on Hebrew Chinese translation

Reading Theophrastus’ post on Chavrusa inspired me to post this article about a former professor of mine, who I enjoyed talking to at a lecture and reception on Tuesday.

Jewish Studies is a growing discipline in China. UBC’s Robert Daum took part in the largest conference on the field ever held there.

It is thought Jews have lived in China since the early Middle Ages, arriving in Kaifeng in the central province of Henan more than 1,000 years ago.

The Kaifeng Jews built a congregation in the late twelfth century; scholars believe they trained their own Rabbis and had Hebrew prayer books and Torah scrolls needed to conduct services, which they performed till the nineteenth century when the last Rabbi died.

Today, Jewish Studies is a growing discipline in China, due largely to the efforts of Nanjing University’s Xu Xin, a renowned scholar whose work has paved the way for researchers in at least nine universities or institutes.

Last fall, Professor Xu, who has lectured all over the world on Judaism in China, organized the largest conference on Jewish Studies ever held there. The conference, which took place in the city of Nanjing in October 2004, gathered some 75 scholars from universities such as UBC, Cambridge, Shandong University, Bar-Ilan University and The London School of Economics.

Among the participants was Professor Robert Daum, Diamond Chair in Jewish Law and Ethics at UBC and one of only two Canadian scholars in attendance.

“The subjects covered in the sessions were quite diverse,” said Daum, whose research interests include Jewish law and ethics and applications of literary and rhetorical theory to ancient and medieval Hebrew texts. “The papers ranged from Biblical literature to post-Biblical rabbinic literature… to modern Hebrew literature, Jewish cultures around the world, including in Canada, Jewish life in China in the Middle Ages and in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and Jewish studies in China.”

Impressed with the strong interest in fostering Jewish Studies in China and the strides made by scholars in the last 15 years, Daum says the experience gave him an appreciation for the long and complex history of Chinese civilization.

“The experience of Chinese culture and history, seeing archival documents, photos, visiting archaeological sites, hearing presentations from Chinese scholars about contrasts and parallels between Chinese and Jewish cultural productions showed us how much we can learn with our Chinese colleagues — both about the study of culture and religion and also about the study of Judaism in particular,” Daum said.

“This was very much an intellectual dialogue, it was not a one-way transaction. It was an exchange of ideas and I think it was very enriching to all of the participants.”

After the conference, Professor Xu led the group on a tour of historic sites. The group visited the site of the Nanjing Massacre, where the Japanese army slaughtered some 300,000 Chinese between 1937 and 1938. These events are commemorated in the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum, which features sculptures and reliefs depicting the suffering, as well as plaques outlining the massacre. Built on a former mass grave, the memorial was constructed in the mid-eighties.

Gesturing to a digital picture from his trip, Daum pointed to what he feels is one of the most touching aspects of the memorial. “One of the most fascinating aspects is in this picture,” he said. “These are footprints and signatures of eye-witnesses to the Nanjing massacre.”

Daum says the Chinese memorial reminded the scholars of the Yad Vashem Memorial to the Holocaust in Jerusalem. That memorial features an historical museum, an art museum, gardens and monuments dedicated to remembering. “It was quite similar in terms of the inadequate but poignant attempt to memorialize and also teach lessons,” said Daum.

After visiting the Nanjing Massacre Memorial, the group traveled to Beijing, and visited the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square and enjoyed a Sabbath dinner with members of the Beijing Jewish community.

“A dozen of the visiting researchers had a fascinating evening discussing the nature of Jewish identity with the descendants of medieval Jewish clans from Kaifeng. Some of the scholars questioned the self-identification of these Chinese people as Jews; I realized that this same conversation could have been taking place in a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver, Tel Aviv, or Buenos Aires.”

From there they visited Xian and then headed to Kaifeng to see the former location of a synagogue that was first built in the late twelfth century. A hospital now stands on that site.

Daum says the conference opened the eyes of participants to the importance of including Chinese scholars in the study of Judaism in the last few decades.

“It left many of us with the clear sense that the absence of our Chinese colleagues in the discourse in the academic community about Jewish cultures has been a costly one,” he said. “Our Chinese colleagues come to the field with questions and perspectives similar to and different from ours. Two Chinese scholars debated the philological constraints upon translating the word ‘Talmud’ into English. Only a fraction of classical Jewish literature has been translated into Mandarin. A generation from now such translations will revolutionize the field.

“The contributions that are going to be made by the current and future generations of researchers will be enormous. I think that it will change the field in very positive ways.”