Pictured: The Jewish section of the Sakamoto Cemetery in Nagasaki

Historically, the Japanese cities of Kobe and Nagasaki were home to relatively large Jewish communities. Following World War II, many relocated to the United States and other countries. Currently, the Jewish population in Japan consists mostly of temporary residents, predominantly of American origin, though there are also Israeli nationals involved, among other things, in the jewelry business. A small number of Japanese citizens who have converted to Judaism is also documented. Although this culturally and ethnically diverse community is virtually imperceptible in comparison to the country's vast population, it serves as an important social symbol and is poised to play a significant role in establishing a positive backdrop for the rapidly developing economic and political relations between Israel and Japan in recent years.

Editor's Foreword

The Euro-Asian Jewish Congress is one of the largest umbrella Jewish organizations in the world, with branches and partner organizations in 26 countries across Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Asia, and Oceania. According to the latest demographic estimates, approximately 1.2 million Jews and their household members, eligible under the Israeli Law of Return, reside in these regions. Although 90% of this population is concentrated in post-Soviet states, the Congress has become a center of organizational and political gravity for peripheral Jewish communities in other countries of the continent.

This aspect of operations not only carries a moral imperative to maintain safety, status, and to preserve and develop the specific culture of Jewish communities, regardless of their size, but also stems from the understanding that today, when accusations of "dual loyalty" are no longer legitimate in mainstream democratic discourse, such communities serve as a symbolic factor and sometimes a platform for fostering relationships between host countries and the State of Israel. This is especially true in recent decades, as the significance of the Jewish state as a global high-tech hub and its position in world geopolitics have grown exponentially.

An example of such trends is Japan—a powerful East Asian superpower with a tiny Jewish community. Jerusalem and Tokyo exchanged ambassadors in 1952, less than a month after the official end of the Allied occupation of Japan. Unlike India and China, there was no question of Japan—a US ally—participating in the Non-Aligned Movement; consequently, Tokyo felt no need to adopt the "anti-Zionist" narrative that dominated the movement due to pressure from Arab and Muslim nations. Nevertheless, economic factors, primarily the dependence of its highly industrialized economy on Middle Eastern oil, compelled Tokyo to comply in one way or another with the Arab boycott (as did, for example, the country's leading automakers) and to minimize economic ties with Israel.

Yet, it was Japan that opened the "Asian era" for the Israeli economy at the end of the last century. "In the early 1990s," writes a Jerusalem Post commentator, Japanese "cautious investors concluded that fear of Arab League boycotts against those cooperating with Israel had become an anachronism." The turning point was the first Gulf War, which clearly demonstrated that the primary conflicts in the Arab world were virtually unrelated to Israel and the Jewish people, as well as the 1991 Madrid Conference, which raised hopes that the Arab-Israeli conflict was becoming a thing of the past. As a result, delegations from investment funds and business representatives poured into Israel from Japan, indicating through their words and actions that they considered the country entirely safe diplomatically and financially promising for their partners and clients. Since then, the level of economic and diplomatic partnership between Israel and Japan has grown exponentially, as evidenced by the frequency and level of state visits by their leaders. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Japan in 2014, and the first visit of a sitting Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, to Israel took place in January 2015, and again in May 2018. On both occasions, the head of the Japanese government was accompanied by a delegation of leaders from major Japanese companies and corporations.

As Japanese researcher Shaun Ho rightly notes, the two countries have not yet succeeded in bringing their cooperation to the level that Israel shares with its Western allies or even China. However, there is immense potential for developing close ties, as the benefits of cooperation in economy, technology, and diplomacy are already obvious to both Japan and Israel. According to the analyst, "despite radical cultural differences, cooperation between the two countries is developing according to a pattern of 'mutual complementarity,' where each country compensates for the structural weaknesses of its partner: the lack of innovative technology in Japan and the narrowness of the Israeli market, which can be expanded through the capabilities of a country whose GDP is 14 times that of Israel."[i]

The second reason, which Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe did not conceal, is Japan's desire to develop its political and military potential in light of the geopolitical and geostrategic challenges posed by China's growing influence in the region. Consequently, Tokyo is concerned not only with strengthening ties with traditional allies but also with seeking new partners in the Asia-Pacific region and the world at large. As one of the most influential countries in the Middle East, Israel could become an invaluable partner and secure important strategic interests for Tokyo in the region, particularly as Israel's relations with Arab nations improve and Japan's dependence on Middle Eastern oil decreases.[ii]

We must not overlook another aspect directly related to Jewish people: despite past government support for the Arab League boycott against the Jewish state, anti-Israel and antisemitic sentiments have been almost entirely absent in Japan. Furthermore, the BDS movement, promoted by certain left-wing extremist and Islamist circles, including in Western countries, and aimed (largely unsuccessfully) at delegitimizing, boycotting economically, and isolating Israel diplomatically, has found virtually no base in Japan. It is expected that the extremely small, yet highly complex and culturally rich Jewish community of Japan, to which the following essay by Tatyana Lokshina is dedicated, will play a significant role in these processes.

Prof. Vladimir (Zeev) Khanin

Jews in Japan

The history of the Jewish community in Japan is marked by several periods, each defining the geography of its settlement. The first known Jews arrived in Japan from the Song Empire in China. They engaged in trade on the islands of Honshu and Shikoku.

Later, in 1572, Spanish Jews from the Kingdom of Naples, who had converted to Christianity to board Portuguese ships from Macau, arrived in Nagasaki. Many of them settled in Japan and returned to Judaism, reclaiming their former family names (especially Levites). In 1586, a small community of three families was relocated by the samurai army of Shimazu to the city of Settsu in Osaka Prefecture, where the community grew to 130 people. There are records of the Bettelheim family, British citizens and medical doctors, who resided in the city of Naha (Okinawa Prefecture) between 1848 and 1854.

A new period for Jews in Japan began on July 1, 1859, with the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between Japan and the United States. Consequently, until the end of the Edo period in 1868, about 50 Jewish families lived in the foreign settlement of Yokohama, where Raphael Schoyer, a Jew, served as mayor. With the start of the Meiji Restoration in 1867, this Jewish community vanished entirely within a single week. A few families of Jewish refugees from Russia and Poland, who reached Nagasaki in 1861, laid the foundation for the local Ashkenazi Jewish community. On September 3, 1896, the first synagogue in Japan, "Beth Israel" (קהלה), opened in Nagasaki, but by 1905, with the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the Nagasaki Jewish community had once again virtually disappeared.

By the end of the nineteenth century, a predominantly Sephardic Jewish community had established itself in Kobe. At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was joined by Jewish soldiers of the Russian army who had been captured by the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 and chose not to return to Russia. Another large group of Russian Jews (estimated at about 5,000 people) immigrated to Japan following the Bolshevik Revolution and the Civil War of 1917-1920.

The year 1938 was marked by a Japanese project to rescue Jews from persecution in Europe. The initiative was known as "The Kawaguch-Fugu Plan" (fugu being the pufferfish, which, if prepared incorrectly, is lethal) and was proposed by Inuzuka Koreshige, a Japanese researcher of Jewish affairs. Inuzuka valued the economic and political role of Jews and believed that Jewish immigration would be highly beneficial to Japan, but warned that errors in executing this idea could have devastating consequences. This dual nature of the plan mirrored the preparation of the delicious yet poisonous fugu fish.

In reality, the Kawaguchi project bore the lengthy title "Concrete Measures to Attract the US and Influential Jews to the Nearby Territories of the Far East into a Favorable Political Course for the Japanese Empire." At the time, Japan maintained relatively friendly relations with the Jewish community, while its diplomatic relations with America were highly strained over Manchuria.

The core of the project was to persuade America (specifically American Jews) to encourage European Jews to relocate to Manchuria or Shanghai. It was a detailed plan for Jewish migration and methods of attracting Jewish investments into the Japanese economy and its occupied territories. The resource-rich Manchuria was a priority, where a Jewish autonomous region could serve as a buffer zone on the border with the USSR.

The goal of the plan was to enable Japan to leverage Jewish economic influence and attempt to invest Jewish capital into the Japanese economy. The plan, drafted in June 1939, was submitted to the government for approval in July of the same year under the title "Studies and Analysis on the Introduction of Jewish Capital." The plan included the following points:

• Sending a delegation to the United States;

• Inviting an American rabbi to Japan;

• Presenting the rabbi with commonalities between Judaism and Shintoism;

• Introducing the Japanese public to Jewish people and Judaism.

The plan also proposed reaching out to American newspapers and the film industry, assuming that these sectors in America were dominated by Jews. However, the majority of the document was dedicated to migration plans. Multiple locations in Manchuria and various areas near Shanghai were suggested. It was estimated that the number of migrants would range from 108,000 to 600,000. Additionally, detailed plans for developing infrastructure in the Jewish settlements, such as schools and hospitals based on the projected population, were presented. It was intended to grant these settlements freedom of Jewish worship, culture, and education.

The authors of the plan were highly cautious in their phrasing, preferring to speak of "some freedom" rather than "complete freedom," providing just enough to win the favor of Jews who would bring economic benefits to the country, while preventing them from gaining control over Japan's politics and economy. According to the creators' vision, "Jewish settlements must resemble a self-governing country, over which, considering the clever nature of the Jews, secret surveillance and control are necessary." These concerns were fueled by the publication in the 1920s of the translated anti-Semitic fabrication "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" by Norihiro Yasue, a Japanese liaison officer at the headquarters of the White Guard Ataman Grigory Semyonov, which detailed how Jews allegedly seize control of states.

The global Jewish community did not invest in this project, and the planned Jewish immigration never materialized. The outbreak of war between Japan and the US in 1941 rendered the plan entirely irrelevant. Nevertheless, in June 1939, the consul of the Manchurian representation in Berlin issued 12,000 visas to Jews. From July to September 1940, Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese vice-consul in Kaunas, Lithuania (recognized in Israel as Righteous Among the Nations), organized the mass distribution of transit visas to Jewish refugees from Poland, defying his own ministry's stance, and thereby saved over 3,000 people who were received in Kobe. The migrants later proceeded to America and Shanghai. The Shanghai community, which grew to 18,000 people, received support from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee ("Joint") and from the Jews of Harbin, another major Jewish community in Chinese territories occupied by Japan during World War II.

"The restoration of the Jewish community in Japan began immediately after the end of World War II," notes Vladimir Lazaris in his review, "but was to some extent hindered by the diverse ethnic origins of the Jews gathered here: on one hand, from Iraq, Egypt, and Syria, and on the other, from Russia, Poland, Romania, and the USA. Nevertheless, by 1953, a Jewish community officially recognized by the authorities was re-established in Japan. It emerged in the Hiroo district of Tokyo, with the assistance of American Jewish servicemen, and effectively established Jewish religious services in the country. At that time, a community center was opened in Tokyo, with the brother of the Japanese Emperor attending the opening ceremony."[iii]

In the post-war years, the Jewish community in Japan steadily declined, and today it is estimated to number between 600 and 1,000 people. Three-quarters of this population consists of temporary or permanent expatriate workers, primarily from the United States (until recently, the congregation was led by American Rabbi Marvin Tokayer) and, to a lesser extent, Israelis. However, the Jewish presence in Japan is not limited to this. Judaism attracts its own followers and sympathizers, and new groups of those "interested in Jewish studies" continue to emerge.

"Judaizers" and "Sympathizers" in Japan

In the atmosphere of spiritual crisis that followed Japan's defeat in World War II, a number of Japanese turned to Judaism.[iv] One such denomination, Sei Iesu Kai ("The Holy Jesus Congregation"), built its teachings on the idea of a special mission carried out in this world by the people of Israel. It was founded by Otsuki Takeji in 1946. In addition to being the third largest indigenous Japanese Christian church (approximately 5,000 members), it is also an intellectual community engaged in philosophical and historical research, collaborating with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, fostering cultural exchange with various Jewish communities in Israel, and supporting Jews living in Japan.

A much larger project was initiated by Ikuro Teshima, a Japanese businessman and Protestant Christian who advocated the theory that the Japanese are descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel. He incorporated elements of the teachings of Rabbi A. Kook, M. Buber, and A. Heschel into Gospel texts, and in 1948 established a religious movement with a strong affinity for Judaism called "Makuya." Followers of this movement view the establishment of the State of Israel and the reunification of Jerusalem as the fulfillment of biblical prophecies, and believe that the gathering of Jews in Eretz Yisrael represents the first stage of the Kingdom of God on Earth. (https://www.makuya.org/about-makuya/what-is-makuya/).

Its adherents adopt Hebrew names, light candles on Friday nights, observe the Sabbath, eat challah, pray using a siddur, and adhere to a specific form of kosher dietary laws. Community activists also conduct research in Jewish studies, publish Hebrew dictionaries, Jewish books, and history textbooks, and make annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem. To introduce the Japanese public to Jewish society, economy, and educational principles, Ikuro Teshima published a comprehensive textbook in December 1979 titled "Why Are the Jews Eminent?". His work was continued by translator Koichiro Ishikawa, and in May 1985, the "Mishnah"—specifically, the Pirkei Avot and Berakhot sections of Seder Nezikin—was published, followed by "Horayot" in September of that year. In February 1986, "Taanit," "Megillah," "Moed Katan," and "Chagigah" were released, and "Pesachim" followed in April 1987. In August 1994, Ikuro Teshima published a new book, "The Philosophy of Jewish Business," using a diamond company as an example.

The scale of this community's influence is significant. Its core membership is estimated at several tens of thousands of people across Japan, the United States, Brazil, Taiwan, and Israel, but the number of individuals in some form of informational and intellectual contact with it is several times larger. (For instance, the movement's periodical, the Makuya Newsletter, has approximately 300,000 Japanese subscribers).[v] However, there is no doubt that ethnic Jews, Japanese converts (Geryim), descendants of mixed marriages, and "Judaizers" alike contribute to the presence of Jewish culture in Japan.

In this regard, various institutions and initiatives play a significant role, such as the Japan-Israel Society for Jewish Studies, founded in Tokyo in 1961, which publishes the journal "Jewish-Israeli Studies." Similarly, the Holocaust Education Center in Fukuyama, Hiroshima Prefecture, opened in 1995, and the Jewish Culture Study Group (JJSK), initially established in central Japan and now based in Kobe, contribute to these efforts.

In 1996, the Israel-Japan Chamber of Commerce was established in Japan, and its role has grown exponentially with the intensification of the Israeli-Japanese economic partnership described at the beginning of this article.

Conclusion: Next Steps

It follows from the above that in the case of the Jewish community and the groups "sympathetic" to Jewish culture and Israel in Japan, we are clearly dealing with more than just an interesting artifact or historical curiosity. The engagement of the global Jewish community with these groups holds significant practical value. According to EAJC Director General Dr. Chaim Ben-Yakov, this understanding guides the organization's current actions and future plans on the "Japanese track." Indeed, several initiatives led by the Congress are already underway.

• The first is consolidating the community and revitalizing Jewish institutions. To this end, the EAJC initiated the reconstruction of the historic synagogue and the construction of a new community center in Tokyo ten years ago, which officially opened in September 2009. Their activities will be detailed in future reports.

• The second focus is on strengthening Jewish identity and involving new generations of Jewish families in community life. The platform for this challenging task, regardless of community size, is typically Jewish education. While establishing a formal Jewish education system in Japan's current environment may be unfeasible, informal education can partially address this need, as shown by experiences in other countries. This highlights the importance of the EAJC's plans to develop a Jewish Sunday school in Tokyo and its associated community and educational projects (https://www.facebook.com/JFutureTokyo-1026822844156934/?modal=admin_todo_tour).

• Another critical issue for the future of Japanese Jewry, as in any Jewish community, is engaging unaffiliated individuals. Creative approaches, such as developing virtual network communities like "Jewish Roots in Japan" founded by Tatyana Lokshina (https://www.facebook.com/groups/757580461339405/), have proven to be highly effective.

• Finally, the presence of tens or perhaps hundreds of thousands of individuals actively sympathetic to Jewish people and Israel, along with their positive relationship with the local Jewish community, opens up vast opportunities for pro-Israel public diplomacy. This remains a priority in the EAJC's strategic plans.

Should these and other plans be realized, such efforts are highly likely to yield positive results in the short, medium, and long term.

[i] Shaun Ho, “Israeli-Japanese Friendship: A Potential Yet to Be Realized”, JCPA/Institute for Contemporary Affairs, No. 621 (December 25, 2018)

[ii]  Simon Denyer, “Japan’s Abe stakes out new identity in region: Stronger leadership and wider military reach”, The Washington Post, Oct 20, 2018

[iii] Cited in: Vladimir Lazaris, A Guide to the Galut: The Jewish World in One Book. – Moscow: Knizhniki Publishing House, 2019

[iv] See: David G. Goodman, Masanori Miyazawa. Jews in the Japanese Mind: the History and Uses of a Cultural Stereotype. New York: The Free Press, 1995

[v] Aviva and Shmuel Bar-Am, “Meet the Makuya, Israel’s most unwavering supporters”, The Times of Israel, 30 May 2015