Curious as to how this tablecloth came to have Central Asian-style lamb on it, I asked my waitress what the writing meant. Not surprisingly she had no idea. I asked her what language it was and she said she really was not sure.

If anyone out there knows why exactly there are Hebrew characters in a Xinjiang restaurant, please share. Perhaps there is some history of Jews coming over through Central Asia that I do not know about. Of course, there were some in Kaifeng, but it seems highly unlikely they left this large an impression in Xinjiang hundreds of years later.

The more time I spent there, the more I became convinced that a lot of the people would actually have an affinity for Jews. Hey, they have bagels right? Now if only they had lox.