Avotaynu

RESEARCH INTO THE ORIGINS AND MIGRATIONS OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

- Thursday, May 29, 2025 -
  • Home
  • About Us
  • DNA Studies
  • Avotaynu DNA Project

The Genetic Origins of the Jews of Kaifeng, China: Preliminary Findings

Filed Under DNA Studies By Adam Brown, Michael Waas, Harold Rhode, Myrna Gabbay, Danil Shimonov, Aaron Pinkhasov, Bennett Greenspan, Wim Penninx and Raquel Levy-Toledano on July 15, 2024

Share This

[This subject matter of this announcement is presently in the pre-publication process and will be published in full with accompanying data following peer review.]

The Avotaynu DNA Project is pleased to announce that its advanced genetic testing of men from the Bukhari and Kurdish Jewish communities has unexpectedly shed light on the origins of the ancient Jewish community of Kaifeng, China. The Jewish community in Kaifeng, greatly diminished by centuries of assimilation, has a unique and fascinating history that has intrigued scholars, historians, and researchers for centuries. Several theories have been proposed about the origins of the Jews of Kaifeng, offering different perspectives on how and why a Jewish community established itself in this ancient Chinese city (Laytner and Paper 2017[1]; Leslie 1972[2]; Qianzhi and Des Forges 2018[3]; Shapiro 1984[4]; Sharot 2007[5]; White 1966[6]).

Fortuitously, independent researcher Harold Rhode tested male members of four surviving paternal lineages of well-researched and pedigreed Jewish clans of Kaifeng in 2013 and enrolled his participants in the Avotaynu DNA project which undertook advanced Next Generation Sequencing of their samples in 2019.

One of the four lineages of the Kaifeng Jews discovered by Rhodes carries Y DNA haplogroup O-M175 (Avotaynu AB-881) a common east Asian haplogroup with no known Jewish associations in other communities. A second haplogroup N-M231 (possibly Avotaynu AB-768) has an indeterminate connection to Jewish communities in Iraq and is undergoing advanced testing.

Two further lineages discovered by Rhodes in Kaifeng have incontrovertible matches to individuals tested by the Avotaynu Project from historic Jewish communities in Bukhara and Kurdistan which were recruited to our study by Avotaynu investigators Aaron Pinkhasov, Danil Shimonov and Myrna Ovadia Gabbay.

The Kurdish-Kaifeng Lineage   Avotaynu AB-370 J-FTF9916 (NEW)

According to dating[7] provided by FamilyTreeDNA, the mean dating of the newly discovered Kurdish-Kaifeng lineage is 1,482 years before present (YBP) with a range of 904 – 2,296  YBP (95% CI). Avotaynu has identified additional men from the Kurdish Jewish community that belong to this haplogroup. The STRs are divergent, suggesting that the shared ancestor of the Kurdish Jews is also quite old.

FTDNA:    https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/J-FTF9916/story

Yfull: https://www.yfull.com/tree/J-FT41076/

The Bukharin-Kaifeng Lineage    Avotaynu AB-514  R-FT14557 (NEW)

The Bukharan-Kaifeng lineage is 1,312 years before present (YBP) with a range of 778 – 2,074  YBP (95% CI). Avotaynu has identified additional men from Bukhara and Baghdad that belong to this haplogroup in our study. With further NGS, refinement of age of the haplogroup and its development will be better understood. In addition, a Chinese sample tested on 23MoFang, a Chinese genetic testing company, appears to match Avotaynu’s Kaifeng sample from AB-514 800 YBP according to public data on YFull. If that is indeed the case, that would suggest that the Kaifeng community is indeed older than the archaeological record currently indicates, discussed below.

FTDNA:     https://discover.familytreedna.com/y-dna/R-FT14557/story

Yfull:          https://www.yfull.com/sc/tree/R-Y168245/

Discussion

While the dating of the lineages does not necessarily indicate the antiquity of the Kaifeng community, it does however tie in to developments in the Babylonian and Persian Jewish worlds. The 8th-10th centuries CE were a time of trade expansion along the silk road and the sea spanning Iberia and Morocco in the West to China in the East. A group of little understood Jewish merchants known as the Radhanim (Radhanites) were multilingual Jewish merchants that traveled a large global network as reported by the Persian geographer Ibn Khordadbeh in his book Kitab al-Masalik wa-I-Mamalik (Book of Roads and Kingdoms) which was written around 870 CE.

It is entirely possible that the Kaifeng Jewish community dates to this time period. However, no physical evidence has been uncovered in the archaeological record yet that dates to this time period. Certainly, by 1489, the Kaifeng Jewish community was well-established as one of the stele[8] that was erected in the courtyard of the synagogue is dated to then. The result from AB-514, if the public sample is confirmed to date to between 800-950 YBP, would support that the Kaifeng community was already established well before the 1489 steele.

The Persian connection is clear from the historical record. Manuscripts found globally from the Kaifeng community attest to the use of Judeo-Persian.[9] There is evidence [1] that the ancestors of the Jews of Kaifeng were traders, diplomats, or refugees from Persia (modern-day Iran) or Central Asia who settled in China and integrated into Chinese society.

Whether it was Radhanim or Jews from the Persian-Babylonian spheres, it is clear that the Silk Road is key to the settlement of Jews in Kaifeng. The Silk Road, a network of trade routes connecting Asia and Europe, played a significant role in facilitating cultural and religious exchanges between different regions. Jewish merchants or travelers who traversed the Silk Road may have introduced Judaism to Kaifeng and contributed to the formation of the Jewish community there.

The presence of a Jewish community in Kaifeng highlights the cultural and religious diversity of the city and its interactions with foreign traders, diplomats, and immigrants. Over time, the Jews of Kaifeng adapted to Chinese customs, language, and traditions while maintaining their Jewish identity and religious practices. The rare manuscript Ms. 926[10] of the Hebrew Union College, is a memorial book with prayers for Sabbath Eve. It is exceptional for showing both its Judeo-Persian speaking roots as well as its integration into the Chinese community as names in the memorial book are written both in Hebrew and Chinese.

As time passed, the size of the Jewish presence in Kaifeng became greatly diminished.  In 1642, a catastrophic flood of the Yellow River reduced the Jewish community to fewer than 200 families from seven clans with the surnames Li, Zhao, Ai, Zhang, Gao, Jin and Shi.  It is believed that intermarriage with local Chinese residents and other forms of assimilation into Chinese society, as well as migration to other parts of China had reduced the population such that by 1980, the number of Jewish descendants in Kaifeng had declined to 79 families with six surnames (Zhang was no longer found in the community).[11]

The Avotaynu Project: The Genetic Census of the Jewish People is an independent team of academics and community historians that has compiled over 10,000 donated DNA results largely from the Ashkenazi community since 2000 and has methodically sought out and tested 2,000 individuals from far-flung non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities since 2016. Active testing continues. As part of its process, the Avotaynu study starts with an initial Y37 panel on each of its participants in an effort to detect possible new lineages and then re-runs representative samples within each prospective lineage utilizing NGS to define ancestral connections with specificity.

All of the Avotaynu Project’s DNA samples were processed at the Houston, Texas laboratory of Family Tree DNA; Goran Runfeldt, Michael Sager, and Paul Maier of the FTDNA staff participated in the identification and dating of Y chromosome variants. Further information about the study can be found at www.AvotaynuOnline.com;. The study administrators welcome inquiries via Adam.Brown@AvotaynuDNA.org


[1] Laytner, Anson H. and Jordan Paper, eds. The Chinese Jews of Kaifeng: A Millennium of Adaptation and Endurance. Lexington Books, 2017.

[2] Leslie, Donald. Survival of the Chinese Jews: The Jewish Community of Kaifeng. Vol. 10. Brill, 2023.

[3] Qianzhi, Wei, and Roger Des Forges. “An Investigation of the Date of Jewish Settlement in Kaifeng.” The Jews of China: v. 2: A Sourcebook and Research Guide. Routledge, 2018. 14-25.

[4] Chen Yuan, “A Study of the Israelite Religion in Kaifeng”, found in Shapiro, Sidney. Jews in Old China: Studies by Chinese Scholars. Hippocrene Books, Inc., 1984.

[5] Sharot, Stephen. “The Kaifeng Jews: A reconsideration of acculturation and assimilation in a comparative perspective.” Jewish social studies (2007): 179-203.

[6] White, William Charles, Chinese Jews: A Compilation of Matters Relating to the Jews of Kʻai-Fêng Fu. 2nd Ed. University of Toronto, 1966.

[7] For a description of the methodology used to date the sample described in this study, see Begg T, et al., Genomic analyses of hair from Ludwig van Beethoven 2023 Current Biology 33(8):1431-1447.e22, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.041

[8] “Rubbings of Steles from the Synagogue in Kaifeng”, accessed on https://tealtld.ds.lib.uw.edu/exhibits/show/kaifengjews/rubbings-from-the-jewish-stele, last accessed July 14, 2024

[9]See https://www.posenlibrary.com/entry/judeo-persian-haggadah-kaifeng#:~:text=Jews%20first%20settled%20in%20Kaifeng,worked%20as%20cotton%20dyers%20and%E2%80%A6

[10] See https://mss.huc.edu/phpviewer/index.php?path=MS_926, last accessed July 14, 2024.

[11] Wang Yisha, “Descendants of the Kaifeng Jews”, found in Shapiro, pages 167-186.

Image: Jews of Kaifeng, late 19th century to early 20th century. Source: Jewish Encyclopedia


Related posts:

  1. The Genetic Origins of Ashkenazi Jews
  2. The Y-DNA Genetic Signature and Ethnic Origin of the Twersky Chassidic Dynasty [AB-069]
  3. The Surprising Origins of the Coryell Family of Colonial New Jersey
  4. Avotaynu DNA Project Discovers ~11,000 Year Old Neolithic Lineage

About Adam Brown

Adam Brown is the founder and director of the Avotaynu DNA Project, an academic multi-disciplinary study of the origins and migrations of the Jewish people with over 12,000 participants.

Adam is a lawyer is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago Law School, and serves on numerous government, scientific research, and academic non-profit boards and commissions.

He has spoken widely on the subject of Jewish history and migrations at conferences, in publications, and online. He was the Co-Chair of the 2017 Conference of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) in Orlando.

Adam worked two seasons at a remote field camp deep in the interior of Antarctica. He returned to the region during 2016 as part of a multi-national scientific expedition that traveled 5,800 miles by sea to and from ice-covered yet volcanic Heard Island, a rarely visited pristine habitat in the stormy Southern Indian Ocean halfway between Australia and South Africa.

Adam lives seasonally in Englewood NJ and on Martha's Vineyard Island.

About Michael Waas

Michael Waas is a Historical Archaeologist specializing in site research and evaluation and three-dimensional modeling for Historical Preservation. He received his Bachelors Degree in Anthropology with a specialization in Historical Archaeology from New College of Florida, and the subject of his Senior Thesis was "The Archaeology of Ethnogenesis of the Seminole People of Florida." Currently, Michael is a Masters Degree Candidate in the Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa under the direction of Dr. Ido Shahar.

Professionally, he interned with the Seminole Tribe of Florida Tribal Historic Preservation Office in the Research Department (Summer 2009) and the International Conservation Center – Cittá di Roma located in Old Acre, Israel, where he received professional training and experience in the field of Historic Preservation and Conservation (Summer 2010, October 2012 – July 2013).

Michael worked as a field archaeologist on the Looking for Angola project in Bradenton, Florida, under Dr. Uzi Baram, the Live Oak site in Sarasota, Florida, under Dr. George Luer, and on the Tel Akko project under Dr. Ann Killebrew. He also worked as a surveyor on the Galilee Cemetery project, a Historic Black cemetery, documenting graves. In addition to working in the field of Historic Preservation and Research, he is an avid photographer.

About Harold Rhode

Harold Rhode (born September 19, 1949) is an American specialist on the Middle East. Harold Rhode studied in and traveled extensively throughout the Islamic world and has studied and done research in universities and libraries in Egypt, Israel, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan. He speaks Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, French, and Turkish. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Rhode

About Myrna Gabbay

About Danil Shimonov

Danil Shimonov is an Assistant Attending Physician at New York Presbyterian Hospital and Instructor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. He graduated from CUNY Hunter College (NY) with Bachelor of Arts and SUNY Upstate Medical University (Syracuse, NY) with medical degree (M.D.).

About Aaron Pinkhasov

Dr. Aaron Pinkhasov, MD is an adult psychiatry specialist in Brooklyn, NY and has over 33 years of experience in the medical field. He graduated from Tajik State Med Institute in 1990. He is affiliated with medical facilities NYU Langone Hospital—Long Island and NYU Langone Hospital-Manhattan.

About Bennett Greenspan

Bennett Greenspan, an entrepreneur and life-long genealogy enthusiast, founded Family Tree DNA in 2000, turning a hobby into a full-time vocation. His effort and innovation created the burgeoning field now known as genetic genealogy. Family Tree DNA and other cooperative ventures, including the National Geographic Society’s Genographic Project and AfricanDNA.com, now constitute the largest non-medical DNA testing program in the world. A serial entrepreneur , Greenspan’ s business career has spanned photographic equipment and supplies, real estate, the pro- college website GoCollege.com and Family Tree DNA. He now also is involved in GeneByGene.com, a new medical genetic testing company. Greenspan lives in Houston, Texas.

About Wim Penninx

Wim Penninx is born in a small village in the south-east of the Netherlands and did an astronomy PhD on radio and X-ray observations of low-mass X-ray binaries in Amsterdam with the assistance prof. Jan van Paradijs (Amsterdam) and Walter Lewin (MIT). About 40 articles were published in scientific journals, including Nature, 1988.

Wim worked for many years as an IT consultant, partly at the Technische Universiteit Delft, which resulted in several Dutch IT-publications and
presentations.

After collecting the genealogy of the Pennings/x-families in the Netherlands, he started to study DNA genealogy in different
contexts. This resulted in a variety of articles and presentations on DNA measurements and history. It started in 2012 on the relation between
population growth and Y-DNA variability in Flanders, Brabant and Limburg at the XXXth Internation Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences.
Later reports were given on Y-DNA in the Dutch genealogy journal Gen (published by Centraal Bureau Genealogie) and on Regional Endogamy (in a MyHeritage webinar).

Wim created, after an early statistical analysis on Jewish Ashkenazi Y-DNA, the website jewishdna.net. With Rachel Unkefer and J.B. Royal he wrote
an article on the Y-DNA Evidence for an Ashkenazi Lineage's Iberian Origin. In 2016, Wim joined the Avotaynu project.

About Raquel Levy-Toledano

Raquel Levy-Toledano est médecin, gynécologue, et est titulaire d’une thèse de sciences en biologie moléculaire. Elle est volontaire dans l’équipe d’Adam Brown à Avotaynu et dirige le projet sur l’ADN du chromosome Y des juifs marocains.
Depuis quelques années, Raquel travaille activement sur la généalogie des juifs marocains avec comme objectif de rétablir les liens entre les familles juives marocaines sur Geni. Aujourd’hui, l’arbre des juifs marocains sur Geni contient plus de 70 000 individus. Par ailleurs, Raquel est passionnée de génétique généalogique qu’elle utilise pour retrouver les liens entre les juifs marocains et les autres juifs sépharades.

Click Image to Donate!

Click Photo To Join the Avotaynu DNA Project!

Categories

  • Avotaynu Features
    • Ask the Experts
    • Case Studies
    • Contributing Editors
    • JGS Digest
    • Letters
    • Personal Journeys
    • Uncategorized
  • Collaboration
    • Academia
    • Conferences
    • Crowdsourcing
    • DNA Studies
    • Indexing Projects
    • Medical Studies
    • Online Trees
    • Online Trees
  • Education
  • Europe – Northern
    • Austria-Czech-Slovak
    • België / Belgique
    • Deutschland
    • Eesti
    • Helvetia
    • Latvija
    • Lita
    • Magyarország
    • Polska
    • România
    • United Kingdom
    • Беларусь
    • Россия
    • Україна
  • Français
  • Given Names
  • Holocaust
  • Mediterranean
    • Algerie الجزائر‎
    • Crypto-Jews
    • España
    • France
    • Israel יִשְׂרָאֵל
    • Italia
    • Maroc المغرب‎
    • Portugal
    • Syria سوريا
    • Tunisie
    • Türkiye
    • Western Sephardim
    • Ελλάδα
  • Methods
  • Mizrachim
    • India भारत
    • Iraq اَلْعِرَاق
  • New World
    • Argentina
    • Canada
    • Carribean
    • Mexico
    • United States
  • Oceania
    • Australia
    • New Zealand
  • Rabbinic genealogy
  • South Africa
  • Surnames
  • z Not yet categorized
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

© 2025 · Avotaynu Online