Wandering: Jews of the Silk Road

“שֶׁתּוֹלִיכֵנוּ לְשָׁלוֹם וְתַצְעִידֵנוּ לְשָׁלוֹם, וְתִסְמְכֵנוּ לְשָׁלוֹם, וְתַדְרִיכֵנוּ לְשָׁלוֹם, וְתַגִּיעֵנוּ לִמְחוֹז חֶפְצֵנוּ לְחַיִּים וּלְשִׂמְחָה וּלְשָׁלוֹם”

“That You lead us toward peace, guide our footsteps toward peace, and make us reach our desired destination for life, gladness and peace.” (The Wayfarer's Prayer)

To A.A., my friend and guide through the dunes of life.

An Tian was excited.

The young Mandarin fastened the sleeves of his black robe and hurried through the capital's smoky alleys until he entered a modestly built hall, not far from the Xuanwu gate of the city walls.

A native of Kaifeng, the scholar had come to Beijing seeking a position in the local civil service. Before heading north, An Tian had learned that a group of Westerners had arrived in China, and that these foreigners had not only received the Emperor's consent to settle in the imperial capital but had also been permitted to build their own house of worship. An Tian's source also claimed that the foreign party were strict adherents of one almighty god, and that they were not Muslims — a well-established creed in the China of the time.

For An Tian that could have meant one thing only. Entering the house, he was greeted by a bearded European who, after a short explanation, was delighted to meet a local co-religionist and led him into the main prayer hall, where they stood before four figures adorned with haloes. Following his host by kneeling in front of the picture, An Tian curiously enquired why the painting showed only four of Jacob's twelve sons.

And that is the story of the strange meeting between the Jesuit Matteo Ricci and An Tian, the Jewish Mandarin of Kaifeng.

Trade before dispersion

The Roman suppression of the great Jewish revolt and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD, traumatic as they were, were not the main generators of Jewish communities outside their Middle Eastern homeland. Earlier waves of invasion and deportation, as well as purely economic motives, had already contributed to the gradual establishment of Jewish communities from the western Mediterranean to Iran and further east, and from the Caucasus to Yemen.

Early Jewish communities in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Iran are well documented as early as the seventh century BC. Uprooted from their traditional professions of agriculture and craft, many of their members turned to mercantile activity, banking, and even to soldiering as mercenaries.

These prosperous communities eventually played a significant part in the reconstruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, erected under Persian imperial approval in 516 BC. The Roman destruction of the Jewish homeland contributed to the growth of the diaspora communities, as many prisoners of war and slaves were redeemed by local families, as Jewish law obliged. As a result of this shift of gravity — from the original community in Palestine to the Mediterranean basin and beyond — the Jewish population came to rely more heavily on trade: a phenomenon common among immigrants, who lack access to local land but possess multilingualism and overseas connections, two qualities that prove beneficial in international commerce.

Under Islam, from the seventh century onwards, this tendency intensified. Heavy taxation, including land tax and the jizya, a per-capita tax levied on non-Muslims, generated Jewish migration away from agricultural land and into the cities — a process encouraged by the late Abbasid political crisis and the weakening of central power during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

The fixing of Jewish communities in a predominantly urban setting, a process that took place in the medieval Islamic world as much as in Christendom, made Jews far more dependent on their neighbours' favour and left them exposed to arbitrary violence and exploitation. That same condition obliged them to take whatever advantage was available, and many turned to money-lending, banking and, of course, trade.

Historically there is a strong connection between trade and the establishment of a population far from its place of origin, in what is known as a “trade diaspora” — as the Muslim, Armenian and Indian diasporas also show. Members of such a community are usually defined by a shared language, religion or set of practices, which strengthens their sense of unity and common interest and sometimes allows them to dominate a certain territory or field of commerce. A good example is the Sogdian diaspora, which dominated Inner Eurasian trade with China during late antiquity.

Those who know the way

One of the earliest medieval accounts of a Jewish trade network refers to a mysterious guild named the Radanites. The etymology of the name is unclear, but some have claimed a Persian origin, from the combination of rah (road, راه) and dana (knowing, دانا) — “those who know the way”.

Little is known of this long-vanished guild, although a few Muslim sources give an interesting account of its activity:

“These merchants speak Arabic, Persian, Roman, the Frank, Spanish and Slav languages. They journey from West to East, from East to West, partly on land, partly by sea. They transport from the West eunuchs, female slaves, boys, brocade, castor, marten and other furs, and swords. They take ship from Firanja (France), on the Western Sea, and make for Farama (Pelusium). There they load their goods on camel-back and go by land to al-Kolzum (Suez), a distance of twenty-five farsakhs. They embark in the East Sea and sail from al-Kolzum to al-Jar and al-Jeddah, then they go to Sind, India and China. On their return from China they carry back musk, aloes, camphor, cinnamon and other products of the Eastern countries to al-Kolzum and bring them back to Farama, where they again embark on the Western Sea. Some make sail for Constantinople to sell their goods to the Romans.” (Ibn Khurdadhbah, Kitab al-Masalik, “Book of Routes”, 846 AD)

The apparent success of the Radanites can be attributed to their ability to act as middlemen in the deeply divided world of the early Middle Ages. The rise of Islam and the collapse of the Western Roman Empire greatly reduced Mediterranean maritime trade while preventing Muslim and Christian traders from crossing the geopolitical borders of the day by land. This interreligious rift allowed Jewish traders to operate as an independent commercial force and to establish a far-reaching network stretching from the Carolingian west, through the Islamic lands, all the way to China.

The ninth-century collapse of the Tang dynasty in China and constant warfare among the nomadic powers of Central Asia made long-range trade impossible and apparently hastened the final collapse of the Radanite network sometime between the tenth and eleventh centuries.

For lack of external sources and the complete absence of internal ones, we can only speculate about the extent and historical significance of the Radanite network. It is plausible that a few fragments of Judeo-Persian manuscript found in the Chinese province of Xinjiang, a fragment of a Selichot (סליחות) prayer found in the Buddhist grottoes of Dunhuang-Mogao, and the remarkable 2011 discovery of the so-called “Afghan Geniza” — a hoard of commercial and religious manuscripts dating from as early as 1005 AD — are indications of Radanite activity. But these remain speculations.

A Jewish steppe empire

Beyond its commercial position, the Radanite network may have played a political role as well, one that proved crucial in medieval Eurasian history.

Religion, contrary to common belief, is not always a matter of spirituality, and this is especially important when dealing with nomadic politics. Adopting a new religion is a common practice among a rising nomadic elite. It gives the ruler a chance to announce his independence symbolically while simultaneously gaining legitimacy from a favoured group or acquiring new political and commercial advantages. It is not uncommon for a steppe ruler to hold more than one religious or political title, and more than one source of legitimacy.

This exact need led one steppe empire to the least expected religion available.

The seventh-century rise of the Turkic Khazar tribes at the expense of the deteriorating Göktürk Empire allowed them to form an extensive realm in the Pontic steppe, north of the Caucasus and between the Black and Caspian seas — a sea that has borne their name in Persian ever since (Darya-i Khazar, دریای خزر).

The Khazars' proximity to the Abbasid Caliphate on one side and the Byzantine Empire on the other led their leadership to a theologically unexpected but otherwise considerably pragmatic choice: it made Judaism the state religion.

“And the King immersed himself in the Khazar lore, and performed the rites himself with much devotion; and while devoting himself to that, an angel appeared to him at night, saying: ‘Your intention is much approved, while your acts are not.' And by that he investigated the faiths and religions, until accepting the Jewish faith, and with him the Khazars in multitude.” (Yehuda Halevi, The Kuzari, 12th century)

This quotation from the Kuzari by Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, an apologetic composition of the twelfth century, represents a common theme in the history of religions and nations: a wise ruler summons a religious debate in order to choose the right faith for his realm. Halevi uses the theme to prove the superiority of the Jewish faith over Islam, Christianity and Aristotelian metaphysics.

Fictional as the story may be, the conversion of the Khazar Kaganate's elite (618–1048), perhaps under Radanite influence, is a historical fact, well documented in Arab, Byzantine, Armenian, Zoroastrian and Khazar sources. Even so, Judaism was never exclusive in the Khazar realm, and the characteristically tolerant nomads and their sedentary subjects freely followed an array of practices including Islam, Christianity, Tengrism and perhaps even Buddhism.

With the Kaganate's eleventh-century disintegration under pressure from Oghuz Turkic groups and the Rus principalities came the end of Jewish influence on the steppe peoples, even though several given names in the founding family of the Seljuks, such as Israel and Daud, may be a sign of lingering Jewish-Khazar influence in the region. What eventually became of the Khazar Jews is hard to answer: some may have converted, some may have joined existing communities in Central Asia or Eastern Europe. Today it is a popular topic among racists, nationalists and empty-headed people of all creeds and religions, so we shall leave it there.

The story of the Khazar conversion shows how even an exclusive, non-missionary religion such as Judaism might be adopted by a nomadic empire under the right social and political conditions. It also demonstrates the Jewish presence in Eurasian commerce.

Deep in the heart of Asia

Naturally, Jewish presence south of the steppe, in the lands of greater Iran, goes back further still. An interesting fourth-century piece of evidence for Jews in Central Asia comes from the Babylonian Talmud:

“רב שמואל בר ביסנא אילקע למרגואן, אייתי ליה חמרא ולא אשתי, אייתו ליה שיכרא ולא אשתי… משום שימצא דשימצא” (בבלי, ע"ז לא ב) — “Rabbi Samuel Bar Bisna came to Margiana (Merv), but did not drink the wine served to him, suspecting it was not kosher.”

This rabbinical evidence may indicate a well-established Jewish community deep in the heart of Asia. Later Bukharan Jewish traditions from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan trace their origin back to the first Jewish exiles, deported during the Assyrian onslaught of the seventh century BC. Whether descendants of the Assyrian exile or of a later Persian origin, this ancient community of traders and artisans — now almost entirely extinct in its homeland — is among the oldest ethnic groups in Central Asia, well predating the Turkic migrations that shaped the region's medieval and modern history.

Another piece of evidence for a prominent Jewish community was found in the region of Ghur, in central Afghanistan. Hebrew, Aramaic and Judeo-Persian inscriptions and tombstones there suggest a Jewish presence of at least five hundred years, the earliest inscription dating from 752 AD — an interesting date given its chronological proximity to the Tang dynasty heyday of the silk routes, and to the An Lushan rebellion that destroyed it, though that is a different story.

China

The history of early Jewish presence in China is shrouded in mystery. Some claim a Jewish presence in China's western regions as early as the Han dynasty (c. first century AD), and Judeo-Persian fragments found in Xinjiang are dated to around the eighth century. Jewish traders of Persian origin may have arrived in China during the Tang dynasty, when an influx of foreigners — Muslims, Nestorian Christians, Manichaeans and Buddhists — entered the Middle Kingdom via the silk routes, making Chang'an the most cosmopolitan and vibrant city in the world of its time.

The Kaifeng community's own tradition dates its establishment to the Song dynasty (960–1279), with the coming of Jewish traders from the Xiyu (Western Regions, that is, Xinjiang), allegedly after being invited by the newly established dynasty. However, since the Chinese historically did not distinguish much between Jews and Muslims — bearded, holding strange religious concepts, eating no pork — hard evidence from these early times is difficult to find.

Most of the evidence for Jewish presence in China therefore comes from external, non-Chinese sources, usually Muslim and Christian, such as Ibn Zayyd of Siraf, who recorded Muslim and Jewish casualties in the Huang Chao revolt of the late ninth century. Travellers of the Mongol age such as Marco Polo and Ibn Battuta also report a Jewish presence under the rule of the Mongol Yuan dynasty, a time of great movement of populations and commercial activity across Eurasia.

One tale offers further evidence of a Jewish presence in the Yuan domain of the thirteenth century. Deeply insulted by a Muslim delegation that refused to eat the non-halal meat served at an official banquet, the furious Qubilai Khan issued the following decree:

“Chinggis Khan was born and collected all the various countries from where the sun rises to where it sets and made them follow Mongol customs. Among these many diverse peoples only the Muslims objected, saying, ‘We do not eat food prepared in Mongol fashion.' Chinggis Khan thus asked, ‘Being protected by Heaven we conquered you. You are our slaves, but you refuse to eat our food…' Saying ‘We do not eat what other people have slaughtered,' and because they harassed the common people, it has been decreed: Muslims and Jews must eat meat regardless of by whom, or how, it is slaughtered. They are forbidden to kill sheep by slitting the throat. They are forbidden to perform circumcision. And because they are supposed to pray five times a day, if they do so twice and pray ten times a day, then they will understand.”

As a consequence, many foreigners left the Yuan domain in search of more tolerant territory in which to practise their trade, contributing to the poor condition of the Yuan economy and, eventually, to its downfall.

Scholars today believe that China had a number of substantial Jewish communities, mostly along the coastline — in Hangzhou, Ningbo, and most famously in Kaifeng, where a major synagogue stood, constantly rebuilt as most Chinese wooden structures were, but always keeping its westward orientation towards a forgotten city on a mountain.

Too small to remember

Not much was left of the Jewish community of Kaifeng. Some elderly residents of the old hutongs may be the descendants of An Tian and his family. The community's last synagogue was destroyed in a flood during the mid-nineteenth century, and the last rabbi died at around the same time.

Chinese culture has a known ability to assimilate newcomers: Turks, Mongols and Manchus all gave in to the silken comforts and scholarly depths of the Middle Kingdom. Even the large Muslim community — large on a Muslim scale, not a Chinese one — seems more Chinese than strictly adherent to the sharia, and historically it needed frequent doctrinal wake-up calls to remind it that it was an offshoot of the Dar al-Islam. The Jewish community stood little chance against that all-embracing Chineseness. It was simply too small to remember: too small to remember its own language, its scriptures and its own history. And in Judaism, remembrance is everything.