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Some Observations on Chinese Jewish Studies

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Abstract

Jewish studies develops fast in contemporary China. In a land which is neither Christian nor Muslim and where Judaism and the animus against it never developed substantial roots, what are the perceptible orientations within Jewish studies? What kinds of issues may Chinese scholars encounter when teaching and writing about Jews and Judaism? Does the unique context in which Jewish studies is emerging have a bearing upon Chinese practioners? And in what way is Chinese Jewish Studies different from that produced in other quarters of the world? Through a holistic review of Chinese Jewish Studies and three glimpses of Chinese Jewish scholarship with regard to the Jewish diaspora in China, the Holocaust and Biblical Studies, this paper tries to reflect on these questions in a comparative perspective.

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Notes

  1. For example, in 2007, of all 102 articles and (book) reviews published in the bimonthly World History, the foremost journal on world history in China, seven pieces deal with Jewish–Israeli topics, in contrast to 18 pieces about the United States (one overlap—it’s on American Jews), nine about Japan, seven about France, four about Russia and the Soviet Union (one overlap again). The only one about Germany deals with German Jews.

  2. Pan 2008 now contains the most comprehensive bibliography to date.

  3. Muslim opposition to possible influences on Islam is also observed in other parts of the world (Lewis 2004, p. 55).

  4. For the evaluation reports by the instructors, see http://www.oakton.edu/user/~friend/seminar_history.html. Accessed 27 January 2009.

  5. The latest treatment in book form by a leading Chinese expert is Xu, Xin (2003). To this should also be added Xu, Xin (2006b). Wang (1984) is still invaluable in its discussion of the descendants of Kaifeng Jewry.

  6. See the memorial essay of Liu Naihe, his pupil and assistant, in Chen, Zhichao 2006, pp. 189–190.

  7. Written in 1923, the monograph is available in an English version: Ch’ên Yüan 1989.

  8. Certainly, not all Jewish scholars oppose the universal significance of the Holocaust. An illuminating analysis of these competing claims is Moses 2002. See also Rosenbaum 2009.

  9. There are only two Chinese translations of rabbinic literature: Zhang 1996, 2003. A lucid, academic introduction to the Talmud written by a Jewish scholar, clarifying the relationship between the Written and the Oral Torah, is truly a desideratum for the Chinese.

  10. The normative status of the literary approach to biblical studies can be gauged from this festschrift: Lu and Wang 2007. Professor Zhu Weizhi, the honoree, was the dean of studies of biblical literature in China.

  11. Cf. S. David Sperling’s remarks on contemporary Jewish biblical studies: “Precisely because the Jewish approach is not self-evident, and training in rabbinics and Talmud is not as strong, the newer crop has worked harder to articulate the ways in which their work is distinctively Jewish” (Sperling 2004, p. 1917).

  12. The book series is published by Huaxia Press and East China Normal University Press. For Liu Xiaofeng and the “cultural Christians”, see Aikman 2006, pp. 249–252; Institute of Sino-Christian Studies (1996). Aikman elsewhere spotted “an overwhelmingly pro-Israeli feeling among China’s Christians” (p. 201).

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Acknowledgements

My thanks go to William Fern, Menahem Friedman, Samuel Heilman, Wayne Horowitz, Jinyu Liu, Aharon Oppenheimer, and Xu Xin for various comments. I am particularly grateful to two anonymous reviewers of this journal and David Teutsch for their invaluable suggestions for revision. Needless to say, I am responsible for the remaining errors.

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  1. Department of Religious Studies, Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Lihong Song

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Correspondence to Lihong Song.

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Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2007 and at DePauw University in 2009.

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Song, L. Some Observations on Chinese Jewish Studies. Cont Jewry 29, 195–214 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12397-009-9016-9

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