British missionaries read ambiguous Chinese labels as confirming forgotten Jewish communities

Evidence

In 1850, a letter written in Chinese, and signed by a certain Chao Nientsu in Kaifeng on August 20, was delivered to Finn via Temple H. Layton, Her Majesty’s consul to Amoy. It was a response to Finn’s earlier letter to the Jews of Kaifeng, which had also been delivered by Layton. Although in Chao’s letter he referred to his religion as Tiaojingjiao [Pluck-sinew religion] and their place of worship as Qingzheng si [Temple of purity; in Chinese this phrase often refers to a mosque], for Finn there was no doubt that Tiaojingjiao meant the Israelites’ religion and Qingzheng si meant the Jewish synagogue. All of the other information supplied in the letter was also understood by Finn as reflecting local “Jewish traditions.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 355

Categorization

• QUESTION: Was Chao Nientsu actually a Jew, or did the missionaries’ projection create a Jewish identity where none clearly existed? The passage itself flags the interpretive slippage.
• XREF: Connects to the broader theme in Orientalist scholarship of Westerners projecting biblical frameworks onto distant peoples, akin to Lost Tribes theorizing.