This is Aiton Weinstein.

And I'm Naor Menninger, and you're listening to Two Nice Jewish Boys.

China. Just saying the name of this country is enough to spark so many different associations in most Westerners' minds. But the truth is, China has a vast population of 1.4 billion people, almost 20% of the world's population, that live across 9.5 million square kilometers.

And to put all of these people into under one word, China, it's a bit difficult.

There are so many different types of people, so many different religions in China.

We, little did we know, there is a population of Jews in China.

And today we are joined by Noam Urbach, a, a China expert, active in academia, in business, and in media.

Noam specializes in the study of the history of foreign religions in China,

in particular the history of Chinese Jews, as well as Chinese religious policy.

We are super excited to have him on the show today

to talk China and religions in China specifically. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for inviting me. So there are Jews in China? Sort of, yeah. How many do you know?

Is there like a huge Jewish population?

No, so it's no simple, no straightforward answer.

Let's put, let's separate two categories, okay?

They're foreign expat Jews.

Okay.

That's clear like in any international, uh, in global country, in the international cities of China, you have growing, at least until COVID-19,

you had growing concentrations of foreign Jews, Israeli, America, etc. Usually adjourned,

you know, concentrate around Chabad houses and or reform on

affiliate unaffiliated small communities yeah it's like it's like there's three

things in life that are certain death taxes and and Chabad right no matter where you

...