As you mentioned, the Shanghai and Harbin Jewish communities are both pretty modern, dating mainly from the 20th century. (the Harbin community may have dated back to the tail end of the 19th, but I’d need to check on that). The Kaifeng Jewish community is much older, and very interestingly consists of bona fide Chinese Jews, as opposed to Harbin which was mainly Russian, and Shanghai which was Eastern European. Back in 2005, I went to Kaifeng for this very reason, to seek out what I could learn about this ancient Chinese Jewish community. Aside from being an incredibly fascinating city in and of itself, there really isn’t a whole lot to see Judaicly in Kaifeng. I was able to locate the area which was the former Jewish neighborhood of Kaifeng, and even was able to find and meet several old Jewish women (thanks to the mezzuzahs on the doors). However, the Kaifeng Jewish community is at the very tail end of assimilation, and aside from a few artifacts in their houses, the Jewish ladies I met seemed very much like any other old Han Chinese ladies. (Granted, I’m sure I was not the first gringo to knock on their doors and say “Hey, I’m Jewish too!”)

There is a Jewish museum in Kaifeng, but it is a complete and total shakedown. The museum has 4 floors, with the top floor housing the “exotic Judaic artifacts.” To visit the first 3 floors of the museum costs 10 RMB, but to go up to the fourth floor costs an extra 50. Now, this wouldn’t be an exorbitant fee to pay if it weren’t for the fact that the 4th floor was about the size of my bedroom and contained only 4 or 5 exhibits, many of which were simply drawings and maps of the former Jewish quarters.

In Kaifeng, you can also visit the old synagogue, which is the now the boiler room of a hospital. You would never know it was a synagogue if nobody told you, and it’s worth checking out if you’re there, but not nearly as interesting as the 2 synagogues in Harbin.

So yeah, historically speaking, of the 3 Chinese Jewish communities, Kaifeng is probably the most interesting. There just isn’t much to see there anymore. Or at least if there was, I didn’t find it. For those interested in Chinese/Jewish history, Harbin has much more to see. Shanghai has a decent Jewish museum (housed in the old synagogue) as well, but the exhibits aren’t nearly as informative as the ones in Harbin. Plus Harbin has the old cemetery of which I have never, ever seen anything like in China before. If only that damn thief in Dalian had had the courtesy to give me back my memory card after stealing my camera…

Actually, the film 《鸡犬不宁》/”One Foot off the Ground”, although it is set in a fictional northern Henan town in modern times, makes more than a few references to the Kaifeng Jews.

Thanks for the book recommendation. There has actually been quite a bit of historical connection between the Jews and the Chinese, as there have been established Jewish communities in at least three different Chinese cities, Harbin, Kaifeng, and Shanghai. I was actually preparing a big piece on Judaic sites in China, but got pretty deflated when my camera was stolen this past summer and I lost all of my pics of the synagogues and Jewish cemetery in Harbin. Of the three cities, Harbin seems to have the most to see for seekers of Jewish-Chinese history, with 2 synagogues (one has been converted into a museum of Harbin Judaica, the other is a mosque). The old Jewish-Russian Orthodox cemetery outside of town is probably the most surreal place I have ever visited in China. Definitely worth a trip if you’re interested in the historical connection between Jews and Chinese. Shanghai and Kaifeng are interesting too, but not as much to see as Harbin.

Here is a blog I found on this book.
http://yantouch.wordpress.com/2007/09/02/faith-of-our-fathers/

I personally had never thought there was any connection between Chinese and Jewish history until I watched the movie Fiddler on the Roof. Many wife tales in the movie observed by the Jewish family are so Chinese. e.g., Do not praise a baby in front of him/her. Otherwise, s/he will become bad. I felt we could replace the Jewish family in the movie with a Chinese family and Russia with China of the same time period without changing script or story and the movie would still make sense.