Flag of the Aragonese Kingdom of Sicily; Malta became involved in the Muslim–Byzantine Wars, and the conquest of Malta is closely linked with that of Sicily that began in 827 after admiral Euphemius' betrayal of his fellow Byzantines, requesting that the Aghlabid dynasty invade the island.[45] The Muslim chronicler and geographer al-Himyari recounts that in 870 AD, following a violent struggle against the occupying Byzantines, the Muslim invaders, first led by Halaf al-Hadim, and later by Sawada ibn Muhammad, looted and pillaged the island, destroying the most important buildings, and leaving it practically uninhabited until it was recolonised by the Muslims from Sicily in 1048–1049 AD. It is uncertain whether this new settlement took place as a consequence of demographic expansion in Sicily, as a result of a higher standard of living in Sicily (in which case the recolonisation may have taken place a few decades earlier), or as a result of civil war which broke out among Muslim rulers of Sicily in 1038.[46] The Muslims introduced new irrigation, some fruits and cotton and the Siculo-Arabic language was adopted on the island from Sicily: it would eventually evolve into the Maltese language.[47]The Christians in the island were allowed freedom of religion; they had to pay jizya, a tax for non-Muslims, but were exempt from the tax that Muslims had to pay (Zakaat).[48] The Normans in 1091, as part of their conquest of Sicily the Norman leader, Roger I of Sicily, was welcomed by the native Christians.[24] The notion that Count Roger I reportedly tore off a portion of his checkered red-and-white banner and presented it to the Maltese – forming the basis of the present-dayMaltese flag in gratitude for having fought on his behalf — is founded in myth.[2The Norman period was productive; Malta became part of the newly formed Kingdom of Sicilywhich also covered the island of Sicily and the southern half of the Italian Peninsula.[24] The Catholic Church was reinstated as the state religion with Malta under the See of Palermo, and some Norman architecture sprung up around Malta especially in its ancient capital Mdina.[24]Tancred of Sicily, the last Norman monarch, made Malta a feudal lordship or fief within the kingdom and installed a Count of Malta. As the islands were much desired due to their strategic importance, it was during this time the men of Malta were militarised to fend off capture attempts; the early counts were skilled Genoese corsairs.[24]The kingdom passed on to the House of Hohenstaufen from 1194 until 1266. During this period, when Frederick II of Hohenstaufen began to reorganise his Sicilian kingdom, Western culture and religion began to exert their influence more intensely.[50] Malta formed part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation for 72 years. Malta was declared a county and a marquisate, but its trade was totally ruined. For a long time it remained solely a fortified garrison.[51] It was in 1224 under Frederick II that all remaining Muslims (who were not Moors) were expelled from Malta[52]or impelled to convert[53][54] and the entire Christian male population of Celano in Abruzzo was deported to Malta.[24]Jean Parisot de la Valette, the founder ofVallettaFra' Jean Parisot de Valette (4 February 1495[?], Parisot, Rouergue - 21 August 1568, Malta) was a French nobleman and 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 1557 to 1568. As a Knight Hospitaller, joining the order in the Langue de Provence, he fought with distinction against theTurks at Rhodes. As Grand Master, Valette became the Order's hero and most illustrious leader, commanding the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, widely regarded as one of the greatest sieges of all time.[citation needed] He became Grand Master of theKnights Hospitaller on 21 August 1557.In 1538, while on Malta, de Valette was sentenced to four months in a guva (a hole in the ground) on Gozo for nearly beating a layman to death,[citation needed] and he was subsequently exiled toTripoli for two years to serve as military governor. Upon his return he was punished again for bringing a nigro slave not liable for servitude. In 1541 he was captured and made a galley slave for a year by Barbary pirates under the command of Turgut Reis.[1] In 1554 Valette was elected Captain General of the Order's galleys. This was a great honour to the Langue of Provence, as throughout most of the Order's history, the position of Grand Admiral was usually held by a Knight Grand Cross of the Italian Langue. In that capacity he won a name that stood conspicuous in that age of great sea captains, and was held in the same regard as the Chevalier Mathurin Romegas - one of the greatest Christian maritime commanders of the age. In fact both sides had extremely talented sailors. If Valette, Romegas and Juan de Austria could be considered the best commanders that the Christian forces could bring to the sea, the forces of Islam were able to call on the equally outstanding maritime and leadership skills of admirals such as Barbarossa andDragut. In 1557, upon the death of Grand Master Claude de la Sengle, the Knights, mindful of the attack that was sure to come, elected Valette to be Grand Master.
Siege of Malta
He fought and successfully repulsed the Turks at the Great Siege of Malta (1565), in which the vastly outnumbered Christians held out for over 3 months against an Ottoman force containing no less than 30,000 soldiers, including the Janissaries, as well as the Sultan's fleet of some 193 ships. The battle, which saw the reduction of Fort St. Elmo. As a result of the Order's victory he gained much prestige in Europe, but he declined the offer of a cardinal's hat in order to maintain independence from the papacy. This has been attributed to his sense of modesty and his humility as a warrior monk. However, it has often been overlooked that as a Grand Master of the Order, he automatically had the same precedence as the most junior Cardinal within the Church and enjoyed a Cardinal's distinction without being involved in the internal politics of the Holy See. Even from its beginnings, the Grand Master of the Order owed allegiance only to the Pope, and to this day is recognised as the head of an Order which has diplomatic recognition with the United Nations and 100 other countries.De Valette
Early life
He was born into the noble Valette family in Quercy, South-western France, which had been an important family in France for many generations, various members having participated in theCrusades. Jean Parisot's grandfather, Bernard de Valette, was a Knight and King's Orderly, and his father Guillot was a Chevalier de France. Jean Parisot was a distant cousin (through their mutual ancestor Almaric de Valette) of Jean Louis de Nogaret de La Valette, first Duke ofEpernon.Little is known about de Valette's early life, although he was present during the Great Siege of Rhodes in 1523, and accompanied Grand Master Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, after the Order's expulsion from Rhodes by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.Although his birth year is usually given as 1494, both chroniclers of the Great Siege of Malta,Francisco Balbi di Correggio and Hipolito Sans, say he was 67 at the time, thereby implying that he was born in 1498. In his history of the Order of St. John, the 18th-century historian Abbe Vertot (whose history is largely based on - but often confuses - the earlier one of Giacomo Bosio) indicates that Valette was indeed the same age as both Suleiman I and Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha(the commander of the Ottoman land forces), which would mean that he was actually 70 years old at the time of the siege.Quercy (French pronunciation: [kɛʁsi] ( ); Occitan: Carcin, pronounced [kaɾˈsi], locally [kɔɾˈʃi]) is a former province of France located in the country's southwest, bounded on the north byLimousin, on the west by Périgord and Agenais, on the south by Gascony and Languedoc, and on the east by Rouergue and Auvergne.Formerly Quercy included the Bouriane, natural region. Today it is divided between thedépartement of Lot (which it makes up in its entirety) and the northern half of the département ofTarn-et-Garonne. The traditional capital of Quercy is Cahors, now préfecture (capital) of the Lotdépartement. The largest town of Quercy is Montauban, préfecture of Tarn-et-Garonne. However, Montauban lies at the traditional border between Quercy and Languedoc, in an area very different from the rest of Quercy, and it is closer historically and culturally to Toulouse and the rest of Languedoc, therefore it should be considered a special case, not totally part of Quercy. Also distinct from the rest of the region is the Quercy Blanc lying between Cahors and the southern boundary of the Lot, characterised by its white limestone buildings.Like Périgord, the area is noted for its cuisine, more particularly the duck dishes, confit de canardand magret de canard and the dark red wines of Cahors and, further south, Coteaux de Quercy.Quercy has a land area of 6,987 km² (2,698 sq. miles). At the 1999 census there were 275,984 inhabitants on the territory of the former province of Quercy, which means a density of 40 inh. per km² (102 inh. per sq. mile). However, if Montauban is not included inside Quercy, then the total population of Quercy in 1999 was 224,129 inhabitants, and the density was only 33 inh. per km² (85 inh. per sq. mile). The largest urban areas in Quercy are Montauban, with 51,855 inhabitants in 1999, Cahors, with 23,128 inhabitants in 1999, Moissac, with 12,321 inhabitants in 1999, andFigeac, with 9,991 inhabitants in 1999.The province gave its name to cadurcum, a variety of light linen.Under the Romans Quercy was part of Aquitania prima, and Christianity was introduced during the 4th century. Early in the 6th century it fell under the authority of the Franks, and in the 7th century became part of the autonomous Duchy of Aquitaine. At the end of the 10th century its rulers were the powerful counts of Toulouse. During the wars between England and France in the reign of Henry II, the English placed garrisons in the county, and by the 1259 Treaty of Paris lower Quercy was ceded to England. The monarchs of both England and France confirmed and added to the privileges of the towns and the district, each thus hoping to attach the inhabitants to his own interest. In 1360, by the Treaty of Bretigny, the whole county passed to England, but in 1440 the English were finally expelled. In the 16th century Quercy was a stronghold of the Protestants, and the scene of a savage religious warfare. The civil wars of the reign of Louis XIII largely took place around Montauban.[1]Famous personalities from QuercyEdit
John XXII, pope (1316–1332)Jean Le Parisot de La Valette (1494–1568), Grand Master of the Order of MaltaClément Marot, poet (1496–1544)Olivier de Magny, poet (1529–1561)In 1538, while on Malta, de Valette was sentenced to four months in a guva (a hole in the ground) on Gozo for nearly beating a layman to death,[citation needed] and he was subsequently exiled toTripoli for two years to serve as military governor. Upon his return he was punished again for bringing a nigro slave not liable for servitude. In 1541 he was captured and made a galley slave for a year by Barbary pirates under the command of Turgut Reis.[1] In 1554 Valette was elected Captain General of the Order's galleys. This was a great honour to the Langue of Provence, as throughout most of the Order's history, the position of Grand Admiral was usually held by a Knight Grand Cross of the Italian Langue. In that capacity he won a name that stood conspicuous in that age of great sea captains, and was held in the same regard as the Chevalier Mathurin Romegas - one of the greatest Christian maritime commanders of the age. In fact both sides had extremely talented sailors. If Valette, Romegas and Juan de Austria could be considered the best commanders that the Christian forces could bring to the sea, the forces of Islam were able to call on the equally outstanding maritime and leadership skills of admirals such as Barbarossa andDragut. In 1557, upon the death of Grand Master Claude de la Sengle, the Knights, mindful of the attack that was sure to come, elected Valette to be Grand Master.
Siege of Malta
He fought and successfully repulsed the Turks at the Great Siege of Malta (1565), in which the vastly outnumbered Christians held out for over 3 months against an Ottoman force containing no less than 30,000 soldiers, including the Janissaries, as well as the Sultan's fleet of some 193 ships. The battle, which saw the reduction of Fort St. Elmo. As a result of the Order's victory he gained much prestige in Europe, but he declined the offer of a cardinal's hat in order to maintain independence from the papacy. This has been attributed to his sense of modesty and his humility as a warrior monk. However, it has often been overlooked that as a Grand Master of the Order, he automatically had the same precedence as the most junior Cardinal within the Church and enjoyed a Cardinal's distinction without being involved in the internal politics of the Holy See. Even from its beginnings, the Grand Master of the Order owed allegiance only to the Pope, and to this day is recognised as the head of an Order which has diplomatic recognition with the United Nations and 100 other countries.Flag of the Aragonese Kingdom of Sicily
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta
Malta i/ˈmɒltə/ (Maltese: Repubblika ta' Malta, pronounced [rɛpʊbblɪˈkɐ ˈtɐ mɐlˈtɐ]) is a southern European country in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km (50 mi) south of Sicily, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya. The country covers just over 316 km2 (122 sq mi), making it one of the world's smallest[9][10][11] and most densely populatedcountries. The capital of Malta is Valletta which is also the smallest capital in the EU at 0.8 km2.[12] Malta has two official languages: Maltese and English.Malta's location as a naval base has given it great strategic importance throughout history, and a succession of powers including the Phoenicians, Romans, Moorish, Normans, Aragonese,Habsburg Spain, Knights of St. John, French and the British ruled the islands. Malta gainedindependence from the United Kingdom in 1964 and became a republic in 1974. Malta was admitted to the United Nations in 1964 and to the European Union in 2004; in 2008, it became part of the eurozone.The name originates from Melite in Greek, or Melita in the Dorian dialect (Μελίτη, Μελίτα), which means very sweet, or honey-like.Malta has a long Christian legacy and is an Apostolic see. According to the Acts of the Apostles,[13] St. Paul was shipwrecked on Malta.[14] Catholicism is the official religion in Malta.[15][16]Malta is a favoured tourist destination with its warm climate, numerous recreational areas, architectural and historical monuments, including seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites,[17] most prominently the Megalithic Temples which are some of the oldest free-standing structures in the world.[18][19][20]The current term Malta was introduced during the Kingdom of Sicily period.Malta comes from the Phoenician word Maleth meaning "a haven"[26] in reference to Malta's many bays and coves. The current term Malta was introduced during the Kingdom of Sicily period.Malta's unique production of honey; anendemic species of bee lives on the island, giving it the popular nickname the "land of honey".[23]The Romans went on to call the island Melita,[24] which is the latinisation of the Greek Μελίτη.[25]Another theory suggests that the word Malta comes from the Phoenician word Maleth meaning "a haven"[26] in reference to Malta's many bays and coves. The current term Malta was introduced during the Kingdom of Sicily period.Pottery found by archaeologists at Skorba resembles that found in Italy, and suggests that the Maltese islands were first settled in 5200 BC mainly by stone age hunters or farmers who had arrived from the larger island of Sicily, possibly the Sicani. The extinction of the dwarf hippos anddwarf elephants has been linked to the earliest arrival of humans on Malta.[27] Prehistoric farming settlements dating to Early Neolithic period were discovered in open areas and also in caves, such as Għar Dalam.[28]The Sicani were the only tribe known to have inhabited the island at this time[29][30] and are generally regarded as related to the Iberians.[31] The population on Malta grew cereals, raiseddomestic livestock and, in common with other ancient Mediterranean cultures, worshiped afertility figure represented in Maltese prehistoric artifacts exhibiting the proportions seen in similar statuettes, including the Venus of Willendorf.The temples have distinctive architecture, typically a complex trefoil design, and were used from 4000 to 2500 BC. Animal bones and a knife found behind a removable altar stone suggest that temple rituals included animal sacrifice. Tentative information suggests that the sacrifices were made to the goddess of fertility, whose statue is now in the National Museum of Archaeology in Valletta.[35] The culture apparently disappeared from the Maltese Islands around 2500 BC. Archaeologists speculate that the temple builders fell victim to famine or disease.Another interesting archaeological feature of the Maltese islands often attributed to these ancient builders, are equidistant uniform grooves dubbed "cart tracks" or "cart ruts" which can be found in several locations throughout the islands with the most prominent being those found in an area of Malta named "Clapham Junction". These may have been caused by wooden-wheeled carts eroding soft limestone.[36][37]After 2500 BC, the Maltese Islands were depopulated for several decades until the arrival of a new influx of Bronze Age immigrants, a culture that cremated its dead and introduced smaller megalithic structures called dolmens to Malta.[38] In most cases we are dealing with small chambers here, with the cover made of a large slab placed on upright stones. They are claimed to belong to a population certainly different from that which built the previous megalithic temples. It is presumed the population arrived from Sicily because of the similarity of Maltese dolmens to some small constructions found in the largest island of the Mediterranean sea.[39]
Greeks, Phoenicians and Romans
See also: Magna Graecia, Phoenicia, Ancient Rome, Sicilia (Roman province), and Byzantine EmpirePhoenician traders,[40] who used the islands as a stop on their trade routes from the easternMediterranean to Cornwall, joined the natives on the island.[41] The Phoenicians inhabited the area now known as Mdina, and its surrounding town of Rabat, which they called Maleth.[42] TheRomans, who also lived in Mdina, referred to it (and the island) as MelitaAfter the fall of Phoenicia in 332 BC, the area came under the control of Carthage, a former Phoenician colony.[43] During this time the people on Malta mainly cultivated olives and carobs, and produced textiles.[43]During the First Punic War of 264 BC, tensions led the Maltese people to rebel against Carthage and turn control of their garrison over to the Roman consul Sempronius.[24] Malta remained loyal to Rome during the Second Punic War and the Romans rewarded it with the title Foederata Civitas, a designation that meant it was exempt from paying tribute or the rule of Roman law, although at this time it fell within the jurisdiction of the province of Sicily.[24]By 117 AD, the Maltese Islands were a thriving part of the Roman Empire, being promoted to the status of Municipium under Hadrian.When the Roman Empire split into Eastern and Western divisions in the 4th century, Malta fell under the control of the Greek speaking Byzantine Empire from 395 to 870,[40] which ruled fromConstantinople.[44] Although Malta was under Byzantine rule for four centuries, not much is known from this period. There is evidence that Germanic tribes, including the Goths and Vandals, briefly took control of the islands before the Byzantines launched a counterattack and retook Malta.[44]Malta i/ˈmɒltə/ (Maltese: Repubblika ta' Malta, pronounced [rɛpʊbblɪˈkɐ ˈtɐ mɐlˈtɐ]) is a southern European country in the Mediterranean Sea. It lies 80 km (50 mi) south of Sicily, 284 km (176 mi) east of Tunisia and 333 km (207 mi) north of Libya. The country covers just over 316 km2 (122 sq mi), making it one of the world's smallest[9][10][11] and most densely populatedcountries. The capital of Malta is Valletta which is also the smallest capital in the EU at 0.8 km2.[12] Malta has two official languages: Maltese and English.Malta's location as a naval base has given it great strategic importance throughout history, and a succession of powers including the Phoenicians, Romans, Moorish, Normans, Aragonese,Habsburg Spain, Knights of St. John, French and the British ruled the islands. Malta gainedindependence from the United Kingdom in 1964 and became a republic in 1974. Malta was admitted to the United Nations in 1964 and to the European Union in 2004; in 2008, it became part of the eurozone.The name originates from Melite in Greek, or Melita in the Dorian dialect (Μελίτη, Μελίτα), which means very sweet, or honey-like.Malta has a long Christian legacy and is an Apostolic see. According to the Acts of the Apostles,[13] St. Paul was shipwrecked on Malta.[14] Catholicism is the official religion in Malta.[15][16]Malta is a favoured tourist destination with its warm climate, numerous recreational areas, architectural and historical monuments, including seven UNESCO World Heritage Sites,[17] most prominently the Megalithic Temples which are some of the oldest free-standing structures in the world.[18][19][20]
The full extent of the cultural, linguistic, religious or other differences among the Israelites in antiquity is unknown. Following the defeat of the Kingdom of Israel in the 720s BCE and theKingdom of Judah in 586 BCE, the Jewish people became dispersed throughout much of theMiddle East, especially in Egypt and North Africa to the west, as well as in Yemen to the south, and in Mesopotamia to the east. The Jewish population in Palestine was severely reduced by theJewish-Roman Wars and by the later hostile policies of the Christian emperors,[2] against non-Christians, but the Jews always retained a presence in the Levant. During this period, Paul Johnson writes: "Wherever towns survived, or urban communities sprang up, Jews would sooner or later establish themselves. The near-destruction of Palestinian Jewry in the second century turned the survivors of Jewish rural communities into marginal town-dwellers. After the Arab conquest in the seventh century, the large Jewish agricultural communities in Babylonia were progressively wrecked by high taxation, so that there too the Jews drifted into towns and became craftsmen, tradesmen, and dealers. Everywhere these urban Jews, the vast majority literate and numerate, managed to settle, unless penal laws or physical violence made it impossible."[3]In the early-Byzantine 6th century, there were 43 Jewish communities in Palestine. During theIslamic period and the intervening Crusades, there were 50 communities which includedJerusalem, Tiberias, Ramleh, Ashkelon, Caesarea, and Gaza. During the early Ottoman Period of the 14th century there were 30 communities which included Haifa, Shechem, Hebron, Ramleh,Jaffa, Gaza, Jerusalem, and Safed. The most dominant location became Safed which reached a population of 30,000 Jews by end of the 16th century, after the expulsion of Sephardim from Iberia, a century earlier. The 16th century saw many Ashkenazi Kabbalists drawn to the mystical aura and teachings of the Jewish holy city. Johnson notes that in the Arab-Muslim territories, which included most of Spain, all of North Africa, and the Near East south of Anatolia in the Middle Ages, the Jewish condition was easier as a rule, than it was in Europe.[4]Over the centuries following the Crusades and Inquisition, Jews from around the world began emigrating in increasing numbers. Upon arrival, these Jews adopted the customs of the Mizrahiand Sephardi communities into which they moved. With Baron von Rothschild's philanthropic land purchases and subsequent efforts to turn Palestine into a verdant Jewish homeland, and the subsequent rise of Zionism, a flood of Ashkenazi immigration brought the Jewish population of the region to several hundred thousand.Following the loss of their second revolt against the Romans and their exile by them, at the height of the empire in the 2nd century, Jewish communities similarly could be found in nearly every notable center throughout it, as well as scattered communities found in centers beyond the Empire's borders in northern Europe, in eastern Europe, in southwestern Asia, and in Africa. Farther to the east along trade routes, Jewish communities could be found throughout Persiaand in empires even farther east including in India and China. In the Early Middle Ages of the 6th to 11th centuries, the Radhanites traded along the overland routes between Europe and Asia earlier established by the Romans, dominated trade between the Christian and the Islamic worlds, and used a trade network that covered most areas of Jewish settlement.In the middle Byzantine period, the khan of Khazaria in the northern Caucasus and his court converted to Judaism, partly in order to maintain neutrality between Christian Byzantium and the Islamic world. This event forms the framework for Yehuda Halevi's work 'The Kuzari' (c.1140), but how much these traces of Judaism within this group survived the collapse of the Khazar empire is a matter of scholarly debate.In western Europe, following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476, and especially after the re-orientation of trade caused by the Moorish conquest of Iberia in the early 8th century, communications between the Jewish communities in northern parts of the former western empire became sporadic. At the same time, rule under Islam, even with dhimmi status, resulted in freer trade and communications within the Muslim world, and the communities in Iberia remained in frequent contact with Jewry in North Africa and the Middle East, but communities further afield, in central and south Asia and central Africa, remained more isolated, and continued to develop their own unique traditions. For the Sephardim in Spain, it resulted in a "Hebrew Golden Age" in the 10th to 12th centuries.[5] The 1492 expulsion from Spain by the Catholic Monarchs however, made the Sephardic Jews hide and disperse to France, Italy, England, theNetherlands, parts of what is now northwestern Germany, and to other existing communities in Christian Europe, as well as to those within the Ottoman Empire, to the Maghreb in North Africa and smaller numbers to other areas of the Middle East, and eventually to the Americas in the early 17th century.In northern and Christian Europe during this period, financial competition developed between the authority of the Pope in Rome and nascent states and empires. This dynamic, with the Great Schism, recurrent fervid religious Crusades, Episcopal Inquisition and later protestations andwars between Christians themselves, caused repeated periods and occurrences of persecution against the established Jewish minority in "Ashkenaz" in modern Hebrew means Germanic Jews and with Ancient Hebrew it included the areas that are now northern France, Germany andSwitzerland—masses of Jews began to move further to the east. There, they were welcomed by the king of Poland,[6] and with Lithuania, grew greatly, and relatively flourished to the end of the 18th century. In western Europe, the conditions for Jewry differed between the communities within the various countries and over time, depending on background conditions. With both pull and push factors operating, Ashkenazi emigration to the Americans would increase in the early 18th century with German-speaking Askenazi Jews, and end with a tidal wave between 1880 and the early 20th century with Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazim, as conditions in the east deteriorated under the failing Russian Empire. With the Holocaust and the destruction of most European Jewry, North America would hold the majority of world Jewry.Historically, Jews have been identified into two major groups: the Ashkenazim, or "Germanics" ("Ashkenaz" meaning "Germany" in Medieval Hebrew, denoting their Central European base), and the Sephardim, or "Hispanics" ("Sefarad" meaning "Hispania" or "Iberia" in Hebrew, denoting theirSpanish and Portuguese base). The far more recent term Mizrahim, or "Easterners" ("Mizrach" being "East" in Hebrew) to include Middle Eastern and North African Jews, constitutes a third major group to some, following the partition of Palestine, their often-forced migration, and the re-establishment of their communities in Israel.[citation needed]Smaller Jewish groups include the Georgian Jews and Mountain Jews from the Caucasus; Indian Jews including the Bene Israel, Bnei Menashe, Cochin Jews and Bene Ephraim; the Romaniotesof Greece; the ancient Italian Jewish community; the Teimanim from the Yemen and Oman; various African Jews, including most numerously the Beta Israel of Ethiopia; the Bukharan Jewsof Central Asia; and Chinese Jews, most notably the Kaifeng Jews, as well as various other distinct but now extinct communities.The divisions between all these groups are rough and their boundaries aren't solid. The Mizrahimfor example, are a heterogeneous collection of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish communities which are often as unrelated to each other as they are to any of the earlier mentioned Jewish groups. In modern usage, however, the Mizrahim are also termed Sephardidue to similar styles of liturgy, despite independent evolutions from Sephardim proper. Thus, among Mizrahim there are Iranian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Egyptian Jews, Sudanese Jews, Tunisian Jews, Algerian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Lebanese Jews, Kurdish Jews, Libyan Jews, Syrian Jews, and various others. The Yemenite Jews ("Teimanim") from Yemen and Oman are sometimes included, although their style of liturgy is unique and they differ in respect to the admixture found among them to that found in Mizrahim. Additionally, there is a difference between the pre-existing Middle Eastern and North African Jewish communities as distinct from the descendants of those Sephardi migrants who established themselves in the Middle East and North Africa after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain by the Catholic Monarchs in 1492, and a few years later from the expulsion decreed in Portugal.Despite this diversity, Ashkenazi Jews represent the bulk of modern Jewry, estimated at between 70% and 80% of all Jews worldwide;[7][8] prior to World War II and the Holocaust however, it was 90%.[7] While Ashkenazim developed in Europe, their massive emigration from Europe for better opportunities, and during periods of civil strife and warfare, they also became the overwhelming majority of Jews in the New World continents and countries, which previously were without native European or Jewish populations. These include the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil and South Africa, but with Venezuela and Panama being exceptions since Sephardim still compose the majority of the Jewish communities in these two countries. In France, more recent Sephardi Jewish immigrants from North Africa and their descendants now outnumber the pre-existing Ashkenazim. Only in Israel is the Jewish population representative of all groups, a melting pot independent of each group's proportion within the overall world Jewish population.
Genetic studies of DNA
See also: Y-chromosomal Aaron, Genealogical DNA test, and MatrilinealityMain article: Genetic studies on JewsDespite the evident diversity displayed by the world's distinctive Jewish populations, both culturally and physically, genetic studies have demonstrated most of these to be genetically related to one another, having ultimately originated from a common ancient Israelite population that underwent geographic branching and subsequent independent evolutions.[9]A study published by the National Academy of Sciences stated that "The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora."[9] Researchers expressed surprise at the remarkable genetic uniformity they found among modern Jews, no matter where the diaspora has become dispersed around the world.[9]Moreover, DNA tests have demonstrated substantially less inter-marriage in most of the various Jewish ethnic divisions over the last 3,000 years than in other populations.[10] The findings lend support to traditional Jewish accounts accrediting their founding to exiled Israelite populations, and counters theories that many or most of the world's Jewish populations were founded by entirely gentile populations that adopted the Jewish faith, as in the notable case of the historicKhazars.[10][11] Although groups such as the Khazars could have been absorbed into modern Jewish populations — in the Khazars' case, absorbed into the Ashkenazim — it is unlikely that they formed a large percentage of the ancestors of modern Ashkenazi Jews, and much less that they were the genesis of the Ashkenazim.[12]Even the archetype of Israelite-origin is also beginning to be reviewed for some Jewish populations amid newer studies. Previously, the Israelite origin identified in the world's Jewish populations was attributed only to the males who had migrated from the Middle East and then forged the current known communities with "the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism".[13] Research in Ashkenazi Jews has suggested that, in addition to the male founders, significant female founder ancestry might also derive from the Middle East, with about 40% of the current Ashkenazi population descended matrilineally from just four women, or "founder lineages", that were "likely from a Hebrew/Levantine mtDNA pool" originating in the Near East in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE.[13]Points in which Jewish groups differ is largely in the source and proportion of genetic contribution from host populations.[14][15] As examples, the Teimanim differ from other Mizrahim, as well as from Ashkenazim, in the proportion of sub-Saharan African gene types which have entered their gene pools.[14] Among Yemenites, the average stands at 35% lineages within the past 3,000 years.[14] Yemenite Jews, as a traditionally Arabic-speaking community of local Yemenite and Israelite ancestries,[15] are included within the findings, though they average a quarter of the frequency of the non-Jewish Yemenite sample.[14] In Ashkenazi Jews, the proportion of male indigenous European genetic admixture amounts to around 0.5% per generation over an estimated 80 generations, and a total admixture estimate around 12.5%.[9]The only exception to this amongst Jewish communities is in the Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews); a 1999 genetic study came to the conclusion that "the distinctiveness of the Y-chromosomehaplotype distribution of Beta Israel Jews from conventional Jewish populations and their relatively greater similarity in haplotype profile to non-Jewish Ethiopians are consistent with the view that the Beta Israel people descended from ancient inhabitants of Ethiopia who converted to Judaism."[16][17] Another 2001 study did, however, find a possible genetic similarity between 11 Ethiopian Jews and 4 Yemenite Jews from the population samples.[18]DNA analysis further determined that modern Jews of the priesthood tribe — "Cohanim" — share a common ancestor dating back about 3,000 years.[19] This result is consistent for all Jewish populations around the world.[19] The researchers estimated that the most recent common ancestor of modern Cohanim lived between 1000 BCE (roughly the time of the Biblical Exodus) and 586 BCE, when the Babylonians destroyed the First Temple.[20] They found similar results analyzing DNA from Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews.[20] The scientists estimated the date of the original priest based on genetic mutations, which indicated that the priest lived roughly 106 generations ago, between 2,650 and 3,180 years ago depending whether one counts a generation as 25 or 30 years.[20]Maltese Jews in Valletta, 19th centuryPatron SaintsSaint Dominic, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Saint Paul, Saint AugustineFeast Days3 August & 10 FebruaryWebsiteOfficial websiteUNESCO World Heritage SiteCity of VallettaValletta is the capital of Malta, colloquially known as Il-Belt (English: The City) in Maltese. It is located in the central-eastern portion of the island of Malta, and the historical city has a population of 6,966.[1] Valletta is the second southernmost capital of the EU member states afterNicosia.Valletta contains buildings from the 16th century onwards, built during the rule of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, also known as Knights Hospitaller. The city is essentially Baroque in character, with elements of Mannerist, Neo-Classical and Modern architecture in selected areas, though World War II left major scars on the city. The City of Valletta was officially recognised as aWorld Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980.[2]The city was named after Jean Parisot de Valette, who succeeded in defending the island from anOttoman invasion in 1565. The official name given by the Order of Saint John was Humilissima Civitas Valletta — The Most Humble City of Valletta, or Città Umilissima in Italian. The bastions,curtains and ravelins along with the beauty of its Baroque palaces, gardens and churches, led the ruling houses of Europe to give the city its nickname Superbissima — Most Proud.The city is on the island of Malta so it shares its early history with the island. Immediately after the end of the Siege of Malta in 1565, the Order decided to found a new city on the Xiberraspeninsula to fortify the Order's position in Malta and bind the Knights to the island. The foundation stone of Valletta was laid by the Grandmaster of the Order, Jean Parisot de Valette on 28 March 1566. De Valette placed the first stone in Our Lady of Victories Church.In his book Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Illustrissima Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano (English: The History of the Sacred Religion and Illustrious Militia of St John of Jerusalem), written between 1594 and 1602, Giacomo Bosio writes that when the cornerstone of Valletta was placed, a group of Maltese elders said: "Iegi zimen en fel wardia col sceber raba iesue uquie" (Which in modern Maltese reads, "Jiġi żmien li fil-Wardija [l-Għolja Sciberras] kull xiber raba’ jiswa uqija", and in English, "There will come a time when every piece of land on Sciberras Hill will be worth its weight in gold").[3]Grand Master de Valette died on 21 August 1568 at age 74 and never saw the completion of his city. Originally interred in the church of Our Lady of the Victories, his remains now rest in St. John's Co-Cathedral among the tombs of other Grand Masters of the Knights of Malta. Francesco Laparelli was the city's principal designer and his plan departed from medieval Maltese architecture, which exhibited irregular winding streets and alleys. He designed the new city on a rectangular grid, and without any collacchio (an area restricted for important buildings). The streets were designed to be wide and straight, beginning centrally from the City Gate and ending at Fort Saint Elmo overlooking the Mediterranean; certain bastions were built 153 feet (47 m) tall. The Maltese architect Gerolamo Cassar was responsible for a number of the buildings. After the Knights' departure and the brief French occupation, building projects in Valletta resumed under British rule. These projects included widening gates, demolishing and rebuilding structures, widening newer houses over the years, and installing civic projects. Naziand Fascist air raids throughout World War II caused much destruction. The Royal Opera House, constructed at the city entrance in the 19th century, was one of the buildings lost to the raids. In 1980, the 24th Chess Olympiad took place in Valletta.[citation needed]The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is celebrated on 16 JulySaint Paul's feast is celebrated on 10 FebruarySaint Dominic's feast is celebrated in Valletta on 4 August or beforeThe feast of Saint Augustine is celebrated on the third Sunday after EasterThe city's residents also conduct an annual procession in honor of St. RitaMaltese Jews in Valletta, 19th centuryPatron SaintsSaint Dominic, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Saint Paul, Saint AugustineFeast Days3 August & 10 FebruaryWebsiteOfficial websiteUNESCO World Heritage SiteCity of VallettaValletta is the capital of Malta, colloquially known as Il-Belt (English: The City) in Maltese. It is located in the central-eastern portion of the island of Malta, and the historical city has a population of 6,966.[1] Valletta is the second southernmost capital of the EU member states afterNicosia.Valletta contains buildings from the 16th century onwards, built during the rule of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, also known as Knights Hospitaller. The city is essentially Baroque in character, with elements of Mannerist, Neo-Classical and Modern architecture in selected areas, though World War II left major scars on the city. The City of Valletta was officially recognised as aWorld Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980.[2]The city was named after Jean Parisot de Valette, who succeeded in defending the island from anOttoman invasion in 1565. The official name given by the Order of Saint John was Humilissima Civitas Valletta — The Most Humble City of Valletta, or Città Umilissima in Italian. The bastions,curtains and ravelins along with the beauty of its Baroque palaces, gardens and churches, led the ruling houses of Europe to give the city its nickname Superbissima — Most Proud.The city is on the island of Malta so it shares its early history with the island. Immediately after the end of the Siege of Malta in 1565, the Order decided to found a new city on the Xiberraspeninsula to fortify the Order's position in Malta and bind the Knights to the island. The foundation stone of Valletta was laid by the Grandmaster of the Order, Jean Parisot de Valette on 28 March 1566. De Valette placed the first stone in Our Lady of Victories Church.In his book Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Illustrissima Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano (English: The History of the Sacred Religion and Illustrious Militia of St John of Jerusalem), written between 1594 and 1602, Giacomo Bosio writes that when the cornerstone of Valletta was placed, a group of Maltese elders said: "Iegi zimen en fel wardia col sceber raba iesue uquie" (Which in modern Maltese reads, "Jiġi żmien li fil-Wardija [l-Għolja Sciberras] kull xiber raba’ jiswa uqija", and in English, "There will come a time when every piece of land on Sciberras Hill will be worth its weight in gold").[3]Grand Master de Valette died on 21 August 1568 at age 74 and never saw the completion of his city. Originally interred in the church of Our Lady of the Victories, his remains now rest in St. John's Co-Cathedral among the tombs of other Grand Masters of the Knights of Malta. Francesco Laparelli was the city's principal designer and his plan departed from medieval Maltese architecture, which exhibited irregular winding streets and alleys. He designed the new city on a rectangular grid, and without any collacchio (an area restricted for important buildings). The streets were designed to be wide and straight, beginning centrally from the City Gate and ending at Fort Saint Elmo overlooking the Mediterranean; certain bastions were built 153 feet (47 m) tall. The Maltese architect Gerolamo Cassar was responsible for a number of the buildings. After the Knights' departure and the brief French occupation, building projects in Valletta resumed under British rule. These projects included widening gates, demolishing and rebuilding structures, widening newer houses over the years, and installing civic projects. Naziand Fascist air raids throughout World War II caused much destruction. The Royal Opera House, constructed at the city entrance in the 19th century, was one of the buildings lost to the raids. In 1980, the 24th Chess Olympiad took place in Valletta.[citation needed]The feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is celebrated on 16 JulySaint Paul's feast is celebrated on 10 FebruarySaint Dominic's feast is celebrated in Valletta on 4 August or beforeThe feast of Saint Augustine is celebrated on the third Sunday after EasterThe city's residents also conduct an annual procession in honor of St. RitaMaltese Jews in Valletta, 19th century
http://historum.com/blogs/ghostexorcist/312-kaifeng-jew-paper-part-i.html
By Jim R. McClanahan;
http://historum.com/blogs/ghostexorcist/312-kaifeng-jew-paper-part-i.html
The Italian Jesuit Matteo Ricci became the first westerner to learn about the Jewish community of Kaifeng City, Henan Province, China when he was contacted by a Chinese-Jew named Ai Tian (艾田) in 1605 CE.[1] This discovery would lead to droves of religious and secular researchers visiting the community in the hopes of obtaining ancient, pre-Christian editions of the Old Testament, converting them to Christianity, or to just learn about their history in general.[2] The two most prominent theories as to why the Jews first came to China are that they arrived as religious refugees during the Han dynasty (206 BCE-221 CE), or as merchants during the Northern Song dynasty (960-1127). The main source for both theories ultimately derives from three stone inscriptions erected during the Ming and Qing Dynasties in the years 1489, 1512, and 1663 (sides A and B).[3] Additional sources come in the form of Chinese and foreign records ranging from the 8th-14th centuries. An analysis of all available evidence proves the ancestors of the Kaifeng Jews came to China for mercantile activities during the Song dynasty.Matteo Ricci (1552-1610)Proponents of the Han entry theory often cite a passage from the 1512 inscription which reads: “The founder of this religion is Abraham who is thus the ancestor. After him Moses, who transmitted the Scriptures, is thus the master of the religion. Then this same religion, from the time of the Han Dynasty, entered and established itself in the Middle Kingdom.”[4] The Jesuit Antoine Gaubil wrote in 1723 that the Jews had told him that they had been living in China for 1,650 years,[5] which would put their arrival shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Roman Emperor Titus in 70 CE.[6] If true, this means the Jews fled from the Romans to China. Chen Yuan, however, felt it was actually Gaubil who had calculated the date to begin with, not the Jews.[7] Writing in 1770, one of Gaubil’s successors, Gabriel Brotier, noted in his memoir that the Jews had pinpointed the reign of Han Emperor Ming Di (漢明帝, r. 56-78 CE) as the time of their arrival.[8] When two Chinese Protestant converts visited the community in 1850, the Jews told them that they had brought Judaism to Kaifeng 1,850 years in the past.[9] Pan Guandan comments this predates Gaubil’s calculation by some 70 years, and places their entry during the reign of Han Emperor Ping Di (漢平帝, r. 1-6 CE).[10] Many late 19th and early 20th century researchers later built upon this foundation by pushing the date back to the earliest years of the Han.[11] Chen Yuan ultimately shot down the Han entry theory because the earlier 1489 inscription alludes to a later entry and because there is no physical evidence to support it. He writes:“Yet in the more than one thousand years from Han to [Song,] if there were settlers of Jews, why have they not left a single trace of any person, event, or structure? Why does the [1489] inscription place the transmission of the religion in Song, and not before? The claim that the Kaifeng Jews are descended from those who came to China in Han is not credible. It is possible that some Jews reached China before Han, but the Jews in Kaifeng could not possibly descend from them.”[12]In addition, if all three inscriptions are viewed chronologically, a pattern appears where later stones place the Jews arrival further and further back into history. For instance, the 1489 inscription quotes it was during the Song Dynasty (960-1279 CE), while the 1663A inscription says it was as far back as the early Zhou Dynasty (1045-256 BCE).[13] Wei Qianzhi believes this was the result of misreading part of a past inscription in the process of preparing a new one.[14] The 1489 and 1512 stones both state the Jewish patriarch Abraham established Judaism during the time period that coincided with the Zhou Dynasty.[15] This means that whoever prepared the 1663A inscription might have thought this implied the Jews had arrived in China during the Zhou. Michael Pollak suggests it was less of a mistake and more of a “protective maneuver” to cast an aura of antiquity in a land obsessed with ancient lineages.[16] This suggests the time was pushed back to the Han to make it seem like the Jews had settled in China long before they actually did. It may also be connected to religious apologetics (see below).Despite this, Tiberiu Weisz, M.A., a retired Chinese language teacher and business consultant,[17] believes internal references to Jewish rituals and prayers in the inscriptions, as well as mentions of Semitic-looking people in ancient Chinese records points to a Han entry. The standard English translation of the inscriptions was completed in 1942 by the Canadian Anglican Bishop William Charles White, and it was based on a punctuated version of the original Classical Chinese script prepared by Chen Yuan. Weisz, however, felt it was time for a new translation because his own efforts yielded different readings,[18] and because White’s version had little to no references to Judaism at all.[19] After finishing, he cross-referenced information from the stones with religious scripture and Jewish and Chinese historical records. His research yielded a story that traced their history back to the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem and the exile of the Jews to Babylon in the 5th century BCE. After returning from the exile, a group of disenchanted Levites and Kohanim (Jewish Priests) parted with the biblical leader Ezra over a disagreement over a marriage proclamation and later settled in Northwestern India. Sometime prior to 108 BCE, these Jews had migrated to Ferghana in Central Asia where they were spotted by the Chinese General Li Guangli (李廣利). The Jews were then incorporated into the Han Empire when China annexed the region that would become Xinjiang in the last century before the Common Era. They continued to kneel during daily prayer, preserving the tradition in China long after Jews in the Holy Land discontinued the practice. Analyzing these claims individually requires a certain amount of digression, but this is necessary to put the Han entry theory to rest.According to the Bible, King Artaxerxes I of Persia (465-424 BCE) gave Ezra permission to return to Israel with a large retinue of Jews who had been held in Babylonian captivity.[20] Upon their return, he learned that the common people and priestly class of Israel had violated the covenant with God by marrying pagan women and fathering children with them.[21] Ezra feared that these women would try to raise their sons as pagans, so he ordered all of the offenders to divorce their wives. The people submitted to this ruling, but there were still some dissenters: “Only Jonathan the son of Asahel and Jahzeiah the son of Tikvah stood up against this matter; and Meshullam and Shabbethai the Levite helped them.”[22] Weisz theorizes that this disgruntled bunch of Jews parted with Ezra and traveled to eastern lands where they remained cut off from the unfolding of Jewish history from that time forward.[23] The only problem is the inscriptions mention none of this.Ink rubbings of the 1489 (left) and 1512 (right) stone inscriptionsBoth the 1489 and 1512 inscriptions mention Ezra as being the last in a long line of prophets to receive transmission of “The Scriptures.”[24] This is because Ezra is thought by some to be the last editor of theTorah—the storehouse of all Jewish Law.[25] By the time the Jews returned from exile and the Second Temple was built, Judaism changed from a religion based on the wisdom of ancient prophets to one relying on temple worship. Ezra shifted the focus back on the prophets by instituting the importance of Torah study.[26] The 1512 inscription confirms: “Thereupon the religion of the ancestors was brilliant and renewed with brightness.”[27] Because of his efforts in reviving Judaism after the exile, Ezra is sometimes known as “The Father of Judaism.”[28] The 1489 inscription even refers to him as the “Patriarch of the Correct Religion.”[29] So there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim that the ancestors of the Kaifeng Jews had ever known Ezra, or had a falling out with him.[30]All three of the inscriptions (1489, 1512, and 1663A) mention Judaism being transmitted from Tianzhu (天竺),[31] a word long associated with India.[32] However, some scholars have voiced the opinion that it has a different contextual meaning. For example, Chen Yuan comments:“Tianzhu is an ancient term. As used here it simply represented a place far to the west. In the same way Adam is compared to Pangu [in the 1512 inscription]. The purpose in both instances was to make the text comprehensible to people today…. So there was nothing wrong at the time in using Tianzhu to represent Judea.”[33]Most importantly, the inscriptions never actually mention Jews traveling from India to China. They just state the religion originated in India. This is, of course, incorrect for Judaism originated in the land of Israel. The 1512 inscription actually uses the term Tianzhu Xiyu (天竺西域).[34] Xiyu has been used for centuries as an umbrella term to describe lands west of China, including those as far away as Egypt and Rome.[35] Tianzhu Xiyu can be rendered several different ways. Under the context, I think White’s variation of “India of the Western Regions” lends itself to Chen’s view.[36] It could be read as “Judea of the Western Regions.”[37] My research suggests that there could be an additional reason for why they referred to India.The Chinese have tried to find common ground between Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucian—the Sanjiao (三教, Three Teachings)—ever since the Six Dynasties Period (220-589).[38] The well known phrase “Unity of the Three Teachings” (三教合一) was first used during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) to explain to the Mongol rulers that Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism were three different paths to the same goal. It later became its own philosophical school during the late Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).[39] The Jews knew of this concept themselves for the 1489 stone reads:“When I ponder of the Three Religions [三教],Each has temples where they honor their Lord.The Confucians have the Dacheng Temple,Where they honor and worship Confucius.The Buddhists have the Shengrong Temple,Where they honor Muniu [Shakyamuni Buddha].The Daoists have the Yuhuang Temple,Where they worship the Three Pures.The Pure and Truth have the Israelite Temple,Where they worship Huangtian [皇天].”[40]Here, they defend the foreign nature of Judaism by comparing it to the three religions. In addition, the stones quote extensively from native Chinese classics not only to highlight similarities in philosophy with their own, but to appeal to their Confucian and Daoist neighbors.[41] They do not, however, quote from any Buddhist Sutras because Judaism is much closer in philosophy to Confucianism,[42] which disagrees on many points with the religion of the Buddha.[43] But if they were trying to appeal to the followers of all three religions, how would they connect Judaism to Buddhism? What better way to appeal to Buddhists than to say Judaism originated from India, the birthplace of Buddhism.[44] If my hypothesis is correct, it strengthens Chen Yuan’s suggestion from above which states India was used to explain a foreign place outside of China in terms that would be familiar to the average Chinese person. This might also explain why the 1512 inscription pushed the Jews’ entry back to the Han. Buddhism first appeared in China during the 1st century BCE, which was during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE-221 CE).[45] Moreover, this would explain why the Jews told the Jesuit Gabriel Brotier in 1770 that they had originally arrived during the time of Han Emperor Ming Di (漢明帝, r. 56-78 CE). A popular legend appearing in the Book of the Latter Han (後漢書, 5th cen.) states Buddhism was officially introduced to China after Ming Di dreamed of a “tall golden man,” who was later revealed to be the Buddha by his advisers.[46]Weisz’s evidence for the Jews’ practice of kneeling during prayer comes from the 1663A inscription which reads: “Kneeling among those who prayed absolutely followed the rituals.”[47] He notes kneeling was common practice in ancient Jewish services during Ezra’s time, but it was shortly thereafter prohibited once Christianity adopted it into their ritual. Weisz reasons the Kaifeng Jews must have settled in Han China before the practice was banned.[48] Kneeling was indeed practiced prior to the fall of the Second Temple in Jerusalem,[49] but this is not, in my opinion, directly related to why the Kaifeng Jews continued to do it.I would like to suggest a competing theory regarding synchronization between Judaism and Confucianism. Despite the ban, Jews were and still are allowed to kneel during services on the high holiday of Yom Kippur(The Day of Atonement).[50] The Kaifeng Jews celebrated the equivalent of Yom Kippur on the 10th day of the 6th moon and had several prayers books (Siddur) set aside just for this occasion.[51] Kneeling on this holiday was probably strictly adhered to until Confucianism began to encroach on Kaifeng Judaism. As early as the 15th century, Jews began passing government exams to become Confucian literati.[52] The 1489 inscription mentions bowing during prayer and making sacrifices to one’s ancestors.[53] The Jews may have initially equated their kneeling during Yom Kippur and reverence for their ancestors on various holidays (Passover,Hanukah, Purim, etc.) with the Confucian practice of bowing before and making sacrifices to ancestor tablets as a form of apologetics. But by the time of Jesuit Jean-Paul Gozani’s visit in 1704, the Jews were indeed emulating the latter. According to a letter from Gozani to another Jesuit:“At our going out of the synagogue is a great hall, which I had the curiosity to look into. I saw nothing in it except a great number of incense bowls. They told me this was the place where they honored their Shêng-jê, or great men of their Law. The largest of these incense bowls, which is for the Patriarch Abraham, stands in the middle of the hall. After this stand those of Isaac, of Jacob, and his twelve children, called by them Shi-êrh-ko-p’ai-tzu, the Twelve Descendants or Tribes of Israel. Next are those of Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Ezra, and of several illustrious persons both men and women.[…]They added also, that in spring and autumn, they paid their ancestors the honours which are usually offered up to them in China, in the hall adjoining to their synagogues. They indeed did not offer up swine’s flesh, but that of other animals; and that, in the common ceremonies, they only presented china dishes filled with viands and sweetmeats, together with the incense;making very low bows and prostrations at the same time.”[54]Kaifeng Synagogue as it appeared in 1722.This may have been a practice performed, at least by the Jewish-Confucian literati, for some time prior to the early 17th century. This is because Ai Tian (艾田), a former Juren graduate of the Confucian civil exams, knelt before pictures of what he mistakenly thought to be his Jewish ancestors in the Jesuit mission house when he visited Matteo Ricci in 1605.[55] By Gozani’s visit almost 100 years later, even the Chief Rabbi of Kaifeng was adhering to Confucian practices.“There having been formerly (as at present) Bachelors, and Chien-shêng, who are a degree below Bachelors, I took the liberty to ask whether they worshipped Confucius. They all answered, and even their ruler [Chief Rabbi], that they honored him in like manner as the heathen literati in China; and that they partook with them in the solemn ceremonies performed in the halls of their great men.”[56]What would make a once devoutly Jewish community adopt elements of a foreign religion? Song Nai Rhee believes the power and wealth of the Jewish-Confucian literati gave them the influence to guide the direction their religion headed in.[57] It seems only natural that the Jews would be more willing to pepper their liturgy with Confucian practices given that these men were probably its main benefactors. Therefore, Kaifeng Judaism took on a thick patina of Confucianism, including the practice of kneeling more frequently than what traditional Judaism would have allowed. So the successive Chief Rabbis would have grown more and more accustomed to it until it was already fully accepted by the time of Gozani’s visit.The evidence for the Jews living in Central Asia comes from Chinese records. Weisz quotes a passage from the book History of Qin and Han Dynasties (秦漢史, 1988, p. 198) by the modern historian Jian Bozan:“It reached the outskirts of the remote Ferghana, beyond the Pamir Plateau. Originally that was the last undisturbed placed from the upheavals in the Northwest Central Asia and inhabited by people with 'deep eyes, big noses and (distinguished) headdress.' Their principal livelihood was growing grapes, grazing and raising horses. Although they had often seen Han emissaries coming and going in Central Asia, and they also knew that there was a Great Han country to the East, but because they had been under the control of the Huns for [a] very long time, they did not hold the Han emissaries to as a high esteem as those of the Huns (Xiongu)"[58]He believes the people’s description of “deep eyes, big noses and (distinguished) headdress” proves a “small community” of Jews was discovered by the Han Dynasty General Li Guangli (李廣利) during his invasion of Central Asia in 108 BCE. Weisz notes the (unspecified) Chinese character used to designate the headdress can mean either ‘turban’ or ‘coiffure’.[59] When viewed from a Jewish context, he reasons the turban could be the miter-diadem combo worn by the Jewish Kohen-Priests (Exodus 28:36-38), or the coiffure could be the ear-locks worn by ancient Jews (Lev. 19:27). The biggest problem I have with this claim is that he automatically assumes the people were Jews. If he had at least tried to do a comparative study between Jews and the various tribes of Central Asia from this time and found more evidence to support his claim, his theory would be stronger. But as it stands, his only evidence is their appearance. The quoted passage is rather vague, and there is nothing particular about it that signals the people were Jewish. Given the time and place, the people could have easily been Persians, Sogdians, or even Indians for all we know.The 123rd chapter of the Records of the Grand Historian (史記, 90 BCE) contains the original account of these people:"Da Yuan (Ferghana) lies southwest of the territory of the Xiongnu, some 10,000 li directly west of China. The people are settled on the land, plowing the fields and growing rice and wheat. They also make wine out of grapes. The region has many fine horses … their forebears are supposed to have been foaled from heavenly horses. The people live in houses in fortified cities, there being some seventy or more cities of various sizes in the region. … The men all have deep-set eyes and profuse beards and whiskers ...[After a Han envoy was killed there, the Han emperor] dispatched general Li Guangli with a force of 6,000 horsemen recruited from the dependent states, as well as 20,000 or 30,000 young men of bad reputation rounded up from the provinces and kingdoms, to launch an attack on Da Yuan. The title of Ershi General was given to Li Guangli because it was expected that he would reach the city Ershi and capture the fine horses there. … This was in the first year of the [Taichu] era (104 BCE)."[60]Map of Alexander the Great's conquests in India and Central Asia. The cityAlexandria Eschate (Alexandria the Furthest) is in the north in Ferghana.Da Yuan (大宛) is considered by scholars to refer to the Ferghana Valley, which crosses Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.[61] Alexander the Great is known to have founded the city of Alexandria Eschate(Alexandria the furthest) in Ferghana where the modern city of Khojend stands during the 4th century BCE. It boasted a Greek population.[62] Considering their presence in Central Asia, some researchers claim Yuan(宛) to be a transliteration of Yawana, the ancient Persian and Indian word for the Greeks.[63] William Woodthorpe Tarn does not accept this, though, as there was a corresponding city in the Tarim Basin of China with no known Greek association called Xiao Yuan (小宛). [64] However, he still believes the Da Yuan people were of Greek origin. The Chinese explorer Zhang Qian (张骞, d. 114 BCE) traveled “postal roads” during his trip through Ferghana in 128 BCE. Tarn suggests the roads could have hypothetically been built by King Darius of Persia (c. 500 BCE) and maintained by local Greeks until the coming of Zhang Qian.[65] More conclusively, he believes Da Yuan’s 70 walled cities were built by the Greeks since Alexander filled Bactria with such structures, and his enemies, the Achaemenids, only showed themselves capable of building low mudbrick ramparts in that area. Edwin G. Pulleyblank, on the other hand, believed they were Tuharans who had supplanted the Greeks in that area. He based this on a linguistic analysis of Da Wan, a variation on their Chinese name.[66]If this information is considered, three things become clear. First, Li Guangli’s push into Ferghana happened in 104 BCE, not 108 BCE. Second, the “small community” that Weisz speaks of was actually a large territory of 70 walled cities comprised of hundreds of thousands of individuals. Third, these people were in fact not Jewish, but some other ethnic extraction. By far, the most serious problem is Weisz was fully aware that his source was referring to non-Jewish people. Jian’s book actually reads:“Da Yuan was located beyond the Pamir Plateau, [it] originally was the last reserve in Northwest Central Asia for those Greeks [希臘人] with ‘deep-set eyes, big noses and profuse beards’ [多鬚]….”[67]In addition, Weisz actually based his theory about the Jewish settlement in Central Asia on a mistranslation. Both the Records of the Grand Historian and Jian's text mention nothing about a “headdress,” only “profuse beards.” It would seem he confused the character of xu (鬚, beard) with something else, possibly jiu (鬏, coiffure). Normally, mistranslating a character would be forgivable because even experts are entitled to make a mistake every once in a while. But the fact remains that Weisz misquoted a source just so it would support his thesis. This is the final nail in the coffin for the Han entry theory.
Ink rubbings of the 1489 stele (left) and 1512 stele (right)In The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China, Tiberiu Weisz, a teacher of Hebrew history and Chinese religion, presents his own translations of the 1489, 1512, and 1663 stone stelae left by the Kaifeng Jews. Based on the new information gleaned from this translation, Weisz theorizes after the Babylonian exile of the 6th century BCE, disenchanted Levites and Kohanim parted with the Prophet Ezra and settled in NorthwesternIndia. Sometime prior to 108 BCE, these Jews had migrated to Gansu province, China and were spotted by the Chinese general Li Guangli, who was sent to expand the borders of Han DynastyChina. Centuries later, the Jews were expelled from China proper during the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution (845-46), where they lived in the region of Ningxia. Weisz believes they later returned to China during the Song Dynasty when its second emperor, Taizong, sent out a decree seeking the wisdom of foreign scholars.[9]Judeo-Persian first developed in Central Asia during the 8th century,[29] well after the author supposes the Jews first entered China. Berg questions the historical reliability of the three stone inscriptions themselves. He gives one anachronistic example where the Jews claim it was an emperor of the Ming Dynasty who bequeathed the land used to build their first synagogue in 1163 during the Song Dynasty.[30]Pulitzer-prize-winning American novelist Pearl S. Buck, raised in China and fluent in Chinese, set one of her historical novels (Peony) in a Chinese Jewish community. The novel deals with the cultural forces gradually eroding the separate identity of the Jews, including intermarriage. The title character, the Chinese bondmaid Peony, loves her master's son, David ben Ezra, but cannot marry him due to her lowly station. He eventually marries a high-class Chinese woman, to some consternation of his mother, who is proud of her unmixed heritage. Descriptions of remnant names, such as a "Street of the Plucked Sinew", and of customs such as refraining from the eating of pork, are prevalent throughout the novel.The Broadway musical Chu Chem is a fictional tale that revolves around the Kaifeng Jewish community. In the show, a group of European actors join a troupe of Chinese performers to present the story of Chu Chem. He is a scholar who, with his wife Rose and daughter Lotte, journeys to Kaifeng to learn about his ancestors and find a husband for the girl.The documentary's companion book further states that one can still see a "mezuzah on the door frame, and the candelabrum in the living room." Similarly, in the documentary Quest for the Lost Tribes, by Canadian filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici, the film crew visits the home of an elderly Kaifeng Jew who explains the recent history of the Kaifeng Jews, shows some old photographs, and his identity papers that identify him as a member of the Jewish ethnic group. A recent documentary, Minyan in Kaifeng, documents and covers the present-day Kaifeng Jewish community in China during a trip to Kaifeng that was taken by some Jewish tourists.[31]Zhao Yingcheng 赵映乘 (Hebrew name: Moshe ben Abram;[1] 1619–1657?) was a mandarin inChina during the Ming dynasty and a Jew. He and his brother Zhao Yingdou, also a mandarin, held important government posts in the 1660s.[2][3]Proficient in both Hebrew and Chinese, Zhao, from the province of Henan, obtained the jinshidegree in 1646. He was named director of the Ministry of Justice. Four years later he was sent toFujian and Huguang as an official. He was remembered as an efficient administrator and excellent Confucian scholar who exterminated local bandits and founded schools.[4]In 1642, near the end of the Ming Dynasty, Kaifeng was flooded by the Ming army with water from the Yellow River to prevent the peasant rebel Li Zicheng from taking over. After this disaster, the city was abandoned. The synagogue of the Kaifeng Jewish community (reportedly dating from 1163) was destroyed, and the Jews took refuge on the north side of the Yellow River. They took with them the Torah scrolls, which had been saved after having been thrown into the river.Ten years later, Zhao was detailed to restore the city. With the aid of his brother, Zhao Yingdou, he induced the Jews to recross the river and take up their old quarters. The temple was rebuilt in 1653, with the personal financial support of Zhao.[4] One complete scroll of the Law was made up out of the fragments which had been saved from the river, and other copies were made from this. A stone stele dated 1663 was afterward erected, giving the details of Zhao Yingcheng's action.Zhao wrote an account of the saving of the scrolls and the rebuilding of the temple, Record of the Vicissitudes of the Holy Scriptures. His brother wrote Preface to the Illustrious Way, believed to be an exposition of the tenets of Judaism. Both works are now lost, although in recent years Chinese scholars have begun a search for them in the libraries of Kaifeng, Beijing, and elsewhere.[1]
Chinese City of Harbin Still Home for Russians, Poles : Few Emigres Left in Paris of the Far East
October 20, 1985|JIM MANN | Times Staff WriterEmailShare"We always had an idea to marry after we leave to America or Australia," said Mikhail Mertov, 73, a White Russian who lives here with his brother Alexei, 76. The Mertovs came to Harbin as children, in 1919.Sought Return of PropertyThey have not left because they have had problems getting the proper papers and, like some others in the European community here, they stayed on to try to get repayment for property they lost after the Communists came to power in 1949.Stokalski, too, lost property. "In the past, I had a lot of houses," he said, "but all of them were confiscated by the government in 1958 except for this one.Harbin authorities have agreed to pay Stokalski for the houses but there is still no agreement on the amount. He is being offered much less than he believes the houses are worth.Stokalski said the most difficult period in Harbin was during Mao's Great Leap Forward, which turned into an economic disaster. "In 1960," he recalled, "there were very few products here and almost no food."He said Red Guards destroyed cathedrals, paintings, icons and "everything of value." Harbin, he explained, no longer has the luster it once had."Before, Harbin was very beautiful; it was a small Paris." he said. "Now it doesn't look like Paris."Stokalski and His Dog 'Bubi'Stokalski is retired from his job as a mechanical engineer and lives alone with his dog, "Bubi." He said he spends his days meeting with local officials to try to resolve the property dispute and traveling to a cemetery outside Harbin to visit the grave of his mother, who died here in 1973.Four of Harbin's Russians are housed at the retirement home for foreigners, the only one of its kind in China. When it was set up, in 1954, the home had about 200 foreigners living in it. The number has dwindled to 14, including three Japanese, four Koreans, a Chinese from abroad and two stateless Americans.The Americans are Marjorie Fuller, 62, and her mother, Seraphine, 80. Both were born in China and refer to themselves as "Bamboo Americans." They renounced their U.S. citizenship in 1930 after Seraphine Fuller divorced her American husband.Marjorie Fuller said she and her mother decided to stay on in China after the civil war ended in 1949 because they felt that life under the Communist regime would be "democratic." In 1959, though, they were locked up in a labor camp on the outskirts of Shanghai and kept there with other stateless persons for 21 years.Marjorie Fuller speaks fluent American English and no Chinese at all, though she has never been outside China. Asked whether she would like to have her American citizenship back or to travel to the United States, she replied:"No, it's too late now. Too many years have passed."
One of Harbin's old Jewish synagogues now serves as the No. 2 Korean Middle School, where Harbin children of Korean descent learn to write Chinese characters. The top floor of another synagogue serves as a club for elderly Communist Party cadres.Any new Soviet advisers who come to Harbin will find a cemetery containing the graves of about 200 Red Army soldiers said to have died in World War II. The cemetery is walled off and overgrown with weeds, a striking symbol of the enmity between China and the Soviet Union that has prevailed for most of the last two decades.Estimates vary but it appears that there are about 40 Russians left in Harbin from the huge community that was here early in the century.'I Love Russia'"I'm a Russian," Vladimir Dzinchenko said. "I love Russia. I love Russians. But not everything there pleases me."Dzinchenko, 49, who works in a local dairy, was one of the guests at Stokalski's party. Dzinchenko's parents settled in Harbin in 1921 after fleeing the Russian revolution. He describes himself as an old-fashioned person and a devoutly religious member of Harbin's surviving Russian Orthodox Church. Conditions for Russians living in Harbin have improved greatly in the last few years, he said, and added:"In the Cultural Revolution, no one would greet us. They would turn their backs on us. I couldn't have talked to (a reporter) then, either. I could talk to other Russians, but not to anyone else."A year ago, Dzinchenko married a young woman who is of mixed Russian and Chinese descent. Other Russians here said they never married because they thought their life in Harbin would be temporary and that having a family would make them less mobile.Stokalski and his guests could ignore the tension of the last few years between the Soviet Union and Poland because it has passed them by. They share a common bond: They are among the last few dozen Eastern European residents of Harbin, the Manchurian city in northeast China that once had more than 100,000 foreigners and was known as the Paris (or Moscow) of the Far East.Some of these East Europeans, among them Stokalski's parents, came here at the end of the 19th Century to build the railroad that runs from Europe through Siberia to Vladivostok. Others are White Russians and Jews who fled after the Bolshevik Revolution.Most of them left China decades ago, going back to Eastern Europe or to places like Australia. However, a handful stayed on in Harbin, surviving the Japanese occupation, the Chinese civil war, the Communist takeover, and Mao Tse-tung's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.Now, there are indications that Harbin may be getting a new influx of people from the Soviet Union. In July, China and the Soviet Union signed a five-year, $14-billion agreement under which the Soviet Union will help to modernize some of China's industrial installations.Much of the Soviet assistance will come to Manchuria, where the Soviets built dozens of factories in the 1950s. Here in Harbin, a city of 2.5 million people, a Soviet navigation group has completed an inspection tour of waterways and industrial enterprises, apparently laying the groundwork for future economic ties.The Russians who come to Harbin now will find Eastern European institutions throughout the city but little life in them.Harbin's largest Russian Orthodox Church was torn down in a single day by young Red Guards at the height of the Cultural Revolution. Of the 18 Russian Orthodox Church buildings remaining in the city, only one is still being used for its original purpose. One has become a warehouse for a department store; another has been turned into a car repair shop; a third is now a Catholic Church."Hold high the banner of patriotism . . . take the road of independence and the autonomous church," says a sign on the Orthodox-turned-Catholic church, in effect telling worshipers to forsake all ties with the Vatican in favor of the independent Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church, which is favored by the authorities in Peking.The parish priest, Cheng Ganqian, said he was delighted to make use of the church, because Catholics in Harbin had no place to worship during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution. He said that Jiang Qing, Mao's wife and one of the leaders of the Cultural Revolution, "wouldn't allow it."Sole SurvivorOnce there were approximately 10,000 Russian Jews in Harbin. Now, there is apparently only one, an elderly, emaciated and bedridden woman named Hannah Agre who stays alive with the help of elderly Russian friends.HARBIN, China — It was a Polish holiday, and Edward Stokalski, 68, had invited a few of his Russian friends over for dinner. He had laid out a plate of sausages in his tiny, two-room wooden house and had put on his best suit."Now, we just live, and as for the future, no one knows," one of the Russian guests, all emigres, said after a round of toasts.
할빈시 조선족 제2 중학교The Harbin No. 2 Korean Middle School (also Harbin 2nd Korean Nationality Middle School) is a school for ethnic Korean residents of Harbin, Heilongjiang in northeast China.[1][The No. 2 Korean Middle School was established in 1962, and received permission to convert from an ordinary middle school to a foreign-language vocational middle school in September 1992. It was the only ethnic vocational middle school in Heilongjiang province.[3] Its conversion into a municipal-level standard school was approved in December 2010.[4]In 2006, the Heilongjiang College of Education organised computer training for teachers at the school and several other Korean schools in the province.[5] In 2011, the school signed an agreement with the Harbin Tourism Department to train Korean-speaking tour guides.[6]Commemorative plaque on the No. 2 Korean Middle School buildingThe No. 2 Korean Middle School is located at 86 Tongjiang Street, Daoli District, in a building constructed in the late 1910s. The same building once housed the city's Jewish Middle School; it is listed by the municipal government as a second-class preserved historical building.[7]할빈시 조선족 제2 중학교
A small village in 1898 grew into the modern city of Harbin.[10] Polish engineer Adam Szydłowski drew plans for the city following the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway (KVZhD), which the Russian Empire had financed.[11] The Chinese Eastern Railway extended the Trans-Siberian Railway: substantially reducing the distance from Chita to Vladivostok and also linking the new port city of Dalny (Dalian) and the Russian Naval Base Port Arthur. However, this expansion proved controversial, and one of the causes of the Boxer Rebellion; the rebels martyred thousands of ethnic Chinese Christians, including orthodox priest Metrophanes, Chi Sung and his family,[12] before Western expeditionary forces helped crush the insurrection. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), Russia used Harbin as its base for military operations in Northeastern China.Following Russia's defeat, its influence declined. Several thousand nationals from 33 countries, including the United States, Germany, and France moved to Harbin. In 1913 the Chinese Eastern Railwaycensus showed its ethnic composition as: Russians – 34313, Chinese (that is, including Hans,Manchus etc.) – 23537, Jews – 5032, Poles – 2556, Japanese – 696, Germans – 564, Tatars – 234, Latvians – 218, Georgians – 183, Estonians – 172, Lithuanians – 142, Armenians – 124; there were also Karaims, Ukrainians, Bashkirs, and some Western Europeans. In total, 68549 citizens of 53 nationalities, speaking 45 languages.[13]After Russia's Great October Socialist Revolution in December 1918, more than 100,000 defeatedRussian White Guards and refugees retreated to Harbin, which became a major center of White Russian émigrés and the largest Russian enclave outside the Soviet Union. The city had a Russian school system, as well as publishers of Russian language newspapers and journals. After 1919, Dr. Abraham Kaufman played a leading role in Harbin's large Russian Jewish community.[14] The Republic of China discontinued diplomatic relations with Imperial Russia in 1920, so many Russians found themselves stateless. When the Chinese Eastern Railway and government in Beijing announced in 1924 that they agreed the railroad would only employ Russian or Chinese nationals, the emigrees were forced to announce their ethnic and political allegiance. Most accepted Soviet citizenship.Imperial Japanese Army entered Harbin after Mukden IncidentJapan invaded Manchuria outright after the Mukden Incident in September 1931. After the Japanese captured Tsitsihar in the Jiangqiao Campaign, the Japanese 4th Mixed Brigade moved toward Harbin, closing in from the west and south. Bombing and strafing by Japanese aircraft forced the Chinese army to retreat from Harbin. Within a few hours the Japanese occupation of Harbin was complete.[15]With the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo, the Pacification of Manchukuo began, as volunteer armies continued to fight the Japanese. Harbin became a major operations base for the infamous medical experimenters of Unit 731, who killed people of all ages and ethnicities. Twelve were found guilty in the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials but later repatriated; others received secret immunity before the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal in exchange for biological warfare work in the Cold War.[citation needed] Chinese revolutionaries including Zhao Shangzhi, Yang Jingyu, Li Zhaolin, Zhao Yiman continued to struggle against the Japanese. In 1935, the Soviet Union sold the Chinese Eastern Railway (KVZhD) to the Japanese, and many Russian emigres left Manchuria, especially Harbin. Most departing Russians returned to the Soviet Union, but a substantial number moved south to Shanghai or emigrated to the United States and Australia.Many of Harbin's Jews (13,000 in 1929) fled after the Japanese occupation. Most left forShanghai, Tientsin, and the British Mandate of Palestine.[16] In the late 1930s, some German Jews fleeing the Nazis moved to Harbin. Japanese officials later facilitated Jewish emigration to several cities in western Japan, notably Kobe, which came to have Japan's largest synagogue.The Soviet Army took the city on 20 August 1945 and Harbin never came under the control of the Kuomintang, whose troops stopped 60 km (37 mi) short of the city. The city's administration was transferred by the departing Soviet Army to the Chinese People's Liberation Army in April 1946. On April 28, 1946, the Communist Government of Harbin was established, making the 700,000-citizen-city the first large city under CPC rule.[9] During the short occupation of Harbin by the Soviet Army (August 1945 to April 1946), thousands of Russian emigres who fled communism after the revolution, were forcibly moved to the Soviet Union. The rest of the European community (Russians, Germans, Poles, Greeks, etc.) emigrated during the years 1950–54 to Australia, Brazil and the USA, or were repatriated to their home countries. By 1988 the original Russian community numbered just thirty, all of them elderly.Since the transportation between Harbin and Soviet Union was very convenient, Harbin was among one of the key construction cities of China during the First Five-Year Plan period from 1951 to 1956. 13 of the 156 key construction projects were aid-constructed by the Soviet Union in Harbin. This project made Harbin an important industrial base of China. During the Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961, Harbin experienced a very tortuous development course as several Sino-Soviet contracts were cancelled by the Soviet Union.[17] During the Cultural Revolutionmany foreign and Christian things were uprooted, such as the St. Nicholas church which was destroyed by Red Guards in 1966. As the normal economic and social order was seriously disrupted, Harbin's economy also suffered from serious setbacks.However, national economy and social service have obtained significant achievements since the economic reforms first introduced in 1979. Harbin holds the China Harbin International economic and Trade Fair each year since 1990.[9] Harbin once housed one of the largest Jewish communities in the Far East. It reached its peak in the mid-1920s when 25,000 European Jewslived in the city. Among them were the parents of Ehud Olmert, the former Prime Minister of Israel. In 2004 Olmert came to Harbin with an Israeli trade delegation to visit the grave of his grandfather.[18]A benzene plant situated upstream in Jilin City along the Songhua River exploded on 13 November 2005. Benzene levels reached more than 100 times normal levels, which led authorities in Harbin to shut off the water supply, and some residents left the city while others rushed to buy bottled water. After a few days the water supply was restored. The Harbin government originally declared to the public that the water supply was temporarily off while the supply system was checked. They also denied reports of a chemical leak, claiming that it was "just a rumour."[19]The eight counties of Harbin originally formed part of Songhuajiang Prefecture (松花江地区), and became incorporated into Harbin on 11 August 1999, making Harbin a sub-provincial city. The municipality had 10,635,971 inhabitants at the 2010 census and its built up area now covers seven districts of Harbin municipality: all urban districts plus Hulan county who is merging withSongbei districts. The built up area is now home to 5,282,083 inhabitants spread out on 4,275 km2 (1,651 sq mi).[4]Harbin is located in Northeast China, along with several other major cities including Changchun,Dalian and Shenyang. While Dalian is considered the region's shipping center and Shenyang its financial hub, Harbin is striving hard towards becoming the key trade and shopping center of the region. The city is located in one of the fastest growing regions in the world and can boast a number of advantages such as an abundance of natural resources, good transport system and plenty of human resources.[27]Commercial street with European façades in Harbin (2007)The soil in Harbin, called “black earth” is one of the most nutrient rich in all of China, making it valuable for cultivating food and textile-related crops. As a result, Harbin is China’s base for the production of commodity grain and an ideal location for setting up agricultural businesses. Harbin also has industries such as light industry, textile, medicine, food, automobile, metallurgy, electronics, building materials, and chemicals which help to form a fairly comprehensive industrial system. Harbin Power Equipment Group Company and Northeast Light Alloy Processing Factory are two key enterprises. Harbin is also known as the capital of power manufacturing; hydro and thermal power equipment manufactured here makes up one-third of the total installed capacity in China.[30]Foreign investors seem upbeat about the city. The Harbin Trade and Economic fair, has been held for 17 years annually, cumulatively attracting more than 1.3 million exhibitors and visitors and resulting in contracts of over US$90 billion. Japanese, Russian and Eastern European nations are increasingly looking to North China and Harbin for investment. Foreign direct investment remains low, but is growing as a result of government efforts, with utilized FDI totaling US$570 million, up 28.1 percent, in 2008.[31]Harbin is also home to Harbin Institute of Technology, one of China's better known universities. Founded in 1920, the university has developed into an important research university focusing on engineering, with supporting faculties in the sciences, management, humanities and social sciences. The institute's faculty and students contributed to and invented China's first analog computer, the first intelligent chess computer, and the first arc-welding robot. In 2010, research funding from the government, industry, and business sectors surpassed RMB1.13 billion, the second highest of any university in China.[32]Economic Development Zones and Ports[33]Harbin Development ZoneHarbin Economic and Technological Development ZoneHarbin High and New Technological Development ZoneHarbin High-tech Zone was set up in 1988 and was approved by the State Council as a national development zone in 1991. It has a total area of 34 sqkm in the centralized parks, subdivided into Nangang, Haping Road and Yingbin Road Centralized Parks. The Nangang Centralized Park is designated for the incubation of high-tech projects and research and development base of enterprises as well as tertiary industries such as finance, insurance, services, catering, tourism, culture, recreation and entertainment, where the headquarters of large famous companies and their branches in Harbin are located; the Haping Road Centralized Park is a comprehensive industrial basis for the investment projects of automobile and automobile parts manufacturing, medicines, foodstuffs, electronics, textile; the Yingbin Road Centralized Park is mainly for high-tech incubation projects, high-tech industrial development.[34]Harbin today is still very much influenced by its Russian past. A city once under Russian rule, it is now a center of trade with that country.[citation needed]The influence of Russia came with the construction of the China Far East Railway, an extension of the Trans-Siberian Railway, and Harbin, known formerly as a fishing village, began to prosper as the largest commercial center of North Eastern Asia.[citation needed]Imperial Russia encouraged Russian settlement in their important Trans-Siberian-Railway outpost by waiving the then 25-year long military service obligation. For Jews who settled there, the restrictions applying in Russia were also waived.[citation needed]The local cuisine in Harbin is also Russian-influenced. Harbin's bakeries are famous for their bread da-lie-ba(大列巴) in local dialect, derived from the Russian word khleb for "bread". Harbin's sausages (harbin hong-chang) are another notable product, in that they tend to be of a much more European flavours than other Chinese sausages.[ciHarbin is located in Northeast China under the direct influence of the cold winter wind fromSiberia. The average temperature in summer is 21.2 °C (70.2 °F) and −16.8 °C (1.8 °F) in winter.The annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival has been held since 1985. The "Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival" is one of the four largest ice and snow festivals in the world, along with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada's Quebec City Winter Carnival, and Norway's Ski Festival.Harbin is twinned with:International Niigata, Japan, since 1979A small village in 1898 grew into the modern city of Harbin.[10] Polish engineer Adam Szydłowski drew plans for the city following the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway (KVZhD), which the Russian Empire had financed.[11] The Chinese Eastern Railway extended the Trans-Siberian Railway: substantially reducing the distance from Chita to Vladivostok and also linking the new port city of Dalny (Dalian) and the Russian Naval Base Port Arthur. However, this expansion proved controversial, and one of the causes of the Boxer Rebellion; the rebels martyred thousands of ethnic Chinese Christians, including orthodox priest Metrophanes, Chi Sung and his family,[12] before Western expeditionary forces helped crush the insurrection. During the Russo-Japanese War (1904–5), Russia used Harbin as its base for military operations in Northeastern China.Following Russia's defeat, its influence declined. Several thousand nationals from 33 countries, including the United States, Germany, and France moved to Harbin.
Harbin serves as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural and communications hub in Northeast China. Harbin was founded by the Polish Adam Szydłowski in 1898, during construction of the Trans-Manchurian Railway, today known as theChinese Eastern Railway.[5]Harbin, which was originally a Manchu word meaning "a place for drying fishing nets", grew from a small rural settlement on the Songhua River to become one of the largest cities in the northeast. The city first prospered as a region inhabited by an overwhelming majority of the immigrants from the Russian Empire. It is known for its bitterly cold winters and is often called the "Ice City." Harbin is notable for its beautiful ice sculptures in winter and its Russian legacy, and it still plays an important part in Sino-Russian trade today. In the 1920s, the city was considered China's fashion capital since new designs from Paris and Moscow reached there first before arriving in Shanghai.[6] In 2010, Harbin was declared a UNESCO "City of Music".[7]Kitayskaya Street (Russian for "China Street") (中國大街) in Harbin before 1945Human settlement in the Harbin area dates from at least 2200 BC (late Stone Age). In 1115 CE,Jin Dynasty established their capital, Shangjing (上京 or Upper Capital) Huining Fu (会宁府), in today's Acheng District of Harbin.[8] However, the region of Harbin was still largely rural until the 1800s. There were only over ten villages and about 30,000 people in Harbin region by the end of the 19th century.[9]
Foreign influence
See also: Harbin RussiansSee also: History of the Jews in China
할빈시 조선족 제2 중학교The Harbin No. 2 Korean Middle School (also Harbin 2nd Korean Nationality Middle School) is a school for ethnic Korean residents of Harbin, Heilongjiang in northeast ChinaHarbin哈尔滨From top: Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival, Hongbo Square and surrounding, Harbin Xinhua Bookstore, Saint Sofia Church, Harbin Mosque, and the Ji Le TempleNickname(s): Ice City, Oriental Paris, Oriental MoscowLocation of the city center in Heilongjiang哈爾濱Literal meaninga place for drying fishing nets orlaughter like coastha平r上pin平HarbinHarbin (Chinese: 哈尔滨; pinyin: Hā'ěrbīn [xɑ́ɻpín]; Manchu language: , Harbin; Russian:Харбин Kharbin listen ) is the capital and largest city of Heilongjiang province in China's northeast region, as well as the tenth most populous city nationally. According to the 2010 census, the city's urban area has 5,878,939 inhabitants, while the total population of the sub-provincial city is up to 10,635,971.[4] Harbin serves as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural and communications hub in Northeast China. Harbin was founded by the Polish Adam Szydłowski in 1898, during construction of the Trans-Manchurian Railway, today known as theChinese Eastern Railway.[5]
Section of the 1512 stele which mentions Yue's famous tattoo. Many Jewish communities were established in Chnina
Chinese Ethnic Groups and Peoples: Song Dynasty General Yue Fei's famous tattoo 盡忠報國 (serve the country with the utmost loyalty) is mentioned in a section of the 1512 stele ..
Yue Fei's Tattoo On Stele Photo: Mention of Yue Fei's famous tattoo on the 1512 stele erected by the Kaifeng Jews
this tattoo in two of their stele monuments created in 1489, 1512, and 1638.
1512 stele which mentions Yue's famous tattoo.
Yue Fei, born March 24, 1103 in Tanyin County, Anyang, Henan ... Both the Yue Fei Biography and E Wang Shi mention Yue learning from ... Famous tattoo ... The second appeared in a section of the 1512 stele about how Jewish ...
In 1126, several years before Yue became a general, the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty invaded northern China, forcing the Song Dynasty out of its capital Kaifeng and capturing Emperor Qinzong of Song, who was sent into captivity in Manchuria. This marked the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, and the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty under Emperor Gaozong.Yue fought a long campaign against the invading Jurchens in an effort to retake northern China. Just when he was threatening to attack and retake Kaifeng, corrupt officials advised Emperor Gaozong to recall Yue to the capital and sue for peace with the Jurchens. Fearing that a defeat at Kaifeng might cause the Jurchens to release Emperor Qinzong, threatening his claim to the throne, Emperor Gaozong followed their advice, sending 12 orders in the form of 12 gold plaques to Yue Fei, recalling him back to the capital. Knowing that a success at Kaifeng could lead to internal strife, Yue submitted to the emperor's orders and returned to the capital, where he was imprisoned and where Qin Hui would eventually arrange for him to be executed on false charges.[9]There are conflicting views on how Yue died. According to The History of China: (The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations) and other sources, Yue died in prison.[13][38] The Chronicle of Yue, Prince of E of Song says he was killed in prison.[6] Shuo Yue Quanzhuan states he was strangled to death. It reads, "...[Yue Fei] strode in long steps to the Pavilion of Winds and Waves ... The warders on both sides picked up the ropes and strangled the three men [Yue Fei, Yue Yun, and Zhang Xian (張憲), Yue's subordinate] without further ado ... At the time Lord Yue was 39 years of age and the young lord Yue Yun 23. When the three men returned to Heaven, suddenly a fierce wind rose up wildly and all the fires and lights were extinguished. Black mists filled the sky and sand and pebbles were blown about."[9]The Secrets of Eagle Claw Kung Fu: Ying Jow Pai comments, "Finally, [Yue Fei] received the 'Twelfth Golden Edict' [from the emperor calling him back to the capital], which if ignored meant banishment. Patriotism demanded that he obey. On his way back to the capital he stopped to rest at a pavilion. Qin Hui anticipated Yue Fei's route and sent some men to lie in wait. When Yue Fei arrived, Qin's men ambushed and murdered him. Just 39 years old, Yue Fei like many good men in history, had a swift, brilliant career, then died brutally while still young."[39]According to A Chinese Biographical Dictionary, "[Father and son] had not been two months in confinement when Qin Hui resolved to rid himself of his enemy. He wrote out with his own hand an order for the execution of Yue Fei, which was forthwith carried into effect; whereupon he immediate reported that Yue Fei had died in prison."[14] Meaning he had Yue and his son executed but reported they both died while in captivity.Other sources say he was poisoned to death.[40][41] Still, a great number simply say he was executed, murdered, or "treacherously assassinated".[42][43][44]
Kneeling Iron Statues
Statues of Lady Wang (秦王氏) and Qin Hui (秦檜) at theYue Fei Temple, HangzhouStatues of Moqi Xie (万俟卨) and Zhang Jun (張俊) at theYue Fei Temple, HangzhouShuo Yue Quanzhuan states after having Yue Fei, Yue Yun, Zhang Xian arrested under false charges, Qin Hui and his wife, Lady Wang (王氏), were sitting by the "eastern window", warming themselves by the fire, when he received a letter from the people calling for the release of Yue Fei. Qin was worried because after nearly two months of torture, he could not get Yue to admit to treason and would eventually have to let him go. However, after a servant girl brought fresh oranges into the room, Lady Wang devised a plan to execute Yue. She told Qin to slip an execution notice inside the skin of an orange and send it to the judge presiding over Yue's case. This way, Yue and his companions would be put to death before the emperor or Qin himself would have to rescind an open order of execution.[9] This conspiracy became known as the "East Window Plot".[45] A novel about this incident, titled Dong Chuang Ji (東窗記; "Tale of the Eastern Window"), was written during the Ming Dynasty by an anonymous writer.[46]When asked by Han Shizhong on what crime Yue had committed, Qin Hui replied, "Though it isn't sure whether there is something that he did to betray the dynasty, maybe there is." The phrase "perhaps there is" or "could be true" (Chinese: 莫須有; pinyin: mò xū yǒu, often mistranslated from Ancient to Contemporary Chinese as "you committed no crime") has entered the Chinese dictionary as an expression to refer to fabricated charges.[47] Decades later, his grandson, Yue Ke (岳珂), had retrieve documentary evidence of his grandfather's achievements, and published an adulatory biography of him. Emperor Xiaozong eventually posthumously pardoned and rehabilitated Yue. For their part in Yue's death, iron statues of Qin Hui, Lady Wang, and two of Qin's subordinates, Moqi Xie (万俟軼) and Zhang Jun (張俊), were made to kneel before Yue Fei's tomb (located by the West Lake, Hangzhou). For centuries, these statues have been cursed, spat and urinated upon by people. The original castings in bronze were damaged, but later were replaced by images cast in iron, but these were similarly damaged. However now, in modern times, these statues are protected as historical relics.[48]There is a poem hanging on the gate surrounding the statues that reads, "The green hill is fortunate to be the burial ground of a loyal general, the white iron was innocent to be cast into the statues of traitors."[49]According to one source, "In 1162 Emperor Xiaozong of Song restored his honours, and gave proper burial to his remains. A [tomb] was put up in his memory, and he was designatedZhongwu (忠武; "Loyal and Martial"). In 1179 he was canonized as Wumu (武穆)."[14]According to the novel Xi You Bu, a satire of Journey to the West, written in 1641 by the scholar Dong Ruoyu (also known as Dong Yue, 1620–1686), the Monkey King enthusiastically serves in hell as the trial prosecutor of Qin Hui. At one point, the Monkey King asks the spirit of Yue Fei if he would like to drink Qin's blood.[46The two styles most associated with Yue are Eagle Claw and Xingyi boxing. One book states Yue created Eagle Claw for his enlisted soldiers and Xingyi for his officers.[50] Legend has it that Yue studied in Shaolin Monastery with a monk named Zhou Tong and learned the "elephant" style of boxing, a set of hand techniques with great emphasis on qinna (joint-locking).[39][51][52] Other tales say he learned this style elsewhere outside the temple under the same master.[13] Yue eventually expanded elephant style to create the Yibai Lingba Qinna (一百零八擒拿 - "108 Locking Hand Techniques") of the Ying Sao (Eagle Hands) or Ying Kuen (Eagle Fist).[39] After becoming a general in the imperial army, Yue taught this style to his men and they were very successful in battle against the armies of the Jin Dynasty.[13] Following his wrongful execution and the disbandment of his armies, Yue's men supposedly traveled all over China spreading the style, which eventually ended right back in Shaolin where it began. Later, a monk named Li Quan (麗泉) combined this style with Fanziquan, another style attributed to Yue, to create the modern day form of Northern Ying Jow Pai boxing.[39][53]According to legend, Yue combined his knowledge of internal martial arts and spearplay learned from Zhou Tong (in Shaolin) to create the linear fist attacks of Xingyi boxing.[13][54] One book claims he studied and synthesized Buddhism's Tendon Changing and Marrow Washing qigongsystems to create Xingyi.[55] On the contrary, proponents of Wudangquan believe it is possible that Yue learned the style in the Wudang Mountains that border his home province of Henan. The reasons they cite for this conclusion are that he supposedly lived around the same time and place as Zhang Sanfeng, the founder of t'ai chi; Xingyi's five fist attacks, which are based on theFive Chinese Elements theory, are similar to tai-chi's "Yin-yang theory"; and both theories areTaoist-based and not Buddhist.[56] The book Henan Orthodox Xingyi Quan, written by Pei Xirong (裴锡荣) and Li Ying'ang (李英昂), states Xingyi master Dai Longbang...wrote the 'Preface to Six Harmonies Boxing' in the 15th reign year of the Qianlong Emperor[1750]. Inside it says, '...when [Yue Fei] was a child, he received special instructions from Zhou Tong. He became extremely skilled in the spear method. He used the spear to create methods for the fist. He established a method called Yi Quan [意拳]. Mysterious and unfathomable, followers of old did not have these skills. Throughout the Jin, Yuan and Ming dynasties few had his art. Only Ji Gong had it. (于乾隆十五年为“六合拳”作序云：“岳飞当童子时，受业于周侗师，精通枪法，以枪为拳，立法以教将佐，名曰意拳，神妙莫测，盖从古未有之技也。)[57][58]Inside the grounds of Yue Fei's tomb and shrine inHangzhou; the inscriptions at the far end read "Serve the country with the utmost loyalty".The Ji Gong mentioned above, better known as Ji Jike (姬際可) or Ji Longfeng (姬隆丰), is said to have trained in Shaolin Monastery for ten years as a young man and was matchless with the spear.[54] As the story goes, he later traveled to Xongju Cave on Mount Zhongnan to receive a boxing manual written by Yue Fei, from which he learned Xingyi. However, some believe Ji actually created the style himself and attributed it to Yue Fei because he was fighting theManchus, descendants of the Jurchens who Yue had struggled against.[59] Ji supposedly created it after watching a battle between an eagle and a bear during the Ming Dynasty.[60] Other sources say he created it while training in Shaolin. He was reading a book and looked up to see tworoosters fighting, which inspired him to imitate the fighting styles of animals.[54][61][62] Both versions of the story (eagle / bear and roosters) state he continued to study the actions of animals and eventually increased the cadre of animal forms.[54]Several other martial arts have been attributed to Yue Fei, including Yuejiaquan (Yue Family Boxing), Fanziquan (Tumbling Boxing), and Chuojiao quan (Feet-Poking Boxing), among others.[63][64][65] The "Fanzi Boxing Ballad" says: "Wumu has passed down the Fanziquan which has mystery in its straightforward movements." Wumu (武穆) was a posthumous name given to Yue after his death.[14] One Chuojiao legend states Zhou Tong learned the style from its creator, a wandering Taoist named Deng Liang (鄧良), and later passed it onto Yue Fei, who is considered to be the progenitor of the style.[63][66]Besides martial arts, Yue is also said to have studied traditional Chinese medicine. He understood the essence of Hua Tuo's Wu Qin Xi (五禽戲 – "Five Animal Frolics") and created his own form of "medical qigong’’ known as the Ba Duan Jin (八段錦 – "Eight Pieces of Brocade"). It is considered a form of Wai Dan (外丹 – "External Elixir") medical qigong.[67] He taught this qigong to his soldiers to help keep their bodies strong and well-prepared for battle.[68][69] One legend states that Zhou Tong took young Yue to meet a Buddhist hermit who taught him EmeiDapeng Qigong (峨嵋大鵬氣功). His training in Dapeng Qigong was the source of his great strength and martial arts abilities. Modern practitioners of this style say it was passed down by Yue.[17]
Connection to Praying Mantis boxing
According to Shuo Yue Quanzhuan, Lin Chong and Lu Junyi of the 108 outlaws in Water Marginwere former students of Yue's teacher Zhou Tong.[70] One legend states Zhou learned Chuojiaoboxing from its originator Deng Liang (鄧良) and then passed it onto Yue Fei, who is sometimes considered the progenitor of the style.[63] Chuojiao is also known as the "Water Margin Outlaw style" and Yuanyang Tui (鴛鴦腿 - "Mandarin Duck Leg").[71] In chapter 29 of Water Margin, titled "Wu Song beats Jiang the Door God in a drunken stupor", it mentions Wu Song, another of Zhou's fictional students, using the "Jade Circle-Steps with Duck and Drake feet".[72] A famous folklore Praying Mantis manuscript, which describes the fictional gathering of eighteen martial arts masters in Shaolin, lists Lin Chong (#13) as a master of "Mandarin ducks kicking technique".[63]This creates a folklore connection between Yue and Mantis boxing.Lineage Mantis master Yuen Man Kai openly claims Zhou Tong taught Lin Chong and Lu Junyi the "same school" of martial arts that was later combined with the aforementioned seventeen other schools to create Mantis fist.[73] However, he believes Mantis fist was created during theMing Dynasty, and was therefore influenced by these eighteen schools from the Song Dynasty. He also says Lu Junyi taught Yan Qing the same martial arts as he learned from Zhou Tong.[74]Yuen further comments that Zhou Tong later taught Yue Fei the same martial art and that Yue was the originator of the mantis move "Black Tiger Steeling [sic] Heart".[7
By a pretext Wang Zuo swore brotherhood, by tattoos Lady Yue instructed her son", Yue denounces the pirate chief Yang Yao (杨幺) and passes on a chance to become a general in his army. Yue Fei's mother then tells her son, "I, your mother, saw that you did not accept recruitment of the rebellious traitor, and that you willingly endure poverty and are not tempted by wealth and status ... But I fear that after my death, there may be some unworthy creature who will entice you ... For these reason ... I want to tattoo on your back the four characters 'Utmost', 'Loyalty', 'Serve' and 'Nation' ... The Lady picked up the brush and wrote out on his spine the four characters for 'serving the nation with the utmost loyalty' ... [So] she bit her teeth, and started pricking. Having finished, she painted the characters with ink mixed with vinegar so that the colour would never fade."[9]The Kaifeng Jews, one of many pockets of Chinese Jews living in ancient China, refer to this tattoo in two of their three stele monuments created in 1489, 1512, and 1663. The first mention appeared in a section of the 1489 stele referring to the Jews' "Boundless loyalty to the country and Prince."[28] The second appeared in a section of the 1512 stele about how Jewish soldiers and officers in the Chinese armies were "boundlessly loyal to the country."[29]Southern Song era artist Liu Songnian (劉松年) (1174–1224), who was best known for his realistic works, painted a picture, "Four Generals of Zhongxing" (中興四將).[30] The group portrait shows eight people — four generals and four attendants. Starting from the left: attendant, Yue Fei, attendant, Zhang Jun (張浚), Han Shizhong (韓世忠), attendant, Liu Guangshi (劉光世), and attendant.[31]According to history professor He Zongli of Zhejiang University, the painting shows Yue was more of a scholarly-looking general with a shorter stature and chubbier build than the statue of him currently displayed in his tomb in Hangzhou, which portrays him as being tall and skinny. Shen Lixin, an official with the Yue Fei Temple Administration, holds the portrait of Yue Fei from the "Four Generals of Zhongxing" to be the most accurate likeness of the general in existence.[32Scholars were always welcome in Yue Fei's camp. He allowed them to come and tell stories and deeds of past heroes to bolster the resolve of his men. This way he was able to teach them about the warriors that he had constructed his own life after. He also hoped that one of these scholars would record his own deeds so he would become a peer amongst his idols. He is recorded in saying that he wished to be considered the equal of Guan Yu and other such famous men from the Three Kingdoms period. Yue succeeded in this endeavor since later "official mythology" placed him on the same level as Guan Yu.[5]Yue was careful to conduct himself as the ideal Confucian gentleman at all times for fear that any misconduct would be recorded and criticized by people of later dynasties. However he had his faults. He had a problem with alcohol during the early part of his military career. Yue drank in great excess because he believed it fitted the image of heroes of old. However once he nearly killed a colleague in a drunken rage, the emperor made him promise not to drink any more until the Jurchen invaders had been driven away.[5]Yue Yun (岳雲), Yue Fei's eldest sonAccording to Shuo Yue Quanzhuan, Yue had five sons and one daughter. The History of Songrecords that Yue Yun (岳雲) (1119–1142) was adopted by Yue Fei at the age of 12[36] whilst others claim he was his biological son;[21] Yue Lei (岳雷), the second, succeeded to his father's post; Yue Ting (岳霆) was the third; Yue Lin (岳霖) was the fourth; and Yue Zhen (岳震), the fifth, was still young at the time of his father's death. Yue Yinping was Yue Fei's daughter. The novel states she committed suicide after her father's death and became a fairy in heaven. However, history books do not mention her name and therefore she should be considered a fictional character.[21] Yue Fei married the daughter of Magistrate Li when he was 16 years old (1119).[9]However, the account of his marriage is fictional.[21]The Biography of Yue Fei states that Yue left his ailing mother with his first wife while he went to fight the Jin armies. However she "left him (and his mother) and remarried."[5] He later took a second wife and even discussed "affairs" pertaining to his military career with her. He truly loved her, but his affection for her was second to his desire to rid China of the Jurchen invaders. Her faithfulness to him and his mother was strengthened by the fear that any infidelity or lacking in her care of Lady Yue would result in reprisal.[5]Yue forbade his sons from having concubines, which he almost took one himself. Even though she was presented by a friend, he did not accept her because she laughed when he asked her if she could "share the hardships of camp life" with him.[5] He knew she was liberal and would have sex with the other soldiers.[5]Though not mentioned in the memoir written by Yue Fei's grandson, some scholarly sources claim Yue had a younger brother named Yue Fan (岳翻). He later served in the army under his brother and died in battle in 1132.[21]
Military record
A northern Chinese from a humble background, he participated in the Song Dynasty's attempt in 1122 to capture the 16 prefectures lost to the Jin Dynasty, and defended Kaifeng after the Jin armies withdrew in 1127. Yue moved south with other loyalist forces in 1129, and took an active part in during the Jin advance back across the Yangtze River that year. He continued to advance in rank, and to increase the size of his army as he repeatedly led successful offensives into northern China and suppressed rebellions within Song territory. Several other generals were also successful against the Jin Dynasty, and their combined efforts secured the survival of the Song Dynasty. Yue, like most of them, was committed to recapturing northern China.Stone Lake: The Poetry of Fan Chengda 1126-1193 states, "...Yue Fei ([1103]-1141)...repelled the enemy assaults in 1133 and 1134, until in 1135 the now confident Song army was in a position to recover all of north China from the Jin Dynasty ... [In 1140,] Yue Fei initiated a general counterattack against the Jin armies, defeating one enemy after another until he set up camp within range of the Northern Song Dynasty's old capital city, Kaifeng, in preparation for the final assault against the enemy. Yet in the same year Qin [Hui] ordered Yue Fei to abandon his campaign, and in 1141 Yue Fei was summoned back to the Southern Song capital. It is believed that the emperor then ordered Yue Fei to be hanged."[37]Battle of Zhuxianzhen near Kaifeng in Henan where Yue Fei defeated the Jin army in 1140. Painting on the Long Corridor of the Summer Palace in Beijing.Six methods for deploying an army
Yue Ke (岳珂) states his grandfather had six special methods for deploying an army effectively:Careful selectionHe relied more on small numbers of well-trained soldiers than he did large masses of the poorly trained variety. In this way, one superior soldier counted for as much as one hundred inferior soldiers. One example used to illustrate this was when the armies of Han Ching and Wu Xu were transferred into Yue's camp. Most of them had never seen battle and were generally too old or unhealthy for sustaining prolonged troop movement and engagement of the enemy. Once Yue had filtered out the weak soldiers and sent them home, he was only left with a meager thousand able-bodied soldiers. However, after some months of intense training, they were ready to perform almost as well as the soldiers who had served under Yue for years.[5]Careful trainingWhen his troops were not on military campaigns to win back lost Chinese territory in the north, Yue put his men through intense training. Apart from troop movement and weapons drills, this training also involved them leaping over walls and crawling through moats in full battle garb. The intensity of the training was such that the men would not even try to visit their families if they passed by their homes while on movement and even trained on their days off.[5]Justice in rewards and punishmentsHe rewarded his men for their merits and punished them for their boasting or lack of training. Yue once gave a foot soldier his own personal belt, silver dinner ware, and a promotion for his meritorious deeds in battle. While on the reverse, he once ordered his son Yue Yun to be decapitated for falling off his horse after failing to jump a moat. His son was only saved after Yue's officers begged his mercy. There were a number of soldiers that were either dismissed or executed because they boasted of their skills or failed to follow orders.[5]Clear ordersHe always delivered his orders in a simple manner that was easy for all of his soldiers to understand. Whoever failed to follow them were severely punished.[5]Strict disciplineWhile marching about the countryside, he never let his troops destroy fields or to pillage towns or villages. He made them pay a fair price for goods and made sure crops remained intact. A soldier once stole a hemp rope from a peasant so he could tie a bale of hay with it. When Yue discovered this, he questioned the soldier and had him executed.[5]Close fellowship with his menHe treated all of his men like equals. He ate the same food as they did and slept out in the open as they did. Even when a temporary shelter was erected for him, he made sure several soldiers could find room to sleep inside before he found a spot of his own. When there was not enough wine to go around, he would dilute it with water so every soldier would have a cup to drink from.[5]
손오공Heng Chia (from Hokkian pronunciation of "行者" (Xíng Zhě))Sun Wukong, also known as the Monkey King, is a main character in the 16th century novelJourney to the West and in many later stories and adaptations. In the novel, he is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha, he later accompanies the monkXuanzang on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from India.This is a Chinese name; the family name is Yue (岳).Statue of Yue Fei in the Yue Fei Temple,Hangzhou. The four Chinese characters on the plaque above the statue read huan wo he shan (還我河山), or "return my territory".Several sources state that Yue was born into a poor tenant farmer's family in Tangyin County,Anyang prefecture, Henan province.[The Biography of Yue Fei states, "Yue Fei possessed supernatural power and before his adulthood, he was able to draw a bow of 300 catties and a crossbow of eight stone. [Yue Fei] learned archery from Zhou Tong. He learned everything and could shoot with his left and right hands."[6][18] Shuo Yue Quanzhuan states Zhou teaches Yue and his sworn brothers archery and all of the eighteen weapons of war. This novel also says Yue was Zhou's third student after Lin Chong and Lu Junyi of the 108 outlaws in Water Margin. The Chronicle of Yue, Prince of E of Song) says he studied the bow and military tactics under Zhou Tong and the spear under the spear master Chen Guang (陳廣). Before he was an adult, Yue could draw a bow of 300 catties and a crossbow of eight stones and could shoot a bow with either his left or right hand.[11][17][19]The E Wang Shi records, "When Yue Fei reached adulthood, his maternal grandfather, Yao Daweng (姚大翁), hired a spear expert, Chen Guang, to teach Yue Fei spear fighting."[20][21]Yue Fei's mother writes jin zhong bao guo on his back, as depicted in a "Suzhou style" beam decoration at the Summer Palace,Beijing.Yue Fei's tattoo
According to historical records and legend, Yue had the four Chinese characters jin zhong bao guo (simplified Chinese: 尽忠报国; traditional Chinese: 盡忠報國; pinyin: jìn zhōng bào guó; literally "serve the country with the utmost loyalty") tattooed across his back. The Biography of Yue Fei says after Qin Hui sent agents to arrest Yue and his son, he was taken before the court and charged with treason, butYue ripped his jacket to reveal the four brush-stroke characters of "serve the country with the utmost loyalty" on his back. This proved that he was clearly innocent of the charges. (飛裂裳以背示鑄，有“盡忠報國”四大字，深入膚理。既而閱實無左驗，鑄明其無辜。)[6]It does not comment when and who gave him the tattoo, though. Later fictionalizations of Yue's biography would build upon the tattoo. For instance, one of his earliest Ming era novels titled The Story of King Yue Who Restored the Song Dynasty (大宋中興岳王傳) states that after the Jurchen armies invaded China, young heroes in Yue's village suggest that they join the bandits in the mountains. However, Yue objects and has one of them tattoo the aforementioned characters on his back. Whenever others want to join the bandits, he flashes them the tattoo to change their minds.[27]손오공
Five centuries later, the Bodhisattva Guanyin went out in search for disciples that could protect a pilgrim from the East to journey to India to retrieve the Buddhist sutras. In hearing this, Sun Wukong offered to serve this pilgrim, Xuanzang, a monk of the Tang Dynasty, in exchange for his freedom after the pilgrimage was complete. Guanyin understood that the monkey would be hard to control, and therefore gave Xuanzang a gift from the Buddha: a magical headband which, once Sun Wukong was tricked into putting it on himself, could never be removed. With a special chant, the band would tighten and cause unbearable pain to the monkey's head. To be fair, Guanyin also gave Sun Wukong three special hairs, which could be used in dire emergencies. Under Xuanzang's supervision, Sun Wukong was allowed to journey to the West.Throughout the epic novel Journey to the West, Sun Wukong faithfully helped Xuanzang on his journey to India. They were joined by "Pigsy" (猪八戒 Zhu Bajie) and "Sandy" (沙悟浄 Sha Wujing), both of whom offered to accompany the priest in order to atone for their previous crimes. It was later revealed that the priest's horse was in fact a dragon prince. Xuanzang's safety was constantly under threat from demons and other supernatural beings (some who believed that his flesh, once consumed, would bring them longevity, and others who did not want him to succeed with his quest to obtain the scriptures), as well as from bandits, wherefore Sun Wukong often acted as his bodyguard and given free access to the powers of Heaven to combat these threats. The group encountered a series of eighty-one tribulations, (because 9 × 9 = 81), before accomplishing their mission and returning safely to China. There, Sun Wukong was grantedBuddhahood for his service and strength.[1]Influence
In spite of their popularity (or perhaps because of it), legends regarding Sun Wukong have changed with Chinese culture. The tale with Buddha and the "Pillars" is a prime example, and did not appear until Buddhism was introduced to China during the Han Dynasty. Various legends concerning Sun Wukong exist, and they tend to change and adapt to the popular Chinese religionof a given era.Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn's Chinese opera "Monkey: Journey to the West" is based on the legend of the Monkey King. They were subsequently commissioned by the BBC to produce a two-minute animated film to promote their coverage of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, which features the characters involved in various sporting activities.Some scholars believe this character may have originated in the first disciple of Xuan Zang, Shi Banto.[6]The Hindu deity Hanuman from the Ramayana is also considered by some scholars to be an inspiration for Sun Wukong.[2]Sun Wukong is so prominent in Journey to the West that the famous translation by Arthur Waley, entitled Monkey, led to other versions of Journey to the West, also called Monkey, among them a well-known Japanese television show.In his book The Shaolin Monastery (2008), Tel Aviv University Prof. Meir Shahar claims that Sun influenced a legend concerning the origins of the Shaolin staff method. The legend takes place during the Red Turban Rebellion of the Yuan Dynasty. Bandits lay siege to the monastery, but it is saved by a lowly kitchen worker wielding a long fire poker as a makeshift staff. He leaps into the oven and emerges as a monstrous giant big enough to stand astride both Mount Song and the imperial fort atop Shaoshi Mountain (which are five miles apart). The bandits flee when they behold him. The Shaolin monks later realize that the kitchen worker was the Monastery's guardian deity, Vajrapani, in disguise. Shahar compares the worker's transformation in the stove with Sun Wukong's time in Laozi's crucible, their use of the staff, and the fact that Sun Wukong and his weapon can both grow to gigantic proportions.[7]Mao Zedong consistently used Sun Wukong as a role model, and often spoke about the good example of the Monkey King, citing "his fearlessness in thinking, doing work, striving for the objective and extricating China from poverty".[8]
Names and titles
Sun Wukong (孫悟空) is known/pronounced as Suen Ng Hung in Cantonese, Son Oh Gong inKorean, Tôn Ngộ Không in Vietnamese, Son Gokū in Japanese (also the name of the character inspired by Sun Wukong, Son Goku from the Dragon Ball franchise), and Sun Go Kong inIndonesian.Listed in the order that they were acquired:Shí Hóu (石猴)Meaning the "Stone monkey". This refers to his physical essence, being born from a sphere of rock after millennia of incubation on the Bloom Mountains/Flower-Fruit Mountain.Měi Hóuwáng (美猴王)Meaning "Handsome Monkey-King", or Houwang for short. The adjective Měi means "beautiful, handsome, pretty"; it also means "to be pleased with oneself", referring to his ego. Hóu("monkey") also highlights his "naughty and impish" character.Sūn Wùkōng (孫悟空)The name given to him by his first master, Patriarch Bodhi (Subodhi). The surname Sūn was given as an in-joke about the monkey, as monkeys are also called húsūn (猢猻), and can mean either a literal or a figurative "monkey" (or "macaque"). The surname sūn (孫) and the "monkey"sūn (猻) only differ in that the latter carries an extra "dog" (quǎn) radical to highlight that 猻refers to an animal. The given name Wùkōng means "awakened to emptiness".Bìmǎwēn (弼馬溫)The title of the keeper of the Heavenly Horses, a punning of bìmǎwēn (避馬瘟; lit. "avoiding the horses' plague"). A monkey was often put in a stable as people believed its presence could prevent the horses from catching illness. Sun Wukong was given this position by the Jade Emperor after his first intrusion into Heaven. He was promised that it was a good position to have, and that he, at least in this section, would be in the highest position. After discovering it was, in actuality, one of the lowest jobs in Heaven, he became angry, smashed the entire stable, set the horses free, and then quit. From then on, the title bìmǎwēn was used by his adversaries to mock him.Qítiān Dàshèng (齊天大聖)Meaning "Great Sage, Equal of Heaven". Wùkōng took this title suggested to him by one of his demon friends, after he wreaked havoc in heaven people who heard of him called him Great Sage. This is pronounced in Japanese as seiten-taisei ("great sage", dàshèng and taisei, is a Chinese and Japanese honorific). The title originally holds no power, though it is officially a high rank. Later the title was granted the responsibility to guard the Heavenly Peach Garden, due to the Jade Emperor keeping him busy so he won't make trouble.Xíngzhě (行者)Meaning "ascetic", it refers to a wandering monk, a priest's servant, or a person engaged in performing religious austerities. Xuanzang calls Wukong Sūn-xíngzhě when he accepts him as his companion. This is pronounced in Japanese as gyōja (making him Son-gyōja).Dòu-zhànshèng-fó (鬥戰勝佛)"Victorious Fighting Buddha". Wukong was given this name once he ascended to buddhahood at the end of the Journey to the West. This name is also mentioned during the traditional Chinese Buddhist evening services, specifically during the eighty-eight Buddhas repentance.In addition to the names used in the novel, the Monkey King has other names in different languages:Kâu-chê-thian (猴齊天) in Minnan (Taiwan): "Monkey, Equal of Heaven".Maa5 lau1 zing1 (馬騮精) in Cantonese (Hong Kong and Guangdong): "Monkey Imp" (called by his enemies)
In XiyoubuEdit
The brief satirical novel Xiyoubu (西游补, "Supplement to the Journey to the West," c. 1640) follows Sun as he is trapped in a magical dream world created by the Qing Fish Demon, the embodiment of desire (情, qing). Sun travels back and forth through time, during which he serves as the adjunct King of Hell and judges the soul of the recently dead traitor Qin Hui during theSong Dynasty, takes on the appearance of a beautiful concubine and causes the downfall of theQin Dynasty, and even faces King Paramita, one of his five sons born to the demoness Princess Iron Fan,[9] on the battlefield during the Tang Dynasty.[10] The events of the Xiyoubu take place between the end of chapter 61 and the beginning of chapter 62 of Journey to the West.[11] The author, Tong Yue (童说), wrote the book because he wanted to create an opponent—in this case desire—that Sun could not defeat with his great strength and martial skill.[12]
Sun Wukong depicted in Yoshitoshi's One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, 1889.손오공Sun Wukong, also known as the Monkey King, is a main character in the 16th century novelJourney to the West and in many later stories and adaptations. In the novel, he is a monkey born from a stone who acquires supernatural powers through Taoist practices. After rebelling against heaven and being imprisoned under a mountain by the Buddha, he later accompanies the monkXuanzang on a journey to retrieve Buddhist sutras from India.Sun Wukong possesses an immense amount of strength; he is able to lift his 13,500 jīn (8,100 kilograms (17,900 lb)) staff with ease. He is also extremely fast, able to travel 108,000 li (54,000 kilometres (34,000 mi)) in one somersault. Sun knows 72 transformations, which allows him to transform into various animals and objects; he has trouble, however, transforming into other people, because he is unable to complete the transformation of his tail. He is a skilled fighter, capable of holding his own against the best generals of heaven. Each of his hairs possesses magical properties, and is capable of transforming either into a clone of the Monkey King himself, or various weapons, animals, and other objects. He also knows spells that can command wind, part water, conjure protective circles against demons, and freeze humans, demons, and gods alike.[1]One of the most enduring Chinese literary characters, Sun Wukong has a varied background and colorful cultural history. For example, Sun Wukong is considered by some American, Chinese, and Indian scholars to be influenced by both the Hindu deity Hanuman from the Ramayana and elements of Chinese folklore.[2][3][4]There was once a magic stone on the top of a mountain which was thirty-six feet five inches high and twenty-four feet round. It was thirty-six feet five inches high to correspond with the 365 degrees of the heavens, and twenty-four feet round to match the twenty-four divisions of the solar calendar. On top of it were nine apertures and eight holes, for the Nine Palaces and the Eight Trigrams. There were no trees around it to give shade, but magic fungus and orchids clung to its sides. Ever since Creation began it had been receiving the truth of Heaven, the beauty of Earth, the essence of the Sun and the splendour of the Moon; and as it had been influenced by them for so long it had miraculous powers. It developed a magic womb, which burst open one day to produce a stone egg about the size of a ball.When the wind blew on this egg it turned into a stone monkey, complete with the five senses and four limbs. When the stone monkey had learned to crawl and walk, he bowed to each of the four quarters. As his eyes moved, two beams of golden light shot towards the Pole Star palace and startled the Supreme Heavenly Sage, the Greatly Compassionate Jade Emperor of the Azure Vault of Heaven, who was sitting surrounded by his immortal ministers on his throne in the Hall of Miraculous Mist in the Golden-gated Cloud Palace. When he saw the dazzling golden light he ordered Thousand-mile Eye and Wind-accompanying Ear to open the Southern Gate of Heaven and take a look. The two officers went out through the gate in obedience to the imperial command, and while one observed what was going on the other listened carefully. Soon afterwards they reported back:“In obedience to the Imperial Mandate your subjects observed and listened to the source of the golden light. We found that at the edge of the country of Aolai, which is East of the ocean belonging to the Eastern Continent of Superior Body, there is an island called the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit. A magic stone on the top of this mountain produced a magic egg, and when the wind blew on this egg it turned into a stone monkey which bowed to each of the four quarters. When he moved his eyes, golden light shot towards the Pole Star Palace; but now that he is eating and drinking, the golden light is gradually dying.”In his benevolence and mercy the Jade Emperor said, “Creatures down below are born of the essence of heaven and earth: there is nothing remarkable about him.”On his mountain the monkey was soon able to run and jump, feed from plants and trees, drink from brooks and springs, pick mountain flowers and look for fruit. He made friends with the wolves, went around with the tigers and leopards, was on good terms with the deer, and had the other monkeys and apes for relations. At night he slept under the rockfaces, and he roamed around the peaks and caves by day. As the saying so rightly goes, “There is no calendar in the mountains, and when winter's over you don't know the time of year.” On hot mornings he and all the other monkeys would play under the shade of some pines to avoid the heat. After playing, the monkeys would go and bathe in the stream, a mountain torrent that tumbled along like rolling melons. There is an old saying, “Birds have bird language and, animals have animal talk.”All the monkeys said to each other, “I wonder where that water comes from. We've got nothing else to do today, so wouldn't it be fun to go upstream and find its source?” With a shout they all ran off, leading their children and calling to their brothers. They climbed up the mountain beside the stream until they reached its source, where a waterfall cascaded from a spring. The monkeys clapped their hands and explained with delight, “What lovely water. It must go all the way to the bottom of the mountain and join the waves of the sea.”Then one monkey made a suggestion: “If anyone is clever enough to go through the fall, find the source, and come out in one piece, let's make him our king.” When this challenge had been shouted three times, the stone monkey leapt out from the crowd and answered at the top of his voice, “I'll go, I'll go.” Splendid monkey! Watch him as he shuts his eyes, crouches, and springs, leaping straight into the waterfall. When he opened his eyes and raised his head to look round, he saw neither water nor waves. A bridge stood in front of him, as large as life. He stopped, calmed himself, took a closer look, and saw that the bridge was made of iron. The water that rushed under it poured out through a fissure in the rocks, screening the gateway to the bridge. He started walking towards the bridge, and as he looked he made out what seemed to be a house. It was a really good place. The other monkeys were all so delighted to hear this that they said, “You go first and take us with you.”The stone monkey shut his eyes, crouched, and leapt in again, shouting, “Follow me in, follow me in.” The braver monkeys all jumped through. The more timid ones peered forward, shrank back, rubbed their ears, scratched their cheeks, shouted, and yelled at the top of their voices, before going in, all clinging to each other. After rushing across the bridge they all grabbed plates and snatched bowls, bagged stoves and fought over beds, and moved everything around. Monkeys are born naughty and they could not keep quiet for a single moment until they had worn themselves out moving things around.The stone monkey sat himself in the main seat and said, “Gentlemen, A man who breaks his word is worthless. Just now you said that if anyone was clever enough to come in here and get out again in one piece, you'd make him king. Well, then. I've come in and gone out, and gone out and come in. I've found you gentlemen a cave heaven where you can sleep in peace and all settle down to live in bliss. Why haven't you made me king?” On hearing this all the monkeys bowed and prostrated themselves, not daring to disobey.They lined up in groups in order of age and paid their homage as at court, all acclaiming him as the “Great King of a Thousand Years.” The stone monkey then took the throne, made the word “stone” taboo, and called himself Handsome Monkey King.At the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, Sun Wukong established himself as one of the most powerful and influential demons in the world. In search of a weapon worthy of himself, Sun Wukong traveled into the oceans, where he acquired the Golden-banded staff Ruyi Jingu Bang, which could change its size, multiply itself, and fight according to the whim of its master. It was originally used by Dà-Yǔ to measure ocean depth and later became the "Pillar that pacifies the oceans", a treasure of Ao Guang, the "dragon-king of the Eastern Seas". It weighed 13,500 jin (8.1 tons). Upon Sun Wukong's approach, the pillar started to glow, signifying that it had found its true master. Its versatility meant that Sun Wukong could wield it as a staff and keep it inside his ear as a sewing needle. This drove fear into the magical beings of the sea and threw the sea itself into confusion, since nothing but the pillar could control the ebb and flow of the ocean's tides. In addition to taking the magical staff, Wukong also defeated the dragons of the four seas in battle and forced them to give him a golden chain mail shirt (鎖子黃金甲), a phoenix-feather cap (鳳翅紫金冠 Fèngchìzǐjinguān), and cloud-walking boots (藕絲步雲履 Ǒusībùyúnlǚ).Upon his triumphant return, he demonstrated the new weapon to his followers, growing his size in proportion to the original length of the staff. The uproar drew attention of other beastly powers who sought to ally with him. Sun Wukong formed a fraternity with the Bull Demon King (牛魔王), the Saurian Demon King (蛟魔王), the Roc Demon King (鵬魔王), the Lion Spirit King (獅狔王), theMacaque Spirit King (獼猴王) and the Snub-nosed monkey Spirit King (禺狨王).[5][Note 1]Sun Wukong then defied Hell's attempt to collect his soul. Instead of reincarnating like all other living beings, he wiped his name out of the "Book of Life and Death" and with it the names of all other monkeys known to him. The Dragon Kings and the Kings of Hell then decided to report him to the Jade Emperor of Heaven.[1]
Havoc in the Heavenly Kingdom
Hoping that a promotion and a rank amongst the gods would make him more manageable, theJade Emperor invited Sun Wukong to Heaven, where the monkey believed he would receive an honorable place as one of the gods. Instead, he was made the Protector of the Horses to watch over the stables, which was the lowest job in heaven. When he discovered this, Sun Wukong rebelled and proclaimed himself the "Great Sage, Equal of Heaven", and allied with some of the most powerful demons on earth. Then he got revenge by setting the Cloud Horses free. The Heavens' initial attempt at subduing the Monkey King was unsuccessful, and they were forced to recognize his title; however, they tried again to put him off as the guardian of Heavenly Garden. When he found that he was excluded from a royal banquet that included every other important god and goddess, Sun Wukong's indignation again turned to open defiance. After stealing and consuming Xi Wangmu's "peaches of immortality", Lao Tzu's "pills of longevity", and the Jade Emperor's royal wine, he escaped back to his kingdom in preparation for his rebellion.Sun Wukong later single-handedly defeated the Army of Heaven's 100,000 celestial warriors - each fight an equivalent of a cosmic embodiment, including all 28 constellations, four heavenly kings, and Nezha, the son of Li Jiang Jun who proved himself worthy - and proved himself equal to the best of Heaven's generals, Erlang Shen. Eventually, through the teamwork of Taoist and Buddhist forces, including the efforts from some of the greatest deities, Sun Wukong was captured. After several failed attempts at execution, Sun Wukong was locked into Lao Tzu'seight-way trigram Crucible to be distilled into an elixir, (so that Lao Tzu could regain his "pills of longevity"), by the most sacred and the most severe samadhi fires. After 49 days, however, when the cauldron was opened, Sun Wukong jumped out, stronger than ever before. He now had the ability to recognize evil in any form through his huǒyǎn-jīnjīng (火眼金睛) (lit. "fiery-eyes golden-gaze"), an eye condition that also gave him a weakness to smoke, and proceeded to destroy Heaven's remaining forces.
Imprisonment
With all of their options exhausted, the Jade Emperor and the authorities of Heaven appealed to the Buddha, who arrived from his temple in the West. The Buddha made a bet with Sun Wukong that he (Sun Wukong) could not escape from his (Buddha's) palm. Sun Wukong, knowing that he could cover 108,000 li in one leap, smugly agreed. He took a great leap and then flew to the end of the world in seconds. Nothing was visible except for five pillars, and Wukong surmised that he had reached the ends of Heaven. To prove his trail, he marked the pillars with a phrase declaring himself "the great sage equal to heaven" (and in other versions, urinated on the pillar he signed on). Afterward, he leaped back and landed in the Buddha's palm. There, he was surprised to find that the five "pillars" he had found were in fact the five fingers of the Buddha's hand. When Wukong tried to escape, the Buddha turned his hand into a mountain. Before Wukong could shrug it off, the Buddha sealed him there using a paper talisman on which was written the mantraOm Mani Padme Hum in gold letters, wherein Sun Wukong remained imprisoned for five centuries.[1]손오공
Statue of Yue Fei in the Yue Fei Temple,Hangzhou. The four Chinese characters on the plaque above the statue read huan wo he shan (還我河山), or "return my territory".Yue Fei (March 24, 1103 – January 27, 1142), style name Pengju, was a military general during the era of the Southern Song Dynasty. His ancestral home was in Xiaoti, Yonghe Village, Tangyin, Xiangzhou, Henan (in present-day Tangyin County, Anyang, Henan). He is best known for leading the defense of Southern Song against invaders from the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty in northern China, before being put to death by the Southern Song government.[1] He was granted theposthumous name of Wumu by Emperor Xiaozong in 1169, and later granted the posthumous title of King of È (鄂王) by Emperor Ningzong in 1211. Widely seen as a patriot and national hero in China, since after his death, Yue Fei has evolved into a standard epitome of loyalty in Chinese culture.Several sources state that Yue was born into a poor tenant farmer's family in Tangyin County,Anyang prefecture, Henan province.[6][9][13][14] According to the Shuo Yue Quanzhuan, the immortal Chen Tuan, disguised as a wandering priest, warned Yue Fei's father, Yue He (岳和), to put his wife and child inside a clay jar if the infant Yue Fei began to cry. A few days later, a young child squeezed Yue Fei's hand too hard and he began to cry. Soon, it began to rain and the Yellow River flooded, wiping out the village. Yue Fei's father held onto the clay jar as it was swept down the river, but eventually drowned. Although the much older Biography of Yue Fei also mentions the flood, it states Yue Huo survived. It reads,After [the death of his teacher Zhou Tong], [Yue Fei] would offer sacrifices at his tomb. His father praised him for his faithfulness and asked him, "When you are employed to cope with the affairs of the time, will you then not have to sacrifice yourself for the empire and die for your duty?" (侗死，溯望設祭于其冢。父義之，曰：“汝為時用，其徇國死義乎。)[5][6]Yue Fei's father used his family's plot of land for humanitarian efforts, but after it was destroyed in the flood, the young Yue Fei was forced to help his father toil in the fields to survive. Yue received most of his primary education from his father. In 1122 Yue joined the army, but had to return home later that year after the death of his father.[5] In ancient China, a person was required by law to temporarily resign from their job when their parents died so they could observe the customary period of mourning.[15] For instance, Yue would have had to mourn his father's death for three years, but in all actually only 27 months. During this time, he would wear coarse mourning robes, caps, and slippers, while abstaining from silken garments.[16] When his mother died in 1136, he retired from a decisive battle against the Jin Dynasty for the mourning period, but he was forced to cut the bereavement short because his generals begged him to come back.[5]The novel states after being swept from Henan to Hubei, Yue and his mother are saved by the country squire Wang Ming (王明) and are permitted to stay in Wang's manor as domestic helpers. The young Yue Fei later becomes the adopted son and student of the Wang family's teacher, Zhou Tong, a famous master of military skills. (Zhou Tong is not to be confused with the similarly named "Little Tyrant" in Water Margin.) Zhou teaches Yue and his three sworn brothers - Wang Gui (王贵), Tang Huai (湯懷) and Zhang Xian (張顯) - literary lessons on odd days and military lessons, involving archery and the eighteen weapons of war, on even days.After years of practice, Zhou Tong enters his students into the Tangyin County military examination, in which Yue Fei wins first place by shooting a succession of nine arrows through the bullseye of a target 240 paces away. After this display of archery, Yue is asked to marry the daughter of Li Chun (李春), an old friend of Zhou and the county magistrate who presided over the military examination. However, Zhou soon dies of an illness and Yue lives by his grave through the winter until the second month of the new year when his sworn brothers come and tear it down, forcing him to return home and take care of his mother.Yue eventually marries and later participates in the imperial military examination in the Song capital of Kaifeng. There, he defeats all competitors and even turns down an offer from Cai Gui (蔡桂), the Prince of Liang, to be richly rewarded if he forfeits his chance for the military degree. This angers the prince and both agree to fight a private duel in which Yue kills the prince and is forced to flee the city for fear of being executed. Shortly thereafter, he joins the Song army to fight the invading armies of the Jurchen-ruled Jin Dynasty.[9]
Contemporaneous sources estimated the Jewish population in China in 1940 — includingManchukuo — at 36,000 (source: Catholic Encyclopedia).Jewish life in Shanghai had really taken off with the arrival of the British. Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East came as traders via India and Hong Kong and established some of the leading trading companies in the second half of the 19th century. Later, after World War I, manyAshkenazi Jews came from Europe. Rebbe Meir Ashkenazi (Chabad-Lubavitch) was the Chief Rabbi of Shanghai (1926–1949).At the early 20th century many Russian Jews fleeing pogroms in several towns in Russian Empire decided to move to northeast China for permanent settlement (Rabbi Aaron Kiselev served in Harbin from 1913 until his death in 1949). After the Russian Revolution of 1917, a lot ofWhite Russians, fled to Harbin (former Manchuria). These included, among others, Dr. Abraham Kaufman, who played a leading role in the Harbin Jewish community after 1919,[27] the parents of future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and Teodor Parnicki at the age of 12.Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China, held admirations for the Jewish people andZionism, and saw parallels between the persecution of Jews and the domination of China by the Western powers. He stated, "Though their country was destroyed, the Jewish nation has existed to this day... [Zionism] is one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of democracy cannot help but support wholeheartedly and welcome with enthusiasm the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserve [sic] an honorable place in the family of nations."[28]The Japanese occupation of northeast China in 1931 and the establishment of Manchukuo in 1932 had a negative impact on the Harbin Jewish community (13,000 in 1929). Most of those Jews left Harbin for Tianjin, Shanghai, and British Mandate of Palestine. Until 1939, the Russian Jews were about 5,000 in Shanghai.[29]
World War II
Main article: Shanghai GhettoAnother wave of 18,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, and Poland immigrated to Shanghai in the late 1930s and the early 1940s.[30] Shanghai at the time was an open city and did not have restrictions on immigration, and some Chinese diplomats such as Ho Feng Shan issued "protective" passports. In 1943, the occupying Japanese army required these 18,000 Jews, formally known as "stateless refugees," to relocate to an area of 0.75 square miles (1.9 km2) in Shanghai's Hongkew district (today known as Hongkou District) where many lived in group homes called "Heime".[31] The total number of Jews entering Shanghai during this period equaled the number of Jews fleeing to Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa combined. Many of the Jews in China later moved to found modern Israel.Shanghai was an important safe-haven for Jewish refugees during the Holocaust, since it was one of the few places in the world where one didn't need a visa. However, it was not easy to get there. The Japanese, who controlled the city, preferred in effect to look the other way. Some corrupt officials however, also exploited the plight of the Jews. By 1941 nearly 20,000 European Jews had found shelter there.A plaque commemorates the former Jewish Middle School in Harbin, now the No. 2 Korean Middle School[17]During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), a Ming emperor conferred seven surnames upon the Jews, by which they are identifiable today: Ai (艾), Shi (石), Gao (高), Jin (金), Li (李), Zhang (張), and Zhao (趙); sinofications of the original seven Jewish clan's family names: Ezra, Shimon, Cohen, Gilbert, Levy, Joshua, and Jonathan, respectively.[18][19] Interestingly, two of these: Jin and Shi are the equivalent of common Jewish names in the west: Gold and Stone.[20][21]The first modern Western record of Jews residing in China is found in the records of the 17th-century Jesuit missionaries in Beijing. The prominent Jesuit Matteo Ricci, received a visit from a young Jewish Chinese man in 1605. Ricci mentioned this man's name as Ngai, who has since been identified by the French sinologist Paul Pelliot as a Jew named Ai T'ien, who explained that the community he belonged to was monotheistic, or believing in only one God. It is recorded that when he saw a Christian image of Mary with the child Jesus, he took it to be a picture of Rebeccawith Esau or Jacob, figures from Hebrew Scripture. Ngai (Ai Tian, Ai T'ien) declared that he had come from Kaifeng, and stated that this was the site of a large Jewish population.[22] Ricci sent an ethnic Chinese Jesuit Lay Brother to visit Kaifeng;[22] later, other Jesuits (mostly European) also visited the city. It was later discovered that the Jewish community had a synagogue (Libai si), which was constructed facing the west, and housed a number of written materials and books.The Jews who managed the synagogue were called "Mullahs". Floods and Fire repeatedly destroyed the books of the Kaifeng synagogue, they obtained some from Ningxia and Ningbo to replace them, another Hebrew roll of law was bought from a Muslim in Ning-keang-chow in Shen-se (Shanxi), who acquired it from a dying Jew at Canton.[23]The Chinese called Muslims, Jews, and Christians in ancient times by the same name, "Hui Hui" (Hwuy-hwuy). Crossworshipers (Christians) were called "Hwuy who abstain from animals without the cloven foot", Muslims were called "Hwuy who abstain from pork", Jews were called "Hwuy who extract the sinews (removes the sciatic nerve)". Hwuy-tsze (Hui zi) or Hwuy-hwuy (Hui Hui) is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called Lan Maou Hwuy tsze (Lan mao Hui zi) which means "Blue cap Hui zi". At Kaifeng, Jews were called "Teaou kin keaou "extract sinew religion". Jews and Muslims in China shared the same name for synagogue and mosque, which were both called "Tsing-chin sze" (Qingzhen si) "Temple of Purity and Truth", the name dated to the 13th century. The synagogue and mosquers were also known as Le-pae sze (Libai si). A tablet indicated that Judaism was once known as "Yih-tsze-lo-nee-keaou" (israelitish religion) and synagogues known as Yih-tsze lo nee leen (Israelitish Temple), but it faded out of use.[24]A Muslim in Nanjing told Semedo that four families of Jews converted to Islam since they were the last Jews in the area, their numbers diminishing.[25]
Employment
Various Jewish Chinese individuals worked in government service and owned big properties in China in the 17th century.[26]
19th century
During the Taiping rebellion of the 1850s, the Jews of Kaifeng apparently suffered a great deal and were dispersed. Following this dislocation, they returned to Kaifeng, yet continued to be small in number and to face hardships, as is recorded in the early 20th century.Shanghai's first wave of Jews came in the second half of the 19th century, many being Mizrahi Jews from Iraq. The first Jew who arrived there was Elias David Sassoon, who, about the year 1850, opened a branch in connection with his father's Bombay house. Since that period Jews gradually migrated from India to Shanghai, most of them being engaged from Bombay as clerks by the firm of David Sassoon & Co. The community was composed mainly of "Asian," (Sephardi) German, and Russian Jews, though there were a few of Austrian, French, and Italian origin among them. Jews took a considerable part in developing trade in China, and several served on the municipal councils, among them being Silas Aaron Hardoon, partner in the firm of E. D. Sassoon & Co., who served on the French and English councils at the same time. During the early days of Jewish settlement in Shanghai the trade in opium and Bombay cotton yarn was mainly in Jewish handsThe earliest evidence showing the presence of Jews in China is from the beginning of the 8th century: a business letter written in the Judeo-Persian language, discovered by Marc Aurel Stein. The letter (now housed in the British Museum) was found in Danfan Uiliq, an important post along the Silk Road in northwest China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The text is thirty-seven lines in length and was written on paper, a product then manufactured only in China. It was identified, by David Samuel Margoliouth, as dating from 718 CE.[12][13] Ibn Zeyd al Hassan of Siraf, a 9th-century Arabian traveler, reports that in 878 followers of the Chinese rebel leaderHuang Chao besieged Canton (Guangzhou) and killed a large number of foreign merchants, Arabs, Persians, Christians, and Jews, resident there.[14]Sources indicate that Jews in China were often mistaken for Muslims by other Chinese. The first plausible recorded written Chinese mention of Jews uses the term Zhuhu (竹忽), or Zhuhudu (朱乎得) (perhaps from Arabic Yehoud, or from Hebrew Yehudim, "Jews") found in the Annals of theYuan Dynasty in 1329 and 1354. The text spoke of the reinforcement of a tax levied on "dissenters" and of a government decree that the Jews come en-masse to Beijing, the capital.Famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who visited China, then under the Yuan Dynasty, in the late 13th century, described the prominence of Jewish traders in Beijing. Similar references can be found in the notes of the Franciscan John of Montecorvino, first archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Beijing in the early 14th century, and the writings of Ibn Batuta, an Arabian envoy to the Mongol Empire in the middle of the 14th century.Genghis Khan called both Jews and Muslims Huihui (回回), calling the Jews Zhuhu Huihui (竹忽回回), when he forbade Jews and Muslims from practicing Kosher and Halal preparation of their food, calling both of them "slaves" and forcing them to eat Mongol food, and banned them from practicing circumcision.[15][16]Section of the 1512 stele which mentions Yue's famous tattoo.Many Jewish communities were established in China in the Middle Ages. However, not all left evidence of their existence. The following are those known today: Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Ningbo,Yangzhou, and Ningxia.[10]
Names
The contemporary term for Jews in use among Chinese today is Youtairen (Chinese: 猶太人;pinyin: Yóutài Rén) in Mandarin Chinese. The term Youtai has similar phonetic sound of Yehudai, the Aramaic word for Jew, as well as Greek terms Jude or Judah.It has been recorded that the Chinese historically called the Jews Tiao jin jiao (挑筋教), loosely, "the religion which removes the sinew," probably referring to the Jewish dietary prohibitionagainst eating the sciatic nerve (from Genesis 32:32).[11]Jewish dietary law (kashruth), which forbids the eating of, among other foods, non-ruminantmammals, shellfish and reptiles, would have most likely caused Jewish communities to stand out from the surrounding mainstream Chinese population, as Chinese culture is typically very free in the range of items it deems suitable for food.[citation needed]Jews have also been called the Blue-Hat Hui (Chinese: 藍帽回; pinyin: Lánmào Húi), in contrast to other populations of Hui people, who have identified with hats of other colors. The distinction between Muslim and Jewish Hui is not, and historically has not been, well recognised by the dominant Han population.[citation needed]A modern translation of the "Kaifeng Steles" has shown the Jews referred to their synagogue as "The Pure and Truth", which is essentially the same as the term used in modern China to refer to Muslim mosques (清真寺).According to an oral tradition dictated by Xu Xin, Director of the Center for Judaic Studies atNanjing University, in his book Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, the Kaifeng Jews called Judaism Yīcìlèyè jiào (一賜樂業教), lit. the religion of Israel. Yīcìlèyè is a transliteration and partial translation of "Israel". Xu Xin translates this phrase as "Chosen people, endowed by God, and contented with their lives and work"
Genghis Khan called both Jews and Muslims Huihui (回回), calling the Jews Zhuhu Huihui (竹忽回回), when he forbade Jews and Muslims from practicing Kosher and Halal preparation of their food, calling both of them "slaves" and forcing them to eat Mongol food, and banned them from practicing circumcision.[15][16]During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), a Ming emperor conferred seven surnames upon the Jews, by which they are identifiable today: Ai (艾), Shi (石), Gao (高), Jin (金), Li (李), Zhang (張), and Zhao (趙); sinofications of the original seven Jewish clan's family names: Ezra, Shimon, Cohen, Gilbert, Levy, Joshua, and Jonathan, respectively.[18][19] Interestingly, two of these: Jin and Shi are the equivalent of common Jewish names in the west: Gold and Stone.[Jews residing in China is found in the records of the 17th-century Jesuit missionaries in Beijing. The prominent Jesuit Matteo Ricci, received a visit from a young Jewish Chinese man in 1605. Ricci mentioned this man's name as Ngai, who has since been identified by the French sinologist Paul Pelliot as a Jew named Ai T'ien, who explained that the community he belonged to was monotheistic, or believing in only one God. It is recorded that when he saw a Christian image of Mary with the child Jesus, he took it to be a picture of Rebeccawith Esau or Jacob, figures from Hebrew Scripture. Ngai (Ai Tian, Ai T'ien) declared that he had come from Kaifeng, and stated that this was the site of a large Jewish population.[22] Ricci sent an ethnic Chinese Jesuit Lay Brother to visit Kaifeng;[22] later, other Jesuits (mostly European) also visited the city. It was later discovered that the Jewish community had a synagogue (Libai si), which was constructed facing the west, and housed a number of written materials and books.The Jews who managed the synagogue were called "Mullahs". Floods and Fire repeatedly destroyed the books of the Kaifeng synagogue, they obtained some from Ningxia and Ningbo to replace them, another Hebrew roll of law was bought from a Muslim in Ning-keang-chow in Shen-se (Shanxi), who acquired it from a dying Jew at Canton.[23]The Chinese called Muslims, Jews, and Christians in ancient times by the same name, "Hui Hui" (Hwuy-hwuy). Crossworshipers (Christians) were called "Hwuy who abstain from animals without the cloven foot", Muslims were called "Hwuy who abstain from pork", Jews were called "Hwuy who extract the sinews (removes the sciatic nerve)". Hwuy-tsze (Hui zi) or Hwuy-hwuy (Hui Hui) is presently used almost exclusively for Muslims, but Jews were still called Lan Maou Hwuy tsze (Lan mao Hui zi) which means "Blue cap Hui zi". At Kaifeng, Jews were called "Teaou kin keaou "extract sinew religion". Jews and Muslims in China shared the same name for synagogue and mosque, which were both called "Tsing-chin sze" (Qingzhen si) "Temple of Purity and Truth", the name dated to the 13th century. The synagogue and mosquers were also known as Le-pae sze (Libai si). A tablet indicated that Judaism was once known as "Yih-tsze-lo-nee-keaou" (israelitish religion) and synagogues known as Yih-tsze lo nee leen (Israelitish Temple), but it faded out of use.[24]A Muslim in Nanjing told Semedo that four families of Jews converted to Islam since they were the last Jews in the area, their numbers diminishing.[25]Various Jewish Chinese individuals worked in government service and owned big properties in China in the 17th century.[26]
19th century
During the Taiping rebellion of the 1850s, the Jews of Kaifeng apparently suffered a great deal and were dispersed. Following this dislocation, they returned to Kaifeng, yet continued to be small in number and to face hardships, as is recorded in the early 20th century.Shanghai's first wave of Jews came in the second half of the 19th century, many being Mizrahi Jews from Iraq. The first Jew who arrived there was Elias David Sassoon, who, about the year 1850, opened a branch in connection with his father's Bombay house. Since that period Jews gradually migrated from India to Shanghai, most of them being engaged from Bombay as clerks by the firm of David Sassoon & Co. The community was composed mainly of "Asian," (Sephardi) German, and Russian Jews, though there were a few of Austrian, French, and Italian origin among them. Jews took a considerable part in developing trade in China, and several served on the municipal councils, among them being Silas Aaron Hardoon, partner in the firm of E. D. Sassoon & Co., who served on the French and English councils at the same time. During the early days of Jewish settlement in Shanghai the trade in opium and Bombay cotton yarn was mainly in Jewish hands.A plaque commemorates the former Jewish Middle School in Harbin, now the No. 2 Korean Middle SchoolContemporaneous sources estimated the Jewish population in China in 1940 — includingManchukuo — at 36,000 (source: Catholic Encyclopedia).Jewish life in Shanghai had really taken off with the arrival of the British. Mizrahi Jews from the Middle East came as traders via India and Hong Kong and established some of the leading trading companies in the second half of the 19th century. Later, after World War I, manyAshkenazi Jews came from Europe. Rebbe Meir Ashkenazi (Chabad-Lubavitch) was the Chief Rabbi of Shanghai (1926–1949).At the early 20th century many Russian Jews fleeing pogroms in several towns in Russian Empire decided to move to northeast China for permanent settlement (Rabbi Aaron Kiselev served in Harbin from 1913 until his death in 1949). After the Russian Revolution of 1917, a lot ofWhite Russians, fled to Harbin (former Manchuria). These included, among others, Dr. Abraham Kaufman, who played a leading role in the Harbin Jewish community after 1919,[27] the parents of future Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and Teodor Parnicki at the age of 12.Dr. Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic of China, held admirations for the Jewish people andZionism, and saw parallels between the persecution of Jews and the domination of China by the Western powers. He stated, "Though their country was destroyed, the Jewish nation has existed to this day... [Zionism] is one of the greatest movements of the present time. All lovers of democracy cannot help but support wholeheartedly and welcome with enthusiasm the movement to restore your wonderful and historic nation, which has contributed so much to the civilization of the world and which rightfully deserve [sic] an honorable place in the family of nations."[28]The Japanese occupation of northeast China in 1931 and the establishment of Manchukuo in 1932 had a negative impact on the Harbin Jewish community (13,000 in 1929). Most of those Jews left Harbin for Tianjin, Shanghai, and British Mandate of Palestine. Until 1939, the Russian Jews were about 5,000 in Shanghai.[29]
World War II
Main article: Shanghai GhettoAnother wave of 18,000 Jews from Germany, Austria, and Poland immigrated to Shanghai in the late 1930s and the early 1940s.[30] Shanghai at the time was an open city and did not have restrictions on immigration, and some Chinese diplomats such as Ho Feng Shan issued "protective" passports. In 1943, the occupying Japanese army required these 18,000 Jews, formally known as "stateless refugees," to relocate to an area of 0.75 square miles (1.9 km2) in Shanghai's Hongkew district (today known as Hongkou District) where many lived in group homes called "Heime".[31] The total number of Jews entering Shanghai during this period equaled the number of Jews fleeing to Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand and South Africa combined. Many of the Jews in China later moved to found modern Israel.Shanghai was an important safe-haven for Jewish refugees during the Holocaust, since it was one of the few places in the world where one didn't need a visa. However, it was not easy to get there. The Japanese, who controlled the city, preferred in effect to look the other way. Some corrupt officials however, also exploited the plight of the Jews. By 1941 nearly 20,000 European Jews had found shelter there.Jakob Rosenfeld, a doctor for the New Fourth Army, betweenLiu Shaoqi (left) and Chen Yi(rightNotable Jews during the Second Sino-Japanese War include Hans Shippe, Dr. Jakob Rosenfeld,Stanisław Flato, Eva Sandberg, Ruth Weiss, photographer and wife of Communist leader Xiao San, and Morris Abraham Cohen.Late in the War, Nazi representatives pressured the Japanese army to devise a plan to exterminate Shanghai's Jewish population, and this pressure eventually became known to the Jewish community's leadership. However, the Japanese had no intention of further provoking the anger of the Allies after their already notorious invasion of China and a number of other Asian nations, and thus delayed the German request until the War ended. With the intercession of theAmshenower Rebbe and the translation skills of Leo (Ariyeh) Hanin, the Japanese ultimately kept the Jews of Shanghai safe.[32]In general, in the period of 1845 to 1945 more than 40,000 Jews came to China for business development or for a safe haven.[33]
Late 20th century
After World War II and the establishment of the PRC in 1949, most of these Jews emigrated toIsrael or the West, although a few remained. Three prominent non-Chinese lived in China from the establishment of the People's Republic of China to the contemporary period: Sidney Shapiro,Israel Epstein, and Ruth Weiss, two American emigres and one Austrian emigre, are of Jewish descent. Another Jewish-American, Sidney Rittenberg served as interpreter to many top Chinese officials.Sara Imas, the Shanghai-born daughter of Shanghai's Jewish Club president, Leiwi Imas, became the first Jewish-Chinese immigrant to Israel after the two countries established formal diplomatic relations in 1992. Leiwi Imas, who had to leave Germany for Poland in 1939, arrived in Shanghai the same year. He spent his final years in Shanghai until 1962, prior to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Although Sara Imas's non-Chinese appearance and family background brought her much trouble during the Cultural Revolution when she was accused of being a foreign capitalist and spy, today Sara Imas has returned to Shanghai, working as the Chinese representative of an Israeli diamond company.[34]The Institute of Jewish Studies was established at Nanjing University in 1992.[35]Since the 1990s, the Shanghai municipal government has taken the initiative to preserve historical Western architectures that were constructed during Shanghai's colonial past. Many formerly Jewish-owned hotels and private residence have been included in the preservation project. In 1997, the Kadoorie-residence-turned Shanghai Children's Palace, had their spacious front garden largely removed in order to make room for the city's overpass system under construction. A One Day Tour of the history of Jewish presence in Shanghai can be arranged through the Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai.[36] Rabbi Shalom Greenberg from Chabad-Lubavitch in New York arrived in Shanghai to serve this community in August 1998. Rabbi Arthur Schneier, president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation of New York, donated a Torah to the community that same year. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, in September 1999, a Jewish New Year service was held at the Ohel Rachel Synagogue for first time since 1952.[37]
21st century
While the Chinese government maintained their support for Arab states, a general pro-Jewish outlook has been observed amongst China's urban populace. These attitudes arose largely due to an admiration of Jewish business skills. In particular, books on Jews and their purported connection to financial successes are best-sellers in China.[28][38][39]Synagogues are found in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong today, serving both international Jews and native Jews.[40] In 2001, Rabbi Shimon Freundlich from the Chabad-Lubavitch movement came and settled in Beijing with the mission of building and leading the center of Chabad-Lubavitch of Beijing, an Orthodox congregation.[37]In 2005, the Israeli embassy to China held their Hanukkah celebrations at the Great Wall of China.[41]In 2007, the Sephardic community of Shanghai opened a synagogue, study hall, kosher kitchen, and educational classes for children and adults. The community has its own Hacham, who functions as a teacher and chazan, in addition to Rabbi Ephraim Bezalel, who manages local community affairs and kashrut needs.[42]As of 2010, it is estimated that 2,000 to 3,000 Jews lived in Shanghai. In May 2010, the Ohel Rachel Synagogue in Shanghai was temporarily reopened to the local Jewish community for weekend services.[43]Jakob Rosenfeld, a doctor for the New Fourth Army, betweenLiu Shaoqi (left) and Chen Yi(right).Notable Jews during the Second Sino-Japanese War include Hans Shippe, Dr. Jakob Rosenfeld,Stanisław Flato, Eva Sandberg, Ruth Weiss, photographer and wife of Communist leader Xiao San, and Morris Abraham Cohen.Late in the War, Nazi representatives pressured the Japanese army to devise a plan to exterminate Shanghai's Jewish population, and this pressure eventually became known to the Jewish community's leadership. However, the Japanese had no intention of further provoking the anger of the Allies after their already notorious invasion of China and a number of other Asian nations, and thus delayed the German request until the War ended. With the intercession of theAmshenower Rebbe and the translation skills of Leo (Ariyeh) Hanin, the Japanese ultimately kept the Jews of Shanghai safe.[32]In general, in the period of 1845 to 1945 more than 40,000 Jews came to China for business development or for a safe haven.[33]
Late 20th century
After World War II and the establishment of the PRC in 1949, most of these Jews emigrated toIsrael or the West, although a few remained. Three prominent non-Chinese lived in China from the establishment of the People's Republic of China to the contemporary period: Sidney Shapiro,Israel Epstein, and Ruth Weiss, two American emigres and one Austrian emigre, are of Jewish descent. Another Jewish-American, Sidney Rittenberg served as interpreter to many top Chinese officials.Sara Imas, the Shanghai-born daughter of Shanghai's Jewish Club president, Leiwi Imas, became the first Jewish-Chinese immigrant to Israel after the two countries established formal diplomatic relations in 1992. Leiwi Imas, who had to leave Germany for Poland in 1939, arrived in Shanghai the same year. He spent his final years in Shanghai until 1962, prior to the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Although Sara Imas's non-Chinese appearance and family background brought her much trouble during the Cultural Revolution when she was accused of being a foreign capitalist and spy, today Sara Imas has returned to Shanghai, working as the Chinese representative of an Israeli diamond company.[34]The Institute of Jewish Studies was established at Nanjing University in 1992.[35]Since the 1990s, the Shanghai municipal government has taken the initiative to preserve historical Western architectures that were constructed during Shanghai's colonial past. Many formerly Jewish-owned hotels and private residence have been included in the preservation project. In 1997, the Kadoorie-residence-turned Shanghai Children's Palace, had their spacious front garden largely removed in order to make room for the city's overpass system under construction. A One Day Tour of the history of Jewish presence in Shanghai can be arranged through the Center of Jewish Studies Shanghai.[36] Rabbi Shalom Greenberg from Chabad-Lubavitch in New York arrived in Shanghai to serve this community in August 1998. Rabbi Arthur Schneier, president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation of New York, donated a Torah to the community that same year. On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, in September 1999, a Jewish New Year service was held at the Ohel Rachel Synagogue for first time since 1952.[37]
21st century
While the Chinese government maintained their support for Arab states, a general pro-Jewish outlook has been observed amongst China's urban populace. These attitudes arose largely due to an admiration of Jewish business skills. In particular, books on Jews and their purported connection to financial successes are best-sellers in China.[28][38][39]Synagogues are found in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong today, serving both international Jews and native Jews.[40] In 2001, Rabbi Shimon Freundlich from the Chabad-Lubavitch movement came and settled in Beijing with the mission of building and leading the center of Chabad-Lubavitch of Beijing, an Orthodox congregation.[37]In 2005, the Israeli embassy to China held their Hanukkah celebrations at the Great Wall of China.[41]In 2007, the Sephardic community of Shanghai opened a synagogue, study hall, kosher kitchen, and educational classes for children and adults. The community has its own Hacham, who functions as a teacher and chazan, in addition to Rabbi Ephraim Bezalel, who manages local community affairs and kashrut needs.[42]As of 2010, it is estimated that 2,000 to 3,000 Jews lived in Shanghai. In May 2010, the Ohel Rachel Synagogue in Shanghai was temporarily reopened to the local Jewish community for weekend services
Father Joseph Brucker believed Matteo Ricci's manuscripts indicate there were only approximately ten or twelve Jewish families in Kaifeng in the late 16th and early 17th century, and that they had reportedly resided there for five or six hundred years. It was also stated in the manuscripts that there was a greater number of Jews in Hangzhou. This could be taken to suggest that loyal Jews fled south along with the soon-to-be crowned Emperor Gaozong toHangzhou. In fact, the 1489 stele mentions how the Jews "abandoned Bianliang" (Kaifeng) after the Jingkang Incident.Many Jewish communities were established in China in the Middle Ages. However, not all left evidence of their existence. The following are those known today: Kaifeng, Hangzhou, Ningbo,Yangzhou, and Ningxia.[10]It has been recorded that the Chinese historically called the Jews Tiao jin jiao (挑筋教), loosely, "the religion which removes the sinew," probably referring to the Jewish dietary prohibitionagainst eating the sciatic nerve (from Genesis 32:32).[11]Jewish dietary law (kashruth), which forbids the eating of, among other foods, non-ruminantmammals, shellfish and reptiles, would have most likely caused Jewish communities to stand out from the surrounding mainstream Chinese population, as Chinese culture is typically very free in the range of items it deems suitable for food.[citation needed]Jews have also been called the Blue-Hat Hui (Chinese: 藍帽回; pinyin: Lánmào Húi), in contrast to other populations of Hui people, who have identified with hats of other colors. The distinction between Muslim and Jewish Hui is not, and historically has not been, well recognised by the dominant Han population.[citation needed]A modern translation of the "Kaifeng Steles" has shown the Jews referred to their synagogue as "The Pure and Truth", which is essentially the same as the term used in modern China to refer to Muslim mosques (清真寺).According to an oral tradition dictated by Xu Xin, Director of the Center for Judaic Studies atNanjing University, in his book Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, the Kaifeng Jews called Judaism Yīcìlèyè jiào (一賜樂業教), lit. the religion of Israel. Yīcìlèyè is a transliteration and partial translation of "Israel". Xu Xin translates this phrase as "Chosen people, endowed by God, and contented with their lives and work".[citation needed]Danfan Uiliq, an important post along the Silk Road in northwest China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The text is thirty-seven lines in length and was written on paper, a product then manufactured only in China. It was identified, by David Samuel Margoliouth, as dating from 718 CE.[12][13] Ibn Zeyd al Hassan of Siraf, a 9th-century Arabian traveler, reports that in 878 followers of the Chinese rebel leaderHuang Chao besieged Canton (Guangzhou) and killed a large number of foreign merchants, Arabs, Persians, Christians, and Jews, resident there.[14]Sources indicate that Jews in China were often mistaken for Muslims by other Chinese. The first plausible recorded written Chinese mention of Jews uses the term Zhuhu (竹忽), or Zhuhudu (朱乎得) (perhaps from Arabic Yehoud, or from Hebrew Yehudim, "Jews") found in the Annals of theYuan Dynasty in 1329 and 1354. The text spoke of the reinforcement of a tax levied on "dissenters" and of a government decree that the Jews come en-masse to Beijing, the capital.Famous Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who visited China, then under the Yuan Dynasty, in the late 13th century, described the prominence of Jewish traders in Beijing. Similar references can be found in the notes of the Franciscan John of Montecorvino, first archbishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Beijing in the early 14th century, and the writings of Ibn Batuta, an Arabian envoy to the Mongol Empire in the middle of the 14th century.Genghis Khan called both Jews and Muslims Huihui (回回), calling the Jews Zhuhu Huihui (竹忽回回), when he forbade Jews and Muslims from practicing Kosher and Halal preparation of their food, calling both of them "slaves" and forcing them to eat Mongol food, and banned them from practicing circumcision.[15][16]
China's Jewish communities have been ethnically diverse ranging from the Jews of Kaifeng and other places during the history of Imperial China, who, it is reported, came to be more or less totally assimilated into Chinese culture, to 19th- and 20th-century Ashkenazi Jews, toBaghdadis, to Indians.The presence of a community of Jewish immigrants in China is consistent with the history of the Jewish people during the first and second millennia CE, which saw them disperse and settle throughout the Eurasian landmass, with an especial concentration throughout central Asia.[1] By the 9th century, ibn Khordadbeh noted the travels of Jewish merchants called Radhanites, whose trade took them to China via the Silk Road through Central Asia and India. Jacob of Ancona, the supposed author of a book of travels,was a scholarly Jewish merchant who wrote in vernacular Italian, and reached China in 1271,[2] although some authors question it.During the period of international opening and quasi-colonialism, the first group to settle in China were Jews who arrived in China under British protection following the First Opium War. Many of these Jews were of Indian or Iraqi origin, due to British colonialism in these regions, and became the largest dealers in opium[citation needed]. The second community came in the first decades of the 20th century when many Jews arrived in Hong Kong and Shanghai during those cities' periods of economic expansion.Many more arrived as refugees from the Russian Revolution of 1917. A surge of Jews and Jewish families was to arrive in the late 1930s and 1940s, for the purpose of seeking refuge from theHolocaust in Europe and were predominantly of European origin. Shanghai was notable for its volume of Jewish refugees, most of whom left after the war, the rest relocating prior to or immediately after the establishment of the People's Republic of China.Over the centuries, the Kaifeng community came to be virtually indistinguishable from the Chinese population and is not recognized by the Chinese government as a separate ethnic minority. This is as a result of having adopted many Han Chinese customs including patrilineal descent, as well as extensive intermarriage with the local population. Since their religious practices are functionally extinct, they are not eligible for expedited immigration to Israel under the Law of Return unless they explicitly convert.Today, some descendants of the Jews still live in the Han Chinese and Hui population. Some of them, as well as international Jewish communities, are beginning to revive their interest in this heritage. This is especially important in modern China because belonging to any minority group includes a variety of benefits including reduced restrictions on the number of children and easier admission standards to tertiary education.The study of Judaism in China has been, like other Abrahamic religions, a subject of interest to some Westerners, and has achieved moderate success compared to other Western studies in China.One well-known group was the Kaifeng Jews, who are purported to have traveled from Persia toIndia during the mid-Han Dynasty and later migrated from the Muslim-inhabited regions of northwestern China (modern day Gansu province) to Henan province during the early Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127).[7]A massacre of Jews in Canton, China occurred during the Chinese Tang Dynasty in the 9th century during the Huang Chao Rebellion.[8]Section of the 1512 stele which mentions Yue's famous tattoo.
Jews and Judaism in China have had a long history. Jewish settlers are documented in China as early as the 7th or 8th century CE. Relatively isolated communities developed through the Tangand Song Dynasties (7th to 12th centuries CE) all the way through the Qing Dynasty (19th century), most notably in the Kaifeng Jews (the term "Chinese Jews" is often used in a restricted sense to refer to these communities). By the time of the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, few if any native Chinese Jews were known to have maintained the practice of their religion and culture[citation needed]. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, however, some international Jewish groups have helped Chinese Jews rediscover their heritage[citation needed].In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Jewish immigrants from around the world arrived with Western commercial influences, particularly in the commercial centers of Hong Kong, which was for a time a British colony, Shanghai (the International Settlement and French Concession), andHarbin (the Trans-Siberian Railway). In the first half of the 20th century, thousands of Jewish refugees escaping from the 1917 Russian Revolution and the Holocaust in Europe arrived in China.
The oldest processed gold in the world, arguably left by Old Europeans, was found in Varna, and the Black Sea was supposedly sailed by the Argonauts. The land at the eastern end of the Black Sea, Colchis, (now Georgia), marked for the Greeks the edge of the known world.The steppes to the north of the Black Sea have been suggested as the original homeland (Urheimat) of the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, (PIE) the progenitor of theIndo-European language family, by some scholars such as Marija Gimbutas; others move the heartland further east towards the Caspian Sea, yet others to Anatolia. Numerous ancient ports, some older than the Egyptian pyramids[citation needed], line the Black Sea's coasts.The Black Sea became an Ottoman Navy lake within five years of Genoa losing the Crimea in 1479, after which the only Western merchant vessels to sail its waters were those of Venice's old rival Ragusa. This restriction was gradually changed by the Russian Navy from 1783 until the relaxation of export controls in 1789 because of the French Revolution.[44][45]The Black Sea was a significant naval theatre of World War I and saw both naval and land battles during World War II.Ancient trade routes in the region are currently being extensively studied by scientists, as the Black Sea was sailed by Hittites, Carians, Thracians, Greeks, Persians, Cimmerians, Scythians,Romans, Byzantines, Goths, Huns, Avars, Bulgars, Slavs, Varangians, Crusaders, Venetians,Genoese, Lithuanians, Georgians, Poles, Tatars, Ottomans, and Russians.
at the height of the last ice age, sea levels were more than 100 m (330 ft) lower than they are now.There is also evidence that water levels in the Black Sea were considerably lower at some point during the post-glacial period. Thus, for example, archaeologists found fresh-water snail shells and man-made structures in roughly 100 m (330 ft) of water off the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey. Therefore it is agreed that the Black Sea had been a landlocked freshwater lake (at least in upper layers) during the last glaciation and for some time after.In the aftermath of the last glacial period, water levels in the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea rose independently until they were high enough to exchange water. The exact timeline of this development is still subject to debate. One possibility is that the Black Sea filled first, with excess fresh water flowing over the Bosphorus sill and eventually into the Mediterranean Sea.
The Black Sea is a sea in south-eastern Europe. It is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and theCaucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and theAegean Seas and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the Strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean Sea region of the Mediterranean. These waters separate eastern Europe and western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to theSea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch.Swallow's Nest in Crimea, Ukraine.The Black Sea is one of four seas named in English after common color terms—the others being the Red Sea, the White Sea and the Yellow Sea.The ongoing collision between the Eurasian and African plates and westward escape of theAnatolian block along the North Anatolian Fault and East Anatolian Faults dictates the current tectonic regime,[16] which features enhanced subsidence in the Black Sea basin and significant volcanic activity in the Anatolian region.[17] It is these geological mechanisms which, in the long term, have caused the periodic isolations of the Black Sea from the rest of the global ocean system.The modern basin is divided into two sub-basins by a convexity extending south from the Crimean Peninsula. The large shelf to the north of the basin is up to 190 km (120 mi) wide, and features a shallow apron with gradients between 1:40 and 1:1000. The southern edge around Turkey and the western edge around Georgia, however, are typified by a narrow shelf that rarely exceeds 20 km (12 mi) in width and a steep apron that is typically 1:40 gradient with numerous submarine canyons and channel extensions. The Euxine abyssal plain in the centre of the Black Sea reaches a maximum depth of 2,212 metres (7,257.22 feet) just south of Yalta on the Crimean Peninsula.[18]The littoral zone of the Black Sea is often referred to as the Pontic littoral or Pontic zone.[19]Near the Black Sea is situated the Black Sea Region, well known by its "Chernozem belt" (black soil belt). The Chernozem belt goes from Northern Serbia, northern Bulgaria (Danubian Plain) and southern Romania (Wallachian Plain), to northeast Ukraine across the Black Earth Region and southern Russia into Siberia.[20]
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who first appeared in Europe from east of the Volga River, region of the earlier Scythians, with a migration intertwined with the Alans.[1] They were first mentioned as Hunnoi by Tacitus. Initially being near the Caspian Sea in 91 AD, the Huns migrated to the southeastern area of the Caucasus by about 150 AD[2] and into Europe by 370 AD, where they established a vast Hunnic Empire. Since de Guignes linked them with theXiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,[3] considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. However, there is no scholarly consensus on a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns.[4] Priscus mentions that the Huns had a language of their own; little of it has survived and its relationships have been the subject of debate for centuries. Numerous other languages were spoken within the Hun Pax, including Gothic (East Germanic), which would become the lingua franca of the Hunnic elite.[5][6][7][8] Their main military technique was mounted archery.The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the western Roman Empire.[9] They formed a unified empire under Attila the Hun, who died in 453; their empire broke up the next year. Their descendants, or successors with similar names, are recorded by neighbouring populations to the south, east, and west as having occupied parts ofEastern Europe and Central Asia approximately from the 4th century to the 6th century. Variants of the Hun name are recorded in the Caucasus until the early 8th century.Since Joseph de Guignes in the 18th century, historians have associated the Huns who appeared on the borders of Europe in the 4th century with the Xiongnu who migrated out of the Mongoliaregion some three hundred years before. Due to the conflict with Han China, the Northern branch of the Xiongnu had retreated north-westward; their descendants may have migrated throughEurasia and consequently they may have some degree of cultural and genetic continuity with the Huns.[11] The evidence for continuity between Huns and Xiongnu has not been definitive.[11] A school of modern scholarship instead uses an ethnogenetic, rather than essentialist, approach in explaining the Huns' origin.The cause of the Hunnic move into Europe may have been expansion of the Rouran, who had created a massive empire across the Asian continent in the mid-4th century, including the Tatar lands as well, which they took over from the Xianbei. It is supposed that this westward spread of Rouran power pushed the Huns into Europe over the years.[12][page needed]
Modern ethnogenesis interpretation
Main article: EthnogenesisContemporary literary sources do not provide a clear understanding of Hun origins. The Huns seem to "suddenly appear", first mentioned during an attack on the Alans, who are generally connected to the River Don (Tanais). Scholarship from the early 20th century literature connected the sudden and apparently devastating Hun appearance as a predatory migration from the more easterly parts of the steppe, i.e. Central Asia. This interpretation has been formulated on sketchy and hypothetical etymological and historical connections. More recent theories view the nomadic confederacies, such as the Huns, as the formation of several different cultural, political and linguistic entities that could dissolve as quickly as they formed, entailing a process ofethnogenesis.[13][14][15] A group of "warrior" horse-nomads would conquer and/or be joined by other warrior groups throughout western Eurasia, and in turn extracted tribute over a territory that included other social and ethnic groups, including sedentary agricultural peoples. In steppe society, clans could forge new alliances and subservience by incorporating other clans, creating a new common ancestral lineage descended from an early heroic leader. Thus, one cannot expect to find a clear origin. "All we can say safely," says Walter Pohl, "is that the name Huns, inlate antiquity (4th century), described prestigious ruling groups of steppe warriors."[14] The nameHun was used to refer to groups over wide and often discontiguous geographic regions, referred to by disparate sources (including Indic, Persian, Chinese, Byzantine, Roman).[14][16][17][18][19]After the Hun era in Europe, Greek and Latin chroniclers continued to use the term "Huns" when referring to tribal groups whom they placed in the Black Sea region.
Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, sometimes spelled de l'Isle, (10 May 1760, Lons-le-Saunier – 26 June 1836, Choisy-le-Roi), was a French army officer of the Revolutionary Wars. He is known for writing the words and music of the Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin in 1792, which would later be known as La Marseillaise and become the French national anthem.
Strasbourg (French pronunciation: [stʁaz.buʁ]; Lower Alsatian: Strossburi, [ˈʃd̥rɔːsb̥uri]; German:Straßburg, [ˈʃtʁaːsbʊɐ̯k]) is the capital and principal city of the Alsace region in eastern Franceand is the official seat of the European Parliament. Located close to the border with Germany, it is the capital of the Bas-Rhin département. The city and the region of Alsace are historically German-speaking, explaining the city's Germanic name.[5] In 2006, the city proper had 272,975 inhabitants and its urban community 467,375 inhabitants. With 759,868 inhabitants in 2010, Strasbourg's metropolitan area (only the part of the metropolitan area on French territory) is the ninth largest in France. The transnational Eurodistrict Strasbourg-Ortenau had a population of 884,988 inhabitants in 2008.[6]Strasbourg is situated on the Ill River, where it flows into the Rhine on the border with Germany, across from the German town Kehl. The city lies in the Upper Rhine Plain, approximately 20 km (12 mi) east of the Vosges Mountains and 25 km (16 mi) west of the Black Forest.The Romans under Nero Claudius Drusus established a military outpost belonging to theGermania Superior Roman province at Strasbourg's current location, and named it Argentoratum. (Hence the town is commonly called Argentina in medieval Latin.[19]) The name "Argentoratum" was first mentioned in 12 BC and the city celebrated its 2,000th birthday in 1988. "Argentorate" as the toponym of the Gaulish settlement preceding it before being Latinized, but it is not known by how long. The Roman camp was destroyed by fire and rebuilt six times between the first and the fifth centuries AD: in 70, 97, 235, 355, in the last quarter of the fourth century, and in the early years of the fifth century. It was under Trajan and after the fire of 97 that Argentoratum received its most extended and fortified shape. From the year 90 on, the Legio VIII Augusta was permanently stationed in the Roman camp of Argentoratum. It then included a cavalry section and covered an area of approximately 20 hectares. Other Roman legions temporarily stationed in Argentoratum were the Legio XIV Gemina and the Legio XXI Rapax, the latter during the reign ofNero.The centre of Argentoratum proper was situated on the Grande Île (Cardo: current Rue du Dôme,Decumanus: current Rue des Hallebardes). The outline of the Roman "castrum" is visible in the street pattern in the Grande Ile. Many Roman artifacts have also been found along the currentRoute des Romains, the road that led to Argentoratum, in the suburb of Kœnigshoffen. This was where the largest burial places were situated, as well as the densest concentration of civilian dwelling places and commerces next to the camp. Among the most outstanding finds in Kœnigshoffen were (found in 1911–12) the fragments of a grand Mithraeum that had been shattered by early Christians in the fourth century. From the fourth century, Strasbourg was the seat of the Bishopric of Strasbourg (made an Archbishopric in 1988). Archaeological excavations below the current Église Saint-Étienne in 1948 and 1956 unearthed the apse of a church dating back to the late fourth or early fifth century, considered to be the oldest church in Alsace. It is supposed that this was the first seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Strasbourg.The Alemanni fought a Battle of Argentoratum against Rome in 357. They were defeated byJulian, later Emperor of Rome, and their King Chonodomarius was taken prisoner. On 2 January 366, the Alemanni crossed the frozen Rhine in large numbers to invade the Roman Empire. Early in the fifth century, the Alemanni appear to have crossed the Rhine, conquered, and then settled what is today Alsace and a large part of Switzerland.The town was occupied successively in the fifth century by Alemanni, Huns and Franks. In the ninth century it was commonly known as Strazburg in the local language, as documented in 842 by the Oaths of Strasbourg. This trilingual text contains, alongside texts in Latin and Old High German (teudisca lingua), the oldest written variety of Gallo-Romance (lingua romana) clearly distinct from Latin, the ancestor of Old French. The town was also called Stratisburgum orStrateburgus in Latin, from which later came Strossburi in Alsatian and Straßburg in Standard German, and then Strasbourg in French. The Oaths of Strasbourg is considered as marking the birth of the two countries of France and Germany with the division of the Carolingian Empire.[20]A major commercial centre, the town came under control of the Holy Roman Empire in 923, through the homage paid by the Duke of Lorraine to German King Henry I. The early history of Strasbourg consists of a long conflict between its bishop and its citizens. The citizens emerged victorious after the Battle of Oberhausbergen in 1262, when King Philip of Swabia granted the city the status of an Imperial Free City.Around 1200, Gottfried von Straßburg wrote the Middle High German courtly romance Tristan, which is regarded, alongside Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and the Nibelungenlied, as one of great narrative masterpieces of the German Middle Ages.A revolution in 1332 resulted in a broad-based city government with participation of the guilds, and Strasbourg declared itself a free republic. The deadly bubonic plague of 1348 was followed on 14 February 1349 by one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history: over a thousand Jews were publicly burnt to death, with the remainder of the Jewish population being expelled from the city.[21] Until the end of the 18th century, Jews were forbidden to remain in town after 10 pm. The time to leave the city was signalled by a municipal herald blowing theGrüselhorn (see below, Museums, Musée historique);.[22] A special tax, the Pflastergeld(pavement money), was furthermore to be paid for any horse that a Jew would ride or bring into the city while allowed to.[23]Strasbourg Cathedral, on which construction began in the twelfth century, was completed in 1439 (though only the north tower was built) and became the World's Tallest Building, surpassing the Great Pyramid of Giza. A few years later, Johannes Gutenberg created the first Europeanmoveable type printing press in Strasbourg.
The Rhine (Romansh: Rain; German: Rhein; French: Rhin; Dutch: Rijn) is a European river that begins in the Swiss canton of Grisons in the southeastern Swiss Alps, flows through Germanyand eventually empties into the North Sea in the Netherlands. It is the twelfth longest river in Europe, at about 1,233 km (766 mi),[2][3] with an average discharge of more than 2,000 m3/s (71,000 cu ft/s).The Rhine and the Danube formed most of the northern inland frontier of the Roman Empire and, since those days, the Rhine has been a vital and navigable waterway carrying trade and goods deep inland. IThis is also the source of the name in the other Germanic languages such as Dutch Rijn (formerly also Rhijn), German Rhein, Romansh Rain (via German) and also FrenchRhin, Czech Rýn, Spanish Rin, which came into the language through Old Frankish. This in turn derives from Indo-European *Reynos, from the root *rey- "to flow, to run", which is also the root of words like river and run.[4] The Celtic/Gaulish name for the Rhine is Rēnos, which derives from the same Indo-European source as the Germanic name. It is also found in other names such as the Reno River in Italy, which got its name from Gaulish.[Large cities that are situated on the Rhine:Switzerland:BaselFrance:StrasbourgGermany:KarlsruheMannheimLudwigshafenWiesbadenMainzKoblenzBonnCologneLeverkusenNeussDüsseldorfKrefeld (Uerdingen)DuisburgNetherlands:Arnhem (Nederrijn)Nijmegen (Waal)Utrecht (Kromme Rijn)Rotterdam (Nieuwe Maas)
Gaul (Latin: Gallia) was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine. Gaul (Latin: Gallia) was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine.
The Namnetes were a tribe of ancient Gaul, living in the area of the modern city of Nantes[1] near the river Liger (modern Loire).They were neighbours to the Veneti people (north-west), the Redones (North), the Andecavi (east) and the Pictones (south).In the spring 56 BC during the Gallic wars and according to Caesar, the Namnetes allied to the Veneti to fight against the fleet made by Caesar.[2] Decimus Brutus, leader of the Roman fleet, finally won the battle.[3]During Roman domination, the Namnete capital city was located at the confluence of the Loire and the Erdre; its name was probably Condevicnum.[4] During the 3rd century AD, the city became known as Portus Namnetum,[5] then Nantes in the Middle Ages.Paul Ladmirault (1877–1944) was a French composer whose music expressed his devotion toBrittany. Claude Debussy wrote that his work possessed a "fine dreamy musicality", commenting on its characteristically hesitant character by suggesting that it sounded as if it was "afraid of expressing itself too much".[1] Florent Schmitt said of him: "Of all the musicians of his generation, he was perhaps the most talented, most original, but also the most modest".Ladmirault was born in Nantes. A child prodigy, he learned piano, organ and violin from an early age. At the age of 8, he composed a sonata for violin and piano. At the age of fifteen, when still a student of the Nantes High School, he wrote a three act opera Gilles de Retz. It was first performed on 18 May 1893.He was admitted to the Paris Conservatoire to study under Gabriel Fauré, learning harmony underAntoine Taudou and counterpoint from André Gedalge. He orchestrated a few works by Fauré. Like his fellow students - Maurice Ravel, Florent Schmitt, Louis Aubert, Jean Roger-Ducasse,Georges Enesco - he had become well known before he left the Conservatory. In 1903, he wrote aBreton Suite in three movements and then the Brocéliande de matin. These two works were orchestral extracts from his second opera, Myrdhin (Merlin), an epic work which he worked on from 1902-9, and continued to revise until 1921, but which has never been performed.He also wrote Young Cervantes for small orchestra, Valse triste and Épousailles for orchestra and piano. The ballet, La Prêtesse de Korydwenn (The Priestess of Ceridwen) was created at the Paris Opera on 17 December 1926.In the field of religious music, he wrote a brief Mass for organ and choir, and a Tantum ergo for voice, organ and orchestra.He also wrote articles on music in various periodicals. Appointed professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Nantes conservatoire, Ladmirault rarely left the Nantes region, calling himself a "homebody" who disliked to travel.[1]
During the Gallic period the area belonged to the Namnetes, who were conquered by Julius Caesar in 56 BC. The Romans Latinised the town's name to Condevincum, or Condevicnum, and under Roman rule it became an administrative centre. In the 3rd century it was renamed Portus Namnetum, and during this period a Gallo-Roman surrounding wall was constructed to fend off Saxon invasion; the remains can still be seen today. Nantes was Christianised during this period, and its first bishops took office after the conversion of Constantine the Great.
Middle Ages
After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476, the city rapidly came under the control ofClovis I despite resistance from the Roman garrison of Breton soldiers. During the Frankish period, the town played an essential role in halting Breton expansion from the Armorican peninsula. It became the capital of the 'Breton March' during the reign of Charlemagne; the territory was initially under the dominion of his nephew, Roland, who was given the title of 'Prefect of the Breton March'.
Breton Rule
After Charlemagne's death, Breton expansion intensified. In 850, the region was conquered by Nominoë, the ruler of Brittany, who invaded, among others, the towns of Nantes and Rennes. The following year, in the aftermath of the Battle of Jengland, the Breton March, with Nantes as its capital, was integrated into Brittany by the Treaty of Angers. The subsequent eighty years, however, were made difficult by the constant infighting between the Breton warlords, who promoted Viking invasions, the most spectacular of which took place on 24 June 843 and resulted in the death of Bishop Gohard of Nantes. The Chronicle of Nantes recounts that, during this period, "The city of Nantes remained for many years deserted, devastated and overgrown with briars and thorns." From 919 to 937, the town was managed by the Vikings, who were defeated by Alain Barbe-Torte, the grandson of Alan the Great, the last king of Brittany.[13][14]The year of 1685 was dominated by two major events; the first being the revocation of the edict of Nantes by Louis XVI, and the second being the announcement of the Code Noir by the same king. The latter law ensured the prosperity of the port of Nantes, as it became a commercial hub where sugar, tobacco and slaves were traded with the colonies.Nantes developed with the help of its foreign trade, which it inherited from the Middle Ages, and which it expanded during the era of colonists and white settlers who developed the colonial economy in the Antilles. The city's wealth, however, saw a far greater increase as a result of the slave trade in Africa, also known as the triangular trade. Although Nantes was not the only French port to have taken part in the slave trade (Bordeaux, Rouen, La Rochelle, Brest, Lorient and Vannes also sent expeditions), it certainly pioneered the trade: between 1707 and 1711, 75% of the ships carrying slaves were from Nantes. The principal ship-owners in Nantes were Michel, René and Jean Montaudoin, Luc Shiell, Marthurin Joubert, Jean Terrien and Sarrebouse d’Audeville. In 1754 the ship Saint-Phillipe, owned by the Nantes based Jogue brothers crossed the middle passage with 462 slaves in 25 days, whereas vessels earlier in the century would often take up to nine months. In the period between 1722 and 1744, Nantes was responsible for 50% of the human traffic, a percentage which grew again in 1762, before sinking to 32% between 1782 and 1792. In total, during the 18th century the port at Nantes sent out ships with 450,000 Africans, equivalent to 42% of the French slave trade. Nantes remained the principal slave port until the 1780s. Even after the official end of the slave trade in 1818, the trade continued. Over the next 13 years, 305 expeditions are recorded as having left from Nantes docks for the African coast.[15]
Frédéric Cailliaud (9 June 1787 – 1 May 1869) was a French naturalist, mineralogist andconchologist. He was born, and died, in Nantes.He travelled in Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia, collecting minerals and making observations. He was a part of the military expedition that his patron Viceroy Muhammad Ali sent south to conquer theKingdom of Sennar, but also marched further into Fazogli where Caillaud searched for outcroppings of gold while the commander Ismail, son of Muhammad Ali, enslaved locals and slaughtered all who resisted him. Although he failed to find any sizeable deposits of gold in the mountains along the modern Sudan-Ethiopia border, he did make a sufficiently detailed survey of the area to be published after he returned to France in 1827."Shortly after his return, he published Travels in the Oasis of Thebes, with never-before-seen information on the people and places of the Western Desert. His Travels to Meroë (mer-oh-ay) not only offered similarly pioneering information on the peoples and regions south of the Nile’s first cataract, but also constituted the first scientific survey of Sudanese monuments. In addition, he brought back a large corpus of correctly copied textual material that, along with objects in his newly acquired collection, helped the historian Jean-François Champollion decipher the hieroglyphic language of ancient Egypt. So esteemed were Cailliaud’s contributions to knowledge that in 1824 he was awarded the French Legion of Honor."[1]He was curator of the museum at Nantes from 1836 to 1869.
The first European to have seen the Blue Nile in Ethiopia and the river's source was Pedro Paez, a Spanish Jesuit who reached the river's source 21 April 1613.[6] Nevertheless the Portuguese João Bermudes, the self-described Patriarch of Ethiopia, provided the first description of the Tis Issat Falls in his memoirs (published in 1565), and a number of Europeans who lived in Ethiopia in the late 15th century like Pêro da Covilhã could have seen the river long before Paez, but not reached its places of source.The source of the Blue Nile was also reached in 1629 by the Portuguese Jesuit missionaryJerónimo Lobo and in 1770 by James Bruce.Although a number of European explorers contemplated tracing the course of the Blue Nile from its confluence with the White Nile to Lake Tana, its gorge, which begins a few miles inside the Ethiopian border, has discouraged all attempts since Frédéric Cailliaud's attempt in 1821. The first serious attempt by a non-local to explore this reach of the river was undertaken by the American W.W. Macmillan in 1902, assisted by the Norwegian explorer B.H. Jenssen; Jenssen would proceed upriver from Khartoum while Macmillan sailed downstream from Lake Tana. However, Jenssen's boats were blocked by the rapids at Famaka short of the Sudan-Ethiopian border, and Macmillan's boats were wrecked shortly after they had been launched. Macmillan encouraged Jenssen to try to sail upstream from Khartoum again in 1905, but he was forced to stop 300 miles short of Lake Tana.[7] Consul Cheesman, who records his surprise on arriving in Ethiopia at finding that the upper waters of "one of the most famous of the rivers of the world, and one whose name was well known to the ancients" was in his lifetime "marked on the map by dotted lines", managed to map the upper course of the Blue Nile between 1925–1933. He did this not by following the river along its banks and through its impassable canyon, but following it from the highlands above, travelling some 5,000 miles (8,000 km) by mule in the adjacent country.[8]
The Nile has two major tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The White Nile is longer and rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, with the most distant source still undetermined but located in either Rwanda or Burundi. It flows north through Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda andSouth Sudan. The Blue Nile is the source of most of the water and fertile soil. It begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia at 12°02′09″N 037°15′53″E and flows into Sudan from the southeast. The two rivers meet near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.The Blue Nile (Amharic: ዓባይ?; transliterated: ʿAbbay but pronounced Abbai, Arabic: النيل الأزرق an-Nīl al-Azraq) is a river originating at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. With the White Nile, the river is one of the two major tributaries of the Nile. The upper reaches of the river is called the Abbay in Ethiopia, where it is considered holy by many, and is believed to be the River Gihon mentioned as flowing out of the Garden of Eden in Genesis 2.[1]A steel Bailey bridge spans the White Nile at Juba, South SudanThe White Nile (Arabic: النيل الأبيض an nīl al 'abyaḍ) is a river of Africa, one of the two main tributariesof the Nile from Egypt, the other being the Blue Nile. In the strict meaning, "White Nile" refers to the river formed at Lake No at the confluence of the Bahr al Jabal and Bahr el Ghazal Rivers. In the wider sense, the term White Nile refers to the approximately 3,700 kilometres (2,300 mi) of rivers draining from Lake Victoria into the White Nile proper. It may also, depending on the speaker, refer to the headwaters of Lake Victoria.The 19th century search by Europeans for the source of the Nile was mainly focused on the White Nile, which disappeared into the depths of what was then known as 'Darkest Africa'.When in flood the Sobat tributary carries a large amount of sediment, adding greatly to the White Nile's color.[1]The Blue Mountains are a mountain range located in the northeastern Ituri Province of theDemocratic Republic of the Congo. To the east the range overlooks Lake Albert, at the confluence of the Victoria Nile and Albert Nile, which form part of the border with Uganda.[1] The western slopes of the Blue Mountains give rise to the Ituri River, a tributary of the Congo River.[2] They reach heights of up to 2,000 meters. [3]
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of large Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization of much of the Nubian population. Nubia was again united within Ottoman Egypt in the 19th century, and within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899 to 1956.The name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century, with the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë. The Noba spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, ancestral to Old Nubian. Old Nubian was mostly used in religious texts dating from the 8th and 15th centuries AD. Before the 4th century, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush, or, in Classical Greek usage, included under the name Ethiopia (Aithiopia).The Great Sphinx and the pyramids of Giza are among the most recognizable symbols of the civilization of ancient Egypt.Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology)[1] with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh.[2] The history of ancient Egyptoccurred in a series of stable Kingdoms, separated by periods of relative instability known asIntermediate Periods: the Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age, the Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age and the New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age.Egypt reached the pinnacle of its power during the New Kingdom, in the Ramesside period where it rivalled the Hittite Empire, Assyrian Empire and Mitanni Empire, after which it entered a period of slow decline. Egypt was invaded or conquered by a succession of foreign powers (such as theCanaanites/Hyksos, Libyans, Nubians, Assyria, Babylonia, Persian rule and Macedonian Greece) in the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt and Late Period. In the aftermath of Alexander the Great's death, one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter, established himself as the new ruler of Egypt. This Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty ruled Egypt until 30 BC, when, under Cleopatra, it fell to the Roman Empire and became a Roman province.[3]The success of ancient Egyptian civilization came partly from its ability to adapt to the conditions of the Nile River Valley. The predictable flooding and controlled irrigation of the fertile valley produced surplus crops, which fueled social development and culture. With resources to spare, the administration sponsored mineral exploitation of the valley and surrounding desert regions, the early development of an independent writing system, the organization of collective construction and agricultural projects, trade with surrounding regions, and a military intended todefeat foreign enemies and assert Egyptian dominance. Motivating and organizing these activities was a bureaucracy of elite scribes, religious leaders, and administrators under the control of a Pharaoh who ensured the cooperation and unity of the Egyptian people in the context of an elaborate system of religious beliefs.[4][5]The many achievements of the ancient Egyptians include the quarrying, surveying and construction techniques that facilitated the building of monumental pyramids, temples, andobelisks; a system of mathematics, a practical and effective system of medicine, irrigation systems and agricultural production techniques, the first known ships,[6] Egyptian faience and glass technology, new forms of literature, and the earliest known peace treaty with Hittites.[7]Egypt left a lasting legacy. Its art and architecture were widely copied, and its antiquities carried off to far corners of the world. Its monumental ruins have inspired the imaginations of travellers and writers for centuries. A new-found respect for antiquities and excavations in the early modern period led to the scientific investigation of Egyptian civilization and a greater appreciation of its cultural legacy.[8]The Nile has been the lifeline of its region for much of human history.[9] The fertile floodplain of the Nile gave humans the opportunity to develop a settled agricultural economy and a more sophisticated, centralized society that became a cornerstone in the history of human civilization.[10] Nomadic modern human hunter-gatherers began living in the Nile valley through the end of the Middle Pleistocene some 120 thousand years ago. By the late Paleolithic period, the arid climate of Northern Africa became increasingly hot and dry, forcing the populations of the area to concentrate along the region.In Predynastic and Early Dynastic times, the Egyptian climate was much less arid than it is today. Large regions of Egypt were covered in treed savanna and traversed by herds of grazingungulates. Foliage and fauna were far more prolific in all environs and the Nile region supported large populations of waterfowl. Hunting would have been common for Egyptians, and this is also the period when many animals were first domesticated.[11]By about 5500 BC, small tribes living in the Nile valley had developed into a series of cultures demonstrating firm control of agriculture and animal husbandry, and identifiable by their pottery and personal items, such as combs, bracelets, and beads. The largest of these early cultures in upper (Southern) Egypt, the Badari which probably originated in the Western Desert, was known for its high quality ceramics, stone tools, and its use of copper.[12]
Nubia is a region along the Nile river, which is located in northern Sudan and southern Egypt.There were a number of large Nubian kingdoms throughout the Middle Ages, the last of which collapsed in 1504, when Nubia became divided between Egypt and the Sennar sultanate resulting in the Arabization of much of the Nubian population. Nubia was again united within Ottoman Egypt in the 19th century, and within Anglo-Egyptian Sudan from 1899 to 1956.The name Nubia is derived from that of the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century, with the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë. The Noba spoke a Nilo-Saharan language, ancestral to Old Nubian. Old Nubian was mostly used in religious texts dating from the 8th and 15th centuries AD. Before the 4th century, and throughout classical antiquity, Nubia was known as Kush, or, in Classical Greek usage, included under the name Ethiopia (Aithiopia).
In the Greek period the Berbers were known as Libyans,[2] a Greek term for the inhabitants of northeast Africa. Their lands were called Libya, and extended from modern Morocco to the western borders of Ancient Egypt. Modern Egypt contains the Siwa Oasis, historically part of Libya, where the Berber Siwi language is still spoken.
The French Mandates of Syria and Lebanon, from 1920 to 1946, were called the Levant states.[citation needed]
Since World War II
Today "Levant" is typically used by archaeologists and historians with reference to the prehistoryand the ancient and medieval history of the region, as when discussing the Crusades. The term is also occasionally employed to refer to modern events, peoples, states or parts of states in the same region, namely Cyprus, Iraq, Israel, Palestinian Authority, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria(compare with Near East, Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean and Western Asia). Several researchers include the island of Cyprus in Levantine studies, including the Council for British Research in the Levant,[7] the UCLA Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department,[8] and theUCL Institute of Archaeology,[4] the last of which has dated the connection between Cyprus and mainland Levant to the early Iron Age. Currently, a dialect of Levantine Arabic, Cypriot Maronite Arabic, is the most-spoken minority language in Cyprus. Archaeologists seeking a neutral orientation that is neither biblical nor national have utilized terms such as Syro-Palestinian archaeology and archaeology of the southern Levant.[9][10]
a Libyan, a Nubian, a Asiatic, and an Egyptian.
.........
a Libyan-caucasian
, a Nubian-Spanic-African American.,
a Asiatic-Slanted eyes Asians.
, and an Egyptian-Middle East Iran of South Mesopotania Syrian ..
.Iraq of North Mesopotania of Assyria..
The four races of the world: a Libyan, a Nubian, a Asiatic, and an Egyptian. An artistic rendering, based on a mural from the tomb of Seti I.
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Rival gods after Ra.
Ptah
Ptah is rarely mentioned in the literature of Old Kingdom pyramids.[5] This is believed by some to be a result of the Ra-worshipping people of Heliopolis being the main writers of these inscriptions.[5] Followers of Ra were known to be jealous of Ptah.[5] While some believed that Ra created himself, others believed that Ptah created him.[16]IsisIsis frequently schemed against Ra, as she wanted her son Horus to have the power.[17] In one myth, Isis created a serpent to poison Ra and only gave him the antidote when he revealed his true name to her.[17] Ra now feared Isis, as with his secret name revealed she could use all her power against him and have Horus take over the throne.[17]ApepApep also called Apophis, was the god of chaos and Ra's greatest enemy. He was said to lie just below the horizon line, trying to devour Ra as Ra descended into the underworld. As he swallowed Ra, this led to the setting of the sun and when he had completely swallowed Ra this lead to nighttime. He never succeeded in completely swallowing Ra however as he eventually spit Ra back out, causing the sun to rise.
Pharaoh, meaning "Great House", originally referred to the king's palace, but during the reign ofThutmose III (ca. 1479–1425 BCE) in the New Kingdom, after the foreign rule of the Hyksosduring the Second Intermediate Period, became a form of address for the person who was king[5]and the son of the god Ra. "The Egyptian sun god Ra, considered the father of all pharaohs, was said to have created himself from a pyramid-shaped mound of earth before creating all other gods." (Donald B. Redford, Ph.D., Penn State) [6]Ra /rɑː/[1] or Re /reɪ/ (Egyptian: 𓂋ꜥ, rˤ) is the ancient Egyptian solar deity. By the Fifth Dynasty(2494 to 2345 BC) he had become a major god in ancient Egyptian religion, identified primarily with the midday sun. The meaning of the name is uncertain, but it is thought that if not a word for 'sun' it may be a variant of or linked to words meaning 'creative power' and 'creator'.[2]The major cult centre of Ra was Heliopolis (called Iunu, "Place of Pillars", in Egyptian),[3] where he was identified with the local sun-god Atum. Through Atum, or as Atum-Ra, he was also seen as the first being and the originator of the Ennead, consisting of Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut, Osiris,Set, Isis and Nephthys.In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was merged with the god Horus, as Re-Horakhty ("Ra, who is Horus of the Two Horizons"). He was believed to rule in all parts of the created world: the sky, theearth, and the underworld.[3] He was associated with the falcon or hawk. When in the New Kingdom the god Amun rose to prominence he was fused with Ra as Amun-Ra. During theAmarna Period, Akhenaten suppressed the cult of Ra in favour of another solar deity, the Aten, the deified solar disc, but after the death of Akhenaten the cult of Ra was restored.The cult of the Mnevis bull, an embodiment of Ra, had its centre in Heliopolis and there was a formal burial ground for the sacrificed bulls north of the city.All forms of life were believed to have been created by Ra, who called each of them into existence by speaking their secret names. Alternatively humans were created from Ra's tears and sweat, hence the Egyptians call themselves the "Cattle of Ra." In the myth of the Celestial Cow it is recounted how mankind plotted against Ra and how he sent his eye as the goddess Sekhmet to punish them. When she became bloodthirsty she was pacified by mixing beer with red dye.Ra was represented in a variety of forms. The most usual form was a man with the head of a hawk and a solar disk on top and a coiled serpent around the disk.[4] Other common forms are a man with the head of a beetle (in his form as Khepri), or a man with the head of a ram. Ra was also pictured as a full-bodied ram, beetle, phoenix, heron, serpent, bull, cat, or lion, among others.[7]He was most commonly featured with a ram's head in the Underworld.[4] In this form, Ra is described as being the "ram of the west" or "ram in charge of his harem.[4]In some literature, Ra is described as an aging king with golden flesh, silver bones, and hair oflapis lazuli.[4]Many acts of worship included hymns, prayers, and spells to help Ra and the sun boat overcomeApep.The rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire put an end to the worship of Ra by the citizens of Egypt,[8] and as Ra's popularity suddenly died out, the study of Ra became of purely academic interest even among the Egyptian priests.[9]Gods created by Ra
BastetBastet is sometimes known as the "cat of Ra".[12] She is also his daughter and is associated with Ra's instrument of vengeance, the sun-god's eye.[12] Bastet is known for decapitating the serpent Apophis (Ra's sworn enemy and the "God" of Chaos) to protect Ra.[12] In one myth, Ra sent Bastet as a lioness to Nubia.[12]SekhmetSekhmet is another daughter of Ra.[13] Sekhemet was depicted as a lioness or large cat, and was an "eye of Ra", or an instrument of the sun god's vengeance.[13] In one myth, Sekhmet was so filled with rage that Ra was forced to turn her into a cow so that she would not cause unnecessary harm.[13] In another myth, Ra fears that mankind is plotting against him and sends Hathor (another daughter of Ra) to exterminate the human race.[13] In the morning Sekhmet goes to finish the job and drinks what appears to be blood.[13] It turns out to be red beer, and she is too intoxicated to finish the slaughter.[13]HathorHathor is another daughter of Ra.[14] When Ra feared that mankind was plotting against him, he sent Hathor as an "eye of Ra" to exterminate the human race, later sending Sekhmet to finish the job.[13] In one myth, Hathor danced naked in front of Ra until he laughed to cure him of a fit of sulking.[14] When Ra was without Hathor, he fell into a state of deep depression.[15]
The original entrance to the Great Pyramid is 17 metres (56 ft) vertically above ground level and 7.29 metres (23.9 ft) east of the center line of the pyramid. From this original entrance there is a Descending Passage 0.96 metres (3.1 ft) high and 1.04 metres (3.4 ft) wide which goes down at an angle of 26° 31'23" through the masonry of the pyramid and then into the bedrock beneath it. After 105.23 metres (345.2 ft), the passage becomes level and continues for an additional 8.84 metres (29.0 ft) to the lower Chamber, which appears not to have been finished. There is a continuation of the horizontal passage in the south wall of the lower chamber; there is also a pit dug in the floor of the chamber. Some Egyptologists suggest this Lower Chamber was intended to be the original burial chamber, but Pharaoh Khufu later changed his mind and wanted it to be higher up in the pyramid.[26]At 28.2 metres (93 ft) from the entrance is a square hole in the roof of the Descending Passage. Originally concealed with a slab of stone, this is the beginning of the Ascending Passage. The Ascending Passage is 39.3 metres (129 ft) long, as wide and high as the Descending Passage and slopes up at almost precisely the same angle. The lower end of the Ascending Passage is closed by three huge blocks of granite, each about 1.5 metres (4.9 ft) long. At the start of the Grand Gallery on the right-hand side there is a hole cut in the wall, (and now blocked by chicken wire). This is the start of a vertical shaft which follows an irregular path through the masonry of the pyramid to join the Descending Passage. Also at the start of the Grand Gallery there is a Horizontal Passage leading to the "Queen's Chamber". The passage is 1.1m (3'8") high for most of its length, but near the chamber there is a step in the floor, after which the passage is 1.73 metres (5.7 ft) high.
Queen's Chamber
The Queen's Chamber is exactly half-way between the north and south faces of the pyramid and measures 5.75 metres (18.9 ft) north to south, 5.23 metres (17.2 ft) east to west, and has a pointed roof with an apex 6.23 metres (20.4 ft) above the floor. At the eastern end of the chamber there is a niche 4.67 metres (15.3 ft) high. The original depth of the niche was 1.04 metres (3.4 ft), but has since been deepened by treasure hunters.[citation needed]In the north and south walls of the Queen's Chamber there are shafts, which unlike those in the King's Chamber that immediately slope upwards, are horizontal for around 2 m (6.6 ft) before sloping upwards. The horizontal distance was cut in 1872 by a British engineer, Waynman Dixon, who believed a similar shaft to the King's Chamber must also exist. He was proved right, but because the shafts are not connected to the outer faces of the pyramid or the Queen's Chamber, their purpose is unknown. At the end of one of his shafts, Dixon discovered a ball of black diorite(a type of rock) and a bronze implement of unknown purpose. Both objects are currently in the British Museum. [27]The shafts in the Queen's Chamber were explored in 1992 by the German engineer Rudolf Gantenbrink using a crawler robot he designed, Upuaut 2. After a climb of 65 m (213 ft),[28] he discovered that one of the shafts was blocked by limestone "doors" with two eroded copper "handles". Some years later the National Geographic Society created a similar robot which drilled a small hole in the southern door, only to find another larger door behind it.[29] The northern passage, which was difficult to navigate because of twists and turns, was also found to be blocked by a door.[30]Research continued in 2011 with the Djedi Project. Realizing the problem was that the National Geographic Society's camera was only able to see straight ahead of it, they instead used a fiber-optic "micro snake camera" that could see around corners. With this they were able to penetrate the first door of the northern shaft and view all the sides of the small chamber behind it. They discovered hieroglyphs written in red paint. They were also able to scrutinize the inside of the two copper "handles" embedded in the door, and they now believe them to be for decorative purposes. They also found the reverse side of the "door" to be finished and polished, which suggests that it was not put there just to block the shaft from debris, but rather for a more specific reason.[31]King's Chamber
The King's Chamber is 10.47 metres (34.4 ft) from east to west and 5.234 metres (17.17 ft) north to south. It has a flat roof 5.974 metres (19.60 ft) above the floor. 0.91 m (3.0 ft) above the floor there are two narrow shafts in the north and south walls (one is now filled by an extractor fan in an attempt to circulate air inside the pyramid). The purpose of these shafts is not clear: they appear to be aligned toward stars or areas of the northern and southern skies, yet one of them follows a dog-leg course through the masonry, indicating no intention to directly sight stars through them. They were long believed by Egyptologists to be "air shafts" for ventilation, but this idea has now been widely abandoned in favour of the shafts serving a ritualistic purpose associated with the ascension of the king’s spirit to the heavens.[32]The King's Chamber is entirely faced with granite. Above the roof, which is formed of nine slabs of stone weighing in total about 400 tons, are five compartments known as Relieving Chambers. The first four, like the King's Chamber, have flat roofs formed by the floor of the chamber above, but the final chamber has a pointed roof. Vyse suspected the presence of upper chambers when he found that he could push a long reed through a crack in the ceiling of the first chamber. From lower to upper, the chambers are known as "Davison's Chamber", "Wellington's Chamber", "Nelson's Chamber", "Lady Arbuthnot's Chamber", and "Campbell's Chamber". It is believed that the compartments were intended to safeguard the King's Chamber from the possibility of a roof collapsing under the weight of stone above the Chamber. As the chambers were not intended to be seen, they were not finished in any way and a few of the stones still retain masons' marks painted on them. One of the stones in Campbell's Chamber bears a mark, apparently the name of a work gang, which incorporates the only reference in the pyramid to Pharaoh Khufu.[33][34]The entrance of the PyramidThe only object in the King's Chamber is a rectangular granite sarcophagus, one corner of which is broken. The sarcophagus is slightly larger than the Ascending Passage, which indicates that it must have been placed in the Chamber before the roof was put in place. Unlike the fine masonry of the walls of the Chamber, the sarcophagus is roughly finished, with saw marks visible in several places. This is in contrast with the finely finished and decorated sarcophagi found in other pyramids of the same period. Petrie suggested that such a sarcophagus was intended but was lost in the river on the way north from Aswan and a hurriedly-made replacement was used instead.
Modern Entrance
Today tourists enter the Great Pyramid via the Robbers' Tunnel dug by workmen employed by Caliph al-Ma'mun around AD 820. The tunnel is cut straight through the masonry of the pyramid for approximately 27 metres (89 ft), then turns sharply left to encounter the blocking stones in the Ascending Passage. Unable to remove these stones, the workmen tunnelled up beside them through the softer limestone of the Pyramid until they reached the Ascending Passage. It is possible to enter the Descending Passage from this point, but access is usually forbidden.The Great Pyramid is surrounded by a complex of several buildings including small pyramids. The Pyramid Temple, which stood on the east side of the pyramid and measured 52.2 metres (171 ft) north to south and 40 metres (130 ft) east to west, has almost entirely disappeared apart from the black basalt paving. There are only a few remnants of the causeway which linked the pyramid with the valley and the Valley Temple. The Valley Temple is buried beneath the village of Nazlet el-Samman; basalt paving and limestone walls have been found but the site has not been excavated.[35][36] The basalt blocks show "clear evidence" of having been cut with some kind of saw with an estimated cutting blade of 15 feet (4.6 m) in length, capable of cutting at a rate of 1.5 inches (38 mm) per minute. John Romer suggests this "super saw" may have had copper teeth and weighed up to 300 pounds (140 kg). He theorizes such a saw could have been attached to a wooden trestle and possibly used in conjunction with vegetable oil, cutting sand, emery or pounded quartz to cut the blocks, which would have required the labour of at least a dozen men to operate it.[37]On the south side are the subsidiary pyramids, popularly known as Queens' Pyramids. Three remain standing to nearly full height but the fourth was so ruined that its existence was not suspected until the recent discovery of the first course of stones and the remains of the capstone. Hidden beneath the paving around the pyramid was the tomb of Queen Hetepheres I, sister-wife of Sneferu and mother of Khufu. Discovered by accident by the Reisner expedition, the burial was intact, though the carefully sealed coffin proved to be empty.The Giza pyramid complex, which includes among other structures the pyramids of Khufu, Khafreand Menkaure, is surrounded by a cyclopean stone wall, the Wall of the Crow. Mark Lehner has discovered a worker's town outside of the wall, otherwise known as "The Lost City", dated by pottery styles, seal impressions, and stratigraphy to have been constructed and occupied sometime during the reigns of Khafre (2520–2494 BC) and Menkaure (2490–2472 BC).[38][39] In the early 1970s, the Australian archaeologist Karl Kromer excavated a mound in the South Field of the plateau. This mound contained artifacts including mudbrick seals of Khufu, which he identified with an artisans' settlement.[40] Mudbrick buildings just south of Khufu's Valley Temple contained mud sealings of Khufu and have been suggested to be a settlement serving the cult ofKhufu after his death.[41] Born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, he was the son of actor and operetta singer Sigmund Natzler (1862-1913). As a young man he performed at second-rate Vienna theatres and from the 1930s in several cabarets in Paris. After World War II he worked for the German language service of theBBC.Nalder is perhaps best remembered for his roles as an assassin in Alfred Hitchcock's 1956 remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much, the vampire Barlow in the 1979 filmed version ofStephen King's Salem's Lot, and the Andorian ambassador Shras in the Star Trek episode "Journey to Babel." Nalder also appeared (at the request of star Frank Sinatra) in a brief, uncredited role as a communist spymaster in John Frankenheimer's 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate. He also had a brief role in the 1981 Walt Disney film The Devil and Max Devlin. In an interview, Nalder claimed that he couldn't stand working with Bill Cosby who was the star of the film. He called him "untalented", "rude" and a "pig".[1]
Bing Crosby and Joan Crawford had jewish roots just as Kennedy and Foley.
Reggie Nalder (September 4, 1907 – November 19, 1991), born Alfred Reginald Natzler was a prolific film and television character actor from the late 1940s to the early 1990s. His distinctive features—partially the result of disfiguring burns—together with a haunting style and demeanor led to his being called "The Face That Launched a Thousand Trips"
Film and stage
Rudolph Bing (1902–1997) opera impresario, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1950 to 1972[14]Fritz Grünbaum (1880-1941) cabaret artist, operetta and pop song writer, director, actor and master of ceremoniesAlber Misak, actor[15]Reggie Nalder (1907-1991) cabaret dancer, stage, film and television actorJoseph Schildkraut (1896-1964) stage and film actorScientists
Carl Djerassi, chemist. Inventor of the pillSir Otto Frankel, geneticist [13]Eric Kandel, neuroscientist. Winner of 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or MedicineCarl Koller, ophthalmologist; first to use cocaine as an anaesthetic [14]Hans Kronberger (physicist), nuclear physicist[4]Robert von Lieben, physicist (Jewish father) [15]Victor Frederick Weisskopf (1908–2002) physicist. During World War II, he worked at Los Alamos on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb, and later campaigned against the proliferation of nuclear weapons[5]Max Perutz molecular biologist. Winner of 1962 Nobel Prize for Chemistry
Psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists
Alfred Adler, founding member of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society and founder of the school of individual psychologyAnna Freud, Vienna-born child psychologist and daughter of Sigmund FreudSigmund Freud, Moravian-born founder of psychoanalysis and neurologist[6]Marie Jahoda, psychologist [16]Melanie Klein, psychotherapy[7]Wilhelm Reich, psychiatry and psychoanalysis[8]Viktor Frankl, Psychiatrist and psychologist
Social and political scientists
Samuel Bergman, philosopher[9]Paul Edwards, philosopher [17]Heinrich Friedjung, Moravian historian and politician. ([18]; Encyclopaedia Judaica, article "Historians", list of "Prominent Jewish General Historians".)Norbert Jokl, founder of Albanology[10]Otto Kurz, historian (Jewish Year Book 1975 p214)Emil Lederer, economist[11]Ludwig von Mises, economistLudwig Wittgenstein, philosopher[12][13] (of largely Jewish descent but given a Catholic burial)
Austria first became a center of Jewish learning during the 13th century. However, increasingantisemitism led to the expulsion of the Jews in 1669. Following formal readmission in 1848, a sizable Jewish community developed once again, contributing strongly to Austrian culture. By the 1930s, some 300,000 Jews lived in Austria, most of them in Vienna. Following the Anschlusswith Nazi Germany, most of the community emigrated or were killed in the Holocaust. The current Austrian Jewish population is around 10,000.[citation needed] The following is a list of some prominent Austrian Jews. Here German speaking Jews from the whole Habsburg Empire are listed.
Jacob Bassevi (1580–1634) Bohemian Court Jew and financierIvan Klíma (1931 – ) novelist, playwrightSiegfried Kapper (1821–1879) writerMordecai Meisel, Philanthropist and communal leader at Prague [68]Karol Sidon, playwright, chief rabbi of Prague, and Convert to Judaism.Isaac ben Jacob ha-Lavan, Bohemian tosafist [67]Joseph H. Hertz (1872–1946) Chief Rabbi of the British EmpireTzvi Ashkenazi, better known as Haham Zevi, chief rabbi of Amsterdam, prominent opponent of the SabbateansSigmund Freud (1856–1939) founder of psychoanalysisList of Czech and Slovak Jews
Jews are believed to have settled in Prague as early as the 10th century. The 16th century was a golden age for Jewry in Prague. One of the famous Jewish scholars of the time was Judah Loew ben Bezalel known as the Maharal, who served as a leading rabbi in Prague for most of his life. He is buried at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov, and his grave with its tombstone intact, can still be visited. It is said that the body of Golem (created by Maharal) lies in the attic of the Old New Synagogue where the genizah of Prague's community is kept.[8] In 1708, Jews accounted for one-quarter of Prague’s population.[9]
Jews in Bohemia, today's Czech Republic, are predominantly Ashkenazic Jews, and the current Jewish population is only a fraction of the pre-WWII Czechoslovakia's Jewish population. As of 2005, there were approximately 4,000 Jews living in the Czech Republic.[4] There are ten small Jewish communities all around the country (seven in Bohemia and three in Moravia). The umbrella organisation for the Jewish communities in the country is the Federation of Jewish Communities (FŽO). Services have been held in Prague and some other cities.As part of the original Czechoslovakia, and before that the Austro-Hungarian Empire the Jews had a long association with this part of Europe.[5] Throughout the last thousand years there have emerged over 600 Jewish communities in the Kingdom of Bohemia.[6] According to the 1930 census, Czechoslovakia (including Subcarpathian Ruthenia) had a Jewish population of 356,830.[7]Most Slovak Jews were deported by the pro-Nazi Slovak Fascist government directly toAuschwitz, Treblinka, and other extermination camps, where they were murdered. Most Czech Jews were initially deported by the German occupiers with the help of local Czech Nazi collaborators to Terezin, known in German as Theresienstadt concentration camp and later killed. However many Czechoslovakian children were rescued by Kindertransport and escaped to the United Kingdom and other Allied countries. Some were reunited with their families after the war while many lost parents and relatives to the concentration camps.
Judeopolonia is a antisemitic conspiracy theory theory positing an alleged future Jewish domination of Poland.[1][2] The idea had its roots in an 1858 book by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, but did not gain currency in anti-semitic tracts until around the turn of the century.[1] In 1912, author Teodor Jeske-Choiński had Jews in his book rhetorically say: "If you do not allow us to establish a 'Judeo-Polonia state' and a nation of 'Judeo-Polish people,' we will strangle you."[1]This myth has been revived every so often in connection with the Bodenheimer plan (League of East European States), most notably by the author Andrzej Leszek Szcześniak in his booksJudeopolonia (2001) and Judeopolonia II (2002).[2]Szczęśniak gives the name of Judeopolonia to the League of East European States, a suggested German client state with autonomous Jewish cooperation, proposed for the territory between Germany and Russia by the Deutsches Komitee zur Befreiung der Russischen Juden in 1914.[3]As such, the idea is different from Żydokomuna, which is the supposed Jewish-communist domination of non-partitioned Poland.
Starting in 1880, Argentine governments had a policy of massive immigration, and the liberaltendencies of the Roca administration were instrumental in making European Jews feel welcome.In the 1880s and 1890s, France's Baron Maurice de Hirsch organized a campaign to relocate two-thirds of Jews in the Russian Empire. Argentina was publicized as a destination for Jews:Alberto Gerchunoff, a Russian Jew who migrated to Argentina, recalled seeing print articles about the Jewish migration to Argentina in Tulchin, Russia, in 1889.[3] In 1891, Hirsch established theJewish Colonization Association to coordinate the purchase of land to accommodate Jewish migrants (see Jewish gauchos).The Jewish population in Argentina grew and prospered in the ensuing years (see History of the Jews in Argentina).Leon Pinsker, in his book Autoemancipation (1882) and Theodore Herzl, in his book The Jewish State (Der Judenstaat), evaluated Argentina as a potential destination for the oppressed Jews of Eastern Europe.Some sources maintain that Herzl proposed that the Argentina project be given priority over settlement in Palestine.[4]The Zionist records attest to the fact that Herzl did consider Argentina, as well as present-day Kenya, as alternatives to Palestine. Also, Israel Zangwill and his Jewish Territorialist Organization(ITO) split off from the main Zionist movement; the territorialists' aim was to establish a Jewish homeland wherever possible. The ITO never gained wide support and was dissolved in 1925, leaving Palestine as the sole focus of Zionist aspirations.
Andinia Plan (Spanish: plan Andinia) refers to an antisemitic conspiracy theory to allegedly establish a Jewish state in parts of Argentina. It is partly based on an exaggeration of historical proposals for organized Jewish migration to Argentina in the late 19th and the early 20th century (which, however, did not include plans for a Jewish state there). The name and contents of the plan have wide currency in Argentine and Chilean extreme right-wing circles, but no evidence of its actual existence has ever been brought up, making it an example of a conspiracy theory.[citation needed]
The Argentine portion of Patagonia includes the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut andSanta Cruz, as well as the eastern portion of Tierra del Fuego archipelago and the southernmost department of Buenos Aires province: Patagones. The Argentine politico-economic Patagonic Region includes the Province of La Pampa.[5]
GOLER, EJKEL
29
Single
JORNALERO
JUDIA
POLACA
ANDES
CHERBURGO
02/07/1925 - BUENOS AIRES
DESCONOCIDO
The Patagonian Provinces of Argentina are Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego. The Southernmost part of Buenos Aires Province can also be considered part of Patagonia.
Argentina - Bariloche Was HitlerAnd Eva Braun's Final RefugeFrom Scott CorralesIHU Las Ultimas Noticias(Santiago de Chile)1-3-4** German submarines rescued Nazi officials and brought them to the Americas. The same was done for Hitler.** BUENOS AIRES (EFE news agency) -- Adolf Hitler lived in Patagonia after fleeing Germany in 1945, claims Argentinean journalist Abel Basti in a tour-guide style book which discloses the locations in the Andean foothills which served as a refuge for several former Nazi leaders.
Patagonia is a region located at the southern end of South America, shared by Argentina andChile.
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Nault
Jacquenot, Knowe, Naud, Saint-Crespin
Labrie
The Golers lived together in two shacks in a remote wooded area south of the community ofWhite Rock, outside the town of Wolfville.[1] Like most other mountain clans, they were isolated from most of the residents of the farming district in the Annapolis Valley and most of the nearby towns.[1] The adults, some of whom were mentally deficient and/or handicapped,[1] had little schooling and rarely worked. The children were generally forced to perform any menial chores (such as preparing food or removing trash).[1] Garbage was simply thrown into the attic, until it was completely filled, and then the adults would make the children haul it all out.[1]In 1984, one of the children, a 14-year-old girl, revealed the details of a long history of torture and abuse (physical, sexual, and psychological), to a school official.[1] According to further details uncovered by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, this abuse and forced incestual relationships had been taking place for multiple generations.[1] As the case was investigated, authorities learned that a number of Goler children were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, sisters, brothers, cousins, and each other. During interrogation by police, several of the adults openly admitted to engaging in many forms of sexual activity, up to and including full intercourse, multiple times with the children. They often went into graphic detail, claiming that the children themselves had initiated the activity.[1]
The Golers are a clan of poor, rural families on Nova Scotia's South Mountain, near Wolfville, Nova Scotia, known for inter-generational poverty and the conviction of a large number of family members for sexual abuse and incest.
surname GOLER. You will find records of the Buenos Aires Jewish cemeteries.
Surname: GOLER -NameAgeMaritalStatusOccupationReligionNationalityShipProcedenceArrival InfoBorn inday/month/year - PortGOLER, EJKEL29SJORNALEROJUDIAPOLACAANDESCHERBURGO02/07/1925 - BUENOS AIRESDESCONOCIDOGOLER, RAMON27DCOMERCIODESCONOCIDAESPA�OLAITALIABARCELONA02/01/1910 - BUENOS AIRESBARCELONAGOLERA, MANUEL17SJORNALEROCATOLICAESPA�OLAINFANTA ISABEL DE BORBONALMERIA21/10/1914 - BUENOS AIRESDESCONOCIDOGOLERA RUBIO, REMEDIOS44CSU SEXOCATOLICAESPA�OLAALSINAALMERIA08/09/1928 - BUENOS AIRESALMERIAGOLERO, ANTONIO21SJORNALEROCATOLICAITALIANAPROVENCESANTOS02/08/1898 - BUENOS AIRESDESCONOCIDOGOLERO, FRANco.28SJORNALEROCATOLICAITALIANAPROVENCESANTOS02/08/1898 - BUENOS AIRESDESCONOCIDOMONALES GOLER, JOSE38CAGRICULTORCATOLICAESPA�OLAATLANTAALMERIA22/10/1911 - BUENOS AIRESDESCONOCIDOSebastianThere are jewish families in Argentina with surname GOLER
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Demers
Demarse, Demer, Demerce, Demers, Demerse, Dumer, Dumer
Chefdeville, Chêneville, Dumais, Montfort
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JEAN DOIRON was the pioneer of the Doiron family in Acadia. He was born before 1649 m Saint – Martin, France and he died At Pigiguit (Windsor N.S.) about 1735. He married first MARIE - ANNE CANOL prior to 1669 and secondly MARIE TRAHAN about 1693, she was the daughter of Guillaume and Madeleine Brun. Jean was with his wife in Port Royal in 1671. Marie Anne Canol was one of five women who arrived from Rocheford, France to Acadia in 1691. Jean moved with his family to Pigiguit before to 1692.
In French the meaning of the name Nanon is: Grace.
Charlitte (Charles) Boudreau was born Circa 1760. He married Anne (Nanon) Gaudet. He died September 15, 1847 in Barachois, New Brunswick.
Pierre Boudreau was born June 30, 1712 in Port Royal. In 1735 he married Madeline Melanson and then remarried in 1753 Madeline Belliveau.b. 30 Jun 1712, Port Royal, L'Acadie, Canada, m. (1) 31 Jan 1735, in Port Royal, L'Acadie, Canada, Madeline Melanson, b. 27 Jan 1713, m. (2) ABT 1753, Madeline Belliveau, b. 14 Jan 1725.Originally from Port Royal, the expulsion forced Pierre to re-establish his family in Memramcook , New Brunswick. He became the ancestor of many Boudreau families in South Eastern New Brunswick.
Francios Boudreau was born in circa 1667, Port Royal. He married Marie Magdeline Belliveau who was born in circa 1692According to the Census of Acadia in 1698 he was a farmer.
Several Boudreau families living at Beaubassin, Ile Saint-Jean and Cape Breton were able to escape the Deportation and found refuge in Quebec. They are to be found in different communities but notably in the Nicolet, Repentigny and Deschambault areas.Others made their way to the Iles-de-la-Madeleine and at Petit Degrat on Cape Breton.Several families settled in New Brunswick in the Memramcook - Saint Anselme area, inCaraquet and in Petit-Rocher.The family of Pierre Boudreau and Madeleine Melanson from Port-Royal established itself atMemramcook. Their son, Isaac Boudreau, became the captain of a company of Acadians who supported the American War of Independence. Another of his sons settled at Inkerman in the northern part of the province.Joseph Boudreau, son of Anselme and Marguerite Gaudet of Beaubassin, found refuge atRrestigouche on Chaleur Bay where he married Jeanne Hache in 1761. He later lived during a few years on Miscou before settling in Caraquet. He died at Nipisiguit in 1797.However, he is not the sole ancestor of that family in Petit-Rocher since another Boudreau,Joseph-Athanase, who had lived for several years at Deschambault, Que., also settled inPetit-Rocher at the close of the 18th century.In 1755, the Boudreau family was a large one and established in several communities in Acadia. This family was deported in several places in North America and in Europe. Several can be found in different New England colonies, including Massachusetts, Philadelphia, Connecticut and Louisiana.
Possible Jewish Surnames
AaronABBOTTACEVEDOACOSTAADAMSADKINSAGUILARAGUIRREALBERTALEXANDERALFORDALLENALLISONALSTONALVARADOALVAREZANDERSONANDREWSANTHONYARMSTRONGARNOLDASHLEYATKINSATKINSONAUSTINAVERYAVILAAYALAAYERSBAILEYBAIRDBAKERBALDWINBALLBALLARDBANKSBARBERBARKERBARLOWBARNESBARNETTBARRBARRERABARRETTBARRONBARRYBARTLETTBARTONBASSBATESBATTLEBAUERBAXTERBEACHBEANBEARDBEASLEYBECKBECKERBELLBENDERBENJAMINBENNETTBENSONBENTLEYBENTONBERGBERGERBERNARDBERRYBESTBIRDBISHOPBLACKBLACKBURNBLACKWELLBLAIRBLAKEBLANCHARDBLANKENSHIPBLEVINSBOLTONBONDBONNERBOOKERBOONEBOOTHBOWENBOWERSBOWMANBOYDBOYERBOYLEBRADFORDBRADLEYBRADSHAWBRADYBRANCHBrandBRAYBRENNANBREWERBRIDGESBRIGGSBRIGHTBRITTBROCKBROOKSBROWNBROWNINGBRUCEBRYANBRYANTBUCHANANBUCKBUCKLEYBUCKNERBULLOCKBURCHBURGESSBURKEBURKSBURNETTBURNSBURRISBURTBURTONBUSHBUTLERBYERSBYRDCABRERACAINCALDERONCALDWELLCALHOUNCALLAHANCAMACHOCAMERONCAMPBELLCAMPOSCANNONCANTRELLCANTUCARDENASCAREYCARLSONCARNEYCARPENTERCARRCARRILLOCARROLLCARSONCARTERCARVERCASECASEYCASHCASTANEDACASTILLOCASTROCERVANTESCHAMBERSCHANCHANDLERCHANEYCHANGCHAPMANCHARLESCHASECHAVEZCHENCHERRYCHRISTENSENCHRISTIANCHURCHCLARKCLARKECLAYCLAYTONCLEMENTSCLEMONSCLEVELANDCLINECOBBCOCHRANCOFFEYCohenCOHENCohnCOLECOLEMANCOLLIERCOLLINSCOLONCOMBSCOMPTONCONLEYCONNERCONRADCONTRERASCONWAYCOOKCOOKECOOLEYCOOPERCOPELANDCORTEZCOTECOTTONCOXCRAFTCRAIGCRANECRAWFORDCROSBYCROSSCRUZCUMMINGSCUNNINGHAMCURRYCURTISDALEDALTONDANIELDANIELSDAUGHERTYDAVENPORTDAVIDDavidsonDAVIDSONDAVISDavisDAWSONDAYDEANDECKERDEJESUSDELACRUZDELANEYDELEONDELGADODENNISDIAZDICKERSONDICKSONDILLARDDILLONDIXONDODSONDOMINGUEZDONALDSONDONOVANDORSEYDOTSONDOUGLASDOWNSDOYLEDRAKEDUDLEYDUFFYDUKEDUNCANDUNLAPDUNNDURANDURHAMDYEREATONEDWARDSELLIOTTELLISELLISONEMERSONENGLANDENGLISHERICKSONESPINOZAESTESESTRADAEVANSEVERETTEWINGFalkFARLEYFARMERFARRELLFAULKNERFERGUSONFERNANDEZFERRELLFIELDSFIGUEROAFINCHFinkFINLEYFISCHERFISHERFITZGERALDFITZPATRICKFLEMINGFLETCHERFLORESFLOWERSFLOYDFLYNNFOLEYFORBESFORDFOREMANFOSTERFOWLERFOXFRANCISFRANCOFrankFRANKFRANKLINFRANKSFRAZIERFREDERICKFREEMANFRENCHFROSTFRYFRYEFUENTESFULLERFULTONGAINESGALLAGHERGALLEGOSGALLOWAYGAMBLEGARCIAGARDNERGARNERGARRETTGARRISONGARZAGATESGAYGENTRYGEORGEGIBBSGIBSONGILBERTGILESGILLGILLESPIEGILLIAMGILMOREGLASSGLENNGLOVERGOFFGOLDENGOMEZGONZALESGONZALEZGOODGOODMANGOODWINGORDONGottfriedGottliebGOULDGouldGRAHAMGRANTGRAVESGRAYGreenGREENGREENEGREERGREGORYGRIFFINGRIFFITHGRIMESGrossGROSSGUERRAGUERREROGUTHRIEGUTIERREZGUYGUZMANHAHNHALEHALEYHALLHAMILTONHAMMONDHAMPTONHANCOCKHANEYHANSENHANSONHARDINHARDINGHARDYHARMONHARPERHARRELLHARRINGTONHARRISHarrisHARRISONHARTHARTMANHARVEYHATFIELDHAWKINSHAYDENHAYESHAYNESHAYSHEADHEATHHEBERTHENDERSONHENDRICKSHENDRIXHENRYHENSLEYHENSONHERMANHERNANDEZHERRERAHERRINGHESSHESTERHEWITTHICKMANHICKSHIGGINSHILLHINESHINTONHirschHOBBSHODGEHODGESHOFFMANHOGANHOLCOMBHOLDENHOLDERHOLLANDHOLLOWAYHOLMANHOLMESHOLTHOODHOOPERHOOVERHOPKINSHOPPERHORNHORNEHORTONHOUSEHOUSTONHOWARDHOWEHOWELLHUBBARDHUBERHUDSONHUFFHUFFMANHUGHESHULLHUMPHREYHUNTHUNTERHURLEYHURSTHUTCHINSONHYDEINGRAMIRWINJACKSONJACOBSJacobsJACOBSONJAMESJARVISJEFFERSONJENKINSJENNINGSJENSENJIMENEZJOHNSJOHNSONJOHNSTONJONESJORDANJOSEPHJOYCEJOYNERJUAREZJUSTICEKahnKANEKaplanKAUFMANKEITHKELLERKELLEYKELLYKEMPKENNEDYKENTKERRKEYKIDDKIMKINGKINNEYKIRBYKIRKKIRKLANDKLEINKleinKLINEKNAPPKNIGHTKNOWLESKNOXKOCHKramerKRAMERLAMBLAMBERTLANCASTERLANDRYLANELANGLANGLEYLARALARSENLARSONLAWRENCELAWSONLELEACHLEBLANCLEELeoLEONLEONARDLESTERLevinLEVINELevineLEVYLevyLewisLEWISLINDSAYLINDSEYLITTLELIVINGSTONLLOYDLoebLoewLOGANLONGLOPEZLOTTLOVELOWELOWERYLUCASLUNALYNCHLYNNLYONSMACDONALDMACIASMACKMADDENMADDOXMALDONADOMALONEMANNMannMANNINGMarksMARKSMARQUEZMarsMARSHMARSHALLMARTINMARTINEZMarxMASONMASSEYMATHEWSMATHISMathisMATTHEWSMAXWELLMayMAYMAYERMayerMAYNARDMAYOMAYSMCBRIDEMCCALLMCCARTHYMCCARTYMCCLAINMCCLUREMCCONNELLMCCORMICKMCCOYMCCRAYMCCULLOUGHMCDANIELMCDONALDMCDOWELLMCFADDENMCFARLANDMCGEEMCGOWANMCGUIREMCINTOSHMCINTYREMCKAYMCKEEMCKENZIEMCKINNEYMCKNIGHTMCLAUGHLINMCLEANMCLEODMCMAHONMCMILLANMCNEILMCPHERSONMEADOWSMEDINAMEJIAMELENDEZMELTONMENDEZMENDOZAMERCADOMERCERMERRILLMERRITTMEYERMEYERSMICHAELMichaelMIDDLETONMILESMILLERMillerMILLSMIRANDAMITCHELLMOLINAMONROEMONTGOMERYMONTOYAMOODYMOONMOONEYMOOREMORALESMORANMORENOMORGANMORINMorrisMORRISMORRISONMORROWMORSEMORTONMOSESMOSLEYMOSSMUELLERMULLENMULLINSMUNOZMURPHYMURRAYMyersMYERSNASHNathanNAVARRONEALNELSONNewmanNEWMANNEWTONNGUYENNICHOLSNICHOLSONNIELSENNIEVESNIXONNOBLENOELNOLANNORMANNORRISNORTONNUNEZOBRIENOCHOAOCONNORODOMODONNELLOLIVEROLSENOLSONONEALONEILONEILLORRORTEGAORTIZOSBORNOSBORNEOWENOWENSPACEPACHECOPADILLAPAGEPALMERPARKPARKERPARKSPARRISHPARSONSPATEPATELPATRICKPATTERSONPATTONPAULPAYNEPEARSONPECKPENAPENNINGTONPEREZPERKINSPERRYPETERSPETERSENPETERSONPETTYPHELPSPHILLIPSPICKETTPIERCEPITTMANPITTSPOLLARDPOOLEPOPEPORTERPOTTERPOTTSPOWELLPOWERSPRATTPRESTONPRICEPRINCEPRUITTPUCKETTPUGHQUINNRAMIREZRAMOSRAMSEYRANDALLRANDOLPHRaphaelRASMUSSENRATLIFFRAYRAYMONDREEDREESEREEVESREIDREILLYREYESREYNOLDSRHODESRICERichRICHRICHARDRICHARDSRICHARDSONRICHMONDRIDDLERIGGSRILEYRIOSRIVASRIVERARIVERSROACHROBBINSROBERSONROBERTSROBERTSONROBINSONROBLESROCHARODGERSRODRIGUEZRODRIQUEZROGERSROJASROLLINSROMANROMEROROSAROSALESROSARIOROSERossROSSROTHRothROWEROWLANDROYRubinRUIZRUSHRUSSELLRUSSORUTLEDGERYANSALASSALAZARSALINASSAMPSONSamuelSANCHEZSANDERSSANDOVALSANFORDSANTANASANTIAGOSANTOSSARGENTSaulSAUNDERSSAVAGESAWYERSCHMIDTSCHNEIDERSCHROEDERSCHULTZSCHWARTZSchwartzSCOTTSEARSSELLERSSERRANOSEXTONSHAFFERSHANNONShapiroSHARPSHARPESHAWSHELTONSHEPARDSHEPHERDSHEPPARDShermanSHERMANSHIELDSSHORTSILVASIMMONSSimonSIMONSIMPSONSIMSSingerSINGLETONSKINNERSLATERSLOANSMALLSmithSNIDERSNOWSNYDERSOLISSOLOMONSOSASOTOSPARKSSPEARSSPENCESPENCERSTAFFORDSTANLEYSTANTONSTARKSTEELESTEINSTEPHENSSTEPHENSONSternSTEVENSSTEVENSONSTEWARTSTOKESSTONESTOUTSTRICKLANDSTRONGSTUARTSUAREZSULLIVANSUMMERSSUTTONSWANSONSWEENEYSWEETSYKESTALLEYTANNERTATETAYLORTERRELLTERRYTHOMASTHOMPSONTHORNTONTILLMANTobiasTODDTORRESTOWNSENDTRANTRAVISTREVINOTRUJILLOTUCKERTURNERTYLERTYSONUNDERWOODVALDEZVALENCIAVALENTINEVALENZUELAVANCEVANGVARGASVASQUEZVAUGHANVAUGHNVAZQUEZVEGAVELASQUEZVELAZQUEZVELEZVILLARREALVINCENTVINSONWADEWAGNERWALKERWALLWALLACEWALLERWALLSWALSHWALTERWALTERSWALTONWARDWAREWARNERWARRENWASHINGTONWATERSWATKINSWATSONWATTSWEAVERWEBBWEBERWEBSTERWEEKSWEISSWeissWELCHWELLSWESTWHEELERWHITAKERWHITEWHITEHEADWHITFIELDWHITLEYWHITNEYWIGGINSWILCOXWILDERWILEYWILKERSONWILKINSWILKINSONWILLIAMWILLIAMSWILLIAMSONWILLISWILSONWINTERSWISEWiseWITTWOLFWolfWOLFEWONGWOODWOODARDWOODSWOODWARDWOOTENWORKMANWRIGHTWYATTWYNNYANGYATESYORKYOUNGZAMORAZIMMERMAN
This is my theory, based on several instances where family in North Carolina changed their names. Here are several I know of:Klein = Cline, Kline, or “Little”Zimmerman = “Carpenter”Jung = YoungSilbers = Silvers, SilverBoell = Bell, BallBoest = Bost, Best, Bess, Betts/BettesBaird/Beard = Byrd, BirdBoteler/Bohelier = BulterBaumgardnerBury = BerryJohannsson = JohnsonGustaffsson = JusticeBohun = Boone, BowenBrashears = Brasher, Brashier/BrazierEmbrehough = Embry
SAMPSONSHAWGREENSWANSONTHOMPSONWILKINSONJUNGHANEYOLD FRENCH spoken in Medievil Netherlands: Flanders, Wallonia PringlePalmerEnglish, Irish, Scottish, and Spanish originJews in north America (about 2500), and those who were present were predominantly of Sephardic origin. Jews with German-origin last names are AshkenazicAny German-sounding names in your background from before 1830 will probably belong to Germans! They may be Swiss, Dutch, Austrian or Scandinavian, but almost certainly not Jewish.Jews with German-origin last names are Ashkenazic, and many of them did not use family names in the 18th century. They began immigrating in significant numbers to the US around the 1840s.Roberts (Russian Jew)Cherokee and her surname was Rhodes. So, I know that they say the Cherokee Tribe is of Jewish decent. DALY - 1BAILEY
LOcated near the entrance to Japan's Inland Sea and at the cross-roads of East and West Japan, Kobe has been a key anchorage since the 8th century and a port of significance since the late 1200's. It was known as the Port of Hyogo, and was one of the first ports open to foreign trade in the late 19th century. Kobe has since grown into one of the largest container ports in the world. Although Japan has only a small foreign population, close to 50,000 Koreans, Chinese, Indians, Americans, British, Norwegians and others live in this cosmopolitan city of 1.5 million, running important businesses, foreign restaurants, and shops that line the streets. Among these cultures, it is not surprising then to find that Jews make up a part of the multiethnic community in Kobe.The first Jews who came to Japan were mostly traders. As such, they were naturally attracted to port areas. They arrived soon after 1862 when Japan was opened to Western commerce. By the late 1860's, around fifty Jewish families from various countries lived in Yokohama. During the 1880's, Jews also settled in Nagasaki, a port area important in Russian trade. At the turn of the century, Nagasaki was the biggest Jewish community. Kobe by that time had a functioning Jewish community with religious institutions and a Zionist organization. In 1923, Yokohama suffered a great earthquake, and later in the century, trade in Nagasaki with Russia declined, causing Jews in those communities to move to Kobe. Kobe now hosts the oldest surviving Jewish Community of Japan.Even though Japan was far from most other Jewish communities when it first opened its gates to foreigners, it is not hard to understand why Jews ended up in Japan as merchants. Since the Diaspora, Jews have been living as a minority in diverse lands. Often, they have been denied the rights to own land, serve in the military, and take part in government. As a result, Jews made trade their main occupation. By trading, many found that they could prosper without necessarily having to settle down in one place. Constant travel trained the Jews in different cultures and languages, and left relatives scattered throughout many towns and countries, giving the Jews an edge in international trade. Thus, their long history of trading expertise made the Jews assets to countries such as Japan which hoped to advance their own economies.Well before World War II, there was a comparatively large Jewish presence in Kobe. Trade brought both Sephardic Jews from Baghdad, Iraq and Aleppo, Syria, and Ashkenazic Jews from Poland and Russia. In addition, Russian Jews who may have been escaping pogroms also landed in Kobe. One well-known member of the community was Sam Evans (born Ewanoffsky in Odessa). He settled in Kobe in circa 1919. For many years he was a leader of the Jewish community, businessman and philanthropist. He was, in fact, the very first Jew to become a naturalized Japanese citizen. The first synagogue in Kobe was established in a rented Japanese house in Kobe. It served as the gathering place for prayer for the Sephardic Jews. Rahmo Sassoon, born in Aleppo, Syria in 1912, was responsible for the synagogue. It was named Ohel Shelomoh after Rahmo's father, Shelomoh Sassoon.With the outbreak of World War II, Rahmo and other Jews were stuck in Kobe, unable to travel or conduct business. However, the Jews received comparatively good treatment at the hands of the Japanese authorities. For example, during the war, German officers began to appear on the streets of Kobe, causing concern mong Jews there, who had helped smuggle European Jews to safety in Japan. Under pressure from the community, Rahmo Sassoon painted over the gold letters of the Ohel Shelomoh synagogue so that the location of the synagogue would be less conspicuous. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Sassoon received in invitation to meet with the Chief of Police of Kobe. At the meeting, the Chief asked why the letters were painted over, and Mr. Sassoon explained it was because of the anxiety the community felt over the presence of German officers and Japan�s alliance with Germany. The Chief told Mr. Sassoon the community had nothing to fear in Japan and ordered him to restore the lettering above the doorway to the synagogue.The Japanese accepted a large influx of Jews into Kobe during World War II. Even though Japan was allied with Nazi Germany, the community of Kobe helped save Holocaust refugees from 1940 to 1941. Japan's policy toward the Jews was much different than that of their allies. Japanese in charge of Jewish refugees knew little about Jewish customs and practices; they took action based on the belief that Jews are very influential in the world. In particular, they modeled their view of Jews after Jacob Schiff, a Jewish financier who raised huge funds for Japan during the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Schiff helped the Japanese tremendously and demonstrated to them that Jews are good in business and possess strong worldwide contacts. Yasue Norihiro (a.k.a. Yasue Senkoo) and Inuzuka Koreshige, leaders of the military and civilian political clique known as the Manchurian faction, hoped to attract Jews to assist in their efforts to control Manchuria. The group's goal was to develop Manchuria and its vast resources. They believed that if they treated well the Russian and Sephardic Jews, and the German refugees who came under Japanese rule, that the Jews in East Asia in turn would convince their rich and influential fellow Jews in the United States to help with war loans. Also, they hoped that Americans would look at their good treatment of the Jews and thus change its negative policy towards Japan. Finally, these Japanese also looked specifically towards the refugees from Germany as possessing crucial scientific knowledge to help Manchurian development.Individual Japanese too helped to save the Jewish refugees for purely benevolent humanitarian reasons. Dr. Kotsuji Setsuzo, who earned a doctorate in Semitic studies from the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, was influential in allowing the Jewish refugees to settle in Kobe. Kotsuji had been a former employee of the Japanese Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yoosuke. At the end of 1940, he visited Matsuoka and asked him to permit refugees to stay in Japan. Matsuoka, after long contemplation, finally agreed to let the Jews stay as long as the Kobe local police acquiesced to their presence in the city. Kotsuji borrowed money from a rich uncle and bribed the Kobe police, who thus agreed to permit the refugees to remain in the city until they could emigrate, provided they renewed their visas on a weekly basis. The refugees naturally agreed and were thus saved from expulsion to the Soviet Union.Perhaps the most famous person who helped save Jewish lives from the Holocaust is Sugihara Sempo, the Japanese consul to Kaunas, Lithuania, during 1940. That summer, ignoring Foreign Ministry cables ordering him to desist, Sugihara issued transit visas to about six thousand Jewish refugees from both Poland and Lithuania. The visas allowed the fleeing Jews to take the Trans-Siberian railway to Vladivostok, and to sail from there to the Japan. These refugees were supposedly on their way to Curacao, a Dutch colony in the Caribbean that did not require entry visas, but they were permitted to stay as transit passengers in Kobe for as long as they needed. Those who could find no other third country to accept them were allowed to settle in Hongkew, the Japanese-controlled section of Shanghai, where they spent the duration of the war. In 1985, Sugihara, at age 85, was honored in Israel at the Path of the Righteous Gentile at Yad Vashem, and a grove was planted in his name near Jerusalem.In Kobe, the refugees were helped by various organizations. Members of Nakada's Holiness Church came to pray for their survival. American relief organizations sent needed funds to accommodate the refugees with food and housing. Dr. Kotsuji came to interpret for them. Jews in Kobe itself numbered about fifty families when they established the Kobe Jewish Community in July 1940, and with the help of the Joint Distribution Committee in New York City, assisted the refugees to find housing, get visas, and depart for their ultimate destinations. During the years between 1939 to 1941, several thousand Jewish refugees passed through Kobe. The most famous of them were probably the three hundred teachers and students from the Mir Yeshiva in Poland. With Japan's help, it became the only yeshiva to fully survived the Holocaust. By December of 1941, when the war broke out with the United States, only a few Jews actually remained in Kobe. The rest had moved on to third countries, which mainly meant settling in the Japanese controlled Shanghai.Shanghai already had a relatively large Jewish population of 6,000 before the war. These Jews included the affluent Sassoon's and the Kadoori's of Baghdadi origin, and later the Russian Jews who fled the pogroms. During World War II, then, refugees from all over migrated to Shanghai, and the Jewish population grew to 18,000. Compared to their fellow Jews in Europe, the Jews in the Far East were treated very well. A refugee camp for Jews, know as "Hongkew Ghetto," was established in Shanghai in 1943 and most of the Jewish refugees moved there, but these Jews were allowed to leave the ghetto during the day to work, and they were not prosecuted. The city literally saved thousands of Jews from death.Memorial to Jews of ShanghaiOld Jewish Neighborhood in Hongkew District of ShanghaiMore Housing in HongkewBuilding Used as Hospital by RefugeesDuring the actual war, the synagogue in Kobe was burned down in an air raid by the United States. The Sephardic congregation was forced to share space with the Ashkenazi minyan, which welcomed them. To take shelter from the air raids, most of the Jews in Kobe moved to Arima in pril of 1945. They rented a dozen bungalows that had been built by professors from the University of Kyoto, who went there during the summers. The men were able to keep a minyan uninterrupted by the Japanese authorities. After the war, many Jews left for places such as America and Israel. Some who stayed did so because they felt they could maintain good business. Others bought property after the war at extremely cheap prices, and stayed to develop their real estate.Although the war destroyed the building where the old synagogues were situated, the cemetery on the other side of the mountain still preserves the memory of people who lived through the war. The cemetery is a true historical site. It is within an international graveyard, situated on the back side of the hill behind the synagogue. The Jewish cemetery is staggered in two areas, with the older section being lower on the hill than the newer. Inside, there are tombstones of people who came to Kobe from places from Amsterdam to Russia, from Syria to the United States, dating back to the turn of the century.Tombstone in the Newer Section of Kobe's Jewish CemetaryTombstone of person originally from Aleppo, SyriaAfter the war, the congregation of Ohel Shelomoh found a second home. Rahmo Sassoon had bought a small lot of land and constructed a warehouse for a furniture showroom. The furniture venture did not succeed, and the warehouse was converted into a synagogue. The post-war period also brought American occupation, and Rahmo Sassoon supplied the army with many goods. David Sassoon, a cousin of Rahmo Sassoon, helped with this business. Later David Sassoon became president of David Sassoon & Co., and served during the postwar period as the biggest supplier to occupation forces. He had a Syrian passport, and Syria was officially neutral. As such he served as an important go-between for business between the Japanese and the American military. He offered them services as a third party to help with an otherwise difficult relationship. Despite the shared name, neither Rahmo nor David Sassoon were related to the well known Sassoon family that resided in Shanghai.The present community center was built in 1970. The community raised funds to build a proper synagogue, and Rahmo Sassoon sold the land below full value to contribute to the congregation. The current synagogue is located in Kitano-cho. The Kitano Area is where most of Kobe's foreign architecture can be found. Kitano is located on a hill overlooking the city about ten minutes walking distance from Sannomiya Station, the hub of commercial activity. The area holds not only a synagogue, but a Russian Orthodox church, a Moslem mosque, and a Catholic church. At the time the present synagogue was established, the community was large and generally affluent. Quite a few Jews had once again come for trading purposes and to help participate in the modernization of Japan. Regular Hebrew school classes took place, and many social functions were held. Both Zim and Gold Star shipping companies had branch offices there. Residents included a large number of Israelis, as well as a number of Jewish businessmen, mainly in the pearl business.Memorial with date Synagogue was EstablishedCurrent Synagogue's EntranceThe Jews who prospered during those times did so because Japan needed help to develop into the modern economy that it has become. The Japanese found value in the Jews, who helped them establish many businesses, connections, and technology. It wasn't long, however, before the Japanese had advanced in technology, gained their own connections, and opened their own companies and investments in foreign countries, thus having less need for the foreigners whom they at first depended upon. The "endaka", meaning the sudden appreciation of the yen in the late 80's, caused serious difficulties for foreigners trying to do business in Japan. Both Zim and Gold Star, for example, closed their Kobe offices. Many others, too, closed their businesses, and about 30 families went back to their home countries to retire.The earthquake of January 1995 also caused a lot of hardships for the Jewish Community of Kobe. Many members lost their homes and their possessions. They were forced to move from Kobe, and to rent homes in other places such as Nara and Osaka giving Kobe time to be cleaned up and rebuilt. One member owned an apartment complex near the synagogue, but because of severe earthquake damage, it had to be torn down. He moved to Israel. Also, those members who lived further away found it difficult to get to the synagogue every Saturday. The synagogue itself suffered damage during the earthquake, and the front wall needed repair. The nearby Jewish cemetery too suffered damage, as certain tombstones were cracked. The community has received donations from various people, including a third grade group of B'nai Brith members who held a read-a-thon to raise funds, and a New Yorker who is a nephew of a man buried in the cemetery. However, the cost of repairs is high, and the community is still striving to raise funds to help in restoring the synagogue to its original strength.View of Side Wall of SynagogueEarthquake Rubble Visible in FrontIn spite of the drastic decline in population, the present members of the Kobe community are a diverse, active group of people. The permanent residents who number 70 from all over Kansai including Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara, come originally from New Zealand, the UK, the USA, Canada, France, Israel, Syria, Iran, Morocco, Iraq, the Dominican Republic, and elsewhere. The synagogue is an orthodox one, allowing Jews of all orientations to participate in services and holidays. Every Shabbat all participants are invited to a full sit down kiddush complete with cholent, salads, challah, wine, and beer. Anyone who joins the kiddush might hear Japanese, Hebrew, English, French, German, and Persian all within the time span of one meal.The Jewish community in 1995 was also active in adding to the overall atmosphere of Kobe. Members each seem to have their own claim to fame. Several were in the pearl business, with their head offices in Kobe, which is known is a world leader in the fresh pearl trading business. Others have also added to the variety of restaurants to be found in Kobe. One member for ten years ran a Mediterranean style restaurant before switching over to the pearl business. Another named Simon Elmaleh actually was the president of the Jewish community in 1995 and ran a Moroccan style restaurant called Marrakech. The community included some of the few people selling Persian carpets in Japan, Jay and Sumi Gluck, and students and teachers from Israel and the United States. It even included the Japan representative competing in Judo for the Maccabi Games of 1985 and 1989.Visitors to the community of Kobe are diverse. Hasidim with their black coats and payes come to Kobe every once in a while to help run services. This Passover, for example, two young rabbis came from New York to run the seder, and they brought matza shmuura to add to the meal. Families on vacation from other parts of the world often stop in to visit the synagogue. Also, there are quite a few young Israelis who sell jewelry and other goods in street markets, and utilize the synagogue on main holidays. On December 13, 1994, Itzhak Rabin, Israel's Prime Minister, visited the synagogue of Kobe. He came to Japan to speak of the Peace Talks between the Arab nations and Israel, and to help gain Japanese support for Israel. Recently, entertainers have come to add to the Jewish Community in Kobe, as The Hyogo Performing Arts company put on in June and July of 1995 a play called "Ghetto," at the Shin-Kobe Oriental Theater. The play features the music written by the Inhabitants of the Vilna Ghetto during 1943.The Jewish Community of Kansai is probably one of the most diverse congregations in the world. Although it is small, the history that it holds is strong and unique. The community has survived through many hardships, and hopefully it will thrive for a long time to come. May you too soon have the chance to be one of the many visitors to the community.
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Korea will not reunite as long as there is Jewish occupation of Korea and Kobe, Jap.
Russian and European resistance against human-sacrifice-by-jews leading Jewish
Diaspora seeking territorial haven led to many chaos;
1. Russian Catholics vs Jews ki
lling gentiles for Jew Sacrifice rituals
2. Conflict between Russian Catholics and Jews led to
1860s to present Jew infkuence in Jap
3. The 1860s Jews in Kobe, Jap financing Jap Meiji Militia led to Jap-Russian b War.
4. The Kobe, Japan occupying jews financed slavery of c Korea since Jap occupation of Korea from 1910-1945.
5.Just as jews in Kobe, Jap financially funded Jap Kilitia in creating slavement of Koreans as well as Asian territories; Jews of c Europe cr E ated Soviet-Russia funding Nazi-Hitler of Austria to takeover Germany...the non-zionist jews were punished in mass genocide as financially funding jews hid in Kobe, Jap/USA/England/South America in what author Naomi Klein calls, "Shock Doctrine"; where Israel was created, USA earned finances to recover from ten year great depression withbonset of worldxwar, Russia gained prooerties and free labor of Slaved Koreans, jews gained power over Russian Cathol I cs by 1953....
Given genocide of c innocent Koreans and destruction of Korean proprties erased since 1910;
- Kobe, Jap occupying Jews financially bribed Japs as puppet power over other Asians kike Korea and Old China...as Jap Jews continue territory dispute with Russia
- The 1860s Jews in Kobe, Jap tooknover controlnof Jap government
-The very Kobe, Jap occupying Jews led to increased sex trade night humanbtrafficking culture in Jap since 1860s
- The very same Kobe, Jap occupying Jews established Itaewon-homo-hooker hill in Itaewon and Yongsan District of Korea from 1910-1945 operated by Jap and then 1945-present day Americannoccupation n of Korea; It is with Jews occupying Itaewon and Yongsan District of Korea that Sex trade-human trafficking-red lo ight district mirroring Jew occupied Amsterdam establishme I ts in Korea led to Increased Homosexuality-HIVAIDS STD epidekic in Korea...
- Historic time lo ine of Jews in Kobe, Jap leading to Korean invasion of foreigners; jews occupying Kobe, Jap and Itaewon-Yongsan District prevents Korea from uniting.
The Russian Catholic versus Jews practicing gentile-human sacrificial ritusls will cont I nue to slave innocent Koreans.
Studying old-Chinese asxwas before 1910;
6.11.13
Relations between Tsar Russia that encroached Siberia as Tsar Russian roots relate to Aragonese Sicily of History Malta to History of Harbin-Kaifeng-nanjing jew-jesuit-Kobe Jews to History of Pyramid housing for Kings and Queens surrounded by smaller pyramid housing...World History....Monday;Goler clan roots-Argentina-Petagonia-jewish surnames+Given Jew occupation of Kobe, Jap since1860s and Jew established Itaewon-Yongsan of Korea
