A Virtual Tour of China with Rabbi Mordechai Becher

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Mordechai Becher’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

they imported silk from China it makes sense that'd have uh the same word and so these Jews probably originally Persian or Iraqi Jews rites eventually settled in kaiun in China either in the 8th Century or the or the 10th century and um they encountered no anti-Semitism and still today there's no anti-Semitism in China and they settled in in k in in k now what you see here is an inscription about the rebuilding of the synagogue the original synagogue was actually built in 1163 1163 give that just to give you an idea 1163 is around the time uh Rashi the great biblical commentator in France passed away in 1105 myones was living in Egypt in the 12th century nak manes 12th century nak manes Etc 13th century Spain so already back in the 12th century the Jews of kaiun had built a temple a sh a synagogue it was known as the Temple of Peace and Holiness unfortunately it was destroyed numerous times by flooding the last time it was destroyed was in the 19th century and it was not rebuilt again afterwards so the last synagogue was 1862 but we have inscriptions from the synagogue here is a 1663 inscription a synagogue here is a 1663 inscription a certain Emperor actually it was it was the Ming Dynasty in the Ming Dynasty which we're talking about the 14th century a Ming Dynasty Emperor Emperor gave the Jews surnames Chinese surnames as a sign of acceptance of the Jews this is an artist rendition of what they believed the original Kong synagogue would have looked like which as you can see is classic Chinese style and we actually have um pictures uh drawings of

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1. 0:00they imported silk from China it makes sense that'd have uh the same word and so…
2. 4:03and just to give you an idea Pearl Buck the very famous author American author who…
3. 8:42the uh mansuria economically and so and a lot of Jews wanted to get out of…
4. 13:20distribution of that book uh which we'll see uh we'll see soon here is a book…
5. 17:26on the office of the international opium commission February from February in 1909 and Shanghai was…
6. 22:06escaped from Poland and Germany and came made their way to Lithuania and um so a…
7. 26:45for Jewish Boys in Shanghai China and there were total during the second world war there…
8. 30:53fascinating well I think the most fascinating Jew in China was a guy by the name…
9. 35:30mountain on escalators which are running all the time that's actually a form of public transport…
10. 40:11not my thing but in any case it's a fascinating country uh there's a lot of…

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