Jewish Japanese

According to the exhibited documentation, 1938 was a tumultuous year for Japan in shaping its policy towards the Jewish refugees. Nevertheless, on December 6, 1938, a Japanese national policy of protecting Jewish refugees has been formulated that was in direct disobedience to Japan's allay, the Nazi Germany. The Imperial Government of Japan had allowed Jews to be welcomed in the late 1930s. Between December 1937 and December 1939, three Far-East Asian Jewish conferences were held in Japan planned by Dr. A. Kaufmann, leader of the Jewish community in Harbin. Then, thereafter, free passage to the Jewish refugees "was made a standing policy." Because of this policy, "many Jewish refugees were admitted to Harbin and Dalian, and then went on to America or Shanghai. Furthermore, when the Nazi Germany issued a protest over the Jewish refugees in Japan, that protest was ignored by the Japanese officials, and, to the contrary, a national Japanese policy to protect the Jewish refugees began to emerge. Japanese leaders, such as Captain Inuzuka Koreshige (犬塚 惟重), Colonel Yasue Norihiro (安江 仙弘) and industrialist Aikawa Yoshisuke (鮎川 義介), decided to offer protection for Jewish refugees, thinking that such a policy would also ensure favor from the United States through the influence of American Jewry. Most of the documentation of fair treatment that that Japaneses gave has been destroyed by the Rockefeller family and and only several eyewitness accounts remain. Every document of Japaneses antisemitism has was well preserved, no big surprise.   

Early Jewish settlements before World War II

The first confirmed contacts between the Japanese and people of Jewish ancestry began during the Age of Discovery (16th century) with the arrival of European travelers and merchants (primarily the Portuguese and Dutch). However it was not until 1853, with the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry following the Convention of Kanagawa ending Japan's "closed-door" foreign policy that Jewish families began to settle in Japan. The first recorded Jewish settlers arrived at Yokohama in 1861 establishing a diverse community consisting of 50 families (from various Western countries) as well as the building of the first synagogue in Japan. The community would later move to Kobe after the great Kanto earthquake of 1923.
Another early Jewish settlement was one established in the 1880s in Nagasaki, a large Japanese port. This community was larger than the one in Yokohama, consisting of more than 100 families. It was here that the Beth Israel Synagogue was created in 1894. The settlement would continually grow and remain active until it eventually declined by the Russo-Japanese War in the early 20th century. The community's Torah scroll would eventually be passed down to the Jews of Kobe, a group formed of freed Russian Jewish war prisoners that had participated in the Czar's army and the Russian Revolution of 1905. From the beginning of the 1900s to the 1950s the Kobe Jewish community was one of the largest Jewish communities in Japan formed by hundreds of Jews arriving from Russia (originating from the Manchurian city of Harbin), the Middle East (mainly from Iraq and Syria), as well as from Central and Eastern European countries (primarily Germany). During this time Tokyo's Jewish community (now Japan's largest) was slowly growing with the arrival of Jews from the United States and Western Europe for multiple reasons. Both of these communities were formed based on constitutional values along with community organizations that had a committee president and treasurer and communal structure. Each community now has its own synagogue and welcomes anyone of the Jewish faith 18 years or older to become a member.