By Dan Levin, The Forward: Amid Beijing's boom, a Jewish community blooms
Talkback
Title:JEWS Have history in China going back a thousand years
Name:PETER SM
City: MELBOURNEState: AUSTRALIA
The Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community that has existed in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China, for hundreds of years. Although Jews in modern China have traditionally called themselves Youtai (犹太) in Mandarin Chinese ? also the predominant contemporary Chinese language term for Jews in general ? the community was known by their Han Chinese neighbors as adherents of tiao jin jiao (挑筋教), meaning, loosely, the religion which removes the sinew (a reference to kashrut).