Rebecca Zeffert, executive director of the Israel Asia Center, an organization devoted to promoting understanding and cooperation between Israel and Asia, listed similarities between the two cultures.
"In terms of commonalities, it is always noted that both the Chinese and Jewish peoples have long civilizations spanning thousands of years, and both place a strong emphasis on the importance of family and education," she says.
Meryl Moser, a participant in the mahjong marathon, echoed Zeffert's thoughts.
"I feel like Chinese and Jewish people are similar in their focus on education and strong family roots," she says. "They're similar types of communities who worked and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. The two communities seem to be hand-in-hand, always."
Moser recalled her daughter's 13th birthday party, held at a Chinese restaurant. When the group left, the owner ran to stop her. "Are you Jewish?" he asked her. When she confirmed that she was, he replied, "I knew it! My father always told me to open where Jews are."
In fact, many Chinese restaurants cater to Jewish patrons, sometimes labeling food by familiar Jewish terms or specifying kosher-safe foods, Coe says. Some Jewish Americans employ "safe treif" when dining at Chinese restaurants, a more lax attitude toward kosher eating that basically dictates, "If you cannot see the meat, it's OK to eat," Coe says.
"This made it possible for people who wanted to keep some level of Jewish customs to enjoy Chinese food without bringing shame on their ancestors."
Chinese restaurants are also open on Sundays and other Christian holidays, when most restaurants close. The lack of Christian religious imagery in Chinese restaurants likely also made Jewish patrons feel more comfortable, Coe says.
Additionally, a large number of Jewish families have adopted Chinese children, creating a growing population of young Chinese-Jewish women and teenagers in New York and elsewhere.
Candy Cheng, co-creator of a website titled "Chinese and Chosen", a project that explored this subject, reported that every family interviewed had made efforts to introduce Chinese culture into their home. In some families, this took the form of Chinese language classes, while others made frequent visits to China.
Jewish and Chinese communities interacted before immigrating to the US. There are records of Jewish settlers in China as early as the 7th or 8th centuries, and most famously, the Kaifeng Jews, who lived in Henan province for hundreds of years.
Zeffert says a number of Kaifeng descendants have recently moved to Israel to re-establish their Jewish roots.
Additionally, China took in Jewish refugees during World War II.
"It is known in the Jewish world that during the time that the rest of the world closed their doors to the Jewish people, more than 20,000 found refuge in Shanghai and for that we are forever grateful," Rabbi Shalom Greenberg of the Shanghai Jewish Center says.
Zeffert points to a connection between perceptions of the identities of both cultures. "In the past, in East and Southeast Asia, the Chinese diaspora was referred to as the 'Jews of Asia', due to the fact that wherever they settled in Asia, they were the traders and the businesspeople, just as the Jews were."
Cheng believes there is great respect between the two communities. "There are a lot of stereotypes out there, but they do really embrace each other," she says.
(China Daily February 15, 2011)
