This blog is dedicated to investigating the current state of research about the Jewish community of Kaifeng. I will point out areas of study that may prove useful, avenues of approach that were once suggested, but never investigated, and possible paths forward. We will chart a research course forward to future our knowledge of this most unusual Jewish diaspora community.
We will start with a seminal work, Michael Pollak's The Manuscripts and Artifacts of the Synagogue of Kaifeng: Their Peregrinations and Present Whereabouts. This chapter was published in 2000, in the volume called From Kaifeng to Shanghai.
Pollak gathers all the information about the existing manuscripts of the Kaifeng Jews. He tracks manuscripts that have gone missing. We will start with four of lost manuscripts they have emerged since he wrote this chapter.
The Kaifeng Jews had various "Miscellaneous Writings," parashot for the chanting of the Torah on Sabbaths and the High Holidays, and books for Purim, Passover, daily and Sabbath prayer services.
Most of these books were purchased by the Chinese delegates in 1850 and 1851. The bulk of them were bought by the Hebrew Union College in 1924. Pollak compiles a list of their holdings, and notes that four have gone missing before they were purchased by the HUC.
He lists items 9, 38, 42, and 60 as lost at the London Palestine Exhibit in 1907. In the years since this inventory, these books were purchased by the benefactors of the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC, and are on display.
Here is the provenance notes to the MoB Kaifeng manuscripts:
Notes: [1] The society is now called the Church’s Ministry among Jewish People (CMJ UK). [2] A quote from the 2010 Sotheby’s sale: “Acquired through the aid of Bishop George Smith of Hong Kong, who sent two Chinese Protestant converts, K'hew T'heen-sang and Tseang Yung-che, to Kaifeng in winter 1850 and summer 1851, to purchase the community's Torah scrolls and 63 books. These manuscripts were taken to Shanghai and described in the North China Herald and the journal Chinese Repository in 1851, and formed the basis of their publication on rice paper, Fac-Similes of the Hebrew Manuscripts, obtained at the Jewish Synagogue in K'ae-Fung-Foo (Shanghai 1851). The manuscripts were then sent to the Society's headquarters in London (and more extensively studied and discussed in Jewish Intelligence in 1853, later reprinted in the Jewish Chronicle). They remained there until 1924, when 59 of the volumes were sold to the Library of the Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati. Pollak (pp. 95-7) suggested that the remaining 4 were lost while on loan to the 1907 Palestine Exhibition in London. In fact they had been mislaid and remained in the holdings of the Society, until their recent rediscovery. They are offered here by the same society.” [3] Western Manuscripts and Miniatures, Sotheby’s London, 7 December 2010, Lot 36.
These are the four missing manuscripts they now possess:
C-9 A small manuscript containing the Ma’ariv prayers that are recited during weeknights. The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4–9) is central to the evening prayer service, recalling the possible origins of the evening service within the Shema itself: “Recite them . . . when you lie down.” The Jews of Kaifeng observed standard religious practices like communal readings from the Torah, recitations of standard prayers, and the observance of major festivals. The community lived along the Yellow River in eastern China, perhaps settling as early as the 11th century. Many of their sacred texts were destroyed after the Yellow River flooded in 1642, but they soon recopied the manuscripts that were irreparably damaged. This manuscript is likely a product of the post-1642 recopying.
c-37 This Hebrew manuscript contains a weekly Torah reading, or Parashat, called “Bo.” The reading spans Exodus 10:1–13:16 and is often read around January or February, depending on the year. As is the case with other Parashot, the title “Bo” is pulled from one of the first words in this Torah portion. In this case, the Hebrew verb bo’ was chosen from the portion of Exodus 10:1 reading “Go to Pharaoh” (NJPS). As this manuscript illustrates, the Jewish community of Kaifeng continued many traditional Jewish practices long after the close of the “Silk Routes” (AD 1453), which isolated the Kaifeng community from Jewish leadership in Babylonia.
c-42 The Jews of Kaifeng, China, followed many traditional Jewish practices. This Hebrew manuscript contains a weekly Torah reading, or Parashat, called “Tetzaveh.” The reading spans Exodus 27:20–30:10, but the present manuscript begins in the middle of Exodus 28:3 (the first page is missing). The manuscript employs the Tiberian system of vocalization and cantillation marks—special dots and lines found above and below the letters. The Tiberian system preserved an accurate pronunciation of the entire Hebrew Bible, and, by the 17th century, the Tiberian system had reached the Jewish communities of eastern China.
c-60 Parashat “Shoftim” from Deuteronomy 16:18 - 21:9
The last manuscript is not given a summary by the MoB, so the above is provided by me.
Interestingly, the HUB holds that these manuscripts belong to them, and that the London Society’s successor organization breached the 1924 contact by selling the four books to the MoB. Above I use part of the numbering scheme of the HUC. C-1 to C-64 are the numbers of Kaifeng Jewish writings, with the four missing booklets factored into the count.
The recovery of these manuscripts is a rare victory in the world of the study of Kaifeng Jews. So much of their written works, have been lost, and it seems very unlikely there will be more manuscript discoveries, or any lost codices will be found. We will examine Pollak’s summary of manuscripts, and are the confirm they are still at the locations he lists, and document any changes that have occurred since he drafted this article.
Comments
Post a Comment