Chinese Jewry consisted of two communities. The older group believed that its forbears reached China after the destruction of the First Temple (586 B.C.E.). Early Chinese documents indeed mention Jewish traders several centuries before the Common Era. Much later, in the 14th century, Marco Polo wrote of influential Jews at the court of Kublai Khan. After 1650, this community, which had preserved its religious traditions for more than 2,000 years, declined rapidly. By the middle of the 19th century its last synagogues