This is Randi Hacker with another Postcard from Asia from the KU Center for East Asian Studies.

For the past 200 years, it’s been difficult to get the answer to questions about kosherness here in Kaifeng. Once home to a thriving community of Persian Jews, Kaifeng’s Jewish population became completely assimilated through intermarriage. And the Synagogue of Purity and Goodness, built in 1163 and the longtime center of Jewish religious life in Kaifeng, was destroyed in a flood. However, certain customs, such as not eating pork that were handed down from generation to generation, connected these descendants of the original Jews with their ancestors. Now there is an awakening interest among 20-somethings such as Yaakov Wang, in returning to the fold. Yaakov, has finished his formal conversion and plans to become a rabbi. Another, Xue Fei or Yonatan, plans to become a certified dentist in Israel. Can’t you just hear his mother? What? Not a doctor?

From the KU Center for East Asian Studies, this is Randi Hacker. Wish you were here.