China's Ancient Jewish Enclave
THROUGH a locked door in the coal-darkened boiler room of No. 1 Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Kaifeng, there’s a well lined with Ming Dynasty bricks. It’s just a few yards deep and still holds water. Guo Yan, 29, an eager, bespectacled native of this Chinese city on the flood plains of the Yellow River about 600 miles south of Beijing, led me to it one recent Friday afternoon, past the doormen accustomed to her visits.
The well is all that’s left of the Temple of Purity and Truth, a synagogue that once stood on the site. The heritage it represents brings a trickle of travelers to see one of the more unusual aspects of this country: China, too, had its Jews.
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Kosher Chinese
At this spring’s World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, Israel will show off its burgeoning bilateral relationship with the host country
The beit knesset—the meeting place—is Haya’s Mediterranean Cuisine, an Israeli restaurant in Shanghai’s Zhuanqiao district. Forty-odd Shanghai-based businessmen and women, members of the the Israeli Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai, are smoking like Chinese and drinking espresso like natives of Tel Aviv. Chocolates, made by an Israeli living in Luxemburg, in town for China’s first Salon du Chocolat, are said to be on their way. Designer glasses and shaved heads surround the tables.
Jackie Eldan, Israel’s consul general in Shanghai, in a grey suit and looking tired with a five o’clock shadow, is standing in front of a rendering, projected on a wall, of Haim Dotan Architects’ Israel Pavilion for Shanghai’s World Expo 2010, less than 100 days from opening. He is telling the group, a bit mischievously and in English, that the modernist pavilion—it looks a bit like a high-backed snail followed by a slime trail—exceeds the strict height limitations by four meters, making it the second-tallest national building on the grounds.
“Our placement is good,” Eldan says. “Right next to the Chinese Pavilion,” which looks like a massive inverted pyramid, colored in an auspicious shade of red, the color of prosperity. “But we still look like a grain of rice that fell out of that big bowl.”
I ramponi scricchiolano sulla neve. Grossi ghiaccioli color acquamarina sembrano pendere dalle bocche di un profondo crepaccio. Più in basso, le nuvole coprono il bacino del fiume Orinoco come una morbida coperta. Il paesaggio si distende lungo decine e decine di vette ricoperte di neve e profondi circhi glaciali. I laghi morenici risplendono nella luce tersa...Va bene!
Get the feed, snout in the trough.
