UNM Israel Alliance

Jerusalem Post, Michael Freund
It is twilight in the Chinese city of Kaifeng, and as darkness descends upon the streets, a bustling night market comes to life.

Many of Kaifeng’s Jewish descendants have reconnected with Israel in recent years and some have even made aliya.

Locals gather, sampling an array of food items from dozens of carts and stands that line the boulevard, while others examine various forms of clothing and knickknacks being offered for sale.

Pork, it seems, is everywhere, as this staple of the Chinese diet is snapped up by hungry shoppers despite the pungency of its odor and the questionable standards of culinary hygiene that prevail. Vendors hawk it in a surprising number of shapes, sizes and even colors, and however off-putting it might be to a visitor from Israel, the dish’s popularity among the Chinese appears at first glance to be universal.

Well, almost, that is.

For Shi Lei, 31, who was born and raised in Kaifeng, his family’s tradition of refraining from eating pork stretches back generations. As a proud descendant of the Jewish community that once thrived here along the banks of the Yellow River, he is keenly aware of the customs and heritage that his forebears cherished.

“They kept certain kashrut practices,” he says in fluent English, adding, “My great-grandparents’ family, for example, didn’t eat pork out of respect for our ancestors, and they would also pluck out the sinews or tendons from the animals’ meat before eating it.”

Shi Lei is no longer taken aback by the surprise expressed by many Western Jews when they learn that their brethren lived and prospered in China, or even that their presence there stretches back a millennium, if not more.

“As a little boy, my parents and my grandparents informed me that I am of Jewish descent,” he recalls. “But because I was so young, I didn’t know what it really meant to me. As I grew up, I began to learn more about my background and the Jewish people, mostly through reading,” he says.

This is how he became intimately acquainted with the precious legacy that was carefully passed down from father to son over the generations in this faraway corner of Asia.

The first Jews are believed to have settled in Kaifeng, which was one of China’s imperial capitals, during the Song Dynasty or perhaps even earlier. Scholars believe they may have been merchants from Persia or Iraq who made their way eastward along the Silk Route. With the blessing of the Chinese emperor, the Jews established themselves in the city, where they found an environment of tolerance and acceptance, in sharp contrast to much of the rest of the Diaspora.

In 1163, Kaifeng’s Jews built a large and beautiful synagogue, which was subsequently renovated and rebuilt on numerous occasions throughout the centuries. At its peak, during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), the Kaifeng Jewish community may have numbered as many as 5,000 people.

Concerned, perhaps, about their community’s sense of collective memory, the Jews of Kaifeng decided to erect steles (stone monuments), on which they inscribed the history of their sojourn. Two of the steles, which altogether were erected in 1489, 1512, 1663 and 1669, now sit in the Kaifeng Municipal Museum, a lasting testimony to the Jewish life that once thrived there.

As Chinese scholar Xu Xin notes in his book The Jews of Kaifeng, China, the steles provide an interesting glimpse at medieval Jewish life in China, including the observance of important holidays such as Yom Kippur.

The 1489 stele, for example, says that on the Day of Atonement, Jews would “close their doors for a whole day, and give themselves up to the cultivation of purity, and cut themselves off entirely from food and drink, in order to nourish the higher nature.

“On that day,” the inscription continues, “the scholar interrupts his reading and study, the farmer suspends his work of plowing or reaping, the tradesman ceases to do business in the market and the traveler stops on his way.

“Desires are forgotten, attainments are put aside and all apply themselves to preserving the heart and nourishment of the mind, so that through direction there may be a restoration of goodness.” The second stele, from 1512, records that on Yom Kippur Kaifeng’s Jews “close their doors and meditate all day.”

By the 17th century, a number of Chinese Jews had attained high ranks in the Chinese civil service, but along with success came the blight of assimilation, which took an increasingly heavy toll on the community and its cohesion.

By the mid-1800s, the Chinese Jews’ knowledge and practice of Judaism had largely faded away. The last rabbi of the community died sometime in the first half of the 19th century, and the synagogue building was all but destroyed by a series of floods which struck the city in the 1840s and thereafter.

Against all odds, Kaifeng’s Jews struggled to preserve their Jewish identity, passing down whatever little they knew to their progeny.

In the 1920s, a Chinese scholar named Chen Yuan wrote a series of treatises on religion in China, including “A study of the Israelite religion in Kaifeng.” Yuan noted the decline the community had endured, but took pains to recall that the remaining descendants still tried as best they could to observe various customs and rituals, including that of Yom Kippur. “Although the Kaifeng Jews today no longer have a temple where they can observe this holy day,” Yuan wrote, “they still fast and mourn without fail on the 10th day of the month.” Nowadays, there are still several hundred people – perhaps a thousand at most – in this city of over 4.5 million who are descendants of the Jewish community.

All of these Jewish descendants belong to one of seven clans, each identifiable by its surname and family trees that stretch back for centuries.

Legend has it that when the Jews first arrived in Kaifeng, the Chinese emperor, unable to pronounce the Jews’ Hebrew-sounding names, bestowed his surname and the surnames of six of his ministers on them. These seven names – Zhao, Li, Ai, Zhang, Gao, Jin and Shi – were used by Kaifeng’s Jews throughout the centuries, and it is to the Shi clan that Shi Lei traces his own family roots.

Several years ago, Shi Lei traveled to Israel, where he spent time studying at Bar-Ilan University and the Machon Meir Yeshiva to further expand his Jewish horizons. After returning to Kaifeng, he went to work as a national tour guide, putting to good use his mastery of the English language and his knowledge of local lore.

In the home of his beloved late grandfather, Shi Lei opened a mini-museum dedicated to telling the story of Kaifeng Jewry, and in his spare time he now teaches Hebrew, Jewish history and culture to other members of the Kaifeng community.

In recent years, a handful of other Kaifeng Jewish descendants have come to Israel, thanks to Shavei Israel, the Jerusalem-based organization that works to strengthen the connection of Diaspora Jews to Israel. All have undergone a formal return to Judaism under the auspices of the Chief Rabbinate and some have settled in Jerusalem.

“Although we have been living in Kaifeng for a thousand years, the Jewish community here hasn’t forgotten its Jewish identity,” Shi Lei said. “In a word, the Kaifeng Jewish community is today in the process of re-learning the Jewish customs and traditions that were once forgotten.

“There is a growing interest, especially among young Kaifeng Jews, to learn more about their Jewish heritage,” he said, attributing this development to the community’s increasing contact with the rest of the Jewish world.

Asked about the upcoming observance of Yom Kippur, Shi Lei grew solemn at the mention of the sacred day. “Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the year and it is a day of atonement,” he said. “On this day, God will forgive us and purify us, and we will be cleansed from all our sins before Him.

“In Kaifeng on that day, we’ll stay together and discuss its meaning and significance,” he said, while noting that perhaps one day, “if the Kaifeng Synagogue will be rebuilt, then every Jew in Kaifeng will be able to become more aware of our people’s traditions.”

The writer serves as chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), which works to strengthen the connection between Israel and the Jewish people and descendants of Jews around the world.

Transcription from IMRA, 24/09/2009

Mr. President,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland.

I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth.

Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie.

Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments.

Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler’s deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie?

One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife’s grandparents, her father’s two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries.

But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?

A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You’re wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others.

This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.

In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times. Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.

The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization. It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death. The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day.

Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially. It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come.

We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances – by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after a horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind.

That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction, and the most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood?

Will the international community thwart the world’s most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen,
The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging.

Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks.

We heard nothing – absolutely nothing – from the UN Human Rights Council, a
misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis.

We didn’t get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare.

You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded?

Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country’s civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II.

During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians – Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances.

Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas. We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave.

Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy’s civilian population from harm’s way. Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn?
Israel.

A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth! What a perversion of justice!

Delegates of the United Nations,
Will you accept this farce? Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity.

And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here’s why. When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense.

What legitimacy? What self-defense?

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our
right of self-defense now accuses us -my people, my country – of war crimes?
And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?

We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow.

Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
All of Israel wants peace. Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein.

And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace.

In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples – a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it. We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state.

Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more.” These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city – in the hills of Judea and in
the streets of Jerusalem. We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland.

As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.

But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don’t want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace.

I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order.

The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the “confirmed unteachability of mankind,” the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the “want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong.”

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill’s assessment of the “unteachability of mankind” is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history — that we can prevent danger in time.

In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

Today! Twice on Thursday, Sept 24, at 11 am and 12:30 pm in the Luminaria Room, Top Floor of the SUB.

MENU: Bagels, Cream Cheese and Coffee

The 2004, 59 minute film “The Silent Exodus” is about the Jewish refugees from Arab countries after 1948. Directed by Pierre Rehov, it is largely in French and Hebrew with English subtitles. Interviews with survivors of Arab pogroms and prominent scholars elucidate the forced departure of these Jews from their longtime homes. Vintage footage and newspaper headlines show the connection between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Adolph Hitler, and the role of the pro-Nazi regime that ruled in Iraq during WWII. As these Jewish refugees were succored by and absorbed into Israel, their story has been lost to history. The Arab-Israeli conflict resulted in two refugee populations, but only one has been acknowledged.

Silent Exodus was selected at the International Human Rights Film Festival of Paris (2004) and presented at the UN Geneva Human Rights Annual Convention (2004)

In 1948 nearly one million Jews lived in Arab lands. But In barely twenty years, they have become forgotten fugitives, expelled from their native lands, forgotten by history and where the victims themselves have hidden their fate under a cloak of silence.

A people whom legend have always associated with “wandering” many of these Jews from Arab lands had lived there for thousands of years and accepted their fate, through good times and bad times.

But 1948, the beginning of their exodus, also saw the birth of the State of Israel.

And, while the Arab armies were preparing to invade the young refugee-country, the survivors of the Shoah were piling up in rickety boats. Meanwhile a few hundred thousand Arabs from Palestine were getting ready to flee their homes, convinced that they would return as winners and conquerors.

Soon – by a terrible twist of fate they, as well, began to fill up refugee camps and passed on their refugee status to new generations.

The Jews, however, did not receive refugee status.

They had just rediscovered the land of their birthright.

And if they came from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iraq or from Yemen, if they had lost everything, even their relatives and their cemeteries, they were ready to rebuild their lives in the West and for many – in Israel – and try to forget their past.

Without ever asking for compensation or the right of return, or even wishing that their story be told…