Download or read book The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions written by Tiberiu Weisz and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2006 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Points East, A Publication of the Sino-Judaic Institute, Vol. 23 No. 2, July 2008 The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven: An In-depth Comparative Cultural Study of Judaism and China. By Tiberiu Weisz (iUniverse, 2007) Reviewed by Vera Schwarcz, Director/Chair, Freeman Center for East Asian Studies, Wesleyan University, CT. This is, simply put, a bold visionary book. It invites readers to contemplate distant and disparate events and thinkers in a way that weaves a common tapestry. The author is generous minded, erudite and provides readers with all the information needed for this cross-cultural journey. The challenge of this adventure remains daunting nonetheless. Kang Youwei's words to Guangxu emperor in 1898 (quoted by Weisz on p 177) apply to reading this book as well: It is indeed like climbing a tree to seek fish - tough, but not foolish. In the end, the reward in understanding both Chin and Judaism is immense. Tiberiu Weisz is not a newcomer to cross cultural dialogues. With origins stretching back to Transylvania (like myself), he is familiar with the mixtures of languages and religions from back home. A long time scholar of the Kaifeng stones inscriptions and of the Jewish communities of ancient China, he was well prepared for a more wide ranging inquiry into the similarities between Chinese and Jews. To his great credit, Tiberiu Weisz took a full decade to assemble and re-translate key original documents from each of these different traditions in order to show a compelling complementarity between them. In the preface to The Covenant and The Mandate, he confesses trepidation at the scope of his inquiry. This is understandable since Weisz' book ranges from the ancient Liji and Tanach to the Cultural Revolution and the Holocaust. Even if one does not fully agree with author's conclusion that Judaism is the yang to China's yin -there is much in this important work to challenge, and to enrich, a wide variety of readers. The focus throughout this carefully constructed book is upon similarities that never quite devolve into a forced identity between Chinese and Jewish cultural values. Starting with ideas of holiness embodied in Elohim and Shangdi, Weisz invites readers to follow the travels of Lao Zi beyond the pass. Whether the Chinese and Jewish commitment to the one force underlying all natural phenomena or shared understanding of benevolent kingship can be traced to news of Solomon's rule spreading through Central Asia is not, in my view, the central question. Rather what is most startling in this book is a symmetry of historical experiences that does indeed lead Chinese and Jews to become experts in cultural survival. Weisz' study goes beyond our current understanding of Chinese and Jewish traditions as the two oldest, uninterrupted cultures in the world. Many previous works (including my own Bridges Across Broken Times: Chinese and Jewish Cultural Memory) have circled this theme. What is fresh, and important in The Covenant and The Mandate, is the detailed, textual proof of exactly how Chinese and Jews confronted historical catastrophe and survived with renewed vigor. Three key moments, Weisz argues, defined and shaped Jewish and Chinese worldviews. For Jews, the exile to Babylon in 586-516 BCE, the expulsion from Spain in 1492 and the 20th century Holocaust provided fiery moments for self-definition and renewal. For Chinese, it was the imperial unification in 221 BCE, the Mongol conquest (1279-1368) and the more recent Cultural Revolution that challenged Confucianism and led to a new nationalist consciousness. Each of these events (as well as many others) is discussed at length and documented in terms of the thought-legacy that it provided for two civilizations growing more and more skilful in adaptation and survival. Weisz' analytical paradigm is most effective when he creatively juxtaposes important thinkers who are rarely considered side by side. For me, reading about the Han Dynasty poet-statesmen Han Yu alongsi

Download or read book The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions Revisited written by Tiberiu Weisz and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Covenant and the Mandate of Heaven written by Tiberiu Weisz and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is Judaism the yang of China's yin? What cultural bonds tied Judaism and China? Israel and China, past, present and future. These are just some of the topics explored in this book in a historical setting: not Chinese nor Jewish, but Chinese AND Jewish. The book compares ancient and contemporary Chinese sources with corresponding Western literature to show that these two cultures balanced each other in a cultural relationship of YIN and YANG: one as a religion that deeply influenced Western cultures and the other in an opposing environment secluded, isolated and little understood by outsiders. The book also presents China and Judaism through the eyes of the people who have faithfully followed their tenets since antiquity. Readers will see these two cultures in a new light: not as "fossils" but as two vibrant cultures tied by invisible bonds to survive and flourish to present day.

Download or read book The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng written by Anson H. Laytner and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2017-07-21 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This scholarly collection examines the origins, history, and contemporary nature of Chinese Judaism in the community of Kaifeng. These essays, written by a diverse, international team of contributors, explore the culture and history of this thousand-year-old Jewish community, whose synthesis of Chinese and Jewish cultures helped guarantee its survival. Part I of this study analyzes the origin and historical development of the Kaifeng community, as well as the unique cultural synthesis it engendered. Part II explores the contemporary nature of this Chinese Jewish community, particularly examining the community’s relationship to Jewish organizations outside of China, the impact of Western Jewish contact, and the tenuous nature of Jewish identity in Kaifeng.

Download or read book China and Religion written by Edward Harper Parker and published by . This book was released on 1905 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Jews in Old China written by Sidney Shapiro and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The accidental discovery in the 17th century of a Jewish community in the city of Kaifeng, and the findings there by Jesuit missionaries, marked the beginning of widespread interest in the subject of Jews in China. In the centuries that followed, Western Sinologists arrived in China and engaged in a variety of investigations. In the 1f980s, however, Sidney Shapiro, a former New York lawyer who has lived half a century in Beijing, felt that "there was a crying need to learn what the Chinese scholars themselves have to say about the history of Jews in China." With that in mind, he compiled the remarkable fruits of research conducted by Chinese social scientists, and edited and translated them into English. Jews in Old China was originally published by Hippocrene Books in 1984 with considerable success. It was then translated into Hebrew and published in Israel in 1987. This newly expanded edition offers a rich exposition, according to the Chinese investigations, on the origins of these Jewish migrants-when and why they came, the routes they followed, where they settled, and descriptions of their religious and social lives under the Hans, the Mongols, and the Manchus. This book provides a wealth of information about the conflicts, contributions, adaptation and ultimate assimilation of the Jews in China. It also introduces, from the Chinese perspective, the Radanites, the great medieval Jewish mercantile traders, who provided an important link between China and the West.

Download or read book Survival of the Chinese Jews The Jewish Community of Kaifeng written by Donald Leslie and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2023-07-31 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Haggadah of the Kaifeng Jews of China written by Fook-Kong Wong and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2011-09-20 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive, textual treatment of the Kaifeng Passover Rite is a significant contribution to the ongoing discussion of the community’s origins in particular and to comparative Jewish liturgy in general. The book includes a facsimile of one manuscript and a sample of the other, the full text of the Hebrew/Aramaic and Judeo-Persian Haggadah in Hebrew characters, as well as an English translation. Following a review of the community’s history, sources for study, and related scholarly work conducted to date, the languages used in the Haggadah and their backgrounds are discussed in detail. Analysis of the order of the service allows for comparison of the Kaifeng Jewish community’s recitation of the Passover liturgy, performance of ritual, and consumption of ceremonial food to other communities in the Jewish Diaspora. The various parts and chapters of the book, including its extensive and meticulous annotations and bibliographical references, provide much fresh and useful material for scholars and readers interested in pre-modern Jewish, Judeo-Persian and Chinese literary traditions and cultures. David Yeroushalmi, Tel Aviv University, 2015

Download or read book His Stubbornship Prime Minister Wang Anshi 1021 1086 Reformer and Poet written by Jonathan O. Pease and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 677 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China’s most controversial prime minister, path-breaking reformer, and an iconic Song-dynasty poet, Wang Anshi (1021—1086) is fully chronicled in English for the first time in almost a century, with a new emphasis on his luminous late verse.

Download or read book China and the Jewish People written by Salomon Wald and published by Gefen Publishing House Ltd. This book was released on 2004 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jewish people and world Jewish leadership are facing critical dilemmas, opportunities and challenges. These create a need for systematic thinking to examine the range of decisions that may affect the standing of world Jewry in the decades to come. The Jewish People Policy Planning Institute (JPPPI) was established as an independent think tank whose mission is to contribute to the continuity of the Jewish people and Judaism, and their thriving future. China and the Jewish People' is the first document in a series of strategy papers dedicated to improving the standing of the Jewish people in emerging superpowers without biblical tradition.China and Jewish People: Old Civilizations in a New Era by Dr. Shalom Salomon Wald, is a crucial book that addresses the Jewish people and their issues with China.

Download or read book From Kaifeng to Shanghai written by Roman Malek and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collection presents the proceedings of the international colloquium held in Sankt Augustin in 1997 and additional materials. The articles are written in English, German or Chinese (with English abstracts). The volume includes a general index with glossary.

Download or read book The Works of Li Qingzhao written by Ronald Egan and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Previous translations and descriptions of Li Qingzhao are molded by an image of her as lonely wife and bereft widow formed by centuries of manipulation of her work and legacy by scholars and critics (all of them male) to fit their idea of a what a talented woman writer would sound like. The true voice of Li Qingzhao is very different. A new translation and presentation of her is needed to appreciate her genius and to account for the sense that Chinese readers have always had, despite what scholars and critics were saying, about the boldness and originality of her work. The introduction will lay out the problems of critical refashioning and conventionalization of her carried out in the centuries after her death, thus preparing the reader for a new reading. Her songs and poetry will then be presented in a way that breaks free of a narrow autobiographical reading of them, distinguishes between reliable and unreliable attributions, and also shows the great range of her talent by including important prose pieces and seldom read poems. In this way, the standard image of Li Qingzhao, exemplied by a handful of her best known and largely misunderstood works, will be challenged and replaced by a new understanding. The volume will present a literary portrait of Li Qingzhao radically unlike the one in conventional anthologies and literary histories, allowing English readers for the first time to appreciate her distinctiveness as a writer and to properly gauge her achievement as a female alternative, as poet and essayist, to the male literary culture of her day.

Download or read book The Hope of Israel written by Menasseh Ben-Israel and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 1987-09-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When The Hope of Israel was translated into English in 1652, its argument from Scripture that messianic redemption would not come to the Jewish people until they were scattered in all the corners of the Earth aroused great interest and played an instrumental part in the discussions in the Commonwealth under Cromwell which eventually led to the readmission of the Jews in 1656. This edition of that English text includes an introduction and notes which place the work in the intellectual context of its time.

Download or read book Asian and African Studies written by meisai.org.il and published by אילמ"א. This book was released on with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Journey to the People s Republic of China Review Analysis written by Kalman Dubov and published by Kalman Dubov. This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On a Holland America Grand Voyage aboard the flagship Amsterdam, I had the great fortune of visiting the ancient land of China, now known as the People's Republic of China. This visit enabled me to, for the first time, to walk part of the way of the Great Wall, visit the Old Summer Palace and see Tien An Men Square and the Forbidden City. Besides visiting the capital city, the ship also visited Shanghai and Hong Kong. China is a huge country whose history goes back millennia. The places we visited provided but a glimpse of that history and its current politics. In this volume, I review China's ancient history, with an overview of the many dynasties that made China great. For many years, China stood at the forefront of technological and scientific discovery, known today as the Four Great Discoveries - the compass, making paper, gunpowder, and printing. Each of these transformed the world, in its own way. Yet, the advancement of science and technology did not stay in China. The great conundrum today is exploring the reasons China lost its ability to stand at the helm of such advancement. I explore this issue while reviewing the complexities of how China lived, both in its dynastic and modern periods. Ancient China had civil service examinations as a method to identify the best and brightest minds and then to employ them for service to the emperor. Jinshi, the highest and most difficult examination was so complicated, the successful candidates' name was inscribed on stone, then selected to remain in Beijing in service to the emperor. Such examinations later migrated to other countries in the Far East, then to the West, where it is in common use today. China and its millennium-long history reflect an ancient people who today seek to assert their presence and power on the world stage. Prior to its current form of government, it was forced to capitulate to Western colonial powers. Revolts by the Chinese against such foreign intervention resulted in the Opium Wars, the loss of Hong Kong, and the destruction of its Old Summer Palace. I explore China's bitter past, together with its current belligerence on the world stage as it seeks to redevelop and transform itself, from the ancient Silk Road into the modern OBOR - One Belt; One Road with dramatic effect on many peoples and nations. I also noted the conundrum of seeing tall high-rise clusters of apartment buildings, structures that could house thousands of people, but stand completely empty. Passing these buildings at night was eerie; not a single light or human is visible anywhere. The claim of a surging China, at least in the places I visited, made me wonder if the building boom the media and economists claim is but a bubble, soon to evaporate in the glare of inquiry and reality. Nonetheless, this visit was dramatic in its own way, offering many varieties of the different strata of this complex society. During this visit, I explored the Jewish community, first in Shanghai, then in Hong Kong. Several Jewish passengers joined to attend the Sabbath Service at the Chabad House. We were warmly welcomed and saw a robust community in this remote part of the world. In Hong Kong, we visited several synagogues, noting the pride and activity present in these communities. I explore the history of the Jewish community in these centers, with a special interest in the Jewish ‘Ghetto’ of Shanghai where thousands of European Jews were sheltered during the Nazi’s Final Solution. They were given refuge in Shanghai, and the area they lived in is still visible by way of a museum and plaques indicating where they lived and survived the war years. The enormity of China demands a multi-volume effort to do justice to its geography and history. This is but a small contribution of this ancient land.

Download or read book Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities written by Stephen Sharot and published by Wayne State University Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides sociological analyses of religious developments and identities in both historical and contemporary Jewish communities.

Download or read book The Jewish Chinese Nexus written by M. Avrum Ehrlich and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2008-06-26 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jewish Chinese Nexus explores through a collection of articles the nexus between two of the oldest, intact, starkly contrasting and most interesting civilizations on earth; Jews and Chinese. This volume studies how they are interacting in modernity; how they view each other and what areas of cooperation are evolving between their scholars, activists and politicians and what talents, qualities and social assets are being recognized on each side for the purpose of cooperation and exchange. Featuring contributions from some of the most important scholars and activists from China and from around the Jewish Diaspora, the essays purview China related themes including the fascination of Chinese with Jews and Judaism and its potential value in Chinese national and religious reconstruction; religious and ethnic identity; East – West interactions. It deals with the growing Jewish community in China and its impact as well as the development of Jewish studies in China and the translation of Jewish texts into Chinese and their impact. The work is a first of its kind, identifying an emerging meeting point between these two people and arguing that despite the giant contrasts in their national constructs they have nonetheless other important patterns and themes in common which pave the way for fruitful cooperation and mutual respect.