At the Museum of Jewish Heritage, participants of Project Mah Jongg play a game. Melanie Einzig / For China Daily

Jewish and Chinese communities have been interacting for centuries and still do so in the Big Apple. Kelly Chung Dawson reports from New York.

At the Museum of Jewish Heritage recently, red Chinese lanterns hung from the rafters, snacks were presented in Chinese takeout boxes and up to 50 participants lined up to play a marathon game of mahjong. The marathon, which ran for six hours on Feb 6 and coincided with the lunar new year, is part of Project Mah Jongg (the preferred Jewish spelling), an exhibition and examination of the game that begins on May 4 and continues through December.

And though mahjong in a Jewish museum may seem like an incongruous pairing, the game has deep roots in the American-Jewish lifestyle dating back to the 1920s. It also points to parallels between Jews and Chinese.

"The relationship between American Jews and Chinese-Americans is a very interesting one," says Andrew Coe, author of Chop Suey: A Cultural History of Chinese Food in the United States.

"Most of the direction of the affection seems to go from American Jews being interested in Chinese culture, but there's a mutual feeling that Jewish and Chinese cultures are both very old world cultures with deep, long-held traditions."

Betsy Aldredge, an organizer and PR manager with the museum, speculated that in part, the relationship between the two communities sprung from simple proximity, as both Jewish and Chinese immigrants often lived in poor-income neighborhoods upon arriving in the US. In New York, that neighborhood was the Lower East Side, where Jewish and Chinese communities are still found.

"When you feel like an outsider, you're more likely to try new things and encounter other people who are new to the country," Aldredge says.

Much of the interest from American Jews in Chinese culture began in the 1920s, when mahjong swept the US because of widespread interest in the "mysticism" of the East, which also made Chinese food popular. At the time, Chinese food was considered hip for young urbanites seeking late-night fare, Coe says.

Mahjong ultimately faded from popular American culture, but both mahjong and Chinese food have remained popular mainstays of Jewish-American tradition.

"Mahjong has a long history of being used for philanthropy in the Jewish community," Aldredge says. "Local sisterhood groups have often used it as a way to raise money for their temples, and we're reclaiming that."

Rebecca Zeffert, executive director of the Israel Asia Center, an organization devoted to promoting understanding and cooperation between Israel and Asia, listed similarities between the two cultures.

"In terms of commonalities, it is always noted that both the Chinese and Jewish peoples have long civilizations spanning thousands of years, and both place a strong emphasis on the importance of family and education," she says.

Meryl Moser, a participant in the mahjong marathon, echoed Zeffert's thoughts.

"I feel like Chinese and Jewish people are similar in their focus on education and strong family roots," she says. "They're similar types of communities who worked and pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. The two communities seem to be hand-in-hand, always."

Moser recalled her daughter's 13th birthday party, held at a Chinese restaurant. When the group left, the owner ran to stop her. "Are you Jewish?" he asked her. When she confirmed that she was, he replied, "I knew it! My father always told me to open where Jews are."

In fact, many Chinese restaurants cater to Jewish patrons, sometimes labeling food by familiar Jewish terms or specifying kosher-safe foods, Coe says. Some Jewish Americans employ "safe treif" when dining at Chinese restaurants, a more lax attitude toward kosher eating that basically dictates, "If you cannot see the meat, it's OK to eat," Coe says.

"This made it possible for people who wanted to keep some level of Jewish customs to enjoy Chinese food without bringing shame on their ancestors."

Chinese restaurants are also open on Sundays and other Christian holidays, when most restaurants close. The lack of Christian religious imagery in Chinese restaurants likely also made Jewish patrons feel more comfortable, Coe says.

Additionally, a large number of Jewish families have adopted Chinese children, creating a growing population of young Chinese-Jewish women and teenagers in New York and elsewhere.

Candy Cheng, co-creator of a website titled "Chinese and Chosen", a project that explored this subject, reported that every family interviewed had made efforts to introduce Chinese culture into their home. In some families, this took the form of Chinese language classes, while others made frequent visits to China.

Jewish and Chinese communities interacted before immigrating to the US. There are records of Jewish settlers in China as early as the 7th or 8th centuries, and most famously, the Kaifeng Jews, who lived in Henan province for hundreds of years.

Zeffert says a number of Kaifeng descendants have recently moved to Israel to re-establish their Jewish roots.

Additionally, China took in Jewish refugees during World War II.

"It is known in the Jewish world that during the time that the rest of the world closed their doors to the Jewish people, more than 20,000 found refuge in Shanghai and for that we are forever grateful," Rabbi Shalom Greenberg of the Shanghai Jewish Center says.

Zeffert points to a connection between perceptions of the identities of both cultures. "In the past, in East and Southeast Asia, the Chinese diaspora was referred to as the 'Jews of Asia', due to the fact that wherever they settled in Asia, they were the traders and the businesspeople, just as the Jews were."

Cheng believes there is great respect between the two communities. "There are a lot of stereotypes out there, but they do really embrace each other," she says.