With the last name personally bestowed by the emperor and promoted to the secret police force that reported directly to the emperor, Zhao Cheng's achievements were the most significant distinctions the Jews had received up to that point and was a turning point for the status of the community in the Chinese society. According to Michael Pollak, author of the book Mandarins, Jews and Missionaries: The Jewish experience in the Chinese Empire, this was “a very meaningful concession to be given to a person of foreign extraction since, in the first part of the Ming Dynasty, foreigners were not usually permitted to adopt Chinese patronymics.”

Heading forward, the Jews would take full advantage of all opportunities that were open to the natives, including Imperial Examinations and civil service positions.

This marked the beginning of what would become 220 years of Jewish prosperity in China.

The Jews in Kaifeng interacted with their brethren in other Chinese cities such as Ningbo, Ningxia, Yangzhou and Hangzhou. For example, the Jews in Ningbo contributed two Torah scrolls to Kaifeng in 1462, and the composer of the 1512 Stone Inscription, Zuo Tang (左唐), was from Yangzhou. However, by the 17th century, all other Jewish communities in China, except the Kaifeng one, vanished.

By the Ming Dynasty, the Kaifeng Jews were already fluent in Chinese and dressed in Chinese attire. They were familiar with the customs practised by their neighbours, and yet they did not forget those of their own. They excelled in finding ways to integrate the two.

For example, the most basic of the traditions of the host society was that of ancestor worship. The Chinese burned incense and offered food in front of the ancestral tablets. This was their way of showing filial piety and glueing together family units. The Jews associated this with their own Yizkor and Yahrzeit services for the dead. In their synagogue, they had a Hall of the Founder of the religion where they remembered Abraham, a Hall of the Holy Patriarchs, and even ancestral halls for the Li and Zhao Clans. Again, incense was burned, and according to Father Gozani, who visited the synagogue, "They honour their dead in the hall of the ancestors with the same ceremonies as are employed in China; but without tablets, they being forbidden the use of images and of everything of that kind."

Another example is dealing with Chinese law. Every house of worship must have a Long Live the Emperor Imperial Tablet dedicated to the emperor and the ruling regime as a sign of loyalty and obedience. The Jews had no choice but to obey in the matter; but they placed the Shema, inscribed in Hebrew words that the Chinese could not understand, on top of the Imperial Tablet, showing their devotion to the One God.

The adaptability of the Kaifeng Jews allowed them to follow the local traditions while remaining true to their Israelite roots and stuck to a relatively pure set of biblical rites. This religious acculturation gave them the distinct ability to find acceptance within the pluralistic and flexible Chinese religious milieu. They openly supported their religious community, practised a Jewish life, and actively donated money to the multiple restorations of their synagogue. In the vast sea of Chinese people and dominant culture, they never forgot that they were Jews. They proudly maintained their dual identity — that of Chinese literati and orthodox Jew.

At its peak, the Jewish congregation in Kaifeng had over 500 families, with a population of roughly 5,000.

The preparation of the Imperial Examinations was so time-consuming that it was challenging to be a Confucian scholar and a Hebrew scholar simultaneously. For example, Ai Tian's two brothers both chose Judaic Studies; they became rabbis, and there was no record of them passing the Imperial Examinations and holding government positions. Ai Tian chose Confucian classics instead; he could secure a job in the government bureaucracy but knew no Hebrew and very little about Judaism.

In order to reach higher status in society, many of the Jewish community's brightest and most ambitious abandoned the study of Hebrew and Judaic Scriptures. Yet, for the sake of success in the secular world, they had to compromise their spiritual world.

Thus, the pursuit of Confucian canons, while facilitating success in the civil service examinations and the attainment of wealth and status, was a significant force in the assimilation of the Jews that eventually absorbed them into the host society and led to their disappearance.

With the Silk Road abandoned towards the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the implementation of a sea ban at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, China had entirely enclosed itself. It is unknown if this inward-looking policy led to the disappearance of all other Jewish communities in China, except Kaifeng. By the 17th century, the Kaifeng Jewry was entirely on its own.

However, the passion and the faith this small community of Jews had for their religion cannot be underestimated. Not only did they complete the construction of their synagogue ten years ahead, but the country also started to rebuild the metropolis of Kaifeng, their effort to reproduce their Torahs was not less impressive.

Furthermore, for hundreds of years, every time the synagogue faced destruction or damage, the community always gathered together and restored it to its previous glory.

Michael Pollak described this spirit of admirable resilience the best, "… while the texts of the extant Chinese Torahs do exhibit some minor variations from the texts of the Torahs in common use today, these variations are the results of scribal lapses – and nothing more. The Pentateuch which the Chinese Jews knew was exactly the same as the one we know. The proliferation of scribal errors in the surviving Chinese scrolls becomes understandable when it is realised that at the time they were written the Jews of Kaifeng had already been cut off for at least a generation or two, and probably for several generations, from all contact with Jewish communities outside their country. In their isolation it was inevitable that the Kaifeng Jews should gradually become deficient in their knowledge of Hebrew. What is remarkable, really, is that the thousand or so Jews who lived in the city of Kaifeng.… retained as much understanding of the language as they did.… the willingness of the amateur scribes of Kaifeng to attempt the rewriting of a dozen massive Scrolls — a task probably requiring from six to twelve man-months of labor per Scroll — and the readiness of the relatively small Jewish community, only a few years after it had suffered the ravages of war and flood, to provide the funds for a project of the magnitude (and to build a resplendent new synagogue as well) suggest that in the middle of the 17th century the ties of the Jews of Kaifeng to their ancient faith were still very much alive.”