China Jewish Heritage Tours with Joy Katzen-Guthrie: Jews of China, Chinese Jews, Jewish China Tours, Jews in China, Jewish China History

Six remarkable visits to China since June 2000 have taken me through many of China's beautiful and historic regions. How can I describe the magnificence and exhilaration of my visits to Beijing, Kaifeng, Luoyang, Yichang, Qingdao, Qufu, Ta'an and Tai-Shan, Shaolin, the Three Gorges, Xi'an, Guilin, Guiyang, Guizhou Province, Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Shanghai? Best by saying it was a privilege for me to share these journeys with you as tour creator and Scholar-In-Residence. Scroll down for information on tours planned for 2009 and 2010 and special announcements.

I have had the pleasure of taking excellent courses with Hebrew Online, now offering Chinese study online. Check them out ~ especially if you're planning to visit China.

Our scenic group visits the scenic tea plantations of Guilin!

Date: Sun, 11 May 2008 08:47:18 -0400 • Dear Joy, I often think about the wonderful time I had on our trip to China. Our guides were excellent. Fine hotels and great Chinese food. Fun shows, too. Thanks to everyone for a beautifully planned trip - even the weather cooperated. I feel so fortunate for this great experience. (I was especially fascinated by Shanghai, its history, architecture and ambience.) Thanks again. Sincerely, Roz Sedlezky, Sarasota

Date: Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:17:15 EDT • I had a wonderful time and I am thrilled that I actually went and that I did it with you and your arrangements. I have beautiful memories of all the places we went to and of the guides and your singing on the way to Kehillat Beijing and of the delicious oily vegetables, etc. My cholesterol levels dropped, probably from little meat and more walking, and my other blood tests came out perfect, I'm sure, due to the trip. My photos are fun to watch and I'm still unsure of all the labels I should be putting on, but each and every day was delightful and full of discoveries. You are an inspiration that we should pursue our curiosities and learn all we can of a foreign culture. Thanks so much for everything. Welcome home and have a peaceful, happy pesach. Fondly, Linda Borsykowsky, New York

Australia/New Zealand Heritage Tours ... From Joy Katzen-Guthrie

For centuries, Jewish life has thrived Down Under, in lands that are among the most remote in the world. A small group of Jews was among the first Westerners to arrive in Australia. Maintaining tradition and Jewish identity was essential for those who chose to live in this part of the world. After World War II, Australia would become a refuge for thousands of Holocaust survivors. Today, Australia and New Zealand are home to an unprecendented number of synagogues, Jewish schools, and cultural and religious organizations. I am thrilled to announce my Jewish Heritage Tour of Australia/New Zealand for November 2009.

Sydney's Great Synagogue
Photo courtesy of amyisrael

Photo ©Sydney's Great Synagogue

Rimona Kedem Window
Photo ©Melbourne Hebrew Congregation

In Auckland, the Auckland Hebrew Congregation and Congregation Beth Shalom serve the Jewish community. The historic former Princes St. Synagogue is fully restored and furnished. Melbourne's first formal synagogue, founded in 1848, the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation, completed in 1930, with its Corinthian pillars, copper dome, bimah carved from Tasmanian blackwood (possibly the finest example of timber work in Australia) and its stained glass windows created by the Israeli artist, Rimona Kedem, seats more than 1300. The graceful domed St. Kilda Hebrew Congregation, founded 1872, is Melbourne's traditional Orthodox Congregation. Melbourne's Jewish Museum of Australia displays Jewish culture, history and religious practice. The Museum is a national institution dedicated to the conservation, preservation and exhibition of Jewish heritage, arts, custom and religious practice in all its diversity. In particular it illustrates the Australian Jewish experience. Through its exhibitions it tells of the common experience of migration, displacement and the challenge of adaptation to a new land. The Great Synagogue, is one of Sydney's most opulent and historic heritage buildings. The Synagogue has stood on its present site for well over a hundred and twenty years. The Sydney Jewish Museum, with its exhibits of Holocaust and Australian Jewish History, is dedicated to documenting and teaching the history of the Holocaust. Housed in the historic Maccabean Hall, the museum is a testimony to the fortitude and endurance of the human spirit.

These congregations, which our group will visit in addition to a magnificent itinerary of local historical, indigenous, and nature sites, are only a sprinkling of the many congregations and Jewish organizations that serve the diverse Jewish communities of Australia and New Zealand. Peruse this site to see more examples of the unity, commitment, and strength of the Jews Down Under. Visit the Australia Jewish Links section for a much more detailed listing of the Jewish communities of Australia and New Zealand. And join me in New Zealand and Australia this November for a one-of-a-kind experience Down Under. ~Joy

Travel Harmony & Joy Katzen-Guthrie Present
CHAI AUSTRALIA/NEW ZEALAND SHOMER SHABBAT TOUR
An Exhilarating Discovery of Indigenous and Jewish Experience Down Under
First-Class Touring of Auckland • Rotorua • Melbourne • Philip Island • Dandenong Ranges • Blue Mountains • Sydney
November 4-22, 2009 (18 Days/17 Nights in Australia/New Zealand, plus Guided Round-Trip Air from Los Angeles)
A SMALL GROUP TOUR with Maximum 25 Travellers / Minimum of ten travelers to proceed

This tour is joined by and includes presentations by Tour Scholar-in-Residence Joy Katzen-Guthrie
and Jewish scholars and specialized guides in every city
Our tour is in arrangement with Travel Harmony, specialists in Australia/New Zealand travel

CLICK TO VIEW HIGHLIGHTS of this Magnificent Itinerary

NOTE: Space subject to availability / Initial deposit to hold the space must be received by June 15, 2009
Please click to contact Francine at Travel Harmony today if you are interested!

AND KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR ...

SPRING 2010 ... Planning is underway for an Argentina/Chile Jewish Heritage Tour tentatively in April 2010 following Pesach. The itinerary and pricing are now being arranged and the tour will be announced as soon as possible. The travel will tentatively include Buenos Aires, a Jewish Colonies Tour of Entre Rios, Igazu Falls, Calafate, and Santiago. If this tour is of interest to you, please e-mail me immediately at joyfulnoise@earthlink.net to be included in the mailing list for updates regarding the tour. I will serve as Scholar/Artist in Residence on this tour and would love for you to join me!

CHINA ... I continue to assist in the planning of private or group tours to China and am happy to help you create an itinerary for yourself, your family, or your group to travel when it is perfect for you. I do not have any planned visits to China myself at this time, but hope to return to see much more of the country with a small group visiting the northern and southern Silk Roads. Please e-mail me at joyfulnoise@earthlink.net if you have an interest in this kind of visit to China or if I may assist you in creating a personalized tour.

Amazing Experiences

We have experienced the 5,000-year-old history of this land and its many nationalities and the millenium or more of history of the Jews in China, who are known to have lived in China since at least the 8th century and may have existed there as early as several centuries before the common era. For thousands of years, traders, adventurers, and refugees traveled the thousands of miles of the Silk Road between the Mediterranean and China or rode ship into Chinese ports. Jewish refugees from Europe during the Holocaust were welcomed within China, which today remains one of the only nations in the world that has never persecuted Jews for their faith.

These visits to China have been a life-changing experience for me, and I know they will be for you as well. Each tour is a means of discovering how people overcome seemingly unbreakable barriers to create lifelong friendships. We too create friendships with the Jewish communities of Beijing and Shanghai and with the Chinese. We visit magnificent buildings designed by Sephardic Jewish entrepreneurs from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, walk where Ashkenazic Jews fleeing persecution in Russia, Poland, and the Baltic States built a flourishing presence. We visit the memorial to some 20,000 Jews from Nazi Germany, Austria, and Nazi-occupied countries who found shelter in Shanghai's Hongkou Ghetto and walk today's busy alleys and thoroughfares where "stateless" refugees, who left Germany and Austria with their citizenship revoked by Nazi Germany, once formed a thriving ghetto community that came to be known as "Little Vienna."

In addition to creating and serving as Scholar-In-Residence on these Jewish Heritage Tours of China, I have continued to create these tours for individuals, families, and groups of all sizes. I maintain friendships with many in China as well as those with whom I had the joy to travel. My appreciation of China has led me to continuous study of the religious philosophies and cultures of Asia, including Taoism, Confucism, Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, Hinduism, Sikhism, and other faiths of Asia. I now share a bond with individuals from around the world who have been to and loved China - some of whom, like myself, have returned again and again. I look forward to leading groups into the heart of the Northern and Southern Silk Roads, within inland and coastal communities where Jews thrived, and into remote regions inhabited by peoples who live untouched by the world surrounding them.

I hope you will want to see China through these kinds of unique and lasting discoveries. If so, we have the chance to travel together. My deepest thanks to all who have expressed their enjoyment of this site and what it has meant to them in planning their travels and gaining a better understanding of the Chinese people as well as their connection to the Jewish community.

The tour pages of this site remain as a resource to you. Online Photographic tours that were on the site previously are being converted to beautiful slide shows that will make it much easier for you to access and navigate the site. They are located in the Tour Gallery of the site, which now contains several first slide shows while many more are being created. Links, history, tour recollections, and testimonials are easy to locate.

Joy Katzen-Guthrie

Click to Visit Traveler Comments & TESTIMONIALS
Click to Visit Joy's Spectacular Gallery of PHOTOGRAPHS FROM CHINA
Click to Visit Joy's Compilation of CHINA'S JEWISH HERITAGE
Click to Read Joy's TOUR RETROSPECTIVES
Click to Visit Joy's Compilation of JEWISH CHINA RESOURCES
Click to Read about Heritage Tour Scholar-In-Residence Joy Katzen-Guthrie.
Click to Read What Is Extraordinary About Regent China Travel?
Click for any additional information or questions about this tour or any of our tours to China