Published: 10 December 2019
Last updated: 5 March 2024
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.
The black-and-white photograph is captioned Kaifeng Jew II. It shows a middle-aged Chinese woman, surnamed Li. Offenbach travelled to her hometown, Kaifeng, in the central Chinese province of Henan, to learn more about the Jewish community living in what was the imperial capital of the Song dynasty (960-1279).
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.”
FULL STORY A question of identity: the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng, and photographer’s encounter with a community whose roots go back 1,400 years (SCMP)
Photo: A visitor to Offenbach’s exhibition JEW at the Jewish Museum in Camden, north London (Mark Thomas)
