Today is an anniversay that has gone almost completely unnoticed, and I wanted to bring it to the attention of Kosmopolitans everywhere so we could publicize it. For exactly one hundred years ago today, on April 1st, 1905, Professor Aaron Abramowicz of Yeshiva University and a fellow of the American Oriental Society made an amazing announcement.
More below the fold.
Professor Abramowicz told of the discovery of a fragment of a Torah scroll inside a cave in Afghanistan by British expeditionary forces some twenty years earlier. The Torah fragment led to the discovery of some manuscripts nearby telling of a group of Jews who had escaped Jerusalem at the time of the destruction of Solomon's Temple and had migrated eastward rather than west or north. With the manuscripts were a group of letters that appeared to tell the story of a group that had gone even further ahead, on into China.
"Gentlemen," Professor Abramowicz told the Society, "Last month I received a letter from a person no less august than T. E. Lawrence himself, suggesting that a group of British explorers had reason to believe that there is now a settlement of Jews living in western China!" This of course caused a buzz within the group. Funds were quickly raised, interpreters hired, palms greased, permissions acquired and by spring Professor Abramowicz had organized an expedition to go seek out this lost remnant of Israel.
The journey took most of the spring and summer. In September they reached the high plains of Sinkiang and learned a legend from the locals of a group that had come from the West many years ago, before even the oldest of them could remember. This group, according to their legend, had intermarried with the local population, and had taken up their language and customs, but still practiced an odd religion that worshipped a god named Jia-Wei. Surely, the expeditioners though, this would be JHWH, He who was named I AM in the Torah? They got directions and set off at once.
Now as luck would have it, on the evening of Yom Kippur they approached a village and could hear singing. The words were definitely Hebrew, although oddly accented, and the melody carried elements of Kol Nidre, the holiest service of the Jewish liturgical calendar. Perhaps they had found their long-lost brethren! They hurried into the town and excitedly, but reverently, opened the doors of the building from which the singing was coming.
The singing abruptly stopped. The explorers could see that this was indeed a synagogue! There was something resembling an eternal flame, and the tables of the Law, and a Torah scroll at the front of the congregation. Everyone in the building turned to see what was going on. They were all very Chinese, but they were all wearing yarmulkes, prayer shawls and phylacteries. Chinese Jews indeed!
"Who dares interrupt us on the holiest day of the year?" the man at the front of the congregation -- undoubtedly the cantor -- called to them. The interpreter the party had brought with them didn't need to translate this for them to know the intent.
Professor Abramowicz turned to the interpreter. "Tell them we are Jews from America!"
The interpreter translated this as best he could. The cantor stared open-mouthed at the professor. "You are Jews from America?" he asked.
"Yes!" the professor repeated. "We are Jews from America!"
And as one the congregation shouted, "THAT'S FUNNY! YOU DON'T ROOK JEWISH!!!!!"