Destinations - China

The lost Jews of China has been an ongoing detective story for many years. One account says they first arrived there over 900 years ago from Arab Jerusalem. Some are believed to have come from the Cochin area of India in the 2nd century.Others arrived through Persia to trade during the Song dynasty. They exchanged cotton cloth for silk and settled in Kaifeng.

There is evidence of a settlement in Khotan province in the 8th century. All the ancient communities have disappeared through total assimilation into Chinese life and culture.

With the cessation of Hong Kong to the British and the granting of foreign concessions in Shanghai, Tientsin and other cities, the second half of the 19th century brought an influx of Jews who were British or Russian subjects. The former from India or Iraq. Many of the latter came in the 20th century, escaping the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Sasoons of Baghdad built a trading empire in Shanghai, Canton and Hong Kong. By 1937 about 10,000 Jews were living in China, many of them coming after the rise of Hitler. In the next few years this number was to treble.

In 1942, with the outbreak of the war in the Pacific, they were all deported by the Japanese to Shanghai.

After the end of the Second World War most emigrated to Israel, the Americas, and some of Russian origin went back to the former Soviet Union.