While the Jewish community in the ancient Chinese capital of Kaifeng dates to the 12th century, there are at present only about 100 Jews remaining who still practice the religion, and perhaps ten-times as many who claim Jewish ancestry. In recent years, a government crackdown on non-official religions—which has exacted such a terrible toll on Christians and Muslims—has driven the Jewish community underground. Aaron Reich reports:

“Every time we celebrate, we are scared,” a Kaifeng Jew identified only by the alias of Amir, due to fears of retaliation, told [a reporter], adding that they work to ensure Chinese authorities never catch wind of their activities. While much attention has been focused on China’s crackdowns on other religious groups, including the five faiths recognized by the Communist party—Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Buddhism, Daoism, and Islam—Judaism is not recognized despite its long history within the country.

Already, the Chinese leadership has worked to erase much of [Kaifeng Jewry’s long history. . . . This includes not only the removal of museum exhibits regarding the community’s history, but also razing any physical trace of the community. . . . They have also removed the few signs in Hebrew that could once be found in the city, and the spot where the few practicing Jews once gathered to pray has now been covered with Chinese propaganda, a security camera, and reminders that Judaism is an illegal, unrecognized religion in the country.

Jews are so terrified they even fear meeting together in public. Instead, they do so in secret, making sure on the holidays to find funds for kosher food and wine. Lacking access to Hebrew Bibles, they use Christian Bibles and simply disregard the New Testament.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.