Nomads: The Jews of the Silk Road

Ai Tian was expectant.

The young mandarin adjusted his black robe and hurried through the capital’s smoky alleys until he reached a modest hall near the city walls' Xuanwu Gate.

A native of Kaifeng, the scholar had come to Beijing to secure a post among the bureaucratic elite. Before leaving the south, he had heard that a group of Westerners had arrived in China, receiving imperial permission to settle and establish their own house of worship. Ai Tian’s sources suggested these foreigners believed in a single, omnipotent God, yet were distinct from the Muslims who lived in Chinese cities and whom Ai Tian knew well.

To Ai Tian, the implication was clear.

Upon entering, Ai was greeted by a dignified, heavily bearded foreigner who was delighted to meet a fellow believer. Ai was led with honor to the main prayer hall, where the two stood before four figures adorned with halos. Falling to his knees as his host did, Ai Tian wondered aloud why the painting depicted only four of Jacob’s twelve sons.

So goes the story of the meeting between the Jesuit Matteo Ricci and Ai Tian, the Jewish mandarin from Kaifeng.

Jewish communities in Mesopotamia and Iran appear in records as early as the seventh century BCE. Severed from their ancestral ties to farming and crafts, they increasingly turned to trade, finance, and service as mercenaries. The destruction of the Jewish homeland by the Roman Empire accelerated the diaspora; as the Jewish center of gravity shifted to foreign lands, trade became a primary livelihood—a pattern typical of immigrant communities with limited access to land but significant advantages in multilingualism and international connections.

This commercial shift intensified under Islamic rule, where high land taxes and the poll tax on non-Muslims (jizya) spurred urbanization. The process peaked during the late Abbasid period, when the political and economic crises of the 11th and 12th centuries drove further migration to relatively safe urban centers. Yet, much like in the Christian West, this left Jews dependent on the whims of local rulers, vulnerable to riots and arbitrary restrictions, and largely confined to the spheres of crafts, finance, and trade.

Historically, trade and the establishment of populations far from home are inextricably linked in what are known as "trade diasporas." This phenomenon is visible among Muslims, Armenians, and Indians alike. One of the most famous examples of a Jewish trade network is the Radhanites of the early Middle Ages. While the etymology of the name is debated, some argue it stems from the Persian for "those who know the way" (rah- "way," dana- "to know").

We know little about the scope of this guild, and what information exists comes from a handful of Islamic sources:

"They speak Arabic, Persian, Roman, as well as Frankish and Slavic. They travel from West to East and from East to West, both by sea and by land. From the West they carry eunuchs, slave girls, brocade, and beaver skins, as well as furs and swords. From Firanjah (the land of the Franks) on the Western Sea... they travel to Sind (India) and China... On their return they carry musk, camphor... and cinnamon, and some of them sail to Constantinople and sell their goods to the Romans."

(Ibn Khordadbeh, "Book of Roads and Kingdoms," 846 CE)

The success of Jewish merchant guilds stemmed largely from their role as intermediaries in the fractured world of the early Middle Ages. While geopolitical borders often blocked Christian and Muslim merchants, their Jewish counterparts could maintain an extensive network stretching from the Frankish West through the Islamic world to the heart of China. The Radhanite trade likely flourished until the ninth century, when political instability in the Tang Dynasty and Central Asia made overland travel untenable.

Given the scarcity of primary records, reconstructing the Radhanite network is difficult. It is possible that the ninth-century Judeo-Persian parchment fragments discovered in Xinjiang, the "Selichot" prayer found in the Dunhuang library cave, and the Jewish manuscripts recently surfaced in Afghanistan are all remnants of this commercial activity. Along with ancient tombstones and rock inscriptions from the height of the Silk Road trade, these hints point to a vibrant presence, even if definitive proof remains elusive.

The Tang Dynasty, the most powerful to rule China to that point, oversaw a golden age of contact between East and West. A flood of foreigners—Iranians, Indians, Turks, and Arabs—migrated to the interior to seize commercial opportunities. Many, perhaps including Jews, settled in the cosmopolitan capital of Chang'an and in bustling coastal ports.

Internal records from the Chinese Jewish community date their arrival to the tenth century, when they were invited to settle by the Song Dynasty. However, external verification is complicated by the fact that many Chinese observers did not distinguish between Jews and Muslims—both groups were noted for their prominent noses, their avoidance of pork, and their esoteric religious rites. Nevertheless, Muslim sources confirm a Jewish presence in both coastal and inland regions as early as the ninth century.

Compelling evidence of a Jewish presence appears during the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. An edict issued by Kublai Khan—who was offended when a Muslim delegation refused to eat non-halal meat at an official banquet—banned both Muslim and Jewish dietary customs:

"Genghis Khan was born and gathered all the nations from the rising of the sun to its setting, and brought them to follow the ways of the Mongols... Among these nations only the Muslims say: 'We do not eat food prepared by Mongols.' [Genghis Khan] replied: By the protection of Heaven, we have conquered you; you are our slaves, yet you refuse to eat our food, saying you will not eat what others have slaughtered. And because they trouble the people, it is declared: Muslims and Jews are required to eat meat, regardless of how or by whom it was slaughtered, and they are forbidden to slaughter sheep by cutting the throat, and they are forbidden to circumcise their men... only thus will they reach an understanding."

It is unclear how strictly this edict was enforced, as many West Asians served the dynasty until its collapse. However, it serves as fascinating proof of the presence of Middle Eastern and Central Asian populations in China, and of the complex friction between Abrahamic traditions and the social fabric of East Asia.

Modern scholars believe there were several significant Jewish communities in China, notably in Hangzhou, Ningbo, and Kaifeng. In Kaifeng, a magnificent wooden synagogue was built in the finest Chinese architectural tradition. Yet, unlike other Chinese temples, it did not face the southern solstice; it turned toward a mysterious, forgotten city on a remote mountain in the West.

The Jewish community in China likely never exceeded a few thousand people. While they began as traders, the international connections that sustained them began to fray in the 17th century. A deep process of Sinicization followed: Jews took local concubines, adopted Chinese names, and integrated fully into the social and economic life of the surrounding community.

The Great Synagogue of Kaifeng was severely damaged by a flood in the mid-19th century. Around the same time, the community's last religious leader died without a successor, and the knowledge of the Hebrew script finally faded away.

Chinese culture is famous for its powers of assimilation. Great peoples—Turks, Mongols, Iranians, and Manchus—eventually succumbed to the comforts and intellectual depths of the Middle Kingdom. Even China's massive Muslim community is dwarfed by the Han population; culturally, they are often closer to their Chinese neighbors than to followers of Islamic law abroad, historically requiring periodic external reminders of their distinct religious identity.

The Jewish community stood little chance against such a profound embrace. It was simply too small to preserve its origins, its language, its scriptures, and its faith.

And in Judaism, memory is everything.

In the images: The last Jews of Kaifeng in late Qing Dynasty photographs, wearing characteristic Manchu queues. A community book in Hebrew and Chinese; a diagram of the Great Synagogue built on a Chinese model; and the Jesuit Matteo Ricci, one of the most influential Catholic missionaries in China.