All of this is so current for the times!
BTW, here is another related article. Got the link from Japanese-Jewish Resources, but had to use the Internet Archive to find it:
The Japanese: Descendants of one of the Ten Lost Tribes?
By Bella Lerner
Special to The Jewish Star
During this past summer, my husband and I and our friends Eleanor and Stanley Webber traveled to the Orient with a Jewish tour group led by Rabbi Marvin Tokayer. We've traveled through several European countries, but were never hit with the cultural differences that exist between America and the Far East. And yet, what we saw of many of the countries', in particular Japan's, religious practices were so similar to many of ours that I found myself, wondering, "Where did these people come from? How did they learn what they now practice?"
Japanese religious practices have many similarities to Judaism. The native Japanese religion is Shinto. There are 400 Shinto shrines in Japan. Side by side with Shintoism is Buddhism which has its roots in Hinduism, the primary religion of India. Buddhism became successful out of India, especially in Tibet, China, and Japan. Shinto Priests administer to all life cycle events except death, which is in the Buddhist domain. The Shinto Priest wears a white linen robe. Over the robe, he wears a shawl having a fringe with eight strings and five knots. Imagine the Jewish High Priest in his white linen robe and tallit! Shinto Shrines are imageless. The courtyard is like that of the Temple in Jerusalem.
The Yamabushi (Yama means mountain), the mountain worshippers, wear a black box on their foreheads all day and never ascend their holy mountain. "No one shall ascend the mountain on penalty of death," as G-d cautioned the Jews. The Shinto priest blows a horn (as in shofar) while wearing the "tallit." One must remember the Mount Sinai story. Rice and fish are brought as shrine offerings. Fish must have fins and scales. When asked the derivation of these customs, the answer was, "We don't know, but we've been practicing them for a long, long time."
The Japanese developed the theory that they aren't from Japan. There were white, hairy Caucasians that inhabited the area and were killed by the Japanese. They searched their culture--- dances and songs---and said they were different from their neighbors. (One morning, upon awakening, I turned on the TV and began to get dressed. All of a sudden, I heard what I thought were Israeli folk songs. I rushed to the TV only to find that Japanese singers were singing their own folk songs. The similarity was amazing. Both the music and the words sounded Israeli.) Some Japanese believe that their ancestry came from ancient Jews because they had many of the same customs. 700 BCE was about when the 10 Jewish tribes disappeared. Recorded Japanese history began about 660 BCE. Coincidence?
In Kyoto we visited the Well of Isurai; some translate it as the Well of Israel. On the doors of the homes in the vicinity, up until the 19th century, there were hung masks of bearded men with round eyes and Semitic noses. Once a year, 10 days after the New Moon, in the fall, (Yom Kippur?) the mask was removed. The community would take two goats and go through the following ceremony. The goats would rush down two narrow lanes. The people, wearing their masks, would follow them. One goat would go off into the wilderness and one towards the temple. "Choose life," they would say. The Japanese said that they have followed this ritual for over 1,900 years. The neighborhood has since been rebuilt after it was burnt down and everything was gone including the masks and this tradition.
Some speculate that the Japanese people descended from one of the Lost Tribes. Most think it nonsense. However, certainly there was a strong intermingling of races and many customs had to be learned from the Jews living in Yokohama, Nagasaki, Tokyo and Kobe. But what about the practices from ancient times? A puzzlement!
The most famous teacher of the art of calligraphy, Master Kampo Harada, recently deceased, claimed that he had Jewish ancestry. In his parents' home he discovered fringes, and Kampo's father told him that he was from the Middle East. We visited his home in Kyoto, in which a room was set aside as a sanctuary. He constructed the synagogue which houses an ark for the Sefer Torahs and a large library of all types of seforim (which he couldn't read).
There is a choir of the Japanese Christian Friends of Israel who sing a compilation of Israeli and Chasidic songs in Hebrew. The church building is called Bet Shalom. We visited with them in Kyoto and saw and heard their lovely choir. The women were dressed in kimonos and the men in suits. Among the songs they sang were the Hatikvah, Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, Ani Ma'amin and Al Hamayim. What was really impressive was when members of our group asked them to sing various songs and, without hesitation, they obliged! (Their professional choir will be touring the United States sometime in November.)
The Bet Shalom sanctuary has an altar with a golden menorah. The ceiling has 12 lights for the 12 tribes of Israel. In attendance, besides our group, were many Japanese men and women who waved Israeli and Japanese flags. After the melodic concert, the group treated us with kosher snacks and warm, but difficult conversation. The members' bright smiles conveyed the warmth and friendship in their hearts.
The group was established in 1946 by a Father Otsuki. He told us that in 1938 he received a message from G-d who told him to pray for the Jewish people. Father Otsuki, a Christian minister in Manchuko at that time, is now 91 years old. He quoted Genesis, ch. 12, "I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you." He believes that by caring for the Jewish people and by the Jews following the dictates of the Torah, salvation will come to all people. "It's a great honor to have the chosen people with us tonight," he said.
The sect maintains a guest house named the Anne Frank House. It is a residence only for Jews who want to visit Japan. Jewish visitors are given three free nights accommodations and a refrigerator filled with kosher food. Recently this Christian group established a new chair in the Department of Bible at Hebrew University in honor of Father Otsuki. Father Otsuki told us that the chair was established to help bring about the Moshiach. He stated there are three stages in the learning of Torah. The first is that Torah is outside of man. It is there to teach him. The second is when the Torah is in his mouth, when he can recite it and learn it day and night. The last is when the Torah comes into his heart. It penetrates and changes his being. Thus it becomes a living Torah. It fills man with love. When the Torah controls man then we can expect peace in the world. I must reiterate, Father Otsuki is Christian! He wore a yarmulka and spoke in Japanese peppered with Hebrew. A member of his group translated his message into English. Many group members study in Israel and speak fluent Hebrew. The sect observes Pesach, not Easter. They bake challah for Friday night and mostly study the Old Testament.
Bet Shalom built a Holocaust museum and education center in Hiroshima. Japanese children visit it and learn about the atomic bomb and the Holocaust at the same time. The group has 10,000 members and 109 churches.
After leaving the Kyoto area, we visited the port city, known as Kobe. Kobe is the sixth largest city in Japan with 1.5 million people. During WWII Kobe was destroyed, but the Jews that remained were settled in the mountains around Kobe (to make sure that they were not involved in espionage against the Japanese) so most weren't killed during the bombings.
Japan saved 50,000 Jews in the 1940s when it gave permission for Jews to enter its realm. Most came through Russia by ship and were housed in Kobe while seeking entry to other parts of the world. A member of our tour, who had escaped Poland, was in Kobe at that time. He told us that it was one of the happiest times of his life. The Japanese were very good to all of the Jews living there. After Pearl Harbor, most of the Jews that remained in Kobe were relocated to Shanghai.
Kobe has a Sephardic Jewish community. Still today, many Jews meet for lunch at the Jewish Club, called The Kobe Club. The area between the shul (housed in the Jewish Community Center where we ate lunch) and the Kobe Club was where most refugee activities took place. During the 1995 earthquake, the community center was badly damaged. The World Jewish Congress and B'nai B'rith helped raise money to reinforce the foundation of the building. However, most Jewish business people moved away. There is a Shabbat minyan about 80 percent of the time. There still are about 300-400 Jews living in Kobe, but only 70 are affiliated with the Jewish community.
One funny anecdote that Rabbi Tokayer related was that in 1972, when he was rabbi in Tokyo, he received a call from the police department in Kobe. They told him to come to Kobe because they arrested one of his people. When he arrived at the jail, he was ushered in to see the "culprit." He turned out to be a Satmar Chasid from Brooklyn whose father-in-law sent him to Japan to purchase pearls for his jewelry business. Since he knew that he couldn't purchase reliable kosher food in Japan, he brought suitcases filled with cans of food. Upon arriving in the area, he purchased new dishes and took them to the harbor to immerse them in the water. The guards waved to him that he was in a prohibited area, but he pushed his way through. Rather than confront him at that time, they watched as he took "something" out of his suitcase and dipped it in the water. At that point they arrested him thinking that he was a smuggler. When the police looked at his American passport, they obtained an interpreter who could speak English. Since the Chasid spoke Yiddish and couldn't communicate in English they were sure that he had a forged passport too. It was only after the rabbi explained that this man spoke a special language for Jews and he was performing a ritual of purification of dishes that the police let him go. Because the Buddhists have the same ritual, the police accepted the explanation. Needless to say, however, this Chasid has yet to be seen again roaming the port area of Kobe!
From Kobe we took the bullet train to Tokyo to learn about the religious aspects of Sumo wrestling, experience a "Japanese Pidyon Haben", visit the Makuya Choir, learn about Jacob Schiff and the Russian-Japanese War, learn about rites before entering a Buddhist Temple and about our Shabbat in Tokyo.
In fact, the similarity of these traditions allowed Dr. Cohen to argue that Japanese culture and religion bear a marked resemblance to Judaism. Maybe the Japanese had Jewish blood. It was this argument that may have saved the Jews of Shanghai from extermination by the Japanese. The head of the Japanese in Shanghai sent word back to Tokyo that they couldn't kill the Jews because they may be related to the Japanese people.
Part II
As the bullet train sped towards Tokyo, I reflected on what I had heard and seen during the past few days: the Shinto priests with their fringed shawls that had eight strings and five knots, the Yamabushi, Buddhist priests who wore black boxes on their foreheads all day, the neighborhood where the Well of Isrui was located, where 10 days after the new moon in the fall the inhabitants followed two goats, sending one to the wilderness and the other to their temple. How could so many of our customs and practices have seeped into the Far East?
I thought about the Japanese in Kobe. As the Jews arrived from Russia, escaping the holocaust at home, the Japanese held out their hands in friendship. Henry Shapiro, a member of our tour group, had shared many of his reminiscences with us. Before WW II he attended a yeshiva in Lublin. When the Polish army confiscated the yeshiva to use as a hospital, the 100 students left. Mr. Shapiro made his way across Russia to Kobe, Japan. He told us that the Japanese gave the new emigrees 20 yen every day with which they could buy bread, tuna, and some tea. In fact, many refugees sent the tea back to Europe where they hoped that their families could sell it for much needed funds. If a Jew walked into a store in Kobe looking hungry, the Japanese would always give him something to eat despite the fact that they, too, were subject to rations.
As we were passing the area of Mount Fuji, the Japanese holy mountain, the rain fell heavily and we could only conjecture that the distant outline was indeed that of a mountain. In fact, Mt. Fuji is over 10,000 ft. high and is snowcapped except for two weeks during the year. Tens of thousands of Japanese and foreigners make the climb every year on pilgrimage. One year the members of the Jewish community in Tokyo wanted to experience the excitement of the ascent. Since it was easy to lose each other in the mass of humanity, the members had to devise a means to easily spot each other. The number 43 is 4x10+3 but the Japanese say 4 10 3. Ju, in Japanese is the number 10 and Go is the number 5, so the Jewish group decided to wear hats with the words for 5-10-5 or Go Ju Go.
Jews first started coming to Japan between 1870 and 1900. Most settled in Nagasaki, Kobi, and Yokohama. Many were exporters and importers. One clever businessman advertised himself as "Export, Import, Rappaport."
Emperor Kohito, the current emperor, is 63 years old. The only foreign ambassador to whom the Emperor speaks, when presenting his credentials, is the Israeli Ambassador. At the ceremony, which lasts for about one minute, the emperor whispers to the Israeli ambassador, "We will never forget what Jacob Shiff did for us!" And therein lies the tale! The story goes back to the early 1900s, to the Russo-Japanese War.
The world thought that the Russians would wave their hats and the Japanese would go running. The Emperor sent Yakahashi to London to borrow money to finance the war. The bankers refused to lend Japan money because they were certain that Japan would lose. The war was indeed going downhill. By chance, Yakahashi met Jacob Shiff of the New York banking firm of Kuhn Loeb. Shiff, who was irate over the pogroms in Russia, agreed to sponsor half the funds and give him a letter to take to other banks to attest to his loan offer. The banks still refused to supplement the loan. Jacob Shiff financed the entire $140 million and told Yakahashi that he was giving him the money as a Jew. He said that G-d uses nations to beat down corruption and told Yakahashi to "Beat the hell out of the Russians!" Japan won the war and humiliated Russia.
Years later, Shiff was invited to lunch at the Imperial Palace. To invite a commoner was unheard of, but when Jacob Shiff specified his kosher need, the Imperial staff catered to it. The Emperor said that Japan could never have achieved a successful conclusion to the war if not for Shiff. "We [Japan] will never forget what you did for us. Maybe there will be a time when we can help you."
Prophetically the time did come, when Japan saved thousands of Jews from Hitler's gas chambers. Incidentally, Japan repaid the loan to Shiff with 4% interest. Jacob Shiff published a diary entitled, Our Journey to Japan, about his experiences during this time.
There is a tradition in Japan that the youngest in the Imperial family is an academic. Prince Mikasa, the present emperor's younger brother, studied Ancient Israel. Mikasa frequently visited the Tokyo Jewish Community Center and was a guest at Rabbi Tokayer's house, who became his friend and teacher.
On Shabbat we attended services at the Jewish Community Center in Tokyo. The new rabbi from Columbus, Ohio had just arrived the day before we came.
During our Friday night Shabbat meal, we were all introduced to the wife of Mitsugi Shibata. Mr. Shibata was a Japanese vice-consul, stationed in Shanghai in 1943. When he heard of the plans to murder the Jews (who were relocated from Kobe to Shanghai during WW II), he warned Elias Hayim.
The plan was to find the Jews in synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, strip them, load them on boats, and tow them out to sea to starve to death. The plot, concocted by three Germans and a Japanese naval officer by the name of Kubota, director of refugee affairs, did not need approval by the Japanese government.
That night there was a small gathering of Jewish leaders to discuss how they could deal with the threat. One of those men was Bori Topas, who was later tortured by the Japanese for his part in the story, and was buried in the foreign cemetery in Yokohama. They approached Dr. Abraham Cohn, a Jew who had grown up in Nagasaki and had attended Japanese schools from kindergarten through medical school. He won an award from the emperor for his haiku poetry and was a triple black belt karate expert. As a practicing physician in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation, he was well placed in Shanghai society to meet with Kubota and to convince him that the Jews and Japanese may have had common ancestry and there should be no pogrom.
In any case, word about the intended plot was out and the Japanese government directed that nothing should be done to the Jews.
Shabbat morning, we attended services at the synagogue. Men sat in front, there was mixed seating in the center, and only women in the rear. We witnessed a group of young men learning gemarrah in a side room. Attendees at the service were a very diverse group, with many Asian-Jewish couples present as well as business people and students.
During Shabbat lunch we had the pleasure of greeting the daughter of Prof. Setsuzo (Abraham) Kotsuji, a Hebrew speaking Christian minister, who at the age of sixty formally converted to Judaism and took the name Abraham. Kotsuji was instrumental in extending the transit visas in Japan for Eastern European Jews who would otherwise have been returned to Europe to face probable death at the hands of the Nazis. In 1973, just after the Yom Kippur War, Kotsuji was buried in Jerusalem with great honor.
We met many others at lunch, including Neil, an American who has spent 27 years in Tokyo studying fish (especially goldfish), and a woman, also an American Jew, married to a Japanese man whose 15- and 12- year-old sons traveled an hour away to study for their b'nai mitzvah.
The next day we visited the Meiji Shrine, the largest Shinto shrine in Japan. One washes mouth, face, and hands before entering the shrine for prayer. Here there exists no scripture, no gods. The prayer at the shrine begins with the words, "Here I am loyal to my ancestors and to nature." Life cycle occasions are overseen by the Shinto while death is in the Buddhist arena.
At the shrine we witnessed a wedding. The priest wore a hat, white linen robe, and a fringed shawl having tszitszit (8 strings and 5 knots) hanging on both sides! A 30-day-old baby was brought to the shrine to be redeemed by the priest. The father hands the baby to the priest, and the priest asks if the father wants him to raise the baby. The father says no. The priest then anoints the baby, an offering is made, and the priest returns the baby to the father.
It's interesting to note that the Imperial family members are like prisoners in their palace. The princess was a commoner who met her husband on the tennis court. The princess can't call her mother except twice a year. There are three holy items in the palace --- a sword, a jewel, and a mirror. The brass mirror has Hebrew etched on the back that reads in Hebrew: "I shall be as I shall be." taken from Exodus, chapter 3, verse 14.
In Yokohama there is another Christian sect, similar to the Beth Shalom group in Kyoto, called the Makuya or Tabernacle. Makuya has 50,000 members throughout Japan who observe Chanukah, Pesach, and Easter. Their symbol is a menorah. They are also called Samurai Hasidim. They seem more Jewish than Christian. All of them have Hebrew names and 7,000 of them visited Israel during the past year.
When we arrived at their meeting house, we were surprised to find all the women seated on one side of the room and the men on the other. It was explained to us that the Hebrew songs we would all sing are considered prayers and, therefore, the sexes had to be separated.
Professor lkiru Toshima, the founder of the sect, was a school teacher in Southern Japan. He searched for religious identity after the war and founded this bible group. In fact, the members toyed with the idea of becoming Jews but some say that the idea of circumcision was a drawback. Prof. Toshima is deceased; however, his wife maintains the spirit and is keeping the sect alive. Prof. Toshima's son, Yaakov, is a graduate of Hebrew University and has a Ph.D. from the JTS on Chasidism. Yaakov Toshima is reputed to be the best writer on Judaism in Japan today. Unfortunately he is alienated from his father's sect. We sang and danced with the group and were treated to their Japanese-Hebrew song books.
Also in Yokahama we saw the storefront of the Rising Sun Oil Company that was founded in the early 1900s. The story of Rising Sun Oil Company begins with the Samuel family of London.
The Samuels had many children and one pushcart. The next-to-youngest child was a bum who was always in trouble in school, flunked everything, summa cum tsoroth, as Rabbi Tokayer related. At graduation, his father (Mordechai) said, "Marcus, go out and try to make a living." He gave him a one way ticket to the Far East and 20 pounds sterling. The ship traveled to India, Manila, etc. Finally he came to the last stop, Yokohama. (Japan had just opened up its doors to the rest of the world.) Marcus slept in a shack on the beach. The next morning, he saw some people cleaning the beach and digging for seashells. He discovered that they would make buttons, nameplates, and toys with the shells. They took a box, lacquered it, and covered it with shells. Young Marcus Samuel crafted his own shell covered box and sent samples to Victorian England. In England, they became the rage as nice decorative pieces. Marcus Samuel became the first to buy in Japan and sell in England!
Marcus now had some money. He took $10,000 to search for oil in the Far East. He tried Indonesia and found oil. He was going to heat Indonesia, but it's on the equator, so he had to get the oil from Indonesia to other parts of the world. He started moving oil in tin cans, then in 55 gal. oil drums, then in cargo ships. The problem was that the crude oil ruined the cargo ships. So he sat down with engineers in Yokohama and devised a plan to put a tank in the ship (world's first tanker). He named it Murex (seashell).
The first seven oil tankers were each named after a different seashell found off the coast of Japan. Marcus Samuel, with his tankers, developed an international oil business and even began deliveries to England. Many resented the Jew making so much money. He sold the company, Rising Sun Petroleum company, to a consortium of businessmen. One condition in the sales contract required the new owners to retain the logo, a picture of a shell. This, believe it or not, was the origin of Shell Oil Company!
With this story, we have reached the final hours of our tour in Japan and wait eagerly to board our plane, destination Hong Kong.
pseudogratix @ ...He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do... (John 14:12)