Xu Xin 

XU XIN, Professor of the Department of Religious Studies and Department of Philosophy and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, People’s Republic of China, is also President of the China Judaic Studies Association, Editor-in-Chief and a major contributor of the Chinese edition Encyclopedia Judaica (Shanghai: The Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1993).

He graduated as an English major from Nanjing University in 1977 and began to teach at the university since then. His academic career could be divided into two periods: Study on English and American Jewish literature before 1986 and Judaic studies since 1986. He became full professor in 1994 at Nanjing University.

He is author of Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng (Hoboken: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1995, with Beverly Friend), Anti-Semitism: How and Why (Shanghai: Shanghai Shanlian Books, 1996), A History of Western Culture (Peking University Press, 2002), and The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion (KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 2003). He has also written numerous articles on Judaic topics, including studies of modern Hebrew literature, Jewish history, anti-Semitism, and surveys of Jewish communities in Shanghai, Tientsin, Harbin, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. His article, “Practice of Judaism in China” (18,000 words), appears in Encyclopedia of Judaism (Vol. 4, Brill, 2002, p.p.1630-1652) edited by Jacob Neusner.

He teaches courses such as Jewish religion, history, culture and the world civilization, the Holocaust studies, American Jewish literature, History of Jewish Diaspora, West civilization, and survey of Chinese culture after he moved to the field of Judaica. Now he has both MA and Ph.D programs at Nanjing University.

He has organized many exhibitions in China since 1990, such as “Judaic Studies in China” (1990), “Courage to Remember: Holocaust 1933-45” (1993), and “American Jewish Experience” (1996). He also organized “The First International Conference on Jewish Studies in China” in October 1996, co-sponsored by Tel Aviv University, “The International Symposium on the History of the Jewish Diaspora in China” in May 2002 and “International Symposium On Judaism” in October 2004. He organized three workshops on Jewish History and Culture for Chinese College professors and young scholars in 1997, 1999 and 2002 respectively.

His activities in promoting the study of Jewish subjects among the Chinese have been supported by a number of grants from The Rothschild Family Foundation, The Skirball Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation, The Samuel Bronfman Foundation, The Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture, Diane & Guilford Glazer Fund, and The Sino-Judiac Institute.

He served as a visiting professor and taught various college courses at Chicago State University (1986-88), Florida Community College in Jacksonville (1999) and Montclair State University (2001). He was a special guest speaker at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1988 and at Tel Aviv University (1993 and 1998). In 1995, he served as a Fellow at Hebrew Union College—Jewish Institute of Religion. In 1996 and 1998, he served as a visiting scholar at the Center for Jewish Studies of Harvard University.

He has given more than 300 lectures in the United States, Israel, Canada, the Great Britain, Germany, Hong Kong and China since 1995 at places such as Harvard University, Yeshiva University, University of Chicago, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv University, Haifa University, University of Pennsylvania, The UCLA, Stanford University, Northwestern University, Yale University, University of Notre Dame, Hebrew Union College, City University of New York, Kenyon College, Gratz College, Montclair University, Pitzer College, Claremont University, and Occidental College and Jewish congregations and organizations across the US.

His activities have be widely reported by such newspapers as New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Jerusalem Post, Harvard University Gazette, The Jerusalem Report, The Jewish Week, Forward and etc.

In 1995, he was given “James Friend Memorial Award.” In 2002, the Bar-Ilan University’s Board of Trustees and Senate in Israel decided to award him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Honoris Causa in recognition of the extremely important work that he has done on research of the Jewish people in China.