By Andrew Rolnick

KOBE, JAPAN -- I have been living in Japan for a little over two years now, teaching English, learning Japanese and getting to know this fascinating island country. Before I came to Japan, my family members asked me, "How on earth can you have any sense of a Jewish identity in a place like Japan?"

At the time, I only knew of the Jewish Community Center in Tokyo but I did not know anything else about the history of Jewish people in Japan. Little did I know, I was in for one eye-opening experience.

My first job in Japan was as an English teacher in a small town, Kakegawa, in the Shizuoka Prefecture, not too far from Mt. Fuji. It was a great year in that small town. I climbed Mt. Fuji, made friends, and studied Japanese. On the high holidays, I got on one of those famous bullet trains, known as a "shinkansen" in Japanese, and headedinto Tokyo to attend services at the Jewish Community Center. I met several people and when I told people that I was living in ShizuokaPrefecture (a prefecture is a region, similar to a state or a province) several people in Tokyo said, "If you live down there then you should go to the synagogue in Kobe."

"Kobe, where is that?" I asked.

As it turns out, it's about three hours south on the bullet train from Tokyo to the famous port city.

In October 2003, I finished my contract teaching in Shizuoka, nearby Nagoya, and found another job teaching English to children in Handa, about 34 kilometers (18 miles) from Nagoya.

Aside from practicing my Hebrew with Israelis selling jewelry in the streets of Nagoya, Japan seemed liked a spiritual desert for a nice Jewish boy from New Jersey. I was longing for an opportunity to get some time off from work to reach out to my Jewish brethren in Kobe.

I finally took the one-hour train from Nagoya to Kobe in December 2003, during the week of Hannukah.

I walked through the Kitano-cho section of Kobe where there are many Western-style buildings modeled after London, Paris and other parts of the Western Hemisphere. Kitano-cho literally means "northern town" in Japanese and is, logically, located in the northern part of the city.
The streets are lined with museums, cafes and shops, and you can't help but notice a Christian church, a Hindu temple and then— further down the road— the legendary Ohel Shlomo (Solomon's Tent) Jewish Community Center. The synagogue building itself is old and in need of
repair, having survived rainstorms, typhoons and even earthquakes.

Still, there has been a Jewish presence in Kobe ever since the 1890s. For hundreds of years, Kobe has been a port city and people from all over the world have flocked to this place for economic opportunity.

The Jewish community in Kobe began with a group of Syrian and Iraqi Jewish merchants who established their Sephardi congregation there. To this very day, the synagogue in Kobe still uses Sephardi stand-up style Torah scrolls when the Torah is read.

Situated in the Kansai region of Japan, Kobe is also relatively close to the famous Japanese cities of Osaka and Kyoto. During World War II, nearly 17,000 Jewish refugees fled Europe and lived temporarily in Kobe. There were two synagogues there during the 1940s, one was
Sephardi and the other was Ashkenazi. There was even an active Yeshiva in Kobe at that time. Then, once Israel became a State, the majority of Jews moved to Israel.

One Japanese diplomat, Chiune Sugihara, a notable righteous gentile, saved hundreds of Jewish families from Hitler's genocide program and is still remembered to this very day.

Sugihara worked at the Japanese consulate in Kaunas, Lithuania, where he allocated transit visas for Jewish refugees to travel through Russia by train and then to Japan by boat. A total of 5,000 to 6,000 Jews arrived in Japan thanks to Sugihara, who worked against the regulations of the Japanese government, which of course, was allied with Nazi Germany. At the end of World War II, Sugihara was forced toretire from the Japanese diplomatic corps for going against the policy
of the Japanese government.

In 1969, the Israeli government honored Sugihara with a dignified silver decoration set with diamonds from the Israeli Prime Minister, when he came to Israel for the first time, and Sugihara's son, Nobuki, was offered a scholarship to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1985, the Israeli government honored Chiune Sugihara again as "Righteous Among Nations". The former diplomat died in 1986 at the age of 86.

In 1990, Sugihara's wife Yukiko, wrote a book, Visas for Life, which tells the story of her husband and his heroism in saving so many lives. To this very day when Japanese tourists visit Israel, Israelis often ask them, "Do you know Mr. Sugihara?"

There is a beautiful museum in the town of Yaotsu, where Sugihara was born, dedicated to Sugihara's work and I had the opportunity to take a local train from Nagoya to see this beautiful site. Several months ago, I met up with a busload of anxious Jewish visitors from the Ohel
Shlomo congregation in Kobe who shared my enthusiasm.

Across the street from the museum, there is the Hill of Humanity Park, which plays soft music next to a breathtaking monument dedicated to this righteous gentile. The museum itself has films in English, Japanese and Hebrew explaining in detail about the Japanese diplomat's
mission to save the lives of Jewish refugees.

The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Houston, Texas is currently featuring an exhibit on the story of Edith Hamer, a survivor who was saved by Sugihara. She was just a child on that hot July, 1940 day when her father received visa #7 and her mother received visa #8.

Although the contemporary Jewish Community in Kobe is very small compared to the 1940s, the place still boasts a unique spiritual feeling. On the first night of Passover 2004, I attended one of the most memorable Passover seders of my life.

The Ohel Shlomo congregation had a full house of over 150 people. At least half were Israelis (Quite a few Israelis are working with businesses in nearby Osaka). They were joined by a number of Japanese people who had converted to Judaism, and Jewish people from all over
North America, working as English teachers in Japan. I even met peoplefrom New Jersey!

The Passover seder in 2005 attracted more than 200 people, and was an even more fascinating experience than the year before.

Passover in Kobe will always have a special place in my heart. Have you ever seen Passover Haggadot printed in Japanese? Well, that's what we read from at Ohel Shelomo. It may be the only place where it's possible to hear Japanese, Hebrew, and English all at the same time.

Aside from Kobe, the museum in Yaotsu is a must-see for a Jewish traveler in Japan. Israeli Rotem Poraz Arad currently lives in Yaotsu, Japan where she works as coordinator for International Relations as part of the Japanese English Teaching (JET) program, a program with
the Japanese government that invites foreigners to work in Japan. Among her various tasks, Arad gives tours of the Sugihara museum in Hebrew, English and Japanese.

I also recently discovered that there is an "Israel Garden" in Osaka, just five minutes by foot from the Tsuruki Ryokuchi Station. Admission is free and there are picnic tables and trees reminiscent of Eretz Yisroel.

Recently Eli Cohen, the Israeli Ambassador to Japan, submitted an article to an English language daily, The Japan Times describing in detail how Japan and Israel first established diplomatic ties in 1952 and how in the present day, the two countries do an enormous amount of trade.

In 2004, Japan and Israel had a bilateral record of over US$2 billion dollars. Moreover, Cohen mentioned that there was a huge trade conference in April in which 500 Japanese companies joined more than 60 Israeli venture capital, information technology, biotechnology and
nanotechnology companies.

Just the other day, I was walking past the Mitsukan corporate building in Handa, where I currently live. Mitsukan is one of the largest corporations in Japan. In front of the building, the Japanese flag and the blue-and-white Israeli flag waved next to one another!

But, the most significant place to me remains the Ohel Shlomo congregation in Kobe, where my Jewish discovery of Japan began.

The Jewish community in Kobe is in need of help. The synagogue, which has survived rainstorms, typhoons, and even earthquakes, is old and in need of repair. Those wishing to learn moreabout this wonderful community can get in touch with David Moche, a friend of the Ohel Shelomo congregation, who is in New York and can be reached at sdavid@moche.com Leslie Brezak, who serveson the congregation's executive committee in Kobe, can be contacted at Brezak.Leslie@ma9.seikyou.ne.jp The website of the Kobe synagogue is: www.jcckobe.org