ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on a wide variety of source material from the past two centuries to examine the images of the Jew as constructed in China. In the same way in which it is problematic to try to define the term Chinese or Chineseness, it is almost impossible to find a definition for the term Jew or Jewishness. In China, a definition of Jew (or Jewishness) is very complex. The Jew is a symbol for money, deviousness and meanness; the word can also represent poverty, trustworthiness and warmheartedness. The fragmented nature of the Kaifeng community did not prevent the construction of Jew as a racial group amongst some modernizing élites in China at turn of the century. The Christian missionaries in fact first introduced the image of the Jew as seed of Abraham. From the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, travels to the West also provided opportunities for Chinese intellectuals to encounter and appropriate the arguments of anti-Semitic discourse.
