A question of identity: the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, and photographer’s encounter with a community whose roots go back 1,400 years
- When photographer John Offenbach heard there were Chinese Jews living in Kaifeng, Henan province, he ‘had to visit’ them to shoot portraits for his show JEW
- His images from around the world explore what it means to identify as Jewish; in Kaifeng he was shown a tablet with the Ten Commandments written in Chinese
Award-winning photographer John Offenbach looks at one of the portraits featured in his exhibition “JEW” at the Jewish Museum in north London.
“I liked this woman because she talked about discovering her Jewish heritage from an official document,” he says.
One theory about their presence in China is that they are descended from merchants who travelled there from Persia and elsewhere in the Middle East. There may have been Jews in Kaifeng since the 7th century, and it is estimated there are around 1,000 people living in the city today of Jewish heritage.
Li discovered her ethnicity as a child, when she found the word “Jew” in her hukou, or household registration document.
“Mrs Li told me she became interested in finding out more about her background,” Offenbach says. “During her 20s she would go to Shanghai, where there were resources for her to learn about her ancestry. She bought books there and read up on Judaism.”