by Harold Goldmeier
What is the connection between the Jews and Japan? As it turns out, there is one, and it is strong. A new book by Joseph Eidelberg links the Hebrew language and religious rites to Japanese language and culture in great detail and depth.
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Israel has just celebrated Japanese Culture
Week with performance art, music, food (kosher) and plenty of speeches.
Our fascination with the Far East can be traced back to the Lost Tribes,
for which the search has continued for nearly two centuries.
Many Jews have an ardor to identify other
Jews. We have turned it into a game: "Jewish geography," played when two
Jews unknown to one another meet in a restaurant, on a cruise ship, in
the synagogue. This passion to learn how we are all linked has made its
way into literature, science, and academia. Are the tribes in black
Africa with rituals similar to Judaism genetically linked to European
and North African Jews? What about the black Jews of India, or Far
Eastern communities?
A new book by Joseph Eidelberg, his second,
examines in great detail the links he suspects point to the Japanese as
one of the Ten Lost Tribes. Eidelberg died in 1985 at age 69, and his
family and friends are responsible for preparing "The Japanese and the
Ten Lost Tribes of Israel" (Gefen Publishing House, 2014), and ensuring
publication of this important work.
Eidelberg is the kind of man with whom I would
have liked to share a lengthy dinner. His careers as an engineer,
soldier and manager of large development projects in the Middle East and
Africa do not define him. Eidelberg was a serial seeker of knowledge
and memory keeper. He was inquisitive about the human condition, fluent
in seven languages, an explorer of cultures, customs, symbols, words,
prosody, accidence, mythology, linguistics, handwriting, and songs.
Eidelberg was an enthusiastic student of the
Old Testament and Hebrew texts in pursuit of finding the resting places
of the Ten Tribes. He learned to speak Japanese and became a scholar in a
Shinto Shrine and a devoted investigator of the Biblical origins of the
Japanese people, their roots, culture, rites, and ties to the Ten Lost
Tribes of Israel.
In his 1972 book "Bambara," the author writes
about the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt and their 40-year trek
to Israel. He believes the Hebrews went west, circling through the
Sahara and down through Africa, influencing the cultures, religious
practices, and languages of black Africans, before turning east to the
Promised Land.
In his current book, Eidelberg traces the
forced exile of some members of the Ten Tribes of Israel by the
Assyrians. He theorizes that some Jews or tribes made their way into
Mongolia and the Far East islands. He links the Hebrew language and
religious rites to Japanese language and culture in great detail and
depth. He traces the meaning of many unknown sources for Japanese words,
numbers, songs, cultural and religious rites to Hebrew origins. For
instance, "According to Hebrew tradition it is forbidden to pronounce
the name of God. He is often referred to as 'The Most High'; and the
Japanese term of 'Kami," which is applied to every deity and every
divine object, also means 'Most High,' and can be construed as
'Heavenly.'"
He complemented his research with extensive
travels first to Iran searching for hard evidence or any links about the
tribes transported to Assyria. He located the Muslim Yusufzai people
living in remote isolated villages claiming they are remains of the Ten
Lost Tribes of Israel. Another claim he investigated had the Ten Tribes
making their way to China. Ancient Bokharan Jewish traditions had the
Ten Tribes reaching a country "beyond China." Eidelberg found idiomatic
Hebrew expressions and religious similarities in the Shinto religion
that he made his way to Japan for deeper insights.
Eidelberg's extensive knowledge of Hebrew
texts and the Old Testament complemented what he learned during years of
study in Japan. Mistakenly, though not critical to his thesis, the
author attributes two calamities to acts of King David: three years of
famine followed by deadly pestilence for counting the people. Pestilence
was punishment for this sin. Famine was unleashed (Samuel 2, 21:1) for
King Saul slaughtering the Gibeonites.
His writing is simple and clear enhanced with
diagrams and the occasional map. It is packed full of suppositions and
tenuous links between Hebrews and Japanese societies. For example, the
official title of all Japanese emperors is Sumera Mikito.
"This title, which cannot be satisfactorily
explained in Japanese, can be construed as 'His Majesty of Samaria' in
one of the dialects spoken by ancient Hebrews." The Old Testament says,
"The king of Assyria took Samaria and carried Israel away." Historical
chronicler Josephus wrote, "The Ten Tribes are beyond the Euphrates till
now," at the end of the first century C.E. Eidelberg makes these links
throughout the book, and the reader must determine for himself their
strength and validity.
Eidelberg is not the first to suggest that
Jews and Japanese share common ancestry. The talk extends back to the
17th century. DNA evidence has not proved any links. In 2009, World
Turtle Productions posted a video, "The Mystery of Jews in Japan" on You
Tube, garnering over 171,000 views. The video demonstrates more than a
few Jewish rituals and customs similar in ancient Japanese rituals and
customs. It's worth watching. An Israeli friend lived a decade in Japan
for business. He is engrossed in their culture and customs, and he
claims it is "commonly known" the male newborns in the emperor's
immediately family are circumcised in secret. This is not a custom of
the Japanese, nor is burying bodies and body parts. They are cremated,
but the foreskins of the babies are buried in the earth.
Eidelberg presents much of his work in the
context of Japanese historical periods. He offers a very extensive
examination of Japanese words and phrases. Nihon in Japanese is "Land of
the Rising Sun." "Nihon is the Chinese ideographic rendering of the
name of Japan. In early works, Nihon is pronounced "Yamato" in Japanese.
"But if the name 'Nihon' does not mean 'Land of the Rising Sun,' could
it perhaps be an expression composed of two words 'Nhi-Hon,' meaning
'Followers of the Book' -- another epithet of the ancient Hebrews?"
Joseph Eidelberg discovered amazing
similarities between the cultures. He was a seriously intelligent
student not given to apocryphal stories and fables. This book is for the
investigator who wants to intensely pursue the links and perhaps open
our eyes and minds to what really happened to the Ten Tribes from their
exodus to their resettlement on other continents.
One final note, what impact did the Hebrews
and their religion and culture have on the Japanese, if any? We cannot
simply look at songs and language. Did the Japanese develop a sense of
tikkun olam ("repairing the world") so basic to Jewish belief? I
personally can offer little evidence that the Japanese are a
guilt-ridden people for their sins, certainly not in their war years
against the Russians and Chinese civilian populations, nor for their
treatment of POWs. The Japanese adamantly refuse to apologize to this
day.
Yet Jews retell stories about their treatment
under the Japanese in Shanghai during World War II with respect and good
feeling, for their reasonably good treatment as refugees under the
Japanese, and for the Japanese not turning Jewish refugees over to the
Nazis as they demanded. Then there is the legendary vice consul, Chiune
Sugihara, who issued thousands of visas and travel documents to European
Jews wanting to escape the Germans. Sugihara even managed to sign visas
and throw them out the train windows while he was leaving the country
under orders to return to Japan, where he was punished, but not
severely. Do they have an affinity for Jews for some ancient ties worth
further examination?
To paraphrase another believer in the links
between Jews and Japanese, Christian Zionist Elizabeth A. Gordon,
Eidelberg offers us a "fantastic chain of reasoning" to believe there is
more to the story of the lost Ten Tribes worth further examination.
Harold Goldmeier
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=21285
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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