[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
