The Sino-Judaism of Kaifeng

Abstract Around the time that Kaifeng served as the capital of the Northern Song dynasty, Jewish merchants traveling along the Silk Road settled there. Since then, the Kaifeng Jewish community has become the symbol of Sino-Judaica, a religious syncretism of Judaism and Chinese religiosity. The community was “rediscovered” and visited by Jesuits in the seventeenth century, and then was of interest to Protestant groups in the nineteenth century. Having gone through a process of “Sinification” and gradual assimilation over many years, descendants of the community, as well as their Jewish and Christian supporters abroad, are negotiating a possible revival amid growing antagonism on the part of the Chinese state.