PURELY COMMENTARY
Japan
Continued from Page 2
arouses this concern in an article in a
recent issue of the Wall Street Journal
by Jonathan Isaacs, the Tokyo cor-
respondent for Euromoney. The writer
is described as financial analyst with a
British firm of stockbrokers. His article,
entitled "Waking Up to the Specter of
Japan's New Anti-Semitism," com-
mences with already well-known facts:
It would hardly seem
necessary for the Japanese
foreign minister, Tadashi
Kuranari, to deliver a lengthy
speech condemning anti-
Semitic literature in Japan in
answer to a question by Liberal-
Democratic Party Diet member
Seiichiro Murakami during a
session of the House of
Representatives Foreign Affairs
Committee. There are after all,
fewer than 1,000 Jews in Japan,
almost all of whom are on short-
term employment contracts,
mostly with foreign companies.
There are, nevertheless, 86
such books currently in circula-
tion, published in Japanese over
the past 12 to 18 months. They
invariably mention the word
Jews in their titles and are writ-
ten by non-Jewish Japanese
authors. All but two or three are
of the vitriolic anti-Semitic kind
that were familiar in Germany
and also Japan 40 years ago.
They range in their
virulence from a book entitled
"The Jewish Conspiracy," at-
tributing the appreciation of the
yen against the U.S. dollar to a
world-wide Jewish conspiracy
with pullout family trees head-
ed by, of all people, David and
John Rockefeller, to a Japanese
translation of "The Protocols of
the Elders of Zion." This latter is
the infamous 19th century Rus-
sian forgery about a purported
Jewish plot to take over the
world. The translation is entitl-
ed "How to Read the Hidden
Meaning of the Protocol" and
contains a commentary on how
the alleged plot applies to
modern Japan.
Other ludicrous publications
blame Jews for the shooting
down of Korean Airlines 007
over the U.S.S.R. in 1986 and the
involvement of former Prime
Minister Kakuei Tanaka in the
Lockheed bribery scandal. One
book published in 1971 entitled
"Jewish Business Methods: Con-
trolling the Economy of the
World;; by Den Fujita, the man
who holds the McDonald's ham-
burger restaurant chain fran-
chise in Japan, says that "Japan
was being ravaged by a pack of
Jews;' although he strangely
concludes that these supposed-
ly Jewish business practices
should, in fact, be emulated by
the Japanese. In interviews at
the time he expressed astonish-
ment that his book should be
considered racist, taking hyper-
bole to the extent of wishing that
he could have been born a Jew.
The book is enjoying renewed
A drib
Av
10Q7
popularity in the "Jewish Cor-
ners" of many Tokyo
bookstores. Ironically, "The
Diary of Anne Frank" is usual-
Lly available in the same shelves
as these anti-Semitic works.
The seriousness of Japanese
anti-Semitism owes much to the
seeming respectability of some
of the authors of this
vituperative nonsense. "The
Secret of Jewish Power to Con-
trol the World;' for example, was
written by Aisaburo Saito, a
member of the Japanese Diet.
The most notorious book, "To
understand Jews Is to Under-
stand the World," was written by
Massami Uno, a college lecturer
who runs the Middle East Prob-
lems Research Center. Although
Mr. Uno claims that Du Pont,
Schulz and Morgan are Jewish
names, his work has become a
best seller.
Clearly the authors stand to
profit mightily from their
writings. What is not clear is
how the inhabitants of such an
advanced industrial democracy
should have been hoodwinked
into blaming the world's oldest
scapegoats for their latest
economic ills. Partly this is a
result of their essential naivete
about the history of racial in-
tolerance in the West and the
social respectability of these
writers. The Japanese were con-
ned in the same way once before
in the 1940s by Nobutaka
Shioden, a Japanese lieutenant
general who circulated a
number of anti-Semitic works at
that time, as the main voice of
Nazi anti-Semitism in Japan.
The continuity of these outrageous
and venomous publications and the en-
couragement given them by a large
Japanese readership again raises the
question of how this is possible in a pro-
gressive country. It poses the question
why there isn't as much condemnation
of it globally as there was in exposing
the fakes of the Protocols when they
were published in Dearborn and Royal
Oak, Michigan by Henry Ford and
Father Charles Coughlin; in England,
Russia and many other areas.
Jonathan Isaacs' article contains
additional facts relating to the shake-
ly spreading libels.
That there is Japanese government
guilt in the spreading anti-Semitism
would seem to owe more to government
policy than pre-war Japanese anti-
Semitism. In particular the new anti-
Semitism seems to be imported on the
back of the Arab trade boycott of Israel."
Much more is revealed by Isaacs in
his revelation of hatred of Jews whom
the readers "have never met." It is how
the Jews again provide a scapegoat for
the ignorant and the family of haters.
Isaacs' expose of the Japanese lunatic
fringe concludes with this judgment:
Although some Japanese
are passing off these writings as
curios too preposterous to be
taken seriously, the true
believers have nevertheless
begun to rise to the surface. Red
posters featuring black
swastikas have already started
to appear in subway stations
and in the Ginza, central Tokyo.
The familiar paeans of hate
against aliens and Freemasons
are written on them — familiar,
that is, to the Japanese who saw
the rise of the militarists in the
1930s.
They may indeed be the work of
a lunatic fringe, but then that is
what you get in a democracy for
not questioning the publication
of lunatic literature. Perhaps the
saddest irony of all is that the
search for a convenient
scapegoat will blind the
Japanese to any real sources of
their real problems today, thus
preventing a real solution.
How can such lunacy be dealt with?
How should it be treated? Is there a
cure for the Japanese poisonous
malady?
In another important article about
the Japanese lunacy, David A. Harris,
the new Washington representative of
the American Jewish Committee, pro-
vides an analysis of the new Japanese
anti-Semitism. Under the title "The
Elders of Zion in 'Ibkyo: What Should
We Do About Japanese Anti-Semitism,"
in the October 1987 issue of Moment
magazine, he proposes:
A number of areas need to
be explored by American Jewry,
bearing in mind that the first
priority must be to gain a better
understanding of Japanese
society. Otherwise, some well-
intentioned efforts may be
doomed to failure, lost in the
wide cultural abyss that
separates our two countries.
Future program possibilities in-
clude symposia in Japan on
Jewish themes, cosponsored by
respected Japanese institutions;
reciprocal exchanges between
leading American Jewish and
Japanese figures; interreligious
dialogue; and review of treat-
ment of Jewish subjects —
Jewish history, Holocaust,
Judaism, Israel — in the
Japanese educational system
and the media.
Former news correspondent
Krisher says that "what is need-
ed is some educational program
about Jews and Judiasm in
Japan. Not public relations but
something more substantial.
There are American, British,
French, Italian and German
cultural centers. Why not a
Jewish or Hebraic Cultural
Center — attached to the Jewish
Community Center in Tokyo
and funded by American
Jewish organizations, as neither
the Jews here nor the Israeli
Embassy has the funds."
Others have suggested a
chair in Jewish studies at one of
the major Japanese universities
— a small but significant
beginning.
Given the press of other com-
pelling issues in Jewish life and
limited resources, the current
difficulties (and opportunities)
in Japan may not be seen as a
top priority, but such a conclu-
sion ignores the rapidly grow-
ing significance of Japan and in-
deed of all Asia on the world
scene, not to speak of the poten-
tial dangers posed by recent
anti-Semitic manifestations in
Japan. This situation poses a
major challenge to world Jewry.
It would be a mistake if we did
not rise to meet it.
If the continuing aggravating situa-
tion in Japan were not so sad, these pro-
posals would at best be puzzling, in
pragmatism they might be ludicrous.
Isn't this an entire agenda in Jewish
relations with our neighbors that has
been in action in all generations?
Hasn't it been our platform, especially
during the last six or more decades?
Haven't we established chairs in Jewish
studies for all faiths in universities, pro-
pagating and endorsing all efforts for
proper ecumenism?
The fact is that what is happening
is not a "new anti-Semitism" in Japan
but a repetition and a continuity. There
is the apocryphal admonition about the
World War II years when Japan was
assuring Adolf Hitler that it hated Jews
and pledged partnership in the Nazi
anti-Semitism; and the constant
message to the fellow Nazis was: "send
us some Jews" so they would have the
hated available.
Meanwhile it is sad. It is easy to ad-
vocate lectures, "good will," ecumenia,
An Addendum About
Song By Gershwin
The anticipated capacity audience
Nov. 18 at the annual event of JARC
(Jewish Association for Retarded
Citizens) will find special interest in an
item about George Gershwin, whose
music will be played at that event. In
his column in Gabriel Cohen's weekly
Jewish Post and Opinion, in which he
culls important items from the Yiddish
press, Rabbi Samuel Silver included the
following:
An interesting sidelight on
the role that George Gershwin
and his music played during
World War II was noted in
"Topics of the (N.Y.) Times,"
which appears on the editorial
page of that daily. During the oc-
cupation of Denmark by the
Nazis, the nightly radio broad-
casts would boast of German
victories and humiliating
defeats of the Allied forces. But
as the broadcasts ended, a
resistance station would pick up
on the same wave length with
the opening bars of the Ger-
shwin tune, "It Ain't Necessari-
ly So," without comment and
without any words. When the
lights went on once again after
the Nazi defeat, Gershwin's song
was the biggest hit for years.
This is a self-explanatory addendum to
my review of the Gershwin biography
by Edward Jablonsky in my column in
last week's Jewish News.