Passover Tales from Japan
Plus the surprising Jewish history of Kobe
“Mom, can you bring a challah? They have lots of great bread here, but no challah!” our son Sam said when he learned we would finally visit him and his wife Nagisa in Japan in late March after more than three years.
Of course I brought a challah, home-baked, with plenty of raisins, as requested. But I didn’t think to pack any matzo. It turns out that despite Japan’s superbly well-stocked groceries, matzo (or matzah, as it’s sometimes spelled), the unleavened bread that is the staple of the eight-day Jewish holiday of Passover (beginning this year at sundown on Wednesday, April 5), is almost impossible to find in Japan—unless you happen upon one of the few synagogues or Jewish community centers that import it from Israel.
There are only two major synagogues and Jewish communities of any size in this country of 125 million people, with the largest being in Tokyo, followed by Kobe, about 265 miles southwest of the capital. Kobe, though a beautiful port city with much to recommend it—including great food, views, walks, and, at least when we visited, gorgeous cherry blossoms—isn't usually at the top of the list for tourists (that would be Tokyo and Kyoto), but we discovered a lively Jewish presence at Congregation Ohel Shelomoh, in the historic Kitano district at the base of Mount Rokko.
Kobe has a fascinating historic connection to the Jews dating to the mid-19th century and continuing to the present day. When the rabbi invited us over for a visit, we were eager to go.
Visiting the Kobe Rabbi
With Passover less than a week away, Rabbi Shmuel Vishedsky, though polite and open to a short interview, was busy overseeing preparations in the temple for some 350 guests to celebrate seders on the first and second nights of the holiday. A small battalion of Japanese volunteers were scrubbing and polishing the place and trying to root out every bit of chametz—the non-kosher-for Passover bits of grain and other foods forbidden during Passover.
Our expectations were that the temple would be small and hidden away on a side street, catering to a tiny Jewish population. After all, according to Wikipedia, Jews represent “by far one of the most minor ethnic and religious groups” in Japan, “consisting of only about 300 to 2,000 people.” (Clearly, with such a wide number spread, Wiki’s statistics are a little shaky!)
Would the rabbi even be able to get a minyan—10 or more people over age 13 (men in an Orthodox temple, and men and woman in less religious settings)—to conduct a prayer service?
It turns out they don’t have much trouble making a minyan. The congregation actually has some 300 members who live in the area, Rabbi Vishedsky said. “Of course they don’t come every week.” But about 60 or 70 people do show up for shabbat services on a regular basis.
For Passover, he expects upwards of 300 for an event he’s been planning since Hanukkah. The preparations for the holiday, the extreme level of kashrut, or added layers of laws governing which foods are kosher for Passover, requires a lot of advance planning as most of the food has to be ordered from Israel or America.
“In California if you need to buy matzo, you just go to the store or buy it online and in 24 hours, you have the matzo,” he said. “The Japanese don't know what is matzo. If we need matzo, we need to import a 40-foot container with matzo and wine and matzo flour and everything that we need for Pesach.”
So now I feel guilty for how easy it is to drive to my local supermarket in SoCal, purchase 5 pounds of matzo, a box of matzo meal, two cartons of kosher chicken broth, and some kosher chocolate-covered marshmallows, all in the space of an hour. Poor rabbi! But he seems to take the challenges in stride. And of course, there are some 700,000 Jews in Los Angeles County; it’s good business for groceries to stock matzo here!
The congregation employs an Israeli chef to create the multi-course seder meals as well as the shabbat dinners that are served weekly. “The food is really delicious,” one of the women volunteers told us. “The rabbi makes the challah himself for Friday nights.” (When I told this to my son, he said maybe he’d come to temple just for the challah! I told him it wasn’t polite; he’d have to stay for the service!)
For the rabbi, who turns 38 this month and is the father of five children, enticing Jews of all denominations and backgrounds to temple for Passover, Shabbat or just to talk is a labor of love and commitment.
Born in New York and raised in Israel, he moved to Kobe in 2014 after working as a Chabad rabbi in China. In a translated interview with the Kobe Shinbun, a Japanese-language daily, he spoke about his grandmother Rebeca, a native of Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg, Russia). One of only two survivors in her family of nine of a massacre by the dreaded Einsatzgruppen Nazi death squad, she eventually emigrated to Israel with her husband and four children, including the rabbi’s mother. She never discussed her wartime experiences with her grandson.
“It must have been so horrific that she didn’t want to even talk about it,” the rabbi told the Kobe Shinbun.
“Who are your congregants,” we asked the rabbi.
“They’re students and people that live here, retired people that are just traveling. 15-year-olds and 65-year-olds talking together,” he said. “It's people that grew up in Israel and America, Argentina, France, Mexico, from all over the world, everywhere. It’s also people who grew up in Japan and fly in for a seder from all over the country. All these people come in and sit together with no (prior) relationship. But we are one family. And we sit together and we all drink wine together and eat matzah, and of course a lot of good food that our chef makes.”
Despite all the great Japanese food available locally, the rabbi doesn’t touch any of it. No sushi, none of the local regional specialties like takoyaki or okonomiyaki or Kobe beef for him. Strictly kosher, he finds it easier to just eat at the synagogue, surrounded by his family, and often, congregants.
To hear him tell it, after the traditional seder, congregants often stay behind for hours, just socializing and enjoying the community.
And that’s the point, he said.
A few historic notes on Kobe’s Jews
How did Kobe come by its Jewish population in the first place? Here’s the very short blogger version, but there’s so much more to know. When Japan opened its doors to trade in the 1860s, there was an influx of Jewish businessmen to Kobe and other port cities. At the start of World War II, the community reportedly numbered some 1,000 people, a mix of Sephardic Jews from Iraq and Syria and Ashkenazi Jews from Russia, Poland and Germany.
In another surprise, Kobe served as a safe haven and conduit for many Lithuanian Jews (about 4,000 refugees by some estimates) many of them staying there for a time en route to the Japanese-held Shanghai Ghetto (China), Israel, the U.S., Australia and elsewhere—this despite the Japanese alliance with Nazi Germany in World War II. Turns out the Japanese were a whole lot less antisemitic than the Germans in those days.
One hero of that moment was Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who served as his country’s vice-consul in Kaunas, Lithuania and is sometimes referred to as “the Japanese Schindler” for his role in saving an estimated 6,000 Lithuanian Jews by defying the orders of his superiors and issuing visas to desperate Jewish refugees. Honored in 1985 by Israel’s Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to Holocaust victims, as “Righteous Among the Nations,” Sugihara modestly explained his motivation in issuing so many illegal visas to Jews:
“It is the kind of sentiments anyone would have when he actually sees refugees face to face, begging with tears in their eyes. He just cannot help but sympathize with them.”
Of such sentiments are heroes made.
Home Again
I would have liked to go to the seder at the Kobe synagogue and meet some of those 300-plus attendees, but we returned to California just in time to plan our own Passover meal, complete with traditional favorites: matzo ball soup, brisket and potato kugel. Should I try something outside my comfort zone? Maybe not. With all that’s happening in the world, familiar comfort foods seems like a good bet.
Happy Passover!🥚 Happy Easter!🐇 (Eggs are big for Passover, but rabbits, not so much!) Please let me know what you’re making, eating and loving—and don’t forget to like, share and comment if you enjoy what you read.
Ruth
What a fascinating history Ruth! I never would have guessed that the Japanese, allies of the Germans, provided safe haven for Jewish refugees. Thank you for sharing.
A fascinating read, thank you Ruth. It's always interesting for me to read about your culture and traditions, especially the ones that involve food! I hope you had a wonderful time with your son and daughter-in-law too.