Why are there Jewish descendants in Luoyang? What's the history?

There are indeed Jewish descendants in Henan, but they are not in Luoyang, but in Kaifeng. They have come to the Central Plains thousands of years ago and have been highly integrated. On the surface, they can hardly be seen as Jews.

The ancestors of the Jews have been wandering for more than two thousand years and are scattered all over the world.

The ancestors of the Jews are the Hebrews, a branch of the Semites. They settled in Palestine in the 15th century BC and established their own kingdom. However, the Jews have been suffering from misfortune since ancient times.

After the 8th century BC, the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah were successively destroyed by Assyria and Babylon. The Jews were captured in the two river basins and were finally sent back by the Persians. However, in the 1st century And was invaded by Rome.

The Roman Empire destroyed the Temple and expelled the Jews from Palestine. For nearly two thousand years, the Jews were forced to wander around the world and could not return home. After the 7th century, their homeland of Palestine was occupied by the Arabs. occupy.

Most Jews lived in the Near East, but some also went to the East.

After being expelled from their homes by the Romans, most of the homeless Jews lived in Eastern Europe, countries along the Mediterranean and various regions in the Middle East, and some of them traveled across mountains and rivers across the oceans to reach more distant places. Eastern world.

In modern times, British and French explorers discovered family letters and prayers written in Hebrew in Xinjiang, and the date of writing was determined to be 718 AD, which was when Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty Li Longji reign era.

After the mid-Tang Dynasty, all the Western Regions were lost. However, although the Northern Song Dynasty did not regain control of the Western Regions, with the continuous rise of the Maritime Silk Road, a large number of Arab and Jewish traders came to the Central Plains.

During the Song Dynasty, there was a peak period for Jews to settle in China.

According to current archaeological and documentary records, during the reign of Zhenzong of the Northern Song Dynasty, a group of Jews of unknown origin arrived in Bianliang and attacked the cloth. Zhenzong was very happy and issued an edict authorizing these Jews to "return to our Zhongxia and abide by the customs of their ancestors." , left behind in Bianliang.”

As a result, these Jews settled in Kaifeng and established a Jewish community. Although they were foreigners, they were not treated with any suspicion. Like the natives, they could even participate in the imperial examination and become officials.

According to modern research, these Jews may have come from Persia, and the Jewish scriptures they retained are consistent with those of Persian Jews, because the Jews were good at business and also bought properties in Kaifeng. In 1127, Song Huizong also donated money to help They built synagogues.

After settling in the Central Plains for a long time, the Jews continued to integrate and eventually became localized.

During the Song Dynasty, Jews were called "Yisi Leye People", which is the transliteration of "Israel". Because they had the habit of picking tendons when eating beef and mutton, Judaism was also called " "Tiaojin Cult", their residence is also called "Tiaojin Hutong".

During the Jin and Yuan dynasties, Jews were reused because of their outstanding economic and commercial talents. In 1163, the Jin Dynasty established a synagogue in Kaifeng. In 1279, the Yuan Dynasty rebuilt and expanded the local synagogue.

During the Ming Dynasty, there were more than 5,000 Jews in Kaifeng. Originally known as the "Blue Hat Huihui", they settled in China for hundreds of years. They all adopted Chinese surnames for themselves and passed the imperial examination. Officials, accepting Confucian culture, are almost no different from Han Dynasty.

The Kaifeng people in Henan are obviously different from the Jews in other parts of the world.

Jews in Europe and the Middle East have insisted on using their own languages ??for a long time, and they have also suffered hardships. Countless harms have been done to the Jews in ancient and modern Europe.

However, as soon as the Jews arrived in China, they were treated with gentleness and friendliness. During the thousands of years from the Tang and Song Dynasties to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Jews in the Central Plains learned to use Chinese characters, speak Chinese, and accepted the culture of the Central Plains. culture.

Due to the small number of their own people, the Jews in Henan broke the previous practice of not marrying foreigners in order to maintain the inheritance of the Jewish community. The later Jews in Henan were almost all of mixed Jewish-Chinese descent.

Regardless of language, customs, and even appearance, the Jews in Henan became more and more like the locals. By the late Qing Dynasty, the leader of the Kaifeng Jews, Zhao Jincheng, no longer knew Hebrew, but they still retained I write scriptures and genealogy, but I no longer go to church.

The Jewish community in Henan gradually disappeared completely and truly integrated into the big family.

In 1854, due to the flooding of the Yellow River again, the synagogue in Kaifeng was razed to the ground. All ritual activities were completely terminated. The Jewish community also completely collapsed, and some remaining cultural relics were destroyed. Looted by foreign missionaries.

Logically speaking, the Jews can actually evolve into a minority group, but their number is too small. More importantly, over the past thousands of years, the degree of localization of Henan Jews has been too high, just like the Xianbei people in the Sui and Tang Dynasties. , the characteristics of this race completely disappeared.

After the establishment of Israel, a small number of Henan Jews became naturalized in Israel. However, the vast majority of Henan Jews have already been completely integrated with the local people in Henan. At present, Henan still clearly retains the genealogy and scriptures of the ancestral Jews, only About two hundred people.