The Synagogue, According To These Inscriptions, Was Built In 1163, Under
The Sung Emperor Hiao; Under The Yuen, In 1279,
The rabbi rebuilt the
ancient temple known as Ts'ing Chen sse, probably on the site of a
ruined mosque; the
Synagogue was rebuilt in 1421 during the reign of
Yung-lo; it was destroyed by an inundation of the Hwang-ho in 1642, and the
Jews began to rebuild it once more in 1653.
The first knowledge Europeans had of a colony of Jews at K'ai-fung fu, in
the Ho-nan province, was obtained through the Jesuit missionaries at
Peking, at the beginning of the 17th century; the celebrated Matteo Ricci
having received the visit of a young Jew, the Jesuits Aleni (1613), Gozani
(1704), Gaubil and Domenge who made in 1721 two plans of the synagogue,
visited Kai-fung and brought back some documents. In 1850, a mission of
enquiry was sent to that place by the London Society for promoting
Christianity among the Jews; the results of this mission were published
at Shang-hai, in 1851, by Bishop G. Smith of Hongkong; fac-similes of the
Hebrew manuscripts obtained at the synagogue of Kai-fung were also printed
at Shang-hai at the London Missionary Society's Press, in the same year.
The Jewish merchants of London sent in 1760 to their brethren of Kai-fung
a letter written in Hebrew; a Jewish merchant of Vienna, J. L. Liebermann,
visited the Kai-fung colony in 1867. At the time of the T'ai-P'ing rising,
the rebels marched against Kai-fung in 1857, and with the rest of the
population, the Jews were dispersed.
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