Are we descendants of Jews?

China is a multi-ethnic country. In the long history, there have been frequent exchanges between ethnic groups. In A.D. 1000 (equivalent to the Northern Song Dynasty), some Jews from Mumbai came to China and settled in the capital of the Song Dynasty (now Kaifeng City). They were called "Blue Hat Hui" and later assimilated into the Han and Hui nationalities. The following is a short article, I hope it will help you.

At that time, their ancestors trudged around and finally found this "Oriental Holy City". Today, there are still seven or eight hundred descendants of this Jewish family. Recently, the author went to the Jewish Archives in Shanghai, walked into the Jewish home in Kaifeng, the ancient city, and glanced through a "thousand-year history" of Chinese Jews-

Find the "Holy City of the East"

Jews are a group that combines religious belief and national migration characteristics. Therefore, the life of Jews has been erratic, rarely farming, mainly engaged in free-flowing businessmen or currency exchange business, and used to travel around with gold.

About 1000 years ago, a large number of persecuted Jews left their homes to find a place to settle down. One of them, after a long journey, finally found his own idea of the "Holy City of the East"-the capital of China in the Northern Song Dynasty (now Kaifeng), and took root and thrived.

When these Jews arrived in the bustling capital of song dynasty, the then emperor of the great song dynasty (according to the test, it was in the period of northern Song Zhenzong-Hui Zong, that is, 998-1 125) warmly welcomed them and said, "come back to me in midsummer to see the ancestral wind and leave the capital of song dynasty." The government allows them, like the Han nationality, the freedom to live, migrate, find jobs, go to school and buy land, and they can maintain their religious beliefs and customs. These wandering Jews feel that the capital of the Song Dynasty is their ideal home!

There are various theories about moving eastward.

Scholars have always had three views on the way ancient Jews entered the capital of Song Dynasty. They traveled eastward from Persia, through the Silk Road in Central Asia, across the Green Ridge into China, and then through Xinjiang and Gansu to the Central Plains. On the other hand, it passed through India, crossed the Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, Malacca Strait and South China Sea along the Maritime Silk Road, landed on the coast of China, and then turned to Kaifeng. Then there is "Shuang Yuan", who thinks there are both methods.

Jews are very good at adapting to the environment and balancing cultural differences. When they find a place they think is beautiful, they will take root and develop tenaciously. Because of the characteristics of migration and vagrancy, Jews are very United, and everyone has three clear obligations: one is the obligation to their children; The second is the obligation to the Jewish nation; The third is the obligation to others. Jews have formed a strong instinct of self-protection since ancient times. Compatriots help each other and stubbornly guard their religious and cultural roots.

The Holy City Prospers "leye county Education"

Believing in ancient Judaism is the only way to become a Jew. In the early days of Song Dynasty, this group of Jews maintained their national independence with Hebrew culture, spoke Hebrew, and were named after Hebrew. In order to maintain their national consciousness, they recited the Five Books of Moses for many years. With their own economic wealth, they built a magnificent "Igel Education Mosque" in the center of Kaifeng, which looks like a tower in the park.

Igele is a branch of Judaism, which is a unique national religion of ancient Jews in China. They don't preach to other ethnic groups, and they don't absorb other ethnic groups. With the mosque, Jewish activities entered its heyday. At that time, there were more than 5,000 members of the congregation, which increased from 7 surnames when they first came to the capital of song dynasty to 8, and doubled to more than 500 surnames in 73 years.

Jewish law has always advocated pluralism and democracy, which is reflected in the Jewish holy law biography. This classic clearly stipulates the protection of minorities. Suppose three people discuss a problem, two people agree and the third person disagrees. Finally, write both opinions. It can be seen that respecting public opinion is an inherent feature of the Jewish nation and a national advantage for their survival and development in foreign countries.

Natural integration into the China family.

According to Jewish custom, as long as your mother is Jewish, you are a member of this nation. However, thousands of people are too small for China, what's more, they think they live in the "Holy City of the East"!

Since the Northern Song Dynasty, China local culture has been friendly to these "guests" with its unique charm. From speaking Chinese to using Han names, they gradually adapted to the folk customs of Han, Hui and Manchu. Especially with the infiltration of Confucian culture, the imperial examination system also gave them equal opportunities, which made a group of people with lofty ideals not only change their values, but also willingly integrate their thoughts, interests and ethics into China culture.

It is these people who became the "scholarly family" and "numerous officials" among the ancient Jews in China earlier, and became the promoters and leaders of the natural integration of the Jewish nation and the Han nation. They took the lead in breaking through the barriers of "intermarriage" and marrying China women. The result of marriage is not only the fusion of blood relationship and the variation of institutional characteristics, but more importantly, under the influence of paternal line and maternal line, the original concepts, customs and habits have also changed greatly.

Leaders from all walks of life

Looking back at the history of Kaifeng, many outstanding people from all walks of life are descendants of Jews. This phenomenon flourished especially in the Ming and Qing dynasties, and most of them were business operators.

Legend has it that Kangxi once visited Kaifeng at night and walked into the cotton silk shop opened by Jewish descendants. After reading it for a long time, he repeatedly praised: "What cotton silk! Good silk! " Since then, our flat silk has become a tribute to the royal family and has been exported to other places. Shi Weiyu's Wanfulou gold jewelry is also world-renowned. The crested rockhopper he made once fascinated Cixi. Zhao Yingcheng was the first Jewish intellectual in China to enter the ruling class. Zhao Yingcheng is versatile, proficient in Hebrew, and has deep attainments in Confucianism. He wrote 30 volumes of bibles, 30 volumes of disaster maps and 240 volumes of Sizhu Chapel.

Some people say that Jews are smart, but in fact, from a biological point of view, there is no difference between smart people and stupid people. The fundamental reason is that Jews have no fixed place to live, so they should learn to adapt to various environments. This urges them to study hard, and their brains are their best capital. In addition, they are smart and original, not because they have special genes, but because the traditional Jewish concept is to teach people not to stick to the rules. Therefore, there are many great scientists among modern Jews.

Thousands of years of ups and downs have witnessed.

Jews living in Kaifeng have long been unknown to the west. Until AD 1605, Matteo Ricci, an Italian Jesuit missionary, went to China and found that there were about 2,000 Jews there. However, due to his isolation from the outside world, he gradually became Chinese, almost forgetting his original traditional culture, and his appearance was no different from that of the Han people. He wrote in his biography: "At that time, these Jews also built a synagogue shaped like a tower, and many people only ate food cooked according to Jewish regulations." They thought Matteo Ricci was the same race as them, so they invited him to be a priest.

An yilaiye mosque has experienced prosperity and abolition for thousands of years. During the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty, a flood of the Yellow River swallowed Kaifeng and an Ileya mosque that condensed the national feelings of Chinese Jews. Before the disaster, Kaifeng was hit by floods several times, but after each disaster, Jews returned to their homes to build roads and houses like locals. Igler mosques have also sunk into the mud several times, but they have been rebuilt and repaired again and again. The last renovation was the tenth year of Shunzhi (A.D. 1653). However, this renovation exposed the exhaustion of Jewish financial resources.

During the Daoguang period in Jiaqing, Qing Dynasty, the mosque that gave faith to leye county was finally destroyed, and a large number of religious relics and artifacts were lost. Soon, with the death of the last priest who knew Hebrew, this nation lost its main cultural pillar.

Now Kaifengfu's Jiaojing Hutong (the former site of leye county Mosque) used to be a place where ancient Jews in China lived in concentration. Now only Mr. Zhao Pingyu is a descendant of Jews here. Mr. Zhao has passed away and his wife Cui Shuping is 75 years old. She lives here alone, and their five daughters work in this city or other places. When you walk into Zhao's house, you can see a model of Yigai Mosque, which was carefully made by Mr. Zhao before his death. Although it has been covered by floating ashes, it shows the old man's desire to repair the temple and establish the "Iraq-leye county Museum" before his death.

The first ambassador was filled with emotion.

Today, there are seven or eight hundred descendants of Jews living in Kaifeng, and their living habits are almost the same as those of Hui and Han. When talking about ancestors of Jewish descent, they all said, "Our ancestors asked us to remember,' Our ancestors were Jews'". But to tell the truth, our identification with nationality, belief and culture is often twofold. Mr. Li Wenjun, a descendant of Jews who now works in Kaifeng Bianjing Hotel, said: "We love the Jewish nation because its blood runs through our veins; We also love the Chinese nation, because the blood of the Chinese nation also flows in our veins. " For thousands of years, the flesh-and-blood integration between ethnic groups has made these Jews and China people have a real blood relationship.

After the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Israel, Mr. Suft, Israel's first ambassador to China, visited Kaifeng, strolled through the streets of the ancient city and saw the places where his compatriots had lived. The ambassador was filled with emotion. He said: "The Chinese nation has always been kind to others. 1 000 years ago, a Jew settled in Kaifeng. Compared with Jews wandering in other parts of the world, these compatriots really live and work in peace. "

It is believed that there are many Jewish descendants scattered all over China. In 1930s, China attracted a new batch of Jewish immigrants. About 65,438+05,000 German and Austrian Jews moved to Shanghai to escape the cruel persecution of Hitler and Nazi. From the late 1940s to the early 1950s, most of them emigrated to America, Israel and Australia. Not long ago, more than 50 historians from China, Israel and the United States held an international seminar on Chinese Jews at Harvard University, and formally put forward this interesting topic-Jewish life in China. (Excerpted from "Domestic and Foreign", No.2, 2005) □ Text/Shen Nongfu