audiobook Christmas in the Confederacy by H. Rondel Rumburg in History

Description

A thousand years ago; the Chinese government invited merchants from one of the Chinese port synagogue communities to the capital; Kaifeng. The merchants settled there and the community prospered. Over centuries; with government support; the Kaifeng Jews built and rebuilt their synagogue; which became perhaps the world’s largest. Some studied for the rabbinate; others prepared for civil service examinations; leading to a disproportionate number of Jewish government officials. While continuing orthodox Jewish practices they added rituals honouring their parents and the patriarchs; in keeping with Chinese custom. However; by the mid-eighteenth century―cut off from Judaism elsewhere for two centuries; their synagogue destroyed by a flood; their community impoverished and dispersed by a civil war that devastated Kaifeng―their Judaism became defunct. The Theology of the Chinese Jews traces the history of Jews in China and explores how their theology’s focus on love; rather than on the fear of a non-anthropomorphic God; may speak to contemporary liberal Jews. Equally relevant to contemporary Jews is that the Chinese Jews remained fully Jewish while harmonizing with the family-centred religion of China. In an illuminating postscript; Rabbi Anson Laytner underscores the point that Jewish culture can thrive in an open society; “without hostility; by absorbing the best of the dominant culture and making it one’s own.”