It was mid-December in Tokyo, the fourth month of my semester abroad in Japan, and there was no hint of Hanukkah.
I know, Hanukkah isn’t the most important Jewish holiday, but somehow I expected a small mention of it, commercially at least, a small shout-out to the few Jews in Japan who would be seeking out Chinese restaurants on the 25th of December (Hanukkah fell on Christmas that year). Christmas abounds in this un-Christian capital, but no one seems to know from Hanukkah.
To distract myself, I watched a Japanese film. A throwaway line caught my attention: “We serve all kinds — Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Muslim…” But the list did not include the Jews.
While I didn’t expect there to be many Jews in Japan, I didn’t expect to be the sole representative of our people, either.
Being raised in the Bay Area on a routine of Friday night Shabbat services, Hebrew school and Jewish summer camp, I was surprised that my people are barely known in this country. I had heard the statistics — it is estimated that .0016 percent of Japan’s population is Jewish — but growing up in the embrace of a strong Jewish community as I did, it’s easy to forget just how miniscule our numbers are.
To be fair, Japan is an Asian country, and many aspects of Western culture simply didn’t “take” there. In my entire experience I never saw a church, either. But after asking around, I discovered that many of my Japanese peers had never even met a Jew. I was something they had only read about in books.
Seeing an opportunity, I tried to explain my culture to a few people, to little success. The stark contrast between our beliefs are so vast, it was hard to explain without diving into broad theological concepts like ethical monotheism and covenant with God. Traditional Japanese myths feature gods interacting with mankind all the time; the roots of our beliefs were strange, let alone obscure.
By the time my friends were comparing hanukkiahs to the candelabras in Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion ride, I realized that 2,000 years of Jewish tradition really didn’t matter much to people who had a long and rich tradition of their own.
My intercultural experience may seem insignificant, but it points to a global challenge for us Jews. How do we identify in a world full of other cultures and traditions that are just as valid as our own, and how do we convey our beliefs to others who come from completely different cultures? As the world grows ever smaller due to the increasing ease of travel and communication, we find ourselves interacting more often with people who have no understanding of what it is to be a Jew.
As I continued talking with my Japanese friends, I stepped back from the conversation about what Judaism is, and started explaining my morality, my spirituality and my philosophy, relating mine to their thoughts and beliefs, which I had studied. Transforming from lesson to dialogue helped create connection and interaction. When the conversation was about me and what I believed, rather than a “Jewish religion” in the abstract, that was when they started to understand, and we were able to achieve a true cultural exchange.
Our opportunity to strengthen global understanding of Judaism rests with our willingness to embrace and express our deeply held, personal, Jewish beliefs. Through our ability to do so, we introduce our culture to those who are curious far better than history books and other second-hand sources ever could, creating and sustaining human connection — to ourselves and to Jewish tradition.
Ultimately, when they come asking, who better than we Jewish people to explain what it is to be a Jew?
Sam Wolfe is a student at Whittier College studying Japanese and English “to gain a more global perspective.” He is from Palo Alto.