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Collections. Two new models of historical synagogues in Harbin have recently gone on display at Beth Hatefutsoth
BY the thousands, Russian Jews settled in Harbin, China to work on the railroad, participating in forming one of the largest Jewish communities in the Far East, and a major Jewish political, economic and cultural center. At its heyday, the community numbered about 13,000 in 1920.
Recently, models of two synagogues they built in that far-off city reached Beth Hatefutsoth in Tel Aviv. Built by the Harbin Jewish Research Center in the former Manchurian province of Heilongjang, and donated to the museum, the models are of the Central Synagogue, built in 1908, and the New Synagogue, built in 1921.
The models, which join other synagogues from around the world, were donated to the museum at a ceremony at Beit Yotzei Sin, (an association of Israelis who formerly lived in China).
THE Chinese connection to Israel is more than 1,000 years old, and began when Persian Jewish merchants began travelling the Silk Road.
About 100 years ago, a letter dated to 718 was written by a businessman wishing to sell sheep. Found in western China, and written in Judeo-Persian (Farsi in Hebrew characters), the Central Asian lingua franca, the letter was on paper, which then was produced only in China.
Around 960, a group of Persian Jews, described as merchants or refugees, arrived in the busy Silk Road trading center of Kaifeng, the Sung Dynasty capital. The emperor permitted them to build a synagogue, commemorated by a 1489 stone tablet in the Kaifeng Museum. In...