Kaifeng Jews

A historical Jewish community in Kaifeng, China, whose existence and (often idealized or distorted) image in Western accounts played a role in European Jewish emancipation discourse and missionary activity.

Claims that use this term

• The idealized image of Kaifeng Jews became ammunition for Jewish emancipation in Europe
• China’s tourism economy converts Western curiosity about Kaifeng Jews into local benefits
• Jesuit missionaries’ contradictory reports obscured rather than clarified the Kaifeng Jews’ true history.
• A missionary’s 1843 book shaped Western understanding of the Kaifeng Jews
• Christian missionaries viewed the Kaifeng Jews as instruments of divine redemption