The Jews of China: v. 1: Historical and Comparative Perspectives

Jonathan Goldstein, Benjamin I. Schwartz

Part I: The Kaifeng Experience; A: Assimilation and Acculturation; Chapter I.A.1: The Synagogue at Kaifeng: Sino–Judaic Architecture of the Diaspora; Chapter I.A.2: Kaifeng Jews: The Sinification of Identity; Chapter I.A.3: The Confucianization of the Kaifeng Jews: Interpretations of the Kaifeng Stelae Inscriptions; B: Western Response; Chapter I.B.1: The Revelation of a Jewish Presence in Seventeenth-Century China: Its Impact on Western Messianic Thought; Chapter I.B.2: Memories of Kaifeng's Jewish Descendants Today: Historical Significance in Light of Observations by Westerners Since 1605; C: Comparisons with Indian Jewry; Chapter I.C.1: The Kaifeng Jews and India's Bene Israel: Different Paths; Chapter I.C.2: Cochin Jews and Kaifeng Jews: Reflections on Caste, Surname, “Community,” and Conversion; Chapter I.C.3: The Judaisms of Kaifeng and Cochin: Parallels and Divergences; Part II: Nineteenth-Century Baghdadi and Ashkenazi Experiences in India, China, and Japan; Chapter II.A: Baghdadi Jews in India and China in the Nineteenth Century: A Comparison of Economic Roles; Chapter II.B: The Shanghai–Nagasaki Judaic Connection, 1859–1924; Part III: Twentieth-Century Baghdadi and Ashkenazi Experiences; A: Urban Profiles: Hong Kong; Chapter III.A.1: Environmental Interactions of the Jews of Hong Kong; B: Urban Profiles: Harbin; Chapter III.B.1: The Construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway and the Origin of the Harbin Jewish Community, 1898–1931; Chapter III.B.2: Harbin's Jewish Community, 1898–1958: Politics, Prosperity, and Adversity; C: Occupational Profiles: Shanghai; Chapter III.C.1: Silas Aaron Hardoon and Cross-Cultural Adaptation in Shanghai; Chapter III.C.2: Jews and the Musical Life of Shanghai; Chapter III.C.3: Jewish Musicians in Shanghai: Bridging Two Cultures; D: Zionism, the Holocaust, and the Sino–Judaic Exodus; Chapter III.D.1: The Shanghai Zionist Association and the International Politics of East Asia Until 1936; Chapter III.D.2: Zionism and Zionist-Revisionism in Shanghai, 1937–1949; Chapter III.D.3: Who Can See a Miracle? The Language of Jewish Memory in Shanghai; Concluding Essay; Jews and China: Past and Present Encounters

This interdisciplinary study examines patterns of migration, acculturation, assimilation and economic activity of successive waves of Jewish arrivals in China from approximately AD 1100 to 1949.