Showing posts with label Silk Road. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silk Road. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 4, 2023

The Uyghurs or Weegers of the Silk Road, Central Asian Muslims of China and Their History

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                    


Who are the Weegers in China?
There are about 12 million Uyghurs, mostly Muslim, living in Xinjiang, (upper left-pink and large land mass), which is officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR). The Uyghurs speak their own language, which is similar to Turkish, and see themselves as culturally and ethnically close to Central Asian nations. Those that can have escaped to Turkey.  
 China accuses Weegers of terrorism so their reaction is a brainwashing education/cruelty program.   That said, China does have a terrorism problem, and has suffered multiple terrorist attacks in recent decades. High-profile cases include:  A March 7, 1997 bus bombing in the Xidan section of Beijing  An October 28, 2013 car bomb explosion in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square  A March 1, 2014 mass knifing attack at the Kunming, Yunnan railway station  A May 22, 2014 car bomb attack at an outdoor market in Urumqi, Xinjiang  The August 17, 2015 bomb attack on Bangkok, Thailand’s Erawan Shrine, which killed 20 people, including seven Chinese citizens  The September 30, 2015 explosion of 17 package bombs in Guangxi Province  The November 2015 killing by Islamic State militants of former Chinese teacher Fan Jinghui and another hostage.                                               
   This Weeger/Uyghur man looks like he is wearing a kippah on his head.  
A Uyghur man works at his shop in Kashgar in the Xinjiang region. Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
They are Muslims, which means they are a people who were converted Asians by Muslims after 632, when Mohammad died and his followers set out to convert the world.  
It could be that these people bear some Jewish genes.  Why?  Chinese traveled on the famous Silk Road and so did Jews, trading along the way.  The earliest mention of Kashgar occurs when a Chinese Han dynasty envoy travelled the Northern Silk Road to explore lands to the west so the Chinese were going out of China to discover the West, while the Jews went into China to trade.  

Another early mention of Kashgar is during the Former Han (also known as the Western Han dynasty), when in 76 BCE the Chinese conquered the Xiongnu, Yutian (Khotan), Sulei (Kashgar) and a group of states in the Tarim Basin almost up to the foot of the Tian Shan range.

What was going on in 76 BCE in Jewish history?  

140–63 BCE
The Hasmonean dynasty rules Judea. The Hasmonean kingdom expands outward to Idumea, Samaria, Perea, Galilee, and Gilead due to weakness and dissolution within the Seleucid Empire.  63 BCE  Pompey lay siege to and entered the Temple, Judea became a client kingdom of Rome.                             
The steady collapse of the Seleucid Empire under attacks from the rising powers of the Roman Republic and the Parthian Empire allowed Judea to regain some autonomy; however, in 63 BCE, the kingdom was invaded by the Roman Republic, broken up and set up as a Roman client state.

Ptolemy speaks of Scythia beyond the Imaus, which is in a “Kasia Regio”, probably exhibiting the name from which Kashgar and Kashgaria (often applied to the district) are formed. The country's people practised Zoroastrianism and Buddhism before the coming of Islam.                             


   Our great Jewish genius, Hillel, lived in the 1st century BCE, born in Babylonia, then lived in Eretz Yisrael (not called Palestine until 135 CE).  Good thing he didn't travel on the Silk Road then but remained a scholar.  Uyghers seemed to be a lone tribe apart from the Han people of China.  

In the Book of Han, which covers the period between 125 BCE and 23 CE, it is recorded that there were 1,510 households, 18,647 people and 2,000 persons able to bear arms. By the time covered by the Book of the Later Han (roughly 25 to 170 CE), it had grown to 21,000 households and had 3,000 men able to bear arms.

Recent decades have seen a mass migration of Han Chinese (China's ethnic majority) into Xinjiang, allegedly orchestrated by the state to dilute the minority population there.  China finds them terroristic and instead of using war tactics on them, or Nazi tactics of mass murdering, are using brain washing techniques instead, but to no avail in weaning them from Islam.                                

                   
A Uyghur man in Kashgar--definitely not a black-haired Chinese man.  

 Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghurs are recognized as native to the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in Northwest China. They are one of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minorities. The Uyghurs are recognized by the Chinese government as a regional minority and the titular people of Xinjiang.

The Uyghurs have traditionally inhabited a series of oases scattered across the Taklamakan Desert within the Tarim Basin. These oases have historically existed as independent states or were controlled by many civilizations including China, the Mongols, the Tibetans and various Turkic polities. The Uyghurs gradually started to become Islamized in the 10th century and most Uyghurs identified as Muslims by the 16th century. Islam has since played an important role in Uyghur culture and identity.                               


My father's Jewish line is a rare one.  Besides being Jewish (population is 0.02% of world population, he is about 5% of the Jewish population by being a Y haplogroup Q, now tested as a QBZ67.  DNA traces the line originating in Siberia, Mongolia and parts of Turkey!!! Could these Weegers be our cousins, albeit distant ones?  

                   Tahir Hamut, a Uighur now living in Virginia whose blood was taken by the police in Xinjiang, said it was “inconceivable” that Uighurs there would have consented to give DNA samples.  Credit...Kate Warren for The New York Times.  Our DNA labs do not take blood;  they take spit.  Other people who share my father's Q line are our native Americans of both North and South America.  I bet Tahir is also a Q, though the article I'm reading did not say...drat!.  

This holding onto one's religion shows that the feelings religion gives one is quite different than a person selecting for themselves a political system like a democracy or communism.  Genes involved can be quite different from each other.  Pashtuns from India, Afghanistan and Pakistan were found to be practicing some Jewish rites without knowing their source or reason.  Weegers are holding onto their religion of Islam for dear life;  take it away and they are no more.  

China has also been accused of targeting Muslim religious figures and banning religious practices in the region, as well as destroying mosques and tombs. Uyghur activists say they fear that the group's culture is under threat of erasure.  Many Jews in the past resorted to be burned alive at a stake rather than accept another religion-Christianity.  The Spanish Inquisition did things like that.  China's brain washing does alter people's attitudes, but forcing them only makes them stronger in holding onto their belief system.  

From another source: Among the Eastern Asian and European populations, the Uyghur population has a closer relationship with the Hui (Cangzhou, China), the Hungarian and the Mongolian populations. The proximity between the Uyghur population and the Hui population is consistent with historical records, which indicate that the present Hui population is an admixture of Central Asian, Han, Mongolian, Uyghur and other populations formed around the 13th century. 

The relatively close relationship between the Uyghur population and the Hungarian population is consistent with the Asian origin hypothesis of Hungarians33,34,35,36,37. 

The proximity between the Uyghur population and the Mongolian population could be speculatively explained by the migration of Orkhon Uyghurs, proposed ancestors of present Uyghurs, from Mongolia to Xinjiang around the 9th century. The migration allows gene flow between the Orkhon Uyghurs and the indigenes in Xinjiang, such as Tocharians, that are genetically similar to northern Europeans28,38,39. 

The fact that the indigenous population is much larger than the Orkhon Uyghur population may also explain why the Uyghur is genetically closer to European populations than Eastern Asian populations as is shown in this study.

 Out of the 100 Uyghur male samples typed in this study, 99 unique haplotypes were observed. The overall HD is 0.9998 with a DC of 0.9900. The results indicate that the 26 Y-STR loci system provides strong discriminatory power within the Uyghur population due to its high resolution. The system can be potentially used in population genetic studies and forensic practices because of its power to describe variation within the population.

I'll bet that most were Q's.  The article didn't say. 

Resource:

Saturday, December 4, 2021

China and Israel, Like Goliath and David

 Nadene Goldfoot                                                 

A long time ago, from 400 CE on,  Jews traveled on the Silk Road to China as traders. Possibly as early as the first few centuries of the Common Era, large merchant settlements of Jews could be found along the Eastern Silk Road, reaching even into Kaifeng, China, the capital of 7 dynasties.                    

                                Kaifeng Jews

 Kaifeng Palace, located on the north shore of Baogong East Lake, is known as the first government office of Ancient China, where capital officials worked during the Northern Song Dynasty.

Early trade documents in a unique form of Hebrew from the area dating from around 400 CE have been found in China that suggest the community was not only in existence, but thriving by that time. Remains of a great synagogue have also been found in Kaifeng and have been dated to the 11th and 12th Century CE.     

                                                  


The Radenites were Jewish .  Called Radhanim,  they were Jewish medieval merchants. Only a limited number of primary sources use the term, and it remains unclear whether they referred to a specific guild, or to a clan, or generically to Jewish merchants in the trans-Eurasian trade network. Jewish merchants operated in trade between the Christian and Islamic worlds during the early Middle Ages (approximately 500–1000). Many trade routes previously established under the Roman Empire continued to function during that period – largely through their efforts. Their trade network covered much of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of India and China.   

 Then  Marco Polo on September 15, 1254 – January 8, 1324) was a Venetian of Italy merchant, explorer, and writer who travelled through Asia along the Silk Road between 1271 and 1295 being the first Westerner to see and trade with this unknown world.  Born in Venice, Marco learned the mercantile trade from his father and his uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, who travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, exploring many places along the Silk Road until they reached Cathay (China).

                                                   


So the mixing and blending of goods, foods and cultures in countries touched by the great Asian trade routes was accomplished by a wide variety of different types of people – most of whom were merchants – out to make a buck along the Silk Road. For thousands of years, Arabs, traded with Africans and Greeks and Jews, and Jews traded with Persians, Georgians, Uzbeks and Chinese, and Chinese traded with Indonesians and Thais and Sri Lankans and Arabs who traded with . . . As bloodlines merged, imported cultural practices became integrated into those held dearly for millennia and modern cuisines emerged from the crucible of history – all blended and formed along the Great Silk Road. (Words by Laura Kelley)        

China and Israel have developed close strategic military links with each other. Bilateral military relations have evolved from an initial Chinese policy of secret non-official ties to a close strategic partnership with the modern and militarily powerful Israel.

                                               

     China and Israel deepening their ties

 China did not establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel until 1992. Since then, Israel and China have developed increasingly close strategic economic, military and technological links with each other. Israel maintains an embassy in Beijing and is planning to open a new consulate in Chengdu, its third in Mainland China. 

China is Israel's third largest trading partner globally and largest trading partner in East Asia. Trade volume increased from $50 million in 1992 to $15 billion in 2013. Israel is about 437 times smaller than China.  China is approximately 9,596,960 sq km, while Israel is approximately 21,937 sq km, making Israel 0.23% the size of China. Meanwhile, the population of China is ~1.4 billion people (1.4 billion fewer people live in Israel).

                     There are Jewish people in China.  

 Shared commonalities and similarities between the cultures and values of the two nations with ancient roots dating back thousands of years as well as convergence of interests have made the two countries natural partners. In addition, China is one of the few countries in the world to concurrently maintain warm relations with Israel, Palestine, and the Muslim world at large.    

                            More Kaifeng Jews

China's status as a potential world power has prompted Israel to maintain closer ties with China by integrating China's global influence with Israel's economic management and its regional strategic importance in the Middle East. Beijing has appreciated Israel's political stability and diplomatic ingenuity and sees the Jewish state as one of the regional pillars for securing China's influence in the Middle East and the entire world.

Israel has become one of the world leaders in cybersecurity. One of those who played a key role in Israel’s pioneering role in this field, which is now emerging as one of the most important aspects of our global economy and security, is Prof. Isaac Ben-Israel.

China, officially the People's Republic of China, is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population of more than 1.4 billion. China spans five geographical time zones and borders 14 different countries, the second most of any country in the world after Russia.  China is made up of 3.705 million square miles. Actually, The largest country in the world is Russia with a total area of 17,098,242 Km² (6,601,665 mi²) and a land area of 16,376,870 Km² (6,323,142 mi²), equivalent to 11% of the total world's landmass of 148,940,000 Km² (57,510,000 square miles). The USA is the 4th largest.                         

New Jersey above on the East Coast is a tiny orange state.  In 2021, it has 9.4 million population.  

New Jersey is the 5th-smallest US state, covering 20,168 square kilometers or 7787 square miles .As the comparison map above shows, the land currently controlled by the State of Israel (including disputed territories) is not much larger: 27,869 square kilometers or 10,760 square miles.  Israel in its pre-1967 borders was 8,019 square miles or 20,770 square kilometers, just barely bigger than New Jersey.  Considering its tiny size, is Israel large enough that it can afford give away land to try to placate the Arabs?                                                     

Israel is about 1.4 times smaller than Belgium. Belgium is approximately 30,528 sq km, while Israel is approximately 21,937 sq km, making Israel 71.86% the size  of Belgium. Meanwhile, the population of Belgium is ~11.7 million people (3.0 million fewer people live in Israel). .                                 

    Chinese Jews have arrived in Israel.  

In 2020, Israel is the 29th largest trading partner, 29th largest import partner, and 29th largest export partner of Taiwan. The value of exports to Israel was US$842.825,815, an annual increase of 7.706%. Imports from Israel amounted to 1.069. 7 million US$2,546, an annual increase of 7.787%.  Israel's Top 15 Trading Partners

  • United States: US$13.1 billion (26.3% of total Israeli exports)
  • China: $4.1 billion (8.3%)
  • United Kingdom: $3.7 billion (7.5%)
  • Netherlands: $2.5 billion (4.9%)
  • Germany: $1.7 billion (3.4%)
  • India: $1.6 billion (3.2%)
  • Belgium: $1.45 billion (2.9%)
  • Turkey: $1.41 billion (2.8%)

As far as the USA is concerned, The Biden administration has called managing America’s relationship with Beijing “the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century.

A group photo at the Jewish Community of Taiwan’s 2021 Purim party. No masks required. (Archi Chang/ via JTA)

”Taiwan, Trade, Tech and More:are a Tense Era in U.S.-China Ties. China wants Taiwan.   As the small island off China remains blessedly untouched by COVID, its diverse group of Jews prepare to welcome this holiday like all others. This past spring, Taiwan’s small Jewish community gears up for big Passover party — sans masks.

China is determined to keep the peace and to keep a good name for itself, as has been the practice of their culture.  They are doing this at the expense of the individual's rights.  Right now a famous Chinese tennis player is kept away or may even be dead who made the mistake of exposing an important individual with his acts of attacking her, and this cannot be in this particular culture.  Evidently she was testing the water by doing this, and it isn't ready.

They have suffered a lot in the Western culture.  Chinese were taken advantage of and thought of as sub-human because of looking different in places like Seattle where there is an underground city that the Chinese had.  They were brought over to work on the railroad and in gold mining areas. 

 THEir STORY BEGINS IN THE EARLY 1800S IN THE SOUTH CHINA AREA OF TOISHAN, OR CANTON, IN THE GUANGDONG PROVINCE. AFTER YEARS OF GREAT PROSPERITY AND POPULATION GROWTH, THE IMPERIAL NATION WAS NOW FACING A DEVASTATING SEASON OF DROUGHTS, FLOODS, FAMINE, AND POLITICAL UNREST.  During this time, China would accept only silver from the British in trade for their valuable silks and spices. Preferring to keep their silver, the British offered to trade opium instead, and threatened the Chinese with gun boats if they refused. The conflict led to the Opium War in the 1840s, which opened China to a turbulent narcotics trade that ultimately devastated household industries and farming. The crisis was amplified by the Taiping Rebellion from 1850 to 1864, leaving many peasants in poverty and struggling to survive. When word came that gold had been discovered in central California in 1849, many Chinese, mostly men from the Guangdong area, jumped on boats headed to San Francisco or “Land of the Gold Mountain” hoping to strike it rich. What began as a trickle of immigrants soon became thousands of Chinese traveling to the United States, many with plans to make money and then return to their families in China.

During this time, China would accept only silver from the British in trade for their valuable silks and spices. Preferring to keep their silver, the British offered to trade opium instead, and threatened the Chinese with gun boats if they refused. 

The conflict led to the Opium War in the 1840s, which opened China to a turbulent narcotics trade that ultimately devastated household industries and farming. The crisis was amplified by the Taiping Rebellion from 1850 to 1864, leaving many peasants in poverty and struggling to survive.  When word came that gold had been discovered in central California in 1849, many Chinese, mostly men from the Guangdong area, jumped on boats headed to San Francisco or “Land of the Gold Mountain” hoping to strike it rich. What began as a trickle of immigrants soon became thousands of Chinese traveling to the United States, many with plans to make money and then return to their families in China.

China celebrated its 100 anniversary of Communism this past summer.  They have been demonstating from  increasing aggression on the global stage right from Beijing.  In March, the U.S. and its allies — including the European Union, the U.K. and Canada — imposed sanctions on Chinese officials for alleged human rights abuses against ethnic minorities in the western region of Xinjiang. Beijing retaliated with sanctions of its own.

Even with the accelerated nuclear expansion, Beijing is still behind the United States, with its nuclear stockpile of 5,550 warheads, and Russia, which has 6,255, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, an independent organization. China has about 350 nuclear warheads, the organization said.Nov 3, 2021'

WASHINGTON — China is continuing to strengthen its strategic nuclear arsenal and could have 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030, according to a new Defense Department report released Wednesday.



Resource:

https://silkroadgourmet.com/the-jews-of-the-great-silk-road/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/taiwans-small-jewish-community-gears-up-for-big-passover-party-sans-masks/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marco_Polo

https://www.mylifeelsewhere.com/country-size-comparison/israel/belgium

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Israel_relations#:~:text=China%20and%20Israel%20have%20developed,modern%20and%20militarily%20powerful%20Israel.

https://www.nytimes.com/article/us-china-tensions-explained.html

https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/cyber-week-how-israel-became-a-leader-in-cyber-tech-and-investment-674168



Sunday, January 20, 2019

How Bani Israel Traveled on the Silk Road To Their Destiny

Nadene Goldfoot                                                   
Travel along the Silk Road

How did the Assyrians in 721 BCE take their northern Israel tribal captives back to their homes in Assyria?  On the Silk Road that they were creating.
                                                          

200 years later,from 597-586 BCE, the Babylonians overcame the Assyrians, inheriting their lands and people.  They went back and captured the remaining tribes of Judah, Simeon and parts of Benjamin left who had become the land of Judah and took them to Babylonia.  They must have also traveled on the Silk Road.  

From the map above one can see the Mediterranean Sea and the red circle over the northern part of Israel.  It would go through Afghanistan and Pakistan on its way to China, a most important route for history.  The Chinese had built their GREAT WALL OF CHINA to protect this trade route to their country.  They were aware of the route during the  Han dynasty (207 BCE–220 CE). The Han dynasty expanded the Central Asian section of the trade routes around 114 BCE through the missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy Zhang Qian

                                                    

The Silk Road was an ancient network of trade routes that connected the East and West. It was central to cultural interaction between the regions for many centuries. The Silk Road primarily refers to the terrestrial routes connecting East Asia and Southeast Asia with East Africa, West Asia and Southern Europe.  It was the Assyrians and Babylonians who had expanded this route to their lands first before anyone thought of going further east.  

In 475 BCE), the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km (1,775 mi) from the city of Susa, Persia (Iran)  on the Karun (250 km (155 mi) east of the Tigris) to the port of Smyrna (modern İzmir in Turkey) on the Aegean Sea.[27] It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire (c. 500–330 BCE) which was the  First Persian Empire founded by Cyrus the Great, 
and had postal stations and relays at regular intervals. By having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages and traverse the length of the road in 9 days, while normal travelers took about 3 months.
                                                     
Queen Esther with her Uncle Mordecai
of the tribe of Benjamin in Shushan, a palace official,
who told her of the plot 
        
Cyrus the Great has long been thought to be the son of Queen Esther, the Jewish beauty selected to be the Queen of King Ahasuerus (name in our Tanakh (Old Testament) in the Book of Esther).  

Cyrus II died in 529 BCE and was the King of Persia (Iran).  He had many conquests and had overrun the Babylonian Empire, including Judah and its last king, Zedekiah (597-586 BCE).  
                                                       

Rebuilding 2nd Temple of Solomon-on today's Temple Mount
in Jerusalem where 1st stood 

Cyrus was a good and kind king.  He created an enlightened policy towards the people he had overtaken and in 538 BCE, had granted permission to the exiles of Judah to go back to Jerusalem which was their homeland and rebuild the Temple. (Ezra 1:1-44;  II Chronicles 36:22-1=3.  This was so unlike the Assyrians, or any kings of that period.  
                                                       
This is why it is either fact or legend that he was Esther's child, a product of the Persian king and the Jewish mother.  The BOOK OF ESTHER  was written in the Persian period  before 330 BCE.  In the 2nd Temple days, the scroll of Esther was already included  in the canon of scrolls to be read in the TEMPLE.  iT WAS READ ON PURIM AND WAS CALLED THE MEGILLAH.  
                                                      

The BOOK OF ESTHER tells us how Esther became Queen and how she was told of the plot to kill all the Jews in the Empire.  She had to tell her husband, the king, and she fasted for 3 days to get the strength and courage to do so, as she had to confess that she was Jewish to do this.  (I think also she needed to lose a few pounds and get into that special dress that might help).  She stopped the plot that had already started, and saved all their lives.  
                                                     

It was Haman who was the King's trusted adviser that was the evil man wanting all Jews dead.  Haman is associated with Hitler today, at least in my mind if not all Jews.  

Jews have traveled the Silk Road since its existence.  They became successful traders, to the frustration of Europeans who were not familiar with its ins and outs.  Jews were kept from entering any of the trades of the day, so fell back on their trading skills and wound up lending money to kings and queens and such to make a living for themselves and their families.  They honed their skills as businessmen this way, on the SILK ROAD.    


Research:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road
Textbook:  2nd edition-MIDDLE EAST-PAST & PRESENT By Yahya Armajani, Thomas M. Ricks
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?hspart=adk&hsimp=yhs-adk_sbnt&type=A1&param2=9a725b99-89fa-40ed-a967-9d7a51679ece&param3=template_~US~appfocus1&param4=d-ccc2-lp0-dsf_templates--bb8~Chrome~achaemenid+empire~3797A7885BDEADF949976CE4785FE416&param1=20181221&p=achaemenid+empire
https://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2011/08/03/victor-sharpe-the-epic-journeys-of-the-jewish-radanites/