PEKING

PEKING (Beijing) , capital of China. In the second half of the 13^th century Marco Polo reported the presence of Jews in Beijing among the followers of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan. The Scottish traveler, John Bell, who visited Beijing in 1720–21, found a few Jews, supposedly descendants of these early arrivals. This remnant disappeared and no Jews settled in Beijing until modern times. During World War ii there were about 100 Jews of various nationalities (or stateless) in Beijing, mostly European refugees. All of them left the Chinese capital after the war.

bibliography:

I. Cohen, Journal of a Jewish Traveller (1925), 189–94.

[Rudolf Loewenthal]

Peking earlier form of transliteration of the name of the Chinese capital Beijing.
Peking man the name given to a fossil hominid of the middle Pleistocene period, identified from remains found near Beijing in 1926.
Peking opera a stylized Chinese form of opera dating from the late 18th century, in which speech, singing, mime, and acrobatics are performed to an instrumental accompaniment.

Peking See Beijing