jews of kobe
DESCRIPTION
A little known chapter in Jewish history is the story of the Jews who lived in Japan during World War II. This paper briefly describes some of the Jewish communities that existed in Japan, specifically from 1937 to 1954.TRANSCRIPT
A Look at Kobe And
The Jewish Communities of Japan
1937 to 1954
John Sidline
December 3, 1990
Table of Contents
Preface ......................................................... 1
Kobe ............................................................2
Foundations of the Jewish Community ........................ 2
Kobe Jewcom................................................5
The War With The United States ............................. 9
0 •• f)Epi logue ............................. "...................... 10
PREFACE
Once upon a time ... not the usual beginning for a research
paper, but fitting in this instance, for once upon a time, there
was an active Jewish community in the Far East.
Many people have heard of Shanghai and Harbin, the cities in
China where large and prosperous Jewish communities grew before
the dawn of World War II. Few however are aware of Kobe,
Karuizawa, and Yokohama, where smaller Jewish communities
existed.
It is a shame that historians have seemed to pay only passing
attention to the Jewish communities of Japan before, during, and
after World War II. True, they were small. But for their size
they made an impressive contribution to modern Jewish history.
The saga might begin with one man, Anatole Ponevejski, born
before the turn of the century in Irkutsk, Siberia. He settled
in Harbin, and eventually came to Kobe in 1937. At the time, a
handful of Jewish families, about 25, lived as merchants.
Anatole Ponevejski organized these families into a community, and
he became their leader. Anatole Ponevejski was my maternal
grandmother's older brother -- and my godfather.
For me, this is a personal story. I am a first generation
American whose parents, grandparents and other relatives lived in
these communities. My father was born there. And it was members
of my family and their friends who built these communities during
difficult times.
Kobe was a major port city in Japan; second only to Yokohama.
Because of its military importance, it was also the site of many
1
American bombing raids.
Despite Japan's alliance with Nazi Germany, despite that
Japan was at war with the Allies, despite that the Jews were
obvious foreigners, despite all the hardships that go hand in
hand living in a nation at war, the Jewish community of Kobe
Jewcom as it became known -- saved the lives of thousands of
Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe and even Germany.
If for this one accomplishment, volumes should exist to
document their effort. If they do, they are hard to find. Among
the refugees saved was a famous Hassidic rebbe, a prominent
Zionist, and even a man who became Speaker of the Knesset in
Israel. Even so, Jewcom is remembered only in-a scant few pages
or paragraphs in books on Shanghai and Harbin.
For this reason, this paper does not contain many primary
historical references. Instead, it is filled with anecdotes and
personal accounts of some of the members of the Kobe, Karuizawa,
and Yokohama Jewish communities.
And so we begin, once upon a time ...
KOBE Foundations of the Jewish Community
In the years just prior to the opening of the Pacific theater
of World War II a community of about 15 Jewish families was
organized in Japan's second largest port city -- Kobe. The year
was 1937.
Anatole Ponevejski, a Russian Jew from Irkutsk, Siberia, came
to Kobe with his wife Gita and his daughter Tamara to take care
of the Japanese branch of the textile business he owned with two
of his brothers.
2
Anatole had had a strong Jewish upbringing in Irkutsk. His
grandfather, Yosef, was a Nicolas Soldat -- a conscript in the
army of Czar Nicolas I, stolen from his family at the age of
nine. Part of his basic training, one might say, was to remove
his Jewishness. All facets of his identity were stripped away,
even his name. He adopted the name of the Polish town in the
Pale of Settlement where he was born -- Poneverjz.
After serving the Motherland for twenty years, Yosef settled
himself in the Russian frontier, Siberia. There he resurrected
his Jewish lifestyle with a vengeance. His eldest son Hircsh Svi
also kept a strict Jewish home. Although Hirchs Svi's children
grew up to lead more secular, less observant lives, they always
remained attached to their faith and heritage.
When Anatole arrived in Kobe from the thriving Jewish
community of Harbin, he saw that the 25 or so families there were
living rather independently from each other. Guided by this
sense of faith he possessed, he worked to form the 15 Ashkenazi
Jewish families into a community.
The Ashkenazi Jews in Kobe were refugees and their
descendants- of the pogroms unleashed by Czar Nicolas I. They
came from Russia, Poland, and the Baltic states of Latvia and
Lithuania. The turn of the century brought the completion of the
Trans-Siberian Railway which allowed some of the refugees to go
east. Many went to Harbin. Some, a relatively small number,
went to Japan.
There were also Sephardi Jews in Kobe. Their community was
about the same in size as the Ashkenazi -- about 10 families.
These Jews came from Arab countries like Syria, Iraq and those in
3
North Africa. They spoke either French or Arabic. By and large
the two communities, which totaled one hundred Jews, lived side
by side but with infrequent social interaction.
The Jews in Kobe were part of a foreign population of about
three thousand who for the most part engaged in some aspect
import-export activity. There were Russians, Turks, Germans,
French and Portuguese communities in Kobe. There were some
social contacts with these gentile groups, but again infrequent.
This cosmopolitan character of Kobe fostered acceptance of
the members of the different communities by the Japanese
residents. While anti-Semitism was growing in other parts of the
country, it remained, among the Japanese, a virtual anomaly in
Kobe.
Each Jewish community had its own synagogue. The Ashkenazi
synagogue, which was also the social center of that community,
was led by "Rabbi" Jacob. Rabbi Jacob was not an official rabbi,
he was the shohet, the kosher slaughterer, in the community. But
he was very learned and observant. He led the community before
and during the war.
There were regular Shabbat services on Saturday mornings, but
attendance was usually low and sometimes failed to get a minyan.
Attendance was high on holidays. Most of the community would
show up for Simchas Torah, Hanukkah, and Purim where parties
usually followed services. Of course everyone attended High Holy
Day services.
There was no religious school for the community. But private
Hebrew lessons were given by Rabbi Jacob to boys studying for
their bar mitzvahs.
4
The children of the foreign communities attended Western
schools. There were several schools, some German, some French.
There were a handful of English language schools: American
School in Japan, the Anglican run English Mission School, the
Saint John's Institute run by the Marianist Catholics, and the
Canadian Academy.
Most of the Ashkenazi children and some of the Sephardi
attended school at the Canadian Academy. It was a private Coed
school run by British and Canadian teachers. Parents created a
bussing system of sorts with the Hanshin Taxi company. Two or
three taxis would convoy around the community picking up the
children and deliver them to the school.
Kobe Jewcom
In the summer of 1940, Anatole (shortend from
Ponevejski) received as leader of the Kobe Ashkenazi community, a
telegram from Vilna, Lithuania. The telegram asked if he, on
behalf of the community, would write a letter to Japanese
authorities guaranteeing support for seven Jews as they made a
stop in Japan in transit from Vilna to the United States. He
took care of the arrangements and sent a confirmation back to
Vilna.
Thereafter Ponevejski began receiving scores of telegrams
weekly. In July Ponevejski called a meeting of all the families
that were members of the community. They set up committees to
handle the various needs of the vast numbers of transient
refugees they were about to receive. The committees dealt with
immigration procedures, temporary housing, clothing, visa
problems, etc.
5
The community was willing to gladly give of their time and
talents to help deal with the refugees, but they also needed
financial assistance. The cabled a request for funds to the
Joint Distribution Committee in New York.
The JDC cabled back to the Kobe Jewish community: "TO KOBE JEW COM
SAVE JEWS MONEY NO OBJECT"
This was the birth of Kobe Jewcom, which took care of 4,680
refugees from Eastern Europe and Germany, 2414 from Poland alone,
between July 1940 and November of 1941.. Many of these refugees
were able to get Palestine Certificates from the British
government office in Vilna. They made their way across the /
Soviet Union and eventually to Japan where Kobe Jewcom helped
them to get to Palestine. The whole journey could take as long
as two years.
The refugees would travel across 6,000 miles of the Asian
continent until they reached the Russian port city of
Vladivostok. From there they would take a boat to Tsuruga,
Japan. Toward the end of this rescue effort, boats would be
overloaded with hundreds of refugees.
When they reached Tsuruga Japan, representatives of Kobe
Jewcom would meet them to make sure that they had their papers in
order and translate between Yiddish and Japanese for immigration
personnel. After clearing Tsuruga, they would travel one hundred
miles to Kobe . There they would wait until they could receive
re-embarkation arrangements. Sometimes this could take a couple
of months. Once the arrangements were consolidated, they would
go to Yokohama, and then to their final destinations: the United
States, South America, the Philippines, Australia, Palestine!
6
Many of the refugees were Hassidic Jews. They needed special
attention. Clothing for example had to be made from cotton and
sewn by hand and not by machine. The women of the Kobe Jewish
community took care of this task. They found the materials and
the tailors who could make the clothes. Every aspect of the
refugees wants and needs were taken care of.
Several anecdotes come from this tremendous undertaking. One
of the personalities who arrived in Kobe from Vilna was Rabbi
Shimon Kalish, the Amshenower Rebbe. The Rebbe sent a telegram
to a colleague in Lithuania. Before it was sent it was stopped
by Japanese censors. The censors sent for Leo Hanin, one of
Jewcom's leaders.
Hanin was asked to translate the cable from Hebrew to
Japanese for them. "Shisho miskadshim b'talis echad," it read,
"Six people may pray under one talis." Hanin explained that the
sender was the Hassidic leader of Amshenov, Lithuania, and the
message to his colleague in Vilna was of a religious nature.
The censors okayed the message and the cable was sent. Hanin
later asked the Rebbe what the cable actually meant. He fully
expected to be admonished for forgetting some important Talmudic
passage. Instead the Rebbe explained that since Japanese
authorities were issuing entry visas to families. The message
was in a religious code of sorts that really meant that six
strangers should act as one family in order to escape from
Lithuania.
In another instance 80 or so yeshiva students arrived in
Tsuruga on a Friday after sundown. They perplexed the
immigration officials when they refused to sign their landing
7
papers. The Jewcom representative was a Mr. Gerechter who could
neither explain to students the urgency of signing the papers or
to the immigration officials why the students were refusing to
sign. Eventually Mr. Gerechter signed "Shabbos" on the papers
and the students were allowed to pass. Thereafter religious
refugees referred to Mr. Gerechter as the "Shabbos Goy" -- the
"Shabbat violator."
The Japanese residents of Kobe welcomed the refugees. They
brought gifts of clothing, food, and money to the newcomers.
They provided fresh fruit for holiday tables. There were
instances when Japanese doctors refused payment for treatment of
refugees.
Of all the Japanese who helped Jewcom in their efforts, one
stands out. His name is Dr. Setsuzo Kotsuji. Dr. Kotsuji was a
Japanese Christian who had impressed the Kobe community by his
knowledge of the Torah and Talmud and his ability to speak a
first-rate Hebrew.
At the beginning of the refugee effort, Jewcom perceived a
problem with the three week limit on the visas issued to the
refugees. If any problems were to occur for an individual, three
weeks did not provide enough time solve them it took nearly
three weeks to get a letter from Kobe to New York, for example.
Anatole Ponevejski asked Dr. Kotsuji if he could help get an
extension for the visa. He spoke to everyone in the foreign
ministry, eventually to his old supervisor, _Yosuke Matsuoka, the
foreign Minister. Matsuoka informed Dr. Kotsuji how to bend the
rules.
By not informing any Tokyo offices, local authorities could
8
--------------------
in fact extend the length of the visas. Dr. Kotsuji spent weeks
wining and dining the local immigration authorities, wooing them
with expensive foods and geishas, until he managed to have them
agree to the time extensions. Thanks to this achievement,
Jewcom's efforts were both meaningful and successful.
After the war, Dr. Kotsuji converted to Judaism. He
travelled to Israel where he had his circumcision.
On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and the
flow of refugees was cut. Those who were already en route
eventually made it. But by November 1941, the last were already
in Kobe.
Among those who were saved by Kobe Jewcom were Zorach
Warhaftig, an early member of the Knesset and Minister of
Religious Affairs, and Menachem Savidore who became the Speaker
of the Knesset.
The War With The United States
On December 7, 1941, Japan went to war with the United
States. Rationing began soon after. Still, the Japanese were
respectful of the Jews in Kobe. Understanding that certain items
were needed in the observance of Jewish holidays, the Japanese
saw to it that they would be made available.
For example during passover, flour was given to the community
in place of rice rations so that they could make matzo. Esther
Moiseeff, Anatole ponevejski's1 younger sister knew how to make
make Matzo because her father had taught her. They made the hard
1 Anatole Ponve was in the United States at the outbreak of war with Japan. His wife and children (he had a daughter Irene since moving to Japan) were en route to meet him in early December, and were stuck in the Phillipines for the duration of the war.
9
dough and then baked them in small ovens on the tops of hibachi
barbecues.
The Canadian Academy went through some drastic changes at the
start of war. The British and Canadian teachers repatriated to
their home countries. The buildings were converted into
internment camps for enemy aliens. The school was moved to the
center of Kobe and existed through the war run by Japanese
teachers fluent in English. foreign students were of parents
from neutral countries like Sweden and Switzerland.
Life continued for the Jewish community and Kobe much as it
had before, with some natural adjustments due to the war. Some
of the recent immigrants to the community were interned because
they were considered enemy nationals. -But the internment was not
dramatic.
In the spring of 1945, the United States began bombing raids
over Kobe. Many of the Jews had to flee the city.
EPILOGUE
Two families are of some great importance to me. The family
of Boris Sidline arrived in Kobe in 1925. He was married to
Fania Tunkel a few years later. Their first son, Alexander was
born in Harbin in 1931, and their second son, George, was born in
Kobe in 1934.
The family of Moise Moiseeff arrived in September 1941 after
fleeing from Belgium. Moise had married Esther Ponevejski, the
younger sister of Anatole Ponevejski. They had two children,
Gregory and Simonne.
The children attended the Canadian Academy together. Both
Fania and Esther worked on the women's committee in Jewcom that
10
provided clothes to refugees. The families became friends.
In 1942 the Moiseeffs moved to Karuizawa. The Sidlines
caught up with them there after leaving Kobe literally as it was
being destroyed by United States warplanes in July 1945.
At the end of the war, Gregory went to work for the United
States army as a translator and Alexander as a telephone operator
in the 361st Station Hospital.
In 1946, because Anatole Ponve (shortened from Poneverjski
upon arrival in the United States) was a resident of California,
the Moiseeffs were able to emigrate to the United States. They
moved to San Francisco that year.
The Sidlines remained in Japan, moving to Yokohama in 1947.
There had previously been a very small Jewish community of less
than 10 families in Yokohama before the war. There was no
synagogue there. But the United States Army provided a
multi-denominational chapel. On Friday nights and Saturday
mornings Jewish services were held. On Sundays, there were
Christian protestant services.
In that chapel George became a bar mitzvah in 1948 at age 14.
In Yokohama the Jewish community still observed the holidays.
There were large passover seders for example, held jointly with
the United States Army.
Throughout the years the Sidlines and the Moiseeffs remained
friends through the mail. Esther and Fania shared a whimsical
fantasy that their two youngest children, Simonne and George, who
were the flower girl and ring bearer in a wedding in Kobe, might
someday reappear in a wedding ceremony of their own.
In 1954, the Sidline left Japan and settled in Montreal,
11
Canada. In 1962, George visited San Francisco on a vacation.
There he was reunited with the Moiseeffs. A short time later he
and Simonne were planning the reunion of the Kobe Jewish
community which happened on December 15, 1962 at the Fairmont
Hotel -- at their wedding reception.
Three years later they were to have a son, John, who would
write this paper.
12
Bibliography
Dicker, Herman. Wanderers and Settlers in the Far East. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1962.
Kranzler, David. Japanese, Nazis and Jews. New York: Yeshiva University Press, 1976.
Moiseeff, Esther. Personal interview. November 1990.
Moiseeff, Moise. Personal interview. November 1990.
Sidline, George. Personal interview. November, 1990.
Sidline, George. Unpublished memoirs of Japan, ts. Personal collection, Belmont, Ca.
Tokayer, Marvin, and Mary Swartz. The Fugu Plan. New York: Paddington Press, 1979.
Photographs from the personal collections of Moise Moiseeff, George Sidline, and Simonne Sidline.
13
The Wedding of Bella Dinaburg to a Sephardic Jew, 1942 Simonne Moiseeff (front left), the flowergirl ,
was escorted down the aisle by George Sidline (front right)
The second time George Sidline escorted Simonne Moiseeff down the aisle was in 1962 at their wedding .
Guests at the wedding included many members of the pre-war Kobe Jewis community . Among them the Ponves , the Hanins, and of course
The Moiseeffs and the Sid lines .
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