The International Symposium on Jewish Diaspora in Seoul

The International Symposium on Jewish Diaspora in Seoul

By Pan Guang

I was still surprised to have received the invitation to attend the International Symposium on Jewish Diaspora in Republic of Korea, because I had scanty knowledge of any institution engaging in Jewish Studies in Korea, although I have traveled and lectured widely on Jews in China in North America, Israel, Europe and Australia. On May 25, with the strong desire to know the present situation of Jewish Studies in Korea and to establish links with counterparts there, I came to Seoul without any SARS infection by air from Shanghai, a city haunted by the show of SARS to attend the 4^th International Symposium on Jewish Diaspora sponsored by the Israel Culture Center in Korea .

Dr. Ho-Jin Chung, one of Directors of the ICC, who studied in Israel and speaks fluent Hebrew, met me at the Seoul airport. According to Chung’s introduction, the ICC was founded in March 2000 with the financial support from ROK’s entrepreneurs, especially from Bae and Kim Family. It is under the auspices of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the State of Israel. Its attentions of objectives are focused on the promotion of Jewish and Israeli Studies in Korea and ROK’s cultural exchanges with Israel and Jewish comunities all over the world. He said in a modest way: “ our Jewish studies, which just started had large gaps in comparison with China, and therefore we would like to learn from our Chinese counterparts, especially from your Center for Jewish Studies Shanghai (CJSS).”

On May 26, 2003, the 4^th International Symposium on Jewish Diaspora was open in the Kon-Kuk University, Seoul. Three keynote speakers, i.e. Professor David Harman from Israel, Professor Michael Chlenov from Russia and I, were invited to address on the International Symposium. Since its establishment, the ICC had sponsored three international symposiums on Jewish Diaspora, while this year’s symposium is its 4^th one with the theme “The Jewish Diaspora in the World.” The program of the Symposium was well organized. After Congratulatory Speech by Mr. Uzi Manor, Ambassador of Israel and Mr. Youngdeok Lee, Chairman of ICC at opening ceremony, it was divided into three sessions. The first session was entitled Jew in China: Legends, History and New Perspective, while I was the keynote speaker; the 2^nd session entitled Israel and Jewish Diaspora: A Tale of One People with Numerous Nationalities, while Professor David Harman was the keynote speaker; and the 3^rd session entitled Jewish Diaspora in Russia while Professor Machael Chlenov made the keynote speech. Every keynote speech lasted one and a half hours and then opened to the question and comments for about half an hour, much more time than usual international symposium. Every participant could speak by a show of hands.

If this kind of symposium was held in Shanghai, the participants would not exceed 30 to 40 persons. I was full of doubts and suspicions to know: how many people interested in this topic in Seoul? Upon entering the meeting venue, I was surprised to find hall was crowded with about 400~500 audience. According to my investigation, the audience could be divided into five categories of people: faculty and students of Hebrew Department of the Kon-Kuk University; experts and scholars from other universities or research institutions; businessmen doing business with Israel and the Jewish counterparts in the world; government officials; Christians and clergies. According to my observation, most of them were not Judaic experts, as they know little about Jews in China. Therefore, I tried to deliver my speech in simple language, and would not use the rarely-used English words while I had demonstrated 40 slides of pictures. After my speech, the audience took the floor to ask me one after another. The main questions included why the Jews in Kaifeng were assimilated? Why Shanghai had become the inhabitancies of the Jew? Were there any similarities and differences between Confucian culture and Jewish culture? One young scholar suggested that the Chinese and Korean scholars should begin the joint research project on Jews in Korea, because, in his opinion, the Jews in China might have come to Korea in history.

The arrangement of symposium was quite interesting. During the breaks of three sessions, the students of Hebrew Department of the Kon-Kuk University were invited to sing Hebrew songs while playing Jewish orchestra, which created an atmosphere of Jewish culture. This event had around my interest of Hebrew Department, where I had another surprise when I visited at the noon interval. In China, a vast country with more than 1.2 billion people has no Hebrew department so far, while only Peking University offers one Hebrew specialty with a few students. It is beyond my expectation that the Republic of Korea, a country with only 50 million people has a Hebrew department with 80 students and 5 professors.

After the closing of the symposium, I had made a special visit to the Israel Culture Center in Korea. Although the Center only employed three staff members and was just at its initial stage of its development, Jewish Cultural Exhibition, Israel Book Fairs, and Jewish Music Festivals, etc. were sponsored and organized by the Center aside from four well-organized symposiums in the past 3 years. Comparatively speaking, the weak link of the Center was the academic studies, which, however, have bright prospect for its future development because it is based upon the Hebrew Department of the Kon-Kuk University while being supported by the government and enterprise community.

Through this visit, we established contact with the Korean counterparts. We should strengthen our cooperation and learn from and help each other in our joint efforts to promote the development of Jewish & Israeli studies in China and Korea.