Harry Alverson Franck (1881–1962) was an American travel writer. He visited Kaifeng around 1923.

During his visit, Franck estimated the Jewish community in Kaifeng to be no larger than a hundred in number; however, an elderly man who claimed to be the "present head of the clan" sworn up to 200 people were part of the Jewish community.

In 1923, Franck published his experience in the book Wandering in Northern China.

Arthur Sopher (索菲, 1896–1985), a Shanghai Jewish editor and member of the Society for the Rescue of the Chinese Jews (中国犹太人援助会), visited Kaifeng in 1924.

Sopher met a Jew from the Zhao Clan — possibly Zhao Zu-fang (赵祖芳) — who owned a tea shop near the site of the old synagogue. He took many photographs of various individuals and groups which were published two years later in his booklet about Chinese Jews.

When David A. Brown visited the community in 1932, a Zhao Clan member, who was twenty-seven years old, told Brown that a Jewish man — most probably Sopher — called on them and made many promises, but the community never heard from him again.

Alexander Horne, a photographer for Pathe News (百代新闻社) in China, and George A. Sokolsky who later became one of America’s most widely read political columnists, visited Kaifeng as representatives for the Society for the Rescue of the Chinese Jews. The pair noticed that the descendants had the same gods that the Chinese locals had in their homes, rather than the Jewish God.

Horne and Sokolsky noted that the Jews were a totally assimilated group of people who now lived "in different quarters of the town, never meeting together for religious or communal purposes;" they no longer circumcised their boys. Moreover, the Kaifeng Jews followed no Jewish customs and had only "the faintest conception of what it means to be a Jew," and were Jewish "in name only."

They believed that every effort should be made to save the community from dwindling even further, “though much delayed it is not too late. In another generation who knows?” The difficulty of this task was also clearly denoted, “It practically means making converts of a strange people. For they are Jews no longer. They are Chinese; absorbed, assimilated and rendered indistinguishable.”

Dr Walter Fuchs (1902–1979) was a Jewish lawyer who worked for the German Consulate General in Shanghai.

Dr Fuchs emphasised the Jewish delegation's eagerness to rebuild the synagogue. He wrote, "Regarding the ancient temple site, they showed a more concrete interest. The site was then a water hole, and the original title deed had been lost for a long time. Lately, however, they had succeeded in securing a new deed issued by the Chinese authorities to them in the name of the seven clans. They wanted to affirm that in their coming to Shanghai they were not prompted by any hope of personal gain…. They wanted to be instructed in the religion of their forefathers, and if the synagogue could be rebuilt without too much delay, ‘this,’ they said, ‘certainly would raise us from the dust and might rejuvenate the remnants of the ancient people.’”

Dr Fuchs also outlined the disappointing interaction between the Society for the Rescue of the Chinese Jews and the delegates they sponsored to visit Shanghai.

In 1938, during the Second Sino-Japanese War (第二次中日战争, 1937–1945), Harrison Forman (福尔曼, 1904–1978), a journalist, photographer and war correspondent, travelled from Shanghai to Nanjing and then Kaifeng. He observed that the missionaries in China actively sought protection for the Chinese during the Japanese bombardments.

He visited the Kaifeng Jewish community with Reverend Hendon M. Harris of the Southern Baptist Mission in Kaifeng. He was only able to find perhaps a dozen families of Jewish descent. Nevertheless, he took many photographs, especially of Zhao Zu-fang (赵祖芳) and his family.

He noted the community had “preserved nothing in written Hebrew, nor could any of them have read it if they had.” When asked about their Hebrew heritage, the only thing they knew was that it was “different from the Chinese.”

In February 1944, ten Chongqing-based foreign journalists wrote to Jiang Jie-shi (蒋介石, 1887–1975), requesting for a visit to Yan’an (延安) which was under military blockade. Permission was later granted, and Forman was one of the six foreign reporters that went on the trip. While in Yan'an, he interviewed Mao Zedong (毛泽东, 1893–1976).

Forman had a vast collection of photographs he took and diaries he kept while travelling in China.