Though small, these are some of the newest and fastest growing Jewish communities in the world.
Release Date: 10/24/2008
By PAUL ROCKOWER
When Israeli Dvir Bar-Gal arrived in Shanghai some seven years ago, there were roughly 300 Jews in the city.
That community is now seven times larger. Jewish communities in China are expanding in a way that matches the frenetic expansion of the enigmatic land in which they live.
"The Jewish community of China is one the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world," said Bar-Gal, who today runs a Jewish history tour of Shanghai.
As China has opened itself to the outside world, Jewish communities are being reborn in China. Shanghai is home to the largest Jewish community, with upwards of 2,000 people, followed by Beijing at 1,500 to 2,000. Jews have migrated to work or study in China from Europe, North America, Australia and Israel. Many of those now residing in China are drawn by business pursuits, but there are also many Jewish students as well as Jewish families connected with the various diplomatic missions posted in China. Most of these migrants see China as a new land of economic opportunity, though not necessarily a permanent new home. Historically, however, Jews saw China as offering a different opportunity: the chance to escape persecution.
The history of Jewish communities in China dates back more than a millennium with the storied community of Kaifeng. In the modern era, however, the most important communities were in Harbin, Tianjin, and Shanghai. These were seen as places of tolerance in a hostile world. The emergence and resurgence of Shanghai's Jewish community illuminates the interplay between global trends and Chinese policies.
Shanghai's Jewish community began in the mid-19th century with the immigration of mercantilist Sephardic Jews from the Middle East, but the Russian turmoil of the early 20th century brought thousands of immigrants to China. Many Jews fled the Russo-Japanese war, the outbreak of pogroms, and disorder associated with World War I, the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil war and found haven in China. After the Russian Revolution, Jews came to Shanghai and settled in the Hongkou neighborhood. As European-style tenement houses were built and Jewish-owned shops, cafes and kosher delicatessens multiplied, residents and others began to call the area Little Vienna.
With Europe's descent into war in the 1930s, Shanghai again became a haven for Jews seeking refuge from Nazi persecution. As doors, including American ones, closed for European Jewish , Shanghai was one of the few remaining places that did not require papers or a visa for entry. From 1939 to 1941, 20,000 to 30,000 Jews immigrated to Shanghai to escape Nazi persecution.
With the 1937 Japanese occupation of Shanghai, the Japanese authorities designated the Jewish migrants as "stateless refugees" and restricted their habitation and commerce to a somewhat benign ghetto in the Hongkou neighborhood. The Hongkou neighborhood was also home to many displaced Chinese, who were refugees from the Japanese occupation.
Today, few of those Jewish refugees or their descendants remain in Shanghai. After World War II and the the Communist victory in China's civil war nearly all of Shanghai's Jews migrated to America, Canada, Australia or Israel.
The new Jewish communities of businesspeople, students and diplomats are growing and members are working together to create the infrastructure necessary to support the community and foster connections to the faith. Chabad, one of the largest Orthodox Jewish movements that runs thousands of outreach centers around the world, plays a major part in the Jewish life in China. In total, Chabad runs seven Jewish centers throughout China: Beijing, two in Shanghai, Guangzhou, two in Hong Kong, and Shenzhen.
Chabad set up shop in Beijing in 2001, and since then has built the foundations of Jewish communal life in China's capital, including a Jewish day school, community center and even a Chinese pagoda-style mikvah (Jewish ritual bath). Despite these familiarities, the Jewish lifestyle still faces challenges in China. Given the complexities of observing Kashrut—Jewish culinary law—in a land as gastronomically diverse as China, the ability for religious Jews to eat in a kosher fashion remains a constant challenge.
However, Western import grocery stores often help. "Thank God for the Western supermarkets," Rabbi Freundlich said. "It is possible to get some kosher foods in the form of Western products that happen to be kosher."
In addition, once a year, the communities in Beijing and Shanghai receive from Israel a container of dry goods, kosher wine and long-lasting milk. As for kosher meat and chicken, the Rabbi has a kosher slaughterer flown in either from South Africa or Australia. In addition, in March 2007, the Chabad Beijing opened Dini's, the only kosher restaurant in the city.
The situation in Shanghai is similar, with Chabad maintaining a Jewish center in both older city center and the newer Pudong area. The Jewish center at the Chabad Shanghai is complete with children's school and weekly Shabbat service, and a kosher café, as well as a kosher meal delivery service to hotels and offices.
But there are still obstacles. Judaism is not one of the five recognized religions in China, but the government has largely ignored it. The recent developments of these new, non-refugee communities coupled with their relatively miniscule population hasn't yet drawn the attention of the government.
"The Jewish community has a good relationship with the Chinese government," said Rabbi Shimon Freundlich of Chabad Beijing. "The Chinese government understands that the Beijing Jewish community respects the Chinese culture, and the wishes of the government and the Chinese people." Yet currently, Rabbi Freundlich's home serves as the temple, as the Jewish community is not permitted to build freestanding places of worship.
Meanwhile, the Jewish community is pushing for status as a non-recognized Western minority community, which will offer the Jewish community status as an official community in China. Currently, the Jewish community is prohibited from performing conversions of local Chinese people, and local Chinese are not allowed to participate in rituals unless they are married to a Jew. Despite the red tape, there is local interest in the faith.
"Chabad gets a call at least once a week from someone in a distant province who wants to convert to Judaism," Rabbi Freundlich said. "We counsel them that if they are serious, then they can do a conversion in Hong Kong or Australia, but not in Mainland China."
Given the minute size of China's Jewish community, and the relatively few Jews worldwide, in many ways the concept of "the Jewish people" has an outsized stature in China. Interestingly, the Jewish image in popular Chinese culture has a rather fascinating position. According to the Washington Post article "Sold on a Stereotype," there is even a field of self-help books in China dedicated to "the Jewish way of making money." This genre includes such titles as The Legend of Jewish Wealth and The Eight Most Valuable Business Secrets of the Jewish. Despite the somewhat anti-Semitic undertones of such literature, the Washington Post article observes that Chinese also perceive the Jewish community as having a great deal of intelligence and business acumen.
"We are attracted by Jewish wisdom, intelligence, success and survival," said Professor Xu Xin, director of the Glazer Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University. "These are qualities the Chinese feel they can learn from. Both the Chinese and the Jews have a tradition of education and respect learning."
This sentiment has translated into a unique relationship in local populations, where Jewish residents are subject to no more discrimination than other foreign faces.
"[The sentiments] are the opposite of anti-Semitism, but rather appreciation," Bar-Gal said. "The majority of Chinese people don't know what ‘Jews' are—they have no concept. In big cities, some Chinese people know Jews, and view them as ‘smart' and ‘rich.' In China, there is positive thinking regarding business: if you are rich, you have achieved a goal. The Chinese want to copy and learn from the Jewish people—this is a compliment, not negative thought."
When asked about the future of the Jewish community in China, Bar-Gal had an intriguing, albeit tongue-in-cheek, answer: "I see the whole Jewish people's future here in China. With rising anti-Semitism in Europe, instability in Israel and financial troubles in the US, the entire Jewish world will come to live in China. You have a country that has a history free of anti-Semitism, and a culture that deeply respects the Jewish people. What is 12 million in a land of 1.3 billion?"
While this scenario is unlikely, the future for Jewish communities in China is indeed promising. The Jewish community in China is one of the fastest growing Jewish communities in the world; the increase in Jewish communal institutions in China ensures that Jewish communities can continue their extraordinary growth, and that over time Chinese will have a more realistic knowledge of the religion and its adherents in China.
Paul Rockower is a journalist who spent six weeks traveling in China. He writes a column for the Jerusalem Post on Jewish communities in far-flung places. Paul is currently pursuing a Master's in Public Diplomacy at USC.
Showing posts with label restaurant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label restaurant. Show all posts
Friday, October 24, 2008
Monday, July 07, 2008
Offering a toast to the kosher life
Scotland's Jewish population is small and in decline, but within the community are some dynamic ventures encouraging lapsed individuals to give their religion a re-think. Emma Cowing meets a Glasgow Rabbi doing everything he can to keep the faith alive.
IT'S A busy Tuesday evening at L'Chaims restaurant on the south side of Glasgow. A young waitress rushes between the tables, candles flicker invitingly, and a low hum of conversation accompanies the steady stream of plates arriving from the kitchen. Look closer, though, and all is not quite as you might expect in this popular eatery. All the male customers are wearing the traditional Jewish skull cap, the Kippah, every last item on the menu from the butter to the wine is Kosher, and the man presenting the credit-card machine is not a maître d' but a rabbi.
L'Chaims is Scotland's only Jewish Kosher restaurant, named after both its owner and a traditional Hebrew toast: "To life". Situated within the heart of Glasgow's Jewish area and run by local rabbi, Chaim Jacobs, and his wife Sora, it has become a potent symbol of rebirth in a community that is battling a slow yet steady decline.
Across the country Britain's Jewish population is falling. At the 2001 census there were 270,000 Jews in Britain, almost a quarter of whom were over the age of 65. The Board of Deputies believes this number has since dropped, and just 11 years before, in 1990, there were estimated to be about 340,000 British Jews. In Scotland there are around 6,400, compared to more than 8,000 in 1905. It is a subject that will be explored tonight in Vanessa Engle's BBC4 documentary Jews, which follows the efforts of one man – the millionaire Jonathan Faith, former owner of Faith shoes – to resuscitate interest in this ancient and often misunderstood religion.
Engle, herself a secular Jew, believes there are a number of reasons behind the decline. "People are marrying out of the faith, they're having fewer children, daring to be gay, living an alternative lifestyle. But society is
also becoming increasingly secular," she says.
It is still, she says, a misunderstood community. "When I started to research the subject I discovered there are many aspects of Jewish life that are still invisible. People have a lot of assumptions about Jews and Jewishness and what I found for myself is that people actually know very little about it."
Engle set out to document Faith – who was a secular Jew until the birth of his first child, 20 years ago, when he became what he describes as a "modern Orthodox Jew" – and his attempts to reignite interest in Judaism.
This he does primarily via the Jewish charity Aish, which takes non-religious Jews, many of them young men and women, on holidays to Israel in an attempt to reconnect them with their heritage.
Faith confronts his mission with the same techniques that made him a success. "Judaism is a product: I look at it as a product like anything else," he says. "For somebody to buy an idea, they've got to be shown the product in its best way possible. No-one likes the idea of Judaism being thought of as a product, but
sometimes you really need to look at it from a commercial point of view."
His plans are met with mixed levels of success. Some of the children who go on Aish's holidays seem more intent on drinking than attending Shul, and his own eight-week course on teaching the faith is not an instant success. By the end of the documentary he seems almost despondent about the future.
Those involved in the process admit it's not easy. As Glasgow-born Rabbi Malcolm Herman, director of another London-based Jewish educational initiative called Seed, points out in the documentary: "We're talking about applying ancient wisdom to contemporary living."
In Glasgow this same philosophy is being applied, not just at L'Chaims, but throughout the community. I meet Rabbi Jacobs, who as well as owning L'Chaims is a community rabbi in Giffnock and runs the Scottish arm of a Jewish educational organisation called Lubavitch, at his Giffnock home. In accordance with Jewish law
he does not shake my hand, but the warm welcome from both him and his wife Sora is genuine.
Rabbi Jacobs is on a mission to bring lapsed Scottish Jews back to their roots. Via Lubavitch, the New York-based Jewish educational initiative that is the world's biggest Jewish outreach organisation, he hopes to offer secular Jews who have abandoned their faith a reason to return.
"Formal practice of religion is on the decline, but there is still an interest in spirituality and Judaism within our community," says Rabbi Jacobs. "What we're offering is spirituality and we're offering it to people who no longer just want to go to the synagogue and read the prayers. They want to get some buzz out of it, and
spirituality that has some depth."
Was that, I ask, as they settle me in their cosy living room, while from the kitchen wafts the irresistibly comforting smell of chicken soup, why they decided to open a Jewish restaurant?
"There isn't really a Jewish community centre like there used to be," Rabbi Jacobs replies. "Because there are so many other things available, it's not a big attraction any more. So therefore, outwith the synagogue, the restaurant is probably the most active focal point where people can gravitate to and socialise within the
Jewish community."
There are around 5,500 Jews left in Glasgow's community, by far the biggest in Scotland. Walk through Giffnock today and you will see traditionally dressed Hasidic Jews, Kosher delis, a synagogue, a Jewish primary school and two Jewish care homes for the elderly. As a community it may be small but it is close-knit and, in its own way, still thriving. Rabbi Jacobs and his wife have lived in the area for 40 years
and say they've seen many changes over that period.
"It's swings and roundabouts," says Sora. "Forty years ago there were three or four Kosher butchers in the area. Now there's none. But, at the same time, I can go to Sainsbury's at 9:30pm and pick up a Kosher chicken."
The eminent Jewish-Scottish scholar David Daiches wrote in his autobiographical Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood, that there are grounds for believing that Scotland is the only European country which has no history of state persecution of Jews. And indeed, the Jacobs family say they have been unconditionally accepted here since they moved from Manchester, four decades ago, to raise their children.
"We've never felt anything but warmth and friendliness here," says Jacobs. "Wherever we've gone, people couldn't do enough to accommodate us, whether it was with Kosher food or to generally make things easier for us."
I ask what sort of response a non-Jew interested in the faith would receive. "We don't seek non- Jewish people but we welcome them," Jacobs says. "If somebody comes and they want to convert, there are various laws to try and persuade them not to get involved, but if they are obstinate, so to speak, and they want to pursue being Jewish, of course we will welcome them."
Meanwhile, Lubavitch in Scotland grows from strength to strength. This year they held a Jewish Burns supper, complete with Kosher haggis, at L'Chaims, and there are regular 'Shul in the Park' services for younger members. There have been Kosher wine tastings on the calendar, and a children's birthday party with Kosher McDonald's-style food. Jacobs' son Mendel, also a rabbi, even launched a Jewish tartan in the Spring – made with Kosher non-wool linen of course.
"The way to get hold of people is to try and reach them at their level and then bring them to ours," says Jacobs. We can do that through food, hospitality – invite them to a Shabbos dinner and show them the beauty of the candle-lighting and the family atmosphere at that meal."
Apart from the obvious attractions of mealtimes, the food and the social life, though, I'm interested in why Jacobs feels people would want to return to a religion they have abandoned.
"People are looking for something," he says. "They've done everything in life. They've tried drugs, they've been around the block a few times and it's not given them any more happiness. Suddenly they look around and say, 'Where is happiness?'
"And that's when they give us a try."
• Jews: Keeping the Faith, BBC4 9pm
• L'Chaims Restaurant, 222 Fenwick Rd, Giffnock, Glasgow is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For more information call 0141-638 6116
IT'S A busy Tuesday evening at L'Chaims restaurant on the south side of Glasgow. A young waitress rushes between the tables, candles flicker invitingly, and a low hum of conversation accompanies the steady stream of plates arriving from the kitchen. Look closer, though, and all is not quite as you might expect in this popular eatery. All the male customers are wearing the traditional Jewish skull cap, the Kippah, every last item on the menu from the butter to the wine is Kosher, and the man presenting the credit-card machine is not a maître d' but a rabbi.
L'Chaims is Scotland's only Jewish Kosher restaurant, named after both its owner and a traditional Hebrew toast: "To life". Situated within the heart of Glasgow's Jewish area and run by local rabbi, Chaim Jacobs, and his wife Sora, it has become a potent symbol of rebirth in a community that is battling a slow yet steady decline.
Across the country Britain's Jewish population is falling. At the 2001 census there were 270,000 Jews in Britain, almost a quarter of whom were over the age of 65. The Board of Deputies believes this number has since dropped, and just 11 years before, in 1990, there were estimated to be about 340,000 British Jews. In Scotland there are around 6,400, compared to more than 8,000 in 1905. It is a subject that will be explored tonight in Vanessa Engle's BBC4 documentary Jews, which follows the efforts of one man – the millionaire Jonathan Faith, former owner of Faith shoes – to resuscitate interest in this ancient and often misunderstood religion.
Engle, herself a secular Jew, believes there are a number of reasons behind the decline. "People are marrying out of the faith, they're having fewer children, daring to be gay, living an alternative lifestyle. But society is
also becoming increasingly secular," she says.
It is still, she says, a misunderstood community. "When I started to research the subject I discovered there are many aspects of Jewish life that are still invisible. People have a lot of assumptions about Jews and Jewishness and what I found for myself is that people actually know very little about it."
Engle set out to document Faith – who was a secular Jew until the birth of his first child, 20 years ago, when he became what he describes as a "modern Orthodox Jew" – and his attempts to reignite interest in Judaism.
This he does primarily via the Jewish charity Aish, which takes non-religious Jews, many of them young men and women, on holidays to Israel in an attempt to reconnect them with their heritage.
Faith confronts his mission with the same techniques that made him a success. "Judaism is a product: I look at it as a product like anything else," he says. "For somebody to buy an idea, they've got to be shown the product in its best way possible. No-one likes the idea of Judaism being thought of as a product, but
sometimes you really need to look at it from a commercial point of view."
His plans are met with mixed levels of success. Some of the children who go on Aish's holidays seem more intent on drinking than attending Shul, and his own eight-week course on teaching the faith is not an instant success. By the end of the documentary he seems almost despondent about the future.
Those involved in the process admit it's not easy. As Glasgow-born Rabbi Malcolm Herman, director of another London-based Jewish educational initiative called Seed, points out in the documentary: "We're talking about applying ancient wisdom to contemporary living."
In Glasgow this same philosophy is being applied, not just at L'Chaims, but throughout the community. I meet Rabbi Jacobs, who as well as owning L'Chaims is a community rabbi in Giffnock and runs the Scottish arm of a Jewish educational organisation called Lubavitch, at his Giffnock home. In accordance with Jewish law
he does not shake my hand, but the warm welcome from both him and his wife Sora is genuine.
Rabbi Jacobs is on a mission to bring lapsed Scottish Jews back to their roots. Via Lubavitch, the New York-based Jewish educational initiative that is the world's biggest Jewish outreach organisation, he hopes to offer secular Jews who have abandoned their faith a reason to return.
"Formal practice of religion is on the decline, but there is still an interest in spirituality and Judaism within our community," says Rabbi Jacobs. "What we're offering is spirituality and we're offering it to people who no longer just want to go to the synagogue and read the prayers. They want to get some buzz out of it, and
spirituality that has some depth."
Was that, I ask, as they settle me in their cosy living room, while from the kitchen wafts the irresistibly comforting smell of chicken soup, why they decided to open a Jewish restaurant?
"There isn't really a Jewish community centre like there used to be," Rabbi Jacobs replies. "Because there are so many other things available, it's not a big attraction any more. So therefore, outwith the synagogue, the restaurant is probably the most active focal point where people can gravitate to and socialise within the
Jewish community."
There are around 5,500 Jews left in Glasgow's community, by far the biggest in Scotland. Walk through Giffnock today and you will see traditionally dressed Hasidic Jews, Kosher delis, a synagogue, a Jewish primary school and two Jewish care homes for the elderly. As a community it may be small but it is close-knit and, in its own way, still thriving. Rabbi Jacobs and his wife have lived in the area for 40 years
and say they've seen many changes over that period.
"It's swings and roundabouts," says Sora. "Forty years ago there were three or four Kosher butchers in the area. Now there's none. But, at the same time, I can go to Sainsbury's at 9:30pm and pick up a Kosher chicken."
The eminent Jewish-Scottish scholar David Daiches wrote in his autobiographical Two Worlds: An Edinburgh Jewish Childhood, that there are grounds for believing that Scotland is the only European country which has no history of state persecution of Jews. And indeed, the Jacobs family say they have been unconditionally accepted here since they moved from Manchester, four decades ago, to raise their children.
"We've never felt anything but warmth and friendliness here," says Jacobs. "Wherever we've gone, people couldn't do enough to accommodate us, whether it was with Kosher food or to generally make things easier for us."
I ask what sort of response a non-Jew interested in the faith would receive. "We don't seek non- Jewish people but we welcome them," Jacobs says. "If somebody comes and they want to convert, there are various laws to try and persuade them not to get involved, but if they are obstinate, so to speak, and they want to pursue being Jewish, of course we will welcome them."
Meanwhile, Lubavitch in Scotland grows from strength to strength. This year they held a Jewish Burns supper, complete with Kosher haggis, at L'Chaims, and there are regular 'Shul in the Park' services for younger members. There have been Kosher wine tastings on the calendar, and a children's birthday party with Kosher McDonald's-style food. Jacobs' son Mendel, also a rabbi, even launched a Jewish tartan in the Spring – made with Kosher non-wool linen of course.
"The way to get hold of people is to try and reach them at their level and then bring them to ours," says Jacobs. We can do that through food, hospitality – invite them to a Shabbos dinner and show them the beauty of the candle-lighting and the family atmosphere at that meal."
Apart from the obvious attractions of mealtimes, the food and the social life, though, I'm interested in why Jacobs feels people would want to return to a religion they have abandoned.
"People are looking for something," he says. "They've done everything in life. They've tried drugs, they've been around the block a few times and it's not given them any more happiness. Suddenly they look around and say, 'Where is happiness?'
"And that's when they give us a try."
• Jews: Keeping the Faith, BBC4 9pm
• L'Chaims Restaurant, 222 Fenwick Rd, Giffnock, Glasgow is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For more information call 0141-638 6116
Monday, May 19, 2008
Rabbi to open NZ's first kosher restaurant
The New York-based Chabad-Lubavitch sect of Hasidic Judaism – one of the largest Jewish movements worldwide – plans to set up a kosher restaurant in Christchurch.
The Chabad's rabbi in New Zealand, Mendel Goldstein, of Wellington, told the Jewish Telegraph Agency that the restaurant will be open by the end of the year at the group's premises in Christchurch.
He viewed the restaurant as a first step in building a future for New Zealand where "Jewish living is convenient and enjoyable" for travellers and the local Jewish population.
"It pains us to see people eating non-kosher because they have no other choice," the rabbi's wife, Sara Goldstein, co-director of the Chabad in NZ said.
The agency reported that about 20,000 Jews visit Christchurch each year, and that there is a population of about 10,000 Jews spread through New Zealand.
The restaurant will serve food prepared according to a set of often complicated rabbinical and biblical dietary laws which ban some foods such as pork or shellfish; do not allow meat and dairy products to be prepared in the same dishes, and require animals to be slaughtered on their backs, without stunning.
Rabbi Goldstein was arranging four ritual "seder" feasts for 500 Israeli travellers in New Zealand last month to mark Passover, when he rushed to Queenstown to join the search for Israeli backpacker Liat Okin. She was found dead last week.
The Chabad's rabbi in New Zealand, Mendel Goldstein, of Wellington, told the Jewish Telegraph Agency that the restaurant will be open by the end of the year at the group's premises in Christchurch.
He viewed the restaurant as a first step in building a future for New Zealand where "Jewish living is convenient and enjoyable" for travellers and the local Jewish population.
"It pains us to see people eating non-kosher because they have no other choice," the rabbi's wife, Sara Goldstein, co-director of the Chabad in NZ said.
The agency reported that about 20,000 Jews visit Christchurch each year, and that there is a population of about 10,000 Jews spread through New Zealand.
The restaurant will serve food prepared according to a set of often complicated rabbinical and biblical dietary laws which ban some foods such as pork or shellfish; do not allow meat and dairy products to be prepared in the same dishes, and require animals to be slaughtered on their backs, without stunning.
Rabbi Goldstein was arranging four ritual "seder" feasts for 500 Israeli travellers in New Zealand last month to mark Passover, when he rushed to Queenstown to join the search for Israeli backpacker Liat Okin. She was found dead last week.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
TWO NIGHTS IN BANGKOK
We also had a fabulous time visiting the Chabad restaurant in Bangkok, which has been primarily set up to cater for the enormous numbers of Israeli backers in Thailand. The prices are set at local rates and you can chose between local-style cuisine as well as a range of Western or more traditional Jewish types of food.At lunch on our second day in Bangkok we met Rabbi Tuvia Bolton who had been brought to Bangkok to perform that evening at a Channukah dinner being held jointly by the Israeli Embassy and Chabad. Rabbi Bolton invited us to come along...and so we did. We found ourselves at an amazing barbeque filled with 100 or so Israelis, most of whom were residents of the city (either working with the embassy or involved with business in Thailand). The event seemed, to us, to signal the beginning of our journey inside the various guises of the Jewish world as they are manifest around the globe. It was a heart-warming beginning.
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