Peony: A Novel of China

by Pearl S. Buck

  From the 1489 stele we learn that the Jews made no images, fasted four times per month, and observed Jewish laws and rituals—in a language filled with Biblical wisdom, yet interspersed with sayings from the Analects of Confucius! Moses and Ezra are mentioned early on in the stele as well, and seem to take on the qualities of Confucian gentlemen rather than those of wandering Israelites. The Jewish religion, so it goes, came from India. Originally, seventy or more clans came to Kaifeng, where the Emperor of the Song dynasty said to them: “You have come to Our China; reverence and preserve the customs of your ancestors, and hand them down at Bianliang (Kaifeng).”

  It is generally believed that 17, rather than 70, was the number of clans meant to have come, since the pronunciation for “70” and “17” in Chinese is so similar that mistakes could have been easily made. Of those clans, only seven particular surnames have remained and are to this day indicative of Jewish origin: Ai, Gao (Kao), Jin (Chin), Li, Shi, Zhang (Chang) and Zhao (Chao).

  It is also clear that the Jewish community of Ningbo donated a Torah scroll to the Kaifeng community after the devastating flood of 1461. The contributions of individual members to the reconstruction of the synagogue, and the high civil service ranks attained by others, was duly noted, as was the fact that Judaism was in no way in conflict with the other great religions prevalent in China—Buddhism, Daoism and Confucianism. In fact, it went out of its way to explain that the Jews were not only loyal to their G-d, who must have seemed so foreign to the Chinese, but also quite loyal to the Emperor. In contrast to this, however, is the fact that above the Imperial Tablet, which was placed in all authorized temples symbolizing the protection and authority of the State (and proclaiming “Long live the great Emperor!”), the Jews placed a Hebrew inscription in beautiful gold letters, which only they could read. It was the Shema, the Hebrew article of faith, proving that although they were respectful of the government, G-d alone was higher than the Emperor.

  The second inscription, dating to 1512, was actually carved on the reverse side of the 1489 stele and further details the Jewish religion, taking great pains to note the many similarities between Judaism and Confucianism. In particular, the notion of zedakah, or charity, is explored in detail. “A Record of the Synagogue Which Respects the Scriptures of the Way,” this stele claims the Jews entered China as early as the Han dynasty (206 B.C.E.-220 C.E.), but offers little new information about Judaism that was not already described on the first stele. Once again, Jews from other communities (this time a Mr. Jin of Yangzhou, who donated a Torah and set up the second archway to the synagogue) are noted for their donations and efforts on behalf of Kaifeng’s Jewish community.

  Although the 1663 stele is now lost, rubbings of it still remain. Commemorating the second rebuilding of the synagogue, which had again been destroyed in a flood by the Yellow River in 1642, this stele was most likely not written by Jews at all. In it, Adam is described as the nineteenth generation descendant of Pangu, and the Jews were said to have entered China during the Zhou dynasty (1100-221 B.C.E.), an even more fantastic claim than that on the 1512 stele. The 1663 stele is replete with quotations from the Chinese Classics—all of which signifies an even greater desire to appear Sinified.

  Lastly, there was a stele erected in 1679 by the Zhao clan, commemorating the setting up of the Zhao Family Memorial Archway and enumerating the many contributions this family made to the Jewish community throughout the years. It was discovered built into the wall of a house occupied by a Zhao family, on the southern perimeter of the synagogue enclosure. In fact, this area is where many members of the Zhao clan can still be found today.

  That Pearl S. Buck made a point of mentioning the Ezra family was of the Zhao clan is worth noting here, since the Zhao’s have represented the most prominent members of the Kaifeng Jewish community over the centuries. Local gazetteers give us the most information about the Zhao clan, due to their extraordinary success in the civil service exam, and hence, in Chinese society. One Zhao family is the direct descendant of the man who built Kaifeng’s first synagogue in 1163. And in 1421, it was Zhao Cheng who was responsible for the reconstruction of the synagogue. Two Zhao brothers and other leaders of the community are credited with having saved several Torah scrolls after the 1642 flood. In 1653 they actively helped rebuild the synagogue and restore the manuscripts. In the 19th century, two of their members were invited to go to Shanghai to relearn Hebrew and Judaism, as shall be seen shortly. The Zhao’s remain the spokesmen for the history of the Jews in Kaifeng into the 20th century.

  Discovery by the Jesuits

  Aside from these silent testimonies in stone and early Arab and European sightings of Jews in China, nothing else remains to tell us the story of the Chinese Jews through the 17th century. Then a funny thing happened in 1605…

  When the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci entered China in 1583, he could scarcely have imagined that barely a quarter of a century later he would be the first Westerner to come face to face with a Chinese Jew, and bring the continued existence of this community to the attention of the West. One summer day in 1605, a Chinese Jew by the name of Ai Tain was on his way to Peking to take the civil service exam. Along the way he had read a book called “Things I Have Heard Tell” that there were Europeans living in the Middle Kingdom who proclaimed their faith in the one true G-d, yet steadfastly maintained they were not Moslems. What else could they be, he reasoned, but Jews, having never heard of such a thing as Christianity.

  Ai Tian determined to locate these men, and when he reached the capital he inquired and was directed to the Jesuit rectory. After knocking on the door and being greeted by none other than Ricci himself, Ai proudly proclaimed himself to be his co-religionist, never once using the term “Jew.” Ricci must have been equally delighted, thinking he had come face to face with a Chinese Christian, even before serious proselytizing efforts were underway in China.

  Writing in his diary a few years later, Ricci, referring to himself in the third person, recalls the comedy of errors which then ensued:

  “On entering our home he seemed to be quite excited over the fact, as he expressed it, that he professed the same faith that we did. His whole external appearance, nose, eyes, and all his facial lineaments, were anything but Chinese. Father Ricci took him into the church and showed him a picture above the high altar, a painting of the Blessed Virgin and the child Jesus, with John the Precursor, praying on his knees before them. Being a Jew and believing that we were of the same religious belief, he thought the picture represented Rebecca and her two children, Jacob and Esau, and so made a humble curtsy before it. He could not refrain, as he remarked, from doing honor to the parents of his race, though it was not his custom to venerate images. This happened on the Feast of St. John the Baptist.

  The pictures flanking the altar were those of the four Evangelists and the Jew asked if they were four of the twelve children of the one represented on the altar. Father Ricci, thinking that he had made reference to the Apostles, nodded in agreement. Actually, however, each one was mistaken as to what the other had in mind. When he brought the visitor back to the house and began to question him as to his identity, it gradually dawned upon him that he was talking with a believer in the ancient Jewish law. The man admitted that he was an Israelite, but he knew of no such word as Jew. It would seem from this that the dispersion of the ten tribes penetrated to the extreme confines of the East. Later on [Ai] saw a royal edition of the Bible … and though he recognized the Hebrew characters he could not read the book. We heard from him also that there were ten or twelve families of Israelites in his home town and a magnificent synagogue, which only recently they had renovated at a cost of ten thousand gold pieces. In this same temple, as he related, the five books of Moses, namely the Pentateuch, had been preserved in the form of scrolls, and with great veneration, through a period of five or six hundred years. In Hamcheu … he claimed there were a far greater number of families, with their own synagogue, and others scattered about, who had no place of
worship because their numbers were almost extinct.”

  Ricci was also asked to return with Ai to Kaifeng and become their Rabbi, since he knew so much about Judaism—the only stipulation being that he had to promise to abstain from eating pork! Through this chance encounter it was learned that the Jews had a full religious life with a synagogue and a rabbi, and observed all the usual customs and holidays as did their counterparts in the West. Other Jesuits whom Ricci sent to Kaifeng to confirm what the Jew Ai Tian said, did just that. Unfortunately, the great flood of 1642 destroyed the synagogue and scattered Kaifeng’s Jewish inhabitants for close to a decade. The Jesuits who had begun to live in their midst and record what they saw were killed by the waters.

  During the early part of the 18th century, several other Jesuits were sent to Kaifeng with the specific intention of procuring a copy of the Torah belonging to the Chinese Jews. At this time in Europe it was believed that the rabbis of the Talmudic era had purposely excised out of the Torah, references to Jesus as the Messiah in specific terms. If they could only locate the Kaifeng Torah, untouched by the corrupt European versions, the specific portions could be found. Thus, the Jews in Europe would see the error of their ways and how their own rabbis had deceived them, and would come to embrace Christianity.

  The Jesuits who did get to see the Kaifeng Torah, however, had to concede that, indeed, it was exactly like that of the European Jews, with not one letter altered. The same Jesuits also left a precious legacy in the form of sketches of the synagogue itself, both its interior and its exterior. They noted that the synagogue faced West, towards Jerusalem, and that the Jews turned in this direction when they prayed. From the outside, the synagogue looked as though it were any other Chinese temple, replete with archways and courtyards. Of the many memorial halls, the very innermost one held the Ark of the Covenant. Two marble lions flanked the pathway to the Front Hall, in between which was a large iron incense tripod—a Buddhist, rather than Jewish, convention. There was a hall for the kosher preparation of meals, a Hall of the Founder of the Religion, a Hall of the Holy Patriarchs, ancestral halls of the Zhao and Li clans, and memorial archways of the Zhao and Ai clans.

  Inside was a main ceremonial table on which were placed censers, flower vases and candlesticks. Behind this was the Chair of Moses, upon which the Torah was placed for ceremonial reading. Also evident were the Imperial Tablets mentioned earlier, and many wall inscriptions in Chinese.

  These early Jesuits were able to preserve for posterity many of the stele inscriptions and writings of the Chinese Jews. Their reports remain the only sources of first-hand information on the daily life of the Chinese Jews which captured their existence in both the heyday and twilight of their lives as a religious community. While their knowledge of Hebrew was said to be somewhat tenuous at this stage, the Jews nevertheless held fast to their religion and to each other, taking great pride in their beautiful synagogue, which was captured for eternity in the sketches made by Father Jean Domenge in 1722. The synagogue had stood by now for 600 years. Although obvious signs of assimilation into their Confucian surroundings abounded, their ties to their Jewish ancestry proved too strong, and attempts to purchase copies of the Kaifeng Torah at this time were futile.

  In 1723 the missionaries were forced to leave China, and a general ban on proselytizing was enforced as anti-foreign sentiment began to set in. It would not be until 1850 that foreigners were able to have direct contact with the Chinese Jews again.

  Historical Setting of Peony

  It is towards the end of this time of suspended communication with the outside world that Pearl S. Buck set the novel Peony. The primary intimation we have for its initial setting as being in the last decade of the 18th century or possibly the first decade of the 19th century, is the fact that the last rabbi was still alive, albeit in his last years. Scholarly research has ascertained that the last rabbi died between 1800 and 1810, thus verifying the time frame in which the story of Peony begins.

  At the outset, Madame Ezra is said to be almost fifty years old, which would mean that her own parents were members of the congregation during its heyday, described by the Jesuit missionaries in letters to the Vatican. Madame Ezra’s great love of Judaism is all the more plausible, seen in this light.

  Ezra ben Israel’s family was said to be one of seventy families which came scores of years ago through Persia and India, by land and by sea, as merchants and traders, and later surnamed Zhao. This, too, would be historically accurate according to the steles. That Madame Ezra should later on declare to the Rabbi that theirs is the leading Jewish family, is all the more true, since the Zhao’s held a remarkable place in the annals of Sino-Judaic history.

  The synagogue, described as falling slowly into ruin, was said to be on the Street of the Plucked Sinew. While that street today is known as South Teaching Scripture Lane, before the early 1900’s it was called just that—the Street of the Plucked Sinew. The rabbi was described as standing beside the Chair of Moses, “upon which the sacred Torah was placed. He wore long black robes and about his black-capped head was wrapped a fine white cloth that streamed down his back.” This description coincides perfectly with a photograph found in Chinese Jews, written by Bishop William Charles White, an Anglican bishop who spent almost twenty-five years in Kaifeng, from 1910-1933. Elsewhere, Pearl S. Buck’s description of the synagogue coincides exactly with that portrayed in sketches by Father Jean Domenge in 1722, which was also reproduced in Bishop White’s book. A partial translation of the 1489 stele is given as well. Thirteen Torah scrolls were said to be in the synagogue, held in long cylinder boxes. References to inscriptions by Jews from other cities in the form of vertical tablets was also made.

  Where Pearl S. Buck appears to take literary license is in the time sequence of the story. Although the real last rabbi of Kaifeng was supposed to have died by 1810, she alluded to the period of the Opium War (1839-1842) for the time of his death.

  Later, when David ben Ezra journeys with his whole family to Peking, it is said to be at the time of the Empress Dowager, who then asked to see his “foreign” children. Since the Empress Dowager’s influence was most prominent from 1898 to 1908, it is inconsistent with the story that a period of over fifty years could have elapsed between the time of the rabbi’s death (assuming he died during the Opium War), and David’s visit to Peking with small children.

  By the end of the novel, the synagogue was finally only a heap of dust. The carvings were gone, and only three steles remained for a time, then later only two. They stood “stark under the sky” until a Christian foreigner bought them. In fact, Bishop White did buy the steles, moving them for safekeeping into the cathedral compound. But this was in the year 1912, and if, as we surmised at the outset, the story was set at the turn of the century with the real rabbi’s death, then the novel would have spanned one hundred years…

  Although we are encouraged to picture Madame Ezra, the Rabbi and his children as having distinctly Western features, by the 19th century the Chinese Jews were for the most part Sinified racially. Sketches of two Kaifeng Jewish brothers of the Zhao clan around the year 1850 do show high foreheads and decidedly Semitic profiles, yet exhibit Oriental eyes and hair. Although impossible to verify, by the latter half of the 19th century most likely no Kaifeng Jews retained a strictly Western appearance.

  Chronological inconsistencies notwithstanding (and perhaps even because she took such literary license), Pearl S. Buck managed to reveal the sweeping panorama of Chinese Jewish history all at once in this way through the rise and decline of Jewish observance in the Ezra family.

  19th Century Contact with the Chinese Jews

  The end of Peony is by no means the end of the story of the Chinese Jews, however. Contact with Kaifeng’s Jewish inhabitants resumed after a 130-year hiatus in the year 1850, when the London Society for the Promotion of Christianity Among the Jews sent two Chinese Protestant delegates (converts from Shanghai) to Kaifeng. They reported that the synagogue was in a woeful state of di
srepair and that the last rabbi had died about fifty years earlier. The community had some years before petitioned the Emperor to allow them to repair and rebuild their temple, but they had received no reply. Their condition was so desperate that the delegates were able to purchase close to seventy Hebrew manuscripts and six Torah scrolls from the synagogue over the course of two visits to Kaifeng. In addition, they bought the Chinese-Hebrew Memorial Book of the Dead, which was first assumed to be a genealogy. (All of these can now be found in the Klau Library of Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.)

  The delegates invited two members of the Kaifeng community (the Zhao brothers described above) to return with them to Shanghai in order to relearn Hebrew and Judaism, with the hope of resuscitating the community upon their return. Zhao Wenkui and Zhao Jincheng were circumcised Jews, a custom still practiced in Kaifeng at that time. The latter stayed only briefly, but the former remained until his death, and was buried in the communal cemetery which 19th century Jewish emigrants had established in Shanghai.

  Only a year before, a sergeant in the Chinese imperial army, Tie Dingan, wrote to the British Consul in Amoy, T.H. Layton, that eight families still existed in Kaifeng. He reported they were Chinese in appearance, but exhibited “straight features like people in the center of China.” There were no rabbis, and none could read Hebrew.