Historical Interactions and Mutual Understandings: Jews and China

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

Jews and China/ Chinese have been interacting for over a thousand years. The earliest date based on substantial archeological discoveries can be traced back to the 8th century. In the 11th century, tens of Jewish families began to reside in Kaifeng, and in 1163, the Kaifeng Jews formed a formal Jewish community and built a synagogue. This community lasted until the 19th century. In modern times, with the colonization of Britain, the rise of Nazi power in German and Austria, and the persecution of Jews in Russia, groups of European Jews came to China to do business or seek asylum in big cities such as Shanghai, Tianjin, and Harbin. Even though most left China in the 1950s, after 1978, when China reopened the country to the world, Jews came back and formed a formal Jewish community in Shanghai.
Apart from these long-persistent historical interactions, with the rise of transcultural communications and translative activities in the modern period, Jews and China/ Chinese began to interchange thoughts and cultures beyond physical interactions. Not only did these cultural interactions show each nation’s understanding of the other, but they also reflected each nation’s self-understanding. For instance, in the 1920s, during the New Culture Movement, Mao Dun, the contemporary leading Chinese writer and activist, ardently introduced Yiddish literature to the Chinese readership in the hope of reforming Chinese literature from classic style to vernacular style by modeling Yiddish literature’s reformation of Hebrew literature, though this hope was based on a fallacious understanding. Meanwhile, Yiddish writers tried to use Chinese literature, a literature, based on their knowledge, that was out of Jewish experience, to lift modern Yiddish literature to a world-class literature through translation.
Based on this rationale, this panel seeks to map the historical interactions and mutual understandings of Jews and China/ Chinese. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to, the history of Jews living in China, the image of Jews in Chinese literature and vice versa, Jews’ self-understanding displayed in their writings on China and vice versa, and translations or translational activities.

Sub Unit

• Interdisciplinary Approaches

Chair

• Yitzhak Lewis, Duke Kunshan University

Individual Presentations

• Meaningful Misunderstanding and Mistranslations: On Mao Dun's "A Survey of New Jewish Literature" - Anruo Bao, Shanghai International Studies University

• Influence of Religiosity on Israeli Fertility and its Implication to China - Xiaowei Fu, Sichuan International Studies University

• Conquerors of Death?: Approaching “Immortality” in Early Kabbalistic and Daoist Hagiographies - Jianyu Shen

Zoom Host

• Zoom Host 03