The People’s Republic of China has agreed to send one of their prominent scholars on Christianity and Judaism to the United States early next year to study modern Jewish history.
Rabbi Arthur Schneier, president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, an interfaith group, who just returned from a visit to China, told a press conference at the Overseas Press Club here Thursday that the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has accepted an invitation by the Foundation to send Prof. Gao Wangzhi to undertake this task. The professor is China’s leading authority on Christianity and Judaism, Schneier said.
Schneier, who led an interfaith delegation to China which included the Rev. Vincent O’Keefe, former president of Fordham University, and Dr. David Randolph, senior minister of Christ Church United Methodist in Manhattan, also reported that the Institute of History of the Academy of Social Sciences in Shanghai has agreed to undertake a research study into the history of the 25,000 European Jews who found refuge in Shanghai from Nazi persecution during World War II.
Schneier, who is also the spiritual leader of Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, said that the Chinese Academy of Sciences will be sent books on the history and philosophy of major religious denominations in the U.S., and also on the Nazi Holocaust.
“A dramatic and positive shift” in the Beijing government’s attitude toward organized religion is under way, Schneier asserted. He said that the American delegation met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wu Xueqian in Beijing as well as other officials.
According to Schneier, there are no Jews in today’s China nor any “functioning synagogues.”
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