[caption id="attachment_7884" align="alignleft" width="257"] Jin Jin / Yecholiya[/caption] She started life with the name “Jin Jin.” Today she goes by “Yecholiya” – Hebrew for “G-d is able.” And that has certainly been the case for this brave young woman, one of just a few Chinese Jews...
Since I was a young girl my mother and grandfather constantly reminded me of my Jewish identity. They told me that one day we would be able to return to the Land of Israel, the land G-d gave to us. However, I had little knowledge...
From Jin Jin to Yecholiya, has been a long and arduous process. It is something that I, as well as all Kaifeng Jews, have been dreaming of. When I was a little girl my father told me that I am a Jew, and that one...
When I came to Israel in 2006, with the help of Shavei Israel, and went through the conversion program at Bat Ayin, it was the first time I was touched by Judaism. When I was a kid, growing up in Kaifeng, my father and grandmother...
When Yaakov Wang joined friends for dinner growing up in Kaifeng, China, he was the only one who did not order pork - a big deal in a country where that particular non-kosher dish is a cultural and culinary norm. But for Wang, a member of Kaifeng's small Jewish community, it was one of the only ways he knew to express his Jewish heritage. Jews have lived in Kaifeng, once one of the capitals of Imperial China, for over a thousand years, arriving originally as merchants from Persia or Iraq plying their trade along the fabled Silk Route. The community numbered as many as 5,000 at its peak in the Middle Ages, but has since dwindled to just several hundred descendants. The last synagogue closed 150 years ago. Today, the Jews of Kaifeng know relatively little about their heritage – but they continue to nourish the dream of returning to the land of their ancestors and immigrating to Israel. Wang was one of the lucky ones. With the help of Shavei Israel, he has been studying in Hebrew, along with six other young men from Kaifeng, at Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in Israel's Jordan Valley. 
