Yang-Chou

YANG-CHOU (formerly Wei-yang), city in Kiangsu province, China. It had connections with the Jewish community of *Kaifeng. A few scattered references to Jewish and Chinese individuals from Yang-chou are found in the Chinese stele inscriptions of the Kaifeng Jews, dating from 1489 and 1512, and several Chinese officials from Yang-chou helped in the preparation of these inscriptions. A member of the Kaifeng Chin family had his home in Yang-chou, but he donated "a copy of the Scriptures of the Way [Tao], and set up the second gateway" in the Kaifeng synagogue. The oral tradition of the existence of a sizeable community and even of a synagogue in Yang-chou cannot be corroborated.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.