Muslims and Jews in China

by Tony Lambert

In the 17th century Europeans were almost totally reliant on reports from the Jesuit missionaries in China for reliable accounts of that distant land. From the outset Matteo Ricci set high standards of impartiality with his sympathetic accounts of Chinese culture. That tradition was followed by Alvaro Semedo (1586-1658) a Portuguese Jesuit who first arrived in China in 1613. Unlike other Jesuits, he remained in the south of China except for a visit to Xi’an in 1625 when he was the first European to examine the newly discovered Nestorian Tablet which had remained buried for centuries. In 1640 he wrote a detailed report in Portuguese to publicize the Jesuit mission in China. This was published in English in 1655 as The History of that Great and Renowned Monarchy of China. It is from this rare book I excerpt Semedo’s fascinating account of the Muslim and Jewish communities in Ming dynasty China. I leave it to the reader to compare his description with the situation today. Some things never change!

Chapter 30. OF THE MOORS, JEWS AND OTHER NATIONS THAT ARE IN CHINA

There are moreover in China Moors [i.e. Chinese Muslims, or Hui] in great abundance, not in all the provinces nor in every city, but yet in the more principal. They speak the language of the country [i.e. Chinese] and know nothing of their own tongue a few words only excepted. They are acquainted also with many things of the holy Scripture.

In Nanjing I found one who was born and bred in that city that pronounced to me David, Abraham and Isaac as distinctly as I could do myself. In their physiognomy, nose, eyes, beard and face they are altogether like the Chinese. They are merchants, physicians etc. They have offices in the tribunals; they study and are admitted to the examinations and come many times to be mandarins, but not of the great ones. For the most part they stop at the degree of licenciate. Commonly where they live there are beef-shambles [slaughter-houses] because they eat no pork. Therefore wheresoever they are they kill and sell beef. And it seems to me to be the greatest advantage the country has by them, for where they are not there is seldom any of that flesh to be sold. They have their public mosques allowed them by the King. They follow their religion, but not very exactly.

They preserve their nation entire, by marrying with one another, although sometimes they take Chinese women for their wives. But they never give their daughters in marriage to the sons of Chinese. The reason is because in China the wife follows the husband; she is brought to her husband’s father’s house. There she lives and follows his religion. Therefore when a gentile is brought to the house of a Moor she becomes a Moor and a Moorish woman being brought to the house of a gentile must infallibly become a gentile.

The Chinese despise them as being strangers and call them Hociteu Hoci Hoci [Hui hui?]. The characters with which they write their name has no other signification but only proper to express that people nevertheless they are very angry and grieved when they are called by it. The name by which they call themselves is Kia Muen [Jiao Men] that is “the Gate of Instructions.” If they be despised by the Chinese they no less despise them because they worship idols and are gentiles. In the city they have a mount of piety with which they help only those of their nation, but not those who are prisoners for their misdeeds and wickedness.

They came into China about 700 years since being called from Turkestan by the king of that time to aid him against a rebellion that was then in the kingdom. [NOTE: this may be a reference to the great rebellion by An Lushan against the Tang dynasty emperor in 755 AD] wherein they had good success that they who were willing to remain there were allowed to enjoy the same privilege with the natives of the country. Since which time they have so multiplied that at this time there are many thousands of them. Afterwards in the war which King Hum [Emperor Hung Wu?] had with the Tartars about 300 years ago [probably a reference to the successful rebellion against the Mongols and the establishment of the Ming dynasty in 1368] they took his part and came in to his assistance. At which time the king gaining the victory they grew into greater esteem and were admitted to take part in the government of the kingdom.

We have already spoken of the entry which is made into China every 3 and 5 years with an embassy and presents to the king [i.e. emperor]. And thought they are all Moors yet they are of several countries and very rarely any of them remain in China.

There are likewise Jews in China although at this time no great number of them. But when or how they came thither I am not able to say. Anciently there was great store of them, but they have been diminished by little and little, many of them turning Moors [Muslims]. There live more of them in the province of Henan in the capital city thereof, called Cai Fum Fu [Kaifeng Fu] than in any other place.

They have there a synagogue well built and adorned in the fashion of a great chapel and set out with curtains. They say they have there a very ancient Hebrew Bible. Father Julius Alenes one of our [Jesuit] company was among them for some time. They showed him their synagogues but would not draw their curtains and let him see the Bible. Father Matteo Ricci affirms that according to the relation which the Jews themselves gave him in Peking it was not at all differing from ours. They have no knowledge at all of Christ so that it seems they were entered into China before he came into the world. Or at least, if they have ever heard of him the memory of it is quite lost. And therefore it would be of great consequence to see their Bible. For perhaps they have not corrupted it as our Jews have done to obscure the glory of our Redeemer.

These [Jews] as they are in no great number so it is not probable they should long preserve themselves. They who at the Court had some discourse with our Fathers did much lament that they had lost themselves for want of the Hebrew tongue and by the little knowledge they had of their Law [i.e. the Old Testament] and said, that after some time they should all become either Moors or gentiles. That the ruler of their synagogue at that time was a decrepit old man and his son who was to succeed him in office, young and ignorant of the things of their Law. And that indeed there were very few among them who were zealous observers of it.

Moreover the Jews did seem to be much troubled and weary of the reproaches which the gentiles laid upon some ceremonies of their Law, which is a sign they have no great affection for it. As, their not eating of swine’s flesh, their not touching a beast which has been killed by the hand of a gentile, but especially the circumcising of their infants on the eighth day which their wives and Chinese kindred tell them is a cruel and barbarous thing.

At this time [1640] we have in that city of Cai Fum Fu a house and a [Christian] church. And when I left that kingdom a good number of Christians which daily increased, not without hope that some good may be done upon those Jews who being so ready to change their religion will more easily embrace the true one which has more conformity to theirs than any other.

Semedo’s prediction about the fate of the Jewish community proved remarkably accurate. It staggered on in Kaifeng until the 19th century when Protestant missionaries came across the last dying vestiges. They purchased and removed various artifacts. Today several hundred Chinese in Kaifeng are still aware of their Jewish ancestry but no longer practice the Jewish faith.

Shanghai had a flourishing Jewish community up until 1949. Sephardi Jews from Baghdad, including the fabulously rich Sassoon family, settled there. Between 1900 and the mid-1930s the community grew from about 800-1,000 to 5,000. Then many Jews fled from Nazi Germany and found refuge there on the eve of the Second World War. By the time of Pearl Harbor they numbered over 30,000. Virtually all emigrated abroad on the eve of the Communist victory. In 1982 the last reported Jew in Shanghai was 75-year-old Max Leibowitch, a Polish Jew.

In 1982 the South China Morning Post interviewed the then 73-year old Hannah Agre—the last of a similarly once flourishing community of 10,000 Russian Jews in Harbin. Hannah lived in a cramped room in a former synagogue converted into apartments and offices. Across the street another former synagogue had become a police hotel and recreation center. The former Jewish old people’s home had become a hospital for truck drivers. “The Star of David over the door has been painted over in white but still stands out.”

Today a leaflet published by the Shanghai tourist board encourages Jewish descendants of these communities to visit Shanghai and see the few remaining buildings which were once used by the Jewish community. A book has also been published in English about the Shanghai Jews.

NOTE: I have modernized the spelling and grammar, including changing the capitals of nouns and verbs to lower case for the sake of readability.

SOURCES

Alvarez Semedo, The History of that Great and Renowned Monarchy of China. London: E. Tyler for John Crook, 1655.
D. E. Mungello, Curious Land: Jesuit Accommodation and the Origins of Sinology, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1985, 1989.
Michael Pollak, Mandarins, Jews and Missionaries. Weatherhill, New York, 1980.
Article in South China Morning Post, February 14, 1982: “Last of Harbin Jews.”
Pan Guang. The Jews in Shanghai. Shanghai Pictorial Publishing House, 1995.

Copyright OMF International 2004