AHC: Wank Chinese Jews as much as possible

You'd need more of them in China -- as a small trade community I just don't think they had the numbers, whereas in Ethiopia they had numbers and in India they had contact with Jews elsewhere.

Maybe a Mongol ruler moves Bukharans -- or even Ashkenazim, given their skill at various middle-class professions -- to China, thereby boosting numbers enough for Jews to stay a cogent, separate people within China...
 
You'd need more of them in China -- as a small trade community I just don't think they had the numbers, whereas in Ethiopia they had numbers and in India they had contact with Jews elsewhere.
Just a correction, by the Ming they were basically the same as any urban Chinese, not a mercantile community. The Jewish community was indeed very small though, which is of course why it no longer exists.

But yes, the problem is the numbers. The Jews had more or less the same conditions as Muslims, except there were enough Muslims inside and outside China for them to remain as a visible and sustainable minority in the long term. Considering that, the Jewish community in China had quite a long life.

Maybe there's some sort of terrible persecution in Central Asia for some reason and they run away to China? The Mongol solution you suggested might also work, but then there's the issue of persecutions after the establishment of a new Han dynasty.
 
That's really difficult. The Chinese already had the features that allowed Jews to succeed in Europe:

- An indigenous mercantile tradition, with a banking system, and no restrictions on lending at interest.
- A culture that emphasizes book learning (that said, this partly comes from Song-era reforms, past your POD).
- A written lingua franca that could be understood by traders in a large portion of the world.
- An urban- rather than rural-focused elite.
 
Top