Facsimiles of the Hebrew Manuscripts Obtained at the Jewish Synagogue in K’ae-Fung-Foo.

Highly unusual wood-blocks on rice paper of sections from a most distinctive Torah Scroll. Four representative sections of the Pentateuch (Exodus 1:1-6:1, 38:21-40:38, Leviticus 19-20, Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17) copied by a scribe from Torah scrolls purchased from the Jewish community of Kaifeng in 1850-1. Colophons are also reproduced, naming Rabbi Akiva bar Aharon and Rabbi Pinchas HaMelamed as patrons who commissioned two of the scrolls in fulfilment of a vow. This most exotic Jewish Community dates from the High Middle Ages, when the Song dynasty ruled China from Kaifeng - probably the world's largest city in the 11th century. Whether the Torah Scrolls are medieval too, is less certain. One recent study (Xun Zhou, in Kalmar & Penslar) argues that they were a "hoax," rustled up for sale to eager missionaries. For more on Kaifeng, see: Diaspora Museum Catalogue, The Jews of Kaifeng (1984); Xu Xin, The Jews of Kaifeng, China (2003); I. Kalmar & D. Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews (2004); A. Erlich, Jewish-Chinese Nexus (2008)