East Asian Jewry - China

China

Main article: History of the Jews in China

Jewish settlers are documented in China as early as the 7th or 8th century CE, but may have arrived during the mid Han Dynasty, or even as early as 231 BCE. Relatively isolated communities developed through the Tang and Song Dynasties (7-12th cent. CE) all the way through the Qing Dynasty (19th cent.), most notably in the Kaifeng Jews (the term "Chinese Jews" is often used in a restricted sense to refer to these communities). By the time of the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, few if any native Chinese Jews were known to have maintained the practice of their religion and culture. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, however, some international Jewish groups have helped Chinese Jews rediscover their heritage.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish immigrants from around the world arrived with Western commercial influences, particularly in the commercial centers of Hong Kong, which was for a time a British colony, Shanghai (the International Settlement and French Concession), and Harbin (the Trans-Siberian Railway). In the first half of the 20th century, thousands of Jewish refugees escaping from the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Holocaust in Europe arrived in China.

Today, with the current expansion of trade and globalization, Jews of many ethnicities from multiple regions of the world have settled permanently and temporarily in China's major cities. Jews may be considered one of the officially undistinguished ethnic groups in China. The current number of Jews residing in the country is 2,000.

See also: Kaifeng Jews, Shanghai Ghetto