Reporting from Jerusalem and Beijing— As a child growing up in Kaifeng in central China, Jin Jin was constantly reminded of her unusual heritage.

“We weren’t supposed to eat pork, our graves were different from other people, and we had a mezuza on our door,” said the 25-year-old, referring to the prayer scroll affixed to doorways of Jewish homes.

Her father told her of a faraway land called Israel that he said was her rightful home, she recalls. But “we didn’t know anything about daily prayers or the weekly reading of the Torah.”

Jin has since fulfilled her father’s dream. On a hot summer day in Jerusalem, where she works as a tour guide for Chinese citizens visiting Israel, Jin, who now goes by the Hebrew name Yecholya, wore a long khaki skirt, indicative of her conservative religious views, and Teva-like sandals, the national footwear of Israel.

Jin and her relatives belong to a community of Chinese Jews that was established in the 9th century by Persian traders who traveled along the Silk Road to Kaifeng, at the time China’s capital.

Records documenting the group’s history are spotty, but experts do know that some of the Jewish traders settled in Kaifeng and eventually built a synagogue with official recognition from the emperor. After the last rabbi in Kaifeng died in 1809, many began to forsake their religious practices while holding on to certain traditions, like the prohibition against pork and the celebration of a communal meal on Passover.

Then in 2005, Shavei Israel arrived. The privately funded conservative religious organization, based in Jerusalem, specifically targets descendants of Jews who have lost their connection to the religion, such as those forced to convert to Catholicism during the Inquisition in Spain.

“Chinese have a strong reverence for ancestry,” said Michael Freund, founder and chairman of Shavei Israel. “Even though they don’t know how to read the Torah, they know they’re Jewish.”

So far the organization has helped 14 Jews, out of an estimated 3,000 who live in Kaifeng, move to Israel. But Freund complained that Israel’s bureaucratic and religious red tape has prevented Shavei Israel from bringing over more of these Chinese Jews.

Because the community intermarried and based Jewishness on patrilineal heritage rather than matrilineal, the norm in Judaism, Kaifeng Jews who want to move to Israel need to undergo Orthodox conversions under Israeli law.

The process takes a year or more of study at an Orthodox yeshiva, and requires a final examination before a rabbinical court.

Jin was brought to Israel with three others from her hometown by Shavei Israel specifically to begin the conversion process. Once converted, she was eligible to remain in Israel under the country’s Law of Return. The statute allows Jews to claim citizenship, which she did along with her three Chinese classmates. Jin’s father remains in China, although she said he hopes to join her soon.

At first, Jin and others were indignant about the need to formally convert to Judaism.

“According to me and my family, we were always Jewish,” she said. “I was confused why we needed to go through the conversion process.”

But after she started studying in Jerusalem, Jin said, she realized how little she knew of Jewish traditions and rules.

Jin eventually became such an expert in prayers before meals, Freund said, that she stumped him at a dinner with other Jews from Kaifeng at a kosher sushi restaurant, where they discussed which prayer should be uttered first: the one for the rice or for the fish.

“This is something that I, or most Jews for that matter, would never have given a second thought,” Freund said. “It shows how much they can add to Judaism.”

The first family of Kaifeng Jews to immigrate to Israel was almost sent back to China. Shlomo and Deena Jin (no relation to Yecholya Jin) had overstayed their tourist visas in 2005. As they faced deportation, Shavei Israel worked with authorities to allow them to stay after going through the conversion process. Shlomo, at the time in his late 40s, endured a circumcision to complete the conversion.

More recent arrivals have been in their early 20s and most have felt more at home in Israel than in Kaifeng.

Wang Yage said he stood out his whole life. His house was filled with Hebrew books, a language no one in his family understood, and even his name was different: It’s the transliterated version of Jacob, a biblical name.

After studying one year at Henan University in Kaifeng, the 25-year-old jumped at the opportunity to move to Israel. He hasn’t looked back.

“I feel Israel is my home and I’m more comfortable here,” said Wang, who now refers to himself as Yaakov. “Israelis help you out when you need it; it’s like belonging to a big family.”

After his conversion, Wang plans to become a rabbi to help Kaifeng Jews immigrate to Israel. If he succeeds, he will be the first Chinese rabbi in almost 200 years.

Despite this progress, bureaucracy in Israel and China may prevent larger-scale immigration. According to Shavei Israel, the Israeli Ministry of the Interior has been reluctant to give visas to a group not officially considered Jewish by Israel’s chief rabbinate.

Meanwhile, because Jews are not among China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups and Judaism is not one of the five officially recognized religions, the Chinese government is suspicious of the Kaifeng community’s efforts to organize.

“The government is still worried about religion and its negative effects,” said Xu Xin, director of the Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University. “They worry it will affect stability and encourage fundamentalism.”

Ultimately, the government sees organized religion as a challenge to its power and state-sponsored atheism.

Along with a newfound freedom of religion, the 14 Kaifeng Jews are looking forward to stretching their political wings.

“The first time I went to vote, it was raining hard and three of us went together,” Jin recalled. “I was so proud. For everyone else there it was just another election, but for us, it was the beginning of a new life.”

Haas is a news assistant in The Times’ Beijing bureau.

Originally published here.

Wall Street Journal

KAIFENG, China—Zhang Xinwang, a moon-faced Chinese man with a spiky beard, calls himself “Moishe.”

“So do you think I look Jewish?” he asks.

For much of the past millennium, Jews in Kaifeng— descendants of merchants who arrived here from Persia, probably around the 11th century—have been struggling with an existential question: What does it mean to be Jewish?

Zhang Xinwang calls himself “Moishe.”

The handful of Kaifengers who go to Israel are sometimes floored to discover they need to go through a rabbi-certified conversion to be accepted as Jews, while the ones staying home squabble over which of them are really Jewish.

The question has surprising consequences in this dusty walled city in central China. According to the Chinese government, there are no Kaifeng Jews because there are no Chinese Jews. Judaism isn’t one of China’s five official religions and Jews aren’t designated as one of the country’s 55 official minorities. Orthodox Jews have a similar view, though for different reasons. Kaifeng Jews trace their heritage through their father, as Chinese traditionally do, while orthodox Jews define Judaism as passing through the mother.

“They may stem from Jewish ancestry, but they aren’t Jewish,” says Rabbi Shimon Freundlich, who runs the orthodox Chabad House in Beijing. “There hasn’t been a Jewish community in Kaifeng in 400 years.”

Except there is one, though it’s divided and diminished. Somewhere between 500 and 1,000 people in the city say they are descendants of Kaifeng Jews and cling to at least some Jewish traditions. A canvas poster at No. 21 Teaching the Torah Lane announces the street as the site of a synagogue that was destroyed in an 1860 flood and never rebuilt. Inside a tiny courtyard house, “Esther” Guo Yan works as a tour guide and sells knick-knacks decorated with Jewish stars.

Kaifeng’s last synagogue, destroyed in an 1860 flood, stood at “Teaching the Torah Lane,” now an alley of courtyard houses.

When tourists stop by, she quizzes them on Jewish ceremonies, like what prayers to say when lighting Sabbath candles. She says she hasn’t yet managed to fast a full day on Yom Kippur, though she is trying. As the granddaughter of a Kaifeng Jew, she says the orthodox standard on Judaism is unfair: “We read the Torah with Eastern thoughts; deal with it.”

The first Jewish merchants arrived when Kaifeng was in its heyday as the Song dynasty capital. They married the local women and rose to become mandarins and military officials. Over the centuries they blended in ethnically and were forgotten by the world until 1605, when a Jewish scholar from Kaifeng, Ai Tien, met Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci in Beijing. The missionary then spread the news that Jews had been living in China for centuries.

The Kaifeng Jewish population is thought to have peaked at around 5,000, but by the early 1900s, none could read Hebrew and the community’s Torah scrolls were sold to collectors. Jews were called “the Muslims with the blue caps,” referring to the color of the yarmulkes some still wore.

“In our family, we didn’t eat pork, that’s for sure,” says Nina Wang, a 24-year-old Kaifeng native who now lives in Israel and underwent orthodox Jewish conversion. The family had menorahs and Sabbath cups, she said, “but we didn’t know what to do with those things.”

When thousands of European Jews settled in Shanghai in the 1930s and 1940s to escape the Holocaust, a few Kaifengers went there to study. But the Shanghai Jews were focused on aiding those persecuted in Europe.

After the Communists took over in 1949, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping fretted that Kaifeng Jews might be subversive. In a 1953 document, they wrote that the “Kaifeng Jewish community is disclosing secrets to the overseas communities and causing trouble.”

Even so, Kaifeng Jews say they weren’t singled out for discrimination. Ms. Guo says that her friends used to tease her, saying she must be smart and good at making money—common Chinese stereotypes of Jews— but she didn’t feel threatened.

As China opened again to foreigners in the 1980s, Jewish tourists, Christian missionaries and foreign academics made their way to Kaifeng, each doling out different advice. Xu Xin, a non-Jewish professor of Jewish studies at Nanjing University, said some Kaifengers turned to him as a kind of rabbi to ask whether or not they were Jewish. He demurred.

These days, many in Kaifeng turn to Timothy Lerner, who calls himself a “messianic Jew”—meaning he was born Jewish but believes in Christ as the Messiah—to learn Hebrew and Jewish customs. Mr. Lerner acknowledges that his visa was revoked by the Chinese government in 2006 for evangelizing, but says he doesn’t try to convince anyone to follow his religious beliefs. He says he set up the “Kaifeng Israel School” to help Kaifeng Jews “learn the Jewish lifestyle” and move to Israel, where about a dozen of them have taken up residence, thanks largely to funds from Shavei Israel, an Israeli group.

Others in the Jewish community are suspicious. Shi Lei, one of the first Kaifeng Jews to study in Israel, blames Mr. Lerner for “creating factions” in the tiny community with his school, though Mr. Lerner says Mr. Shi misunderstands his efforts.

Today, Kaifeng Jews tread with caution given China’s ban on unauthorized religious activity. The Jewish descendants say they rarely meet in groups of 10—the number required by Jewish law for a religious service—for fear the government might consider that a political gathering. They make DVDs of themselves wearing traditional Chinese garb while they light Sabbath candles, to portray the act as a folk custom.

Passover is celebrated as a restaurant meal, not as a religious gathering, though some pass out matzos sent from Hong Kong.

As for Jewish tourist sites, there isn’t much to see. Several stone tablets from different Kaifeng synagogues are stored in an unmarked, padlocked room in the Kaifeng Municipal Museum.

Some of the city’s notables (none of whom are Jewish) are looking to boost tourism by rebuilding the Kaifeng synagogue, but as a museum so as not to inflame the Chinese government. “You could have tourists stay a night with local Jewish descendants to see what their lives are like,” says Su Linzhong, a management professor at Kaifeng University. “They are so emotional about their grandparents.”

—Yang Jie contributed to this article.

Write to Bob Davis at bob.davis@wsj.com

Originally published here.

Jewish Daily Forward

By Ruth Abusch-Magder

Homemade inari sushi, mandle bread, rice balls, spicy edamame, hamantaschen, and rice crispy treats. If there was anything incongruous about the offerings at the recent bake sales for Japan earthquake relief at Brandeis Hillel Day School, a pluralistic Jewish day school in San Francisco, no one seemed to notice. The mix of Jewish, Japanese and American treats spoke directly to the palates of this unique modern Jewish community.

Though bake sales are “not a tradition” in her native Japan, parent Yumi Murase Berman, has learned about them since immigrating to the United States. Reacting to the recent tragedies in Japan, she reached out to other Japanese-American-Jewish families to host two fundraising bake sales. The menu they created for the bake sale was an extension of the multi-faceted identities that exist for many of these multi-ethnic families and the foods they eat.

American Jews have had a long romance with Chinese food. But the food of this school (which serves both falafel and sushi in its lunch program) and community represents more than culinary tourism or attempts of trying the cuisine of the moment. This mixing of cuisines could be credited to the American tradition of adopting and blending foods of immigrants into a culinary melting pot. But it is equally a natural extension of the Jewish culinary tradition of adapting and integrating local foodstuffs and recipes into the Jewish diet. These blending cuisines and food traditions are part of the ongoing negotiation of Jewish identity and community that we see mediated through food. In this case, it comes not from outside influences but from within the growing Jewish community’s internal Jewish culinary negotiations.

From where we sit today it would seem absurd to challenge the authenticity of “Jewish” foods, such as bagels or gefilte fish. Yet writing in 1949, in the introduction of the classic, “Jewish Cookery”, Leah Leonard noted with some horror that the first American-Jewish cookbook included “not one [recipe] for gefilte fish!” Because in 1871 when Esther Levy collected those first recipes in “Jewish Cookery Book”, gefilte fish and for that matter bagels would have been more foreign at a Jewish function in the United States than sushi would be today.

Our collective understanding of what constitutes Jewish food has always shifted with our experience of community and culture. The origins of gefilte fish’s popularity among American Jews are lost to us but watching the ways in which the Jewish second graders at the Brandeis bake sale unanimously approved of Japanese food, one gets a sense of how the new becomes familiar.

There is no questioning the Japanese origins of foods such as sushi, nori, edamame and onigir. But as the Jewish world and community in San Francisco continues to shift and expand, incorporating Japanese-Americans and their food traditions, it is easy to see how Japanese foods can become part of the authentic Jewish culinary legacy too.

Read more here.

AJL definitely considers him one of the best Bene Israel, standup comedians currently living in the San Francisco area.

He is the producer of Comedy Off Broadway Oakland and also launched the Mahatma Moses Comedy Tour. Did you hear the one about an Indian, a Jew and an Indian Jew who walk onto stage?

He promises that some of this interview will make its way into his act.

Read AJL’s Q&A with Koletkar here.

By Michael Gerson Washington Post
Friday, August 27, 2010

Scott Simon — the sonorous voice of NPR’s “Weekend Edition” — has written a short, tender book about the two most important people in the world. At least to him. “Baby, We Were Meant for Each Other” recounts the arrival of his two daughters, Elise and Lina, from China, while telling the stories of other families changed by adoption.

Simon describes himself as skeptical of transcendence but as taking part in a miracle. “My wife and I,” he says, “knew that Elise and Lina were our babies from the moment we received their postage-stamp portraits. Logically, I know that’s not possible. But I also know that’s how my heart, mind and body . . . reacted to their pictures. . . . I would take the photo out of my wallet in the weeks before we left to get each of our girls and hold it against my lips to whisper, ‘We’re coming, baby.’ ”

It is an unexpected form of human affection — meeting an unrelated stranger and, within moments, being willing to care for her, even to die for her. The relationship results from a broken bond but creates ties as strong as genetics, stronger than race or tribe. It is a particularly generous kind of parental love that embraces a life one did not give.

International adoption has its critics, who allege a kind of imperialism that robs children of their identity. Simon responds, “We have adopted real, modern little girls, not mere vessels of a culture.” Ethnicity is an abstraction — often an admirable abstraction, but not comparable to the needs of a child living in an orphanage or begging in roving bands. Adopted Chinese girls are refugees from a terrible oppression — a one-child policy that Simon calls “one of the great crimes of history.” Every culture or race is outweighed when the life of a child is placed on the other side of the balance.

It is one of the noblest things about America that we care for children of other lands who have been cast aside. Simon recalls his encounter with an immigration officer in Chicago when bringing Elise to America: ” ‘When you cross that line,’ he said, ‘your little girl is a citizen of the United States.’ Then he put one of his huge hands gently under our daughter’s chin and smiled. ‘Welcome home, sweetheart,’ he told her.” This welcome to the world is one of the great achievements of history. After millennia of racial and ethnic conflict across the world, resulting in rivers of blood, America declared that bloodlines don’t matter, that dignity is found beneath every human disguise. There is no greater embrace of this principle than an American family that looks like the world.

Instead of undermining any culture, international adoption instructs our own. Unlike the thin, quarrelsome multiculturalism of the campus, multiethnic families demonstrate the power of affection over difference. They tend to produce people who may look different from the norm of their community but see themselves as just normal, just human.

Every adoption involves a strange providence, in which events and choices are random yet decisive. “Those of us who have been adopted,” says Simon, “or have adopted or want to adopt children, must believe in a world in which the tumblers of the universe can click in unfathomable ways that deliver strangers into our lives.”

When a columnist has a conflict of interest, he should disclose it. My wife, born in South Korea, was adopted by an American family at the age of 6 and welcomed into a Midwestern community. I first saw her when we were both 10, and I have never recovered. Years ago, we visited the orphanage where she lived in Inchon — orderly, cheerful, but still with dirt floors. The director said she remembered my wife. We were skeptical. But the woman went into a storage room and produced a slip of paper — the police record relating how On Soon had been found as a newborn abandoned in the market, a note with her name pinned to her blanket.

Life is a procession of miracles, but this one stands out to me. A 6-year-old girl walks off a plane in America, speaking no English, loved by a family she had never met, destined to marry, of all people, me. A series of events that began in a Korean market created my family, my sons, my life. And now my Italian, Jewish, English, Korean boys view themselves as normal, unexceptional Americans. Which they are.

michaelgerson@washpost.com

Originally published here.

On Katz’ Past:

When I asked him to give me a summary of himself, he easily joked that it sounds like an online profile. He even opened the summary with the his astrological sign (Aries) and the fact that he likes walks on the beach. He’s played piano since he was four, guitar since he was 13, and has been playing the jiuta-shamisen for the past 7 years. Danny quickly added, “I used to play the violin and viola too, but kinda sucked at em!”

Katz, 33, explained how he doesn’t recall ever declaring he wanted to be a singer, “and if I did, I probably forgot that decision about 5 second after I made it.” According to Danny’s oracle, though, it just sort of happened a long time ago. In fact, Danny could not remember a time when he saw himself as anything but a musician, at least in one form or another. Danny had enjoyed performing from a young age (from recitals to school plays) but it wasn’t until high school that he started stepping out of his “super-shy shell” to perform his own songs in public, telling people he was doing it to get the girls. “Ha! More like their brothers,” Danny quipped. Speaking of family, Danny’s parents have been there for him from the start. In the beginning, they went to all of his shows in coffee shops and bookstores. Since Danny doesn’t perform at either of their places in the suburbs anymore, his parents can’t make all of the shows. None the less, Danny thinks his parents have been supportive enough by not pestering him with fairly reasonable questions about his job choice. They have also helped partially fund all his previous albums. “You can’t ask for better encouragement than that!!” He also stated that they didn’t evict him when he chose to move back home in his late 20s so he could focus 100% on his music.

When I asked him about professional training he recalled his 4 weeks with one of the more well-liked voice teachers while in college. “I found him to be a bit of a pompous a** and I just wasn’t interested in studying further with him.” That’s not to say that Katz refuses proper singing lessons when his schedule gives him the time. “I’m usually good with the high notes but once I hit the low notes I sound like I could use a good T-Pain autotune session.”

Songwriting for Danny came naturally during his time in junior high school. His influences at the time were the B-52’s, Erasure and Genesis, followed shortly by R.E.M. and Billy Joel. But just because the idea of being a musician came easily to him, Danny asserted that pursuing music as a solidified career option was in many ways a post September 11 decision. “I mean—I had been performing for years at that point and had several albums under my belt already, but I was also seriously considering putting music on the back-burner to go do something respectably painful and responsible like law school.” The tragic events of 9/11 changed things by showing the musician how short one’s life can possibly be and, “and that doing something creative and true to myself was essential for my sense of fulfillment and happiness.”  Katz added, probably with a smirk while typing, “If I can’t match my socks in the morning how good a lawyer could I possibly be? Flirting with the judge will not a good trial make.”

Given that he’s satisfied with his life, Danny would not change anything if ever given the chance to go back in time. That’s not to say that he would not mind telling his younger version to hurry and join Hairclub for Men. He typed, “I was in denial that I was losing my hair forevah!” Musically speaking, he’d tell his 23-year-old self to have more confidence in himself and his music. He also wants to tell himself to relax and enjoy the process of music making and performing, but to not get so caught up with the business side of things. Another thing he’d ask himself to do is to avoid the clunkier forays into political songwriting or the attempts at channeling his undergrad major of Queer Theory. “Listening back now, some of those songs make me wanna roll my eyes, although the intentions when writing them were, well… I mean well.” He finished off by reassuring me that the desire to be a Japanese/Jewish gay male Ani Difranco only suited him for the first half of his 20s.

On his new album and moving to Japan:

Currently, Danny just wrapped up his 7^th studio album, “Japanese Satellites.” (Available on and Amazon.) Though his musical tolerance ranges from classical to hip-hop, Danny chooses to stick to 80s flavored folk-pop songs when it comes to writing his own music. He describes “Japanese Satellites” as a “mix-90s U2, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, and The Shins.” He then says that the album will “make your ears sparkle and your hair shine with delight. You cannot resist.”

80s flavored folk pop bliss. That was Danny’s reply when I told him to describe his new album in 5 words. The album was mean as a personal thought on the potentially fleeting nature of New York City relationships: “How the pace and culture of the city can create and destroy the most amazing and intense bonds between lovers, friends, one night stands and everyone figuratively (or literally?!) in between.” Just as his 2006 album “Strangely Beautiful” was about his experiences in his 20s, this new album is about his life in his 30s. Danny traveled quite a bit while these songs were written and any time he was in a new city he would wonder if relationships were easier then than in New York, “and also what makes people come to New York, what makes them leave, etc.” Going into the studio to work meant he would be leaving NYC. Tokyo was a possible location to call home, or at least a place where he could go to figure out what he really wanted from New York when he returns. “Hence the distanced observation of a ‘Japanese Satellite.’” He also divulged that it made for some very cute CD artwork by Joe Wu.

While Danny is very attached to all of his songs (“They’re my BABIES!”), his favorite would have to be “Taipei.” The lyrics  about ‘a crushed out high school girl’ apparently summarizes Danny Katz in a nutshell. Danny admitted to always having a hard time when recording songs: “I always ‘freeze up’ in the studio—it’s like when I see the red record button come on suddenly I start making all sorts of whacky mistakes…” Emotionally, though, “Modesto” was the hardest to record as the break-up that the song talks about came back to mind each time Danny performed it and the lyrics are so specific. “I couldn’t distance myself from the subject matter. At all. And in the studio you’ve gotta do take after take after take.” But Danny also found the recording session a little liberating. He was able to acknowledge how his ex and him both grew immeasurably during their time together and how sometimes a song can allow you to come to closure, “to incorporate the experience into your life fabric and move on.”

He came to Japan with numerous goals ranging from taking a break from NYC/America and learning to understand both environments more to leaving behind both comfort and heartache. He always intends to improve his Japanese for music and other career options, better his understanding of Japan from a worker’s perspective (instead of his past experiences as an exchange student and a vacationee), gain a more global understanding of the world, and to take a stab at the Japanese music industry. Since he’s only lived in Japan for 7 months, he still sees achieving those goals as a continual work in progress.

One moment he considers memorable is when he met his new and “very cute” co-worker. “He goes to bow; I go to shake his hand. Much confusion ensues and I almost accidentally smack him in the crotch.” He jokes, “I am THAT coordinated. And that culturally insensitive, apparently.” Japan has also taught Katz that he can be as out as he wants about his sexuality and they’ll still ask him if he’s found a girlfriend, which confuses Danny to no end.

When Danny was asked to compare the two musical epicenters of his life, New York and Tokyo,  he found it hard to answer. “…Both cities are quite different from each other and because I find musical talent relative.”  Though his songwriting hasn’t changed since moving, Danny does hope to incorporate some Japanese instruments into his recordings again. (He feature a jiuta-shamisen on a previous album, but decided to not use it on “Japanese Satellites.”)

On Music:

Insofar, musicians of different genres have inspired Danny. For earnestness, being out and proud, and having excellent melodic sense – Erasure. For songwriting and musical chops – Billy Joel and Paul Simon. For political savvy and confrontational wit – Ani Difranco. Other inspirations consist of Spitz, Lady Gaga, Missy Elliott, and of course The Beatles. But day-to-day inspiration comes from Danny’s indie singer/songwriter buddies. While practicing solo usually leads Danny to not focus on practicing, “band practices are always fun and since most of my musician buddies have shorter attention spans than I do, it forces me to focus on everyone…”

With lyrics such as ‘Lost in translation, I am nothing without you…’ I asked Danny if he was ever without music, would he consider himself “lost in translation.” He replied with a definite “absolutely.” He explains how a common language wasn’t always spoken, especially collaborating with foreign musicians. “It amazed me how we were all able to communicate through music. Though come to think of it, alcohol helped quite a bit…”

In the present day music world, originality is key. Danny feels he’s at a slight advantage with his life experiences—being gay, half Japanese, half Jewish, in his 30s and living in Tokyo—and it feeds into his understanding of how this business (and life) works. But other than that Danny is struggling to get recognized as much as anyone else. He constantly attempts to balance the “desire to create something unique with the desire to be heard and successful.” He believes he is a bit more balanced, humanistic, ethical, and giving than some other musicians, but concedes that may all be relative.

He tries to stick to some advice he was given which revolves around staying true to oneself without ignoring the fact that it’s a business as well. While he tries not to sell out, Katz knows that he has to listen for what the general public wants to hear. He also knows that he should appreciate his fans because he understands that without them this wouldn’t be possible. The best advice that Danny has gotten, though, would have to be, “if you’re not enjoying it, why do it?” Trite as it may be, Danny believes there’s a lot of truth to that one statement.

His message to fans was short and to the point: “Do it – there’s nothing better than creating and sharing with folks.” He also suggested you have thick skin if you want to enter the business. He informed me that the business can be brutal and “sometimes what you’ve created with blood, sweat and tears will fall on deaf ears.” But whether or not your music gets picked up by the higher ups, Danny said that nothing is more amazing than being able to connect with a fan and to know your music is making a difference in someone’s life.

Other facts:

If ever you catch Danny as a karaoke, he would probably be singing some American and British 80’s pop and mid 90’s Japanese pop. “And I have to admit, I can’t pass up a good sing-along to ‘Don’t Stop Believing,’ ‘Take On Me,’ ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine,’ and ‘Living on a Prayer.’” He also prides himself in doing Young MC’s “Bust a Move” better than any other folksinger in the history of “folksingerness.”

While he thought about taking on a more conventional job way back when, Danny is sticking to music for as long as possible. He may take a break from time to time, but never permanently giving it up.  In five years, he sees himself definitely making music. The idea of geographically where, however, is still up in the air. He wrote, “Maybe living with some amazing sugar-daddy on a California vista? Maybe being a geisha. Maybe becoming kosher. Stranger things have happened.”

Originally published here.

The Jewish Chronicle Online

Erica Lyons runs Asia’s brand-new Jewish magazine, Asian Jewish Life, from a small office in central Hong Kong. It is the region’s “Jewish cultural headquarters”, she jokes with her office mate, a journalist who presides over Hong Kong’s Jewish Film Festival.

But while they may poke fun at their fledgling project, the magazine’s launch this January is a symptom of real change in Asian Jewry. Whereas far-flung communities in places like India and China are often regarded as exotic relics of the past, Jewish life in the region is undergoing a renaissance.

The American Jewish Yearbook shows that there was a total of about 1,000 Jews in Hong Kong and China in the mid 1990s, and another 1,000 in Japan. Today, there are perhaps 5,000 in Hong Kong alone, with another 2,000 in Shanghai.

Like the Baghdadi Jews who fanned out across Asia and India hundreds of years ago, today’s Jews are lured to the region primarily by business.

“Shanghai and Beijing have a lot more Jews than five or 10 years ago,” said Philip Jay, editor of Jewish Times Asia, an established monthly tabloid.

While the overall growth is hard to quantify, in part because of the transient nature of expatriate lifestyles, communities of between 500-1,500 people exist in Tokyo, Kobe, Singapore and Bangkok.

But Rabbi Anton Laytner, president of the Sino-Judaic Institute, suggests that the best way to track Jewish growth in Asia is to follow Chabad. Three years ago, the Chasidic movement had 18 centres in six countries; now, it operates 26 centres in eight countries, including Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines and South Korea.

“That we’re a diverse community made up of Jews from all over the world is a positive thing, but it makes it difficult to create common ground,” says Ms Lyons, 38, an ex-lawyer from New York who moved to Hong Kong eight years ago as a “trailing spouse”.

The idea for a regional Jewish magazine first came to her in May 2009, after the terrorist attack in Mumbai several months earlier.

“Mumbai made me realise that our tiny pockets of Jewish life are deeply connected to one another. The Holzbergs were no different from young couples in our community,” she says, referring to Mumbai’s Chabad emissaries who perished in the attack. “And so the distance became very small.”

Not that her readership is restricted to Asia. “I got lots of emails from people in mixed marriages in the States. It really touched them,” she says.

According to the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, at least two per cent of American Jews are Asian; there are also many intermarried Jews in Asia, some of whom are raising mixed families. Still, Jews in most Asian cities have few options besides Chabad when High Holy Days roll around.

“Chabad does a service by sending emissaries to Asian cities, but our people probably would be more attracted to more liberal forms of Jewish faith,” says Rabbi Laytner. “The World Union for Progressive Judaism is trying to establish a presence in some communities, but is limited by lack of funds.”

On the upside, despite the Mumbai attacks, there seems to be very little antisemitism in the region. On the contrary, the new Jewish diaspora has sparked in many Asians a fascination with – and admiration for – Jews. Ten Chinese universities have begun offering courses in Judaic studies and most of the experts are Chinese.

“The slate is completely blank,” Ms Lyons says. “There has been little opportunity for contact between Jews and Chinese. The topic has become ‘hot’ because the opportunity is there now.”

Originally published here.

NEW YORK, (Reuters) – For two decades, Aron Aronov has transported embroidered garments, oil portraits of rabbis and other examples of traditional Bukharian Jewish culture from his native Uzbekistan to a small museum in New York.

“Here is all my money, all my life, all my time,” Aronov, 71, said as he unbolted the door to the crowded, three-room Bukharian Jewish Museum, which he said is the only such museum in the world.

It tells the 2,500-year history of the Bukharian Jews of Central Asia, where they lived as a pious, insular ethnic community until leaving the region in droves in the early 1990s after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

They come mostly from Uzbekistan, and were concentrated in the Uzbek city of Bukhara.

“This museum is a desperate attempt to stop time,” said Aronov, gesturing to an elaborate display of a Bukharian yard, including a wooden sofa covered with colorful rugs, cooking pots and an outdoor stove. “I don’t want all this to go.”

Bukharians had lived in relative harmony with their Muslim neighbors, but fled Central Asia as soon as it became possible to leave the Soviet Union, whose secular policies had long frustrated pious Bukharian Jews.

Now, they are struggling to protect an ancient culture they fear could vanish. Unlike some other ethnic communities in Queens, New York City’s most ethnically diverse borough, Bukharians have no real homeland.

Most of the estimated 300,000 Bukharian Jews have settled in Israel but the second-largest concentration of about 50,000 live in the Queens neighborhoods of Rego Park and Forest Hills — earning the area the nickname Queensistan.

Only a few hundred remain in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, local leaders say.

Today, a stretch of Queens Boulevard is dotted with Bukharian synagogues, restaurants and cultural centers. There is also a theater staging plays in Bukhori, a Jewish dialect of Farsi, a newspaper, a cemetery and the museum.

Malika Kalantarova, a Bukharian from Tajikistan, was a celebrated dancer in the Soviet Union and now operates a dance studio in a Queens subway station.

“It’s like a new Bukhara in New York City,” said Itzhak Yehoshua, the head rabbi for Bukharians in America, a reference to the Uzbek city that gave Bukharians their name.

Bukharians attribute their success in keeping their heritage to their strong tendency to marry within the community and stick together. Of the 500 Bukharian weddings registered in 2007, Yehoshua said 400 were among Bukharians, 60 were between Bukharians and other Jews and 40 were between Bukharians and non-Jews.

“By the way, we hate the word melting pot,” Aronov said.

THE MAYOR OF QUEENSISTAN

Aronov, often called the mayor of Queensistan, is leading the effort to collect and preserve cultural artifacts. He travels frequently to Central Asia and has brought back a wooden carriage, traditional jewelry, and dozens of silk robes in brilliant shades of pink, purple and orange.

Billionaire diamond dealer Lev Leviev owns the Queens yeshiva where the museum is housed rent-free. Still, Aronov dreams of opening a more impressive facility.

“Some people come in here and they burst into tears because they recall their lives,” said Aronov. “When we came into this country, we lost our social status in one second.”

Aronov came to New York in 1989 and used to think about returning to Uzbekistan. Some Bukharians here say they plan to move to Israel.

“I don’t think this is our homeland. Israel is,” said Emma Rafailov, 25, as she walked with her husband and two children through the neighborhood. “All of us are getting just a little too comfortable here.”

On Saturdays, the Tandoori Bukharian Bakery fills after sunset as Bukharians end the Sabbath. Musicians play traditional Bukharian instruments; the doyira drum and the rubob, a two-string guitar. Patrons feast on lagman, a spicy noodle soup, cumin-scented rice called plov, grilled meat on skewers with raw onions and crusty bread from a tandoor oven.

On the wall, the restaurant’s Bukharian owner has posted the address placard that once marked his home in Uzbekistan.

At the Vostok bookstore, a group of Bukharian men said while Bukharans are happy here they are fighting assimilation.

“Our history does not die because we have good people taking care of it and we are very close,” said Sam Yakutilov, 37. “What we used to have there, we brought here.”

(Editing by Mark Egan and Cynthia Osterman) (nyc.nuro@reuters.com, ph: +1 646 223 6280)

Originally published here.