ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book is concerned with Judaism in traditional China, focusing on Kaifeng. It tracks the Jewish traces in modern China; while this will take Shanghai as its representative example, other cities, like Harbin, Tianjin, etc., as well as individual questions concerning Jewish emigration to China in the 19th and 20th centuries will be addressed. The chapter bears the title "China and the 'Jewish Paradox'," which will point to the manifold consequences and deeper concurrences of the intercultural encounter(s) between Judaism and the Chinese, as well as the Christian (Western) world. It opens with a contribution of Herbert Franke who sketches the advent of Judaism in China, the evidence of its existence in Chinese sources and the phases of research on the most prominent and long-lasting of these settlements, the Jewish community of Kaifeng.
