The first thing you should know about me is that I’m not really Jewish. Technically I’m Jewish. My parents are Jewish, we watch a lot of Seinfeld and I definitely prefer my bagels with a little shmear, but I was raised in a household where Yom Kippur—the Jewish day of atonement—didn’t exist until my dad went through his midlife crisis.
I started mentioning my Jewish heritage when I lived in China last semester. Communicating with people from such a different culture can be tough, so occasionally I’d tell my Chinese friends that I was Jewish just to get a conversation going. That conversation would almost always go something like this:
“Really? You’re Jewish.”
“Yes, I’m Jewish. “
“No, can’t be.”
“No, really, I’m Jewish.” (This was usually the point in the conversation when my friend would turn to all of his other friends at the table and excitedly whisper, “He’s Jewish.” Then, they’d all turn and stare at me.)
“You don’t look Jewish.”
“Um … thanks?”
“You don’t have longer hairs on your face … uh … a beard.”
“Yes, I know. Not all Jews have beards.”
“You know, Einstein was a Jew.”
“Yes, I know.”
“He was a physicist.”
“Yes, I know.”
For whatever reason, the Einstein connection always came up. The West’s two greatest exports to China are probably Einsteinian physics and bootleg movies.
Being Jewish in China was especially fun because China’s standards for political correctness are a little different from our own. One day, my friend Wangning came to my door. When I answered his knock, he breathlessly shouted, “You’re a Jew! We’ve all been talking about it!” I looked behind him for a mob of angry people with sticks. No pogrom in sight, I answered in the affirmative. “I love Jews. I love Jews. Did you know Einstein was a Jew?” Yes, I told him, I had had heard that Einstein was Jewish. He continued, “Jews are so clever.” I tensed a little bit, this being the type of comment that would land someone in a little bit of trouble in the United States. But I realized that he meant it as a compliment, and decided not to take offense.
“Can I ask you a few questions?” Wangning inquired. Of course, I told him. He started by asking me whether Jews could only marry other Jews. I could tell he was starting out with a softball, loosening me up a little bit before he got to the big guns. I answered him that yes, traditionally, Jewish people are only supposed to marry other Jews, but these days intermarriage is pretty common.
Of course, the real question was coming next.
“Is it true that Jews cut their babies’ penises?” We both grimaced. Some things are hard to explain in Chinese. Hell, some things are hard to explain in English. For Wangning, my feeble assertion that circumcision is a health precaution didn’t justify the assault on manhood. He won’t be converting anytime soon.
When we were not talking about foreskin, my Chinese friends and I made time to talk about theology. I remember a conversation with Wangwen and Anning, who simply could not believe that many Westerners believed in God. It was simply unfathomable to them, coming from a nation of nearly 1.5 billion agnostics. It was really interesting to see another side of the coin, one on which a strictly materialist outlook was expected and religious views were abnormal, fantastic, maybe even a little silly.
I learned a couple of other things about religion while I was in China. The first was that there are actually some Chinese Jews—one famous group is the Kaifeng Jews, who were supposedly one of the wandering tribes of Israel, and were prominently mentioned in the writings of Marco Polo in the 13th century and the Jesuit missionaries of the 17th century. More recently, Chinese authorities saved nearly 20,000 European Jews from the Holocaust by letting them immigrate to Shanghai. For their part, the Jews of Shanghai helped the Chinese resist the Japanese on the Sino-Japanese front in World War II. This diaspora of Jews brought a colorful cast of characters to China, including Morris Abraham “Two-Gun” Cohen, an adventurer turned Chinese soldier who would eventually rise to the rank of major-general in the Chinese army, and Israel Epstein, a journalist who would rise to become the editor of China Today before he was imprisoned by Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution.
All in all, I was impressed with China’s level of religious tolerance. When talking about foreign religions, the Chinese I met always tried to speak with respect, curiosity and enthusiasm. Once, a Chinese Christian even grabbed my hand and exclaimed, “We’re all God’s children.”
I could say that after this trip I’ve begun to embrace my Jewish heritage with a new fervor, but that wouldn’t be true. The real lesson I took away from my semester abroad is that no matter how badly I may be struggling in a class, it is good to remember that I have at least one thing in common with Einstein.
