traditions as the rate of intermarriage between Jews and other ethnic groups such as the Han Chinese increased. With some Kaifeng families, Muslim men did marry their Jewish women, but the converse did not happen. In 1849, an observer who had contact with the Kaifeng Jewish community noted that "the Jews are quite Chinese in appearance." The Taiping Rebellion of the 1850s led to the dispersal of the community, but it later returned to Kaifeng. To avoid the threat of becoming defunct, the Kaifeng community dispatched members to Shanghai in order to seek help from European Jewish Sephardim merchants were active. The funds that were collected to this end were diverted to assist an influx of Russian Jews fleeing pogroms. Shanghai's Baghdadi community made attempts to assist Kaifeng Jews in returning to Judaism, accepting them, despite their pure Chinese features, as co-religionists. the firm of S. H. Sassoon took two Kaifeng brothers in flight from the Taiping rebels under their wing and had them sent to Bombay where they underwent circumcision. One died within two years but the other, Feba, was renamed Shalem Sholome David, and was employed by the Sassoons in their Shanghai office (1872-1882). In 1883 he married a Baghdadi Jewess, Habiba Reuben Moses, and became a respected member of the Jewish community in Bombay. During the Boxer rebellion the Bombay community offered to subsidize the relocation of Kaifeng Jews to Shanghai. The dismantlement of the synagogue sometime between 1850 and 1866 led to the community's demise. By the turn of the 19-20th century members of the community had fallen into dire poverty. The Zhang Kaifeng Jewish family had largely converted to Islam by this time. The site of the synagogue had turned into a fetid swamp. Much material belonging to it, even the roof tiles, was purchased by Muslims and others: two young Kaifeng Jews sold three Torahs to two Americans and an Austrian. Some property was also said to have been stolen. The Ark of the Sefer Torah was reportedly seen in a mosque. The site itself was apparently bought by Bishop White in 1914, and in 1954, the Chinese Communist government confiscated the property and built the Kaifeng Municipal Clinic on it. Some usages remained. Burial coffins maintained a distinctive shape from those customary for Chinese. Kaifeng Jewish ancestry has been found among their descendants living among the Hui Muslims. Scholars have pointed out that