According to Lena Cansdale’s article “Jews on the Silk Road” Judaism spanned from the Roman Empire to India. This information comes from primary sources in the different areas such as a prayer text in Hebrew found in the southern part of the Gobi desert. Trade documents from the Persian and Byzantine empires inform readers of Jewish merchants and trading. Although Cansdale’s article seems like a short synopsis of the journey of Jews in exile it also implicitly suggests something about Jewish identity. “Jews” became merchants because they were segregated by government force into those places and travel became part of their lives thus the widespread evidence of Jews at many places on the Silk road is understandable. In addition, some Jews may have traveled along the Silk Road to find life other than as second class citizens. Also it’s not clear what Cansdale means by Jews or Judaism which makes this overview seem too generalized. It is unclear whether the Jews in India culture was anything like the Jews of Kiev. The thing that appears to define Jews as Jews is government regulations and possibly the Hebrew language (but that is not enough to define a group across an area). Therefore Cansdale’s article gives little insight into what Judaism was actually like in any area at any time across the silk road.
