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June 8, 2012
Jews at the Great Wall
China plays host for a Limmud Conference.
EVA COHEN
Guests from Israel, England and the United States joined Jews from several far-flung Asian communities last weekend at the Great Wall of China for the first Limmud Conference in Asia. Presenters and participants representing strong but small Jewish communities in China, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Singapore and the Philippines, came to Beijing for the daylong conference, which discussed a wide range of issues and topics.
Limmud was established 30 years ago in the United Kingdom as a volunteer-led learning organization. One of the organization’s founders, Clive Lawton, joined the nearly 90 eager Limmudniks who gathered a couple of hours east of Beijing to participate in the organization’s first foray into Asia.
A core group of volunteers had been at the Great Wall resort since the Friday night, bonding and attending seminars to discuss the forging of relationships between Jewish communities across Asia. The goal of the conference was to take the excitement and energy from this meeting and, from it, create a permanent Limmud presence in Asia with future Shabbatons and conferences.
The scenery at the Great Wall provided a majestic backdrop for the weekend of learning and planning. The birds chirped and the mountains loomed above the stone courtyards. Nearby, a Chinese man sang traditional tunes. It was a surprisingly perfect setting to unwind from the bustle of city life and soak up some Jewish learning.
“You have no idea how excited I am that this is happening,” said Jonathan Dworkin. The head Limmud organizer in Beijing, the conference at the Great Wall is the fruit of months of work to bring the day of learning to East Asia. Dworkin also helps organize Beijing’s Kehillat, home of the liberal Jewish community in the city, and he is also a resident of Beijing’s Moishe House, running events for the city’s young adults.
“We have nearly 100 people here from all these different communities, and it’s such a great opportunity for everyone to share and to build a network across the region,” he said, reflecting the conference buzz.
Sporadic showers began to fall as the buses bringing the presenters and participants pulled up on Sunday morning, but the scenery was beautiful across the misty landscape and the spirits were high for organizers, presenters and participants alike. There were three sets of seminars throughout the day, with choices in each time slot. The topics ranged in theme and content and included a presentation by Prof. Xu Xin, who traveled up from Nanjing from his post as director of the Glazer Institute for Jewish Studies to give a talk on Why Chinese are Interested in the Jews and Their Culture (for a story on Xin, see “Jewish studies in China,” in the May 27, 2011, issue of the Jewish Independent).
Reflecting the diversity of Limmud events, there was a drama workshop run by a Jewish theatre teacher from Shanghai, a talk on The History of the B’nei
Israel Jews of India by Dr. Nathan Aston, who serves as chairman of the Advisory Council of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), which sent several representatives to the conference. Other topics included the Future of East Asia for Jewish Communities, 20 Years of Israel-China Relations: A Media Perspective, Global Jewish Responsibility in Responding to Disasters, Jewish Dreams, and Charoset Around the World, among others.
Judy Amit, global director of the JDC’s International Development Program, said she was thrilled to be in China for the event, and highlighted how meaningful it is for the JDC to return to China, where the organization was active between the world wars, helping Jewish refugees to settle after the upheavals in Europe, particularly after the Russian Revolution. The conference’s location on the Great Wall is not far from the coastal city of Tianjin, where many Russian Jews were settled. Today, the community’s synagogue still stands, although the structure is now used to house a restaurant.
It is estimated that there are about 2,000 Jews living in Beijing, but Kehillat has contact only with about 500 affiliated Jews and, although Chabad also has a regular group who attend services and events, the overall involvement rate is relatively low.
Hong Kong has the largest Asian Jewish community outside of India, with about 7,000 Jews and a diverse representation of religious affiliations, while the estimate for Singapore is 1,000, the same as Japan (with 250 in Tokyo), and the Jewish community in the Philippines is quite small, likely just a few hundred.
Across Asia, Jewish students come from all over the world for a semester, English teachers might come for a year, businesspeople hop back and forth and others come on short-term contracts, typically spanning no more than two or three years. Most Jewish families are not living in Asia permanently, said Kehillat president Joshua Kurtzig, speaking on a panel with representatives from the Asian communities present at the conference. These communities do not have the same housing and welfare needs as there are in long-established and permanent communities elsewhere in the world, Kurtzig stressed.
“Our biggest problem is resources,” he noted. “People come out to programming, but, right now, we don’t have the people needed to put on the programming which would draw more who would be active.”
At the same time, each of the communities is unique. Ora Bronner described the community in Manila, Philippines, as “vibrant, and attracting a different sort of people than the Israelis and New Yorkers who might go to the larger cities like Hong Kong.”
Philip Rosenfeld from Japan, who became a representative for the JDC when the tsunami hit the country a year and a half ago, said he feels his community is “very self-sufficient,” yet those queried said they felt that each community would be stronger from sharing resources with their neighboring Jews.
It was clear that the enthusiasm at Limmud at the Great Wall was contagious, and organizers have already talked about the next Asian Limmud, which is expected to take place around Chanukah, or in early 2013.
“It will be even bigger and better,” Dworkin said with his arms in the air and a smile on his face. “Presenters want to come to Asia to be a part of this from all over the world, and we look forward to you being a part of it.”
Eva Cohen is a freelance writer. More of her work can be found at evacohenmedia.com.
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