Jewish Diaspora in China: A Comparison of the 12th and 20th Centuries

Jewish is not officially acknowledged ethnical minority in China, yet sizable Jewish communities exist long before the modern era. The history of China’s Jewish community can be traced back to no later than the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) and continued to exit in China for centuries after Song. In the twentieth century, another wave of Jewish migrants was founded in Chinese treaty ports, particularly Shanghai, where about 20,000 to 3,000 Jewish refugees lived for decades. The paper compares the twelfth century Jewish community in Kaifeng and the twentieth century Jewish community in Shanghai to illustrate how, in the past and present, a local phenomenon may well reflect a global experience.