prayers. The men wore yarmulkes. The women were perched under a poster of the 10 Commandments, written in Chinese script, hung below photos of their ancestors.

And from Evan’s post, What We Least Expected: The Jewish Community of Kaifeng:

They led us five minutes through a commercial park full of one-room companies and little restaurants before paying an attendant to watch their electric bikes. We walked to the second floor where Li Bo unlocked and reeled up a rolling metal door, behind which was a treasure trove of surprises. Maybe 50 square meters in total, the little room contained some long tables, chairs, a menorah, a whiteboard full of Hebrew, several photos of old Kaifeng Jews, a bookshelf full of Hebrew books, and a big Israeli flag. It was in this, their community center, that Hebrew class was given on Fridays by an American Jewish study abroad student, Eric, and where holidays were collectively passed. The Hebrew on the board was lyrics to a song which Eric had recently taught his class. Li Bo informed us that between 10 to 20 Kaifeng Jewish students showed up for the weekly Hebrew classes, and around 30 show up for holidays. The price for the center? 3000 yuan annually, split among the community.

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By Evan

In my last post I was unduly harsh on Kaifeng, mostly because we had just passed through its several rings of slums and horrid hyper development that surround cities of its size like asteroid belts and entered into a litter-strewn, gaudy downtown area. However, as is proven to me time and time again, first impressions really don’t mean that much if you take the time to do some digging.

Now I should back up a second. We had been discussing stopping in Kaifeng since day one when we rode a stretch on the Beijing-Kaifeng highway to leave the capital. We had all heard about the possible presence of Chinese Jews in Kaifeng, and Alexis, himself sharing ancestry with Sandy Koufax, wanted to go seek them out. Once we realized Kaifeng was a perfect rest mini-destination out of our trajectory through Shandong, it was decided we should go on a good old-fashioned Jew quest.

Having already spent one day in Kaifeng repairing the bikes and updating pictures and blogs in a cafe, we decided to spend a day haphazardly looking for Jews, who we were pretty sure would be a) impossible to find or if found, b) pretty apathetic about the whole affair. As we were eating breakfast in the old part of town next to our hotel, I asked the same question we had asked a few times already with blank faced responses: “Do you know where to find Kaifeng Jews?” An old woman heard me and after racking her brain for a second said, “Yes, there’s a Jew living in huijia hutong near here.” That afternoon we began our quest by walking over to the alley of the suspected Jew. The alleys we wound through on the walk over were old and tight, and just seeped history from their dirty, stone walls. We began asking every old person we could find, and finally one old woman huddled around a Mahjong game exclaimed, “I know who you’re looking for. Follow me!” We hurriedly clipped along behind her to a game of Chinese chess, where the woman pulled aside a man in his 50’s, to whom we asked, “Do you know where we can find Jews in Kaifeng?” “I am a Jew,” replied the man, who identified himself as Mr. Li. After Alexis began barraging him with questions, Mr. Li told us he had been in a car accident and didn’t remember much – his immobile right hand at this point became apparent – but he put Alexis in touch with his nephew, and a meeting was arranged for 5pm. (more…)

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