Why did that young man say he "[knew he] was a Jew" through knowledge passed down from his grandfather when it is obvious from what is said in the video that they are not Jews. Some of their ancestors may have been Jews, but they are goyim. Why is it being called "Aliyah" if they are not Jews and hope to convert? It is just a bit confusing as some of the story is a bit contradictory. I assume they are being allowed to come into Israel temporarily to see IF they are accepted by a beit din for conversion. What concerns me is the sense from the video that they will be converted. That should never be guaranteed to any goy. That would be bringing them to Israel with false hopes that may never come to fruition.
On another note, if they do convert what customs will they follow? That last question is simply one of curiosity. I assume it will be Mizrachi customs as they are from the east.
I believe these are from the Jewish community called Kaifeng... I don't know if they are Halachically considered Jews today but they have kept the Jewish customs for many hundreds of years...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_jewsKaifeng JewsThe Kaifeng Jews are members of a small Jewish community that has existed in Kaifeng, in the Henan province of China, for hundreds of years. Jews in modern China have traditionally called themselves Youtai (Chinese: 犹太; pinyin: Yóutài, from Judah) in Mandarin Chinese which is also the predominant contemporary Chinese language term for Jews in general. However, the community was known by their Han Chinese neighbors as adherents of Tiaojinjiao (Chinese: 挑筋教; pinyin: Tiāojīnjiāo), meaning, loosely, the religion which removes the sinew (a reference to kashrut).
History
According to historical records, a Jewish community lived in Kaifeng from at least the Northern Song Dynasty (960–1127) until the late nineteenth century and Kaifeng was Northern Song's capital. It is surmised that the ancestors of the Kaifeng Jews came from Central Asia. It is also reported that in 1163 Ustad Leiwei was given charge of the religion (Ustad means teacher in Persian), and that they built a synagogue surrounded by a study hall, a ritual bath, a communal kitchen, a kosher butchering facility, and a sukkah.[1]
During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), a Ming emperor conferred seven surnames upon the Jews, by which they are identifiable today: Ai, Shi, Gao, Jin, Li, Zhang, and Zhao. By the beginning of the 20th c. one of these Kaifeng clans, the Zhang, had largely converted to Islam.[2] Interestingly, two of these: Jin and Shi are the equivalent of common Jewish names in the west: Gold and Stone.[3][4]
The Jews who managed the Kaifeng 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. [5]
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". 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 thirteenth century. The synagogue and mosquers were also know 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.[6]
The existence of Jews in China was unknown to Europeans until 1605, when Matteo Ricci, then established in Beijing, was visited by a Jew from Kaifeng, who had come to Beijing to take examinations for his jinshi degree. According to his account in De Christiana expeditione apud Sinas,[7] his visitor, named Ai Tian (Ai T'ien) (艾田) explained that he worshipped one G-d. It is recorded that when he saw a Christian image of Mary with the child Jesus, he believed it to be a picture of Rebecca with Esau or Jacob, figures from Scripture. Ai said that many other Jews resided in Kaifeng; they had a splendid synagogue (禮拜寺 libai si) and possessed a great number of written materials and books.
About three years after Ai's visit, Ricci sent a Chinese Jesuit Lay Brother to visit Kaifeng; he copied the beginnings and ends of the holy books kept in the synagogue, which allowed Ricci to verify that they indeed were the same texts as the Pentateuch known to Europeans, except that they did not use Hebrew diacritics (which were a comparatively late invention).[8]
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Skepticism
One author, Xun Zhou, doubts the authenticity of the Kaifeng community, believing it to have been largely a Western cultural construct. Xun Zhou, a research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, maintains that the community had no Torah scrolls until 1851, when they suddenly appeared to be sold to eager Western collectors. She also states that drawings of the synagogue were doctored in the West because the original did not look like one, and that the Kaifeng community claimed to have kept some Jewish practices since before they are known to have begun. Xun Zhou's conclusion is that the Kaifeng community was not Jewish in any meaningful sense.[16]
Topic: Chinese Jews come to Israel (Read 1567 times)