Rumors of Chinese Torah Scrolls

 

Pollak concludes his investigations into the Kaifeng scrolls with some sightings of possible Hebrew books in China.  On pages 91-92 Pollak examines these rumors on some detail.

In 1735 Father  Antoine Gaubil mentioned in a letter that the Kaifeng Jews told him that a very hold Hebrew bible was "in Beijing called Fan Kim Tchang."   From this letter we learn that another French Jesuit, Joachim Bovet, had already attempted to find this bible" and visited a Beijing temple and saw a fleeting glimpse of manuscripts in Hebraic writing.  When Gaubil was posted to Beijing he made inquiries, but was unable to find any Torah scrolls.  He had heard that a few Kaifeng Jewish families had moved to Beijing in the early 1600s, converted to Islam, and one of these families had a scroll.  

When the Austrian National Library Kaifeng Scroll was purchased in 1870, the Austrian diplomat who obtained the scroll claims it was preserved in a Beijing mosque.  But he did failed to note the name of the mosque. 

Pollak winds down this treatment of rumors of scrolls with a discussion of the several mosques in  Kaifeng that might contain relics of the Kaifeng synagogue, particularly in  the Dong Da Mosque, the Great Easter(ern) Mosque in Kaifeng.  We know parts of the synagogue was sold to this mosque, including roof tiles.  Pollak thought that this mosque was a likely place to find Kaifeng Jewish scrolls or other materials.  More on Dong Dai can be found here.

The Dong Da Mosque has had close associations with the Jews of Kaifeng, and there are many legends of Jewish materials there that have no historical supporting evidence.  During his trip to photograph the descendants of this Kaifeng Jews, at least a possible Kaifeng Torah case was photographed and then purchased from the Dong Da Mosque:

This is the case that is currently at the Skirball Museum in Los Angeles (Pollack notes it is at the HUC Los Angles, but this does not seem to be the case):

Another purported Torah case is Royal Ontario Museum:

And both strongly resemble the sketches Domenge drafted at the synagogue in 1722.

So, we are pretty safe in assuming this is an actual Kaifeng Synagogue Torah case photographed in front on the Dong Da Mosque.  Is this the only object every from the Kaifeng Synagogue that was purchased/removed?  Nearly 125 years after this photo, are there any artifacts from the Kaifeng Jews at the Dong Da Mosque?  See the entry note above regarding this important mosque.