Jews in Japan : after diaspora

TheKhan

TheKhan

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There is a rumor in Japan that probably after the Jewish diaspora, some Jews reached Japan and setup camp. It does seem that Jewish people went in all directions after the diaspora.

Some family emblems seem to resemble Jewish symbols, which could be a coincidence.

There is also a place in Kyoto called Gion, which is probably at the root of these rumors, but could also be another coincidence.

Some esoteric religious people seem to put wooden boxes on their heads, and recently I found out that those people wrap deer skin around their waist, as a symbolic gesture that they sit on lions, but lions never existed anywhere near Japan.

And every time there is a festival, Shintoist seem to be the only people who push around something that somewhat resembles an ark. There are still more reasons.

Is there anyone who can share the Jewish take in these areas　if there are any. Just wondering if there are any rumors going around in the Jewish arena with regards to this. I am kind of leaning towards a theory that Sumerians reached Japan at sometime in history.

Best regards,

TK
 
There were Jews in China I know. They traveled up the silk road a couple thousand years ago or so. I think there were some Jews that ended up in Japan eventually too. One sec.

History of the Jews in Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You could look here too, but I'd take most articles you read with a grain of salt:

http://haruth.com/jw/JewsJapan.html

There was a tendency for missionaries to see Judaism anywhere, and I think Christians still sometimes do that, now Jews too.

-- Dauer
 
dauer said:
There were Jews in China I know. They traveled up the silk road a couple thousand years ago or so. I think there were some Jews that ended up in Japan eventually too. One sec.

History of the Jews in Japan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There was a tendency for missionaries to see Judaism anywhere, and I think Christians still sometimes do that, now Jews too.

-- Dauer
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Now that you mention it, Roman artifacts were also found in ancient Korean archaeological sites. So its all possible theoretically.

For reference, how do you confirm that those Chinese Jews were Jews?

following the link you referenced, I found this article which pretty much documents all the reasons for the rumors:
Lost Tribes of Japan

I did not know that there was a star of David at Ise Jingu, which is a famous imperial shrine of Shinto religion. This was a major surprise to me.

Last parts of the article also documents a supposed copy of writings behind an imperial mirror shrouded in mystery that is not confirmed. I have never seen any information on this, and I assume the writings to be of Sumerian in origin though.

But I`ll have to check into the origin of the star of David one of these days. Thanks.

TK

p.s. I also didn`t know that a Grandson of the Meiji emperor actually became a reverend. This was another surprise but something good to know.
 
TheKhan,

a person is Jewish is their mother is Jewish. In terms of identifying individual communities as Jewish that have been separated from the larger community, I'm not sure quite how that works. It's come up with a few communities in India and Africa. I know that there used to be a couple of synagogues in China. You can read more about Chinese Jews here:

History of the Jews in China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are DNA tests to identify the likelihood a community is descended from Jews, but I'm not sure how accurate they are and I'm not certain it plays much into religious identity.

The start of David at Ise Jingu is probably not a star of david, just a symbol of similar appearance. It's not a symbol that's been identified with Judaism for a long time, just a couple centuries. Previously it was more universal.

Similarly, using a leather black box as a type of amulet was more common in the ancient world. A lot of the article you linked seems like it's looking to prove something rather than observing what the evidence shows. This chart shows some ancient semitic alphabets:

http://hebrewresources.com/images/AncientHebrewGesenius.jpg
 
dauer said:
..A lot of the article you linked seems like it's looking to prove something rather than observing what the evidence shows...
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I agree, the article somewhat spells disaster for both Japan and possibly Judaism to an extent.

It`d be interesting to find out if one of the lost tribes reached Japan, excluding the J imperial family out of the theory. I have a feeling that there a rumors going on in the western Christian communities though..

That star although not the star of David at Ise Jingu is very un-Japanese in my opinion, fyi.



TK
 
I agree, the article somewhat spells disaster for both Japan and possibly Judaism to an extent.
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I just meant that, like a lot of the reports of missionaries, it's not being very objective. It's trying to prove something instead of going on the available evidence.



The star may not be Japanese, but if it is very old it's unlikely it's Jewish.
 
one thing i always find interesting is how similar the word "samurai" is to "shomrim" - meaning "guardians". but then again, the hawaiian word for priest is "kahuna" - in hebrew it's "kohen"..... hehe

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
bananabrain said:
one thing i always find interesting is how similar the word "samurai" is to "shomrim" - meaning "guardians". but then again, the hawaiian word for priest is "kahuna" - in hebrew it's "kohen"..... hehe

b'shalom

bananabrain
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Linguistically all our languages have one root language called Sanskit (including Aramaic). If I have my facts straight this was confirmed by academia in the late 1800`s, but is still not part of our standard elementary education.

The reason why I found this out was because relatively recently (and I`ve been speaking English and Japanese for more than 2 decades) it struck me that the first five alphabets of the Japanese language are the same as vowels in English in different order.

Along with wondering why Latin is easy for Japanese people and vise-versa, and some words like name in Japanese is na-ma-e, I just had to figure it out (Japan is roughly 2000 years old). Sanskrit came to Japan from India to China to Japan through buddhism, this is a fact. Its my assumption that Sanskrit reached English through the middle-east to Greece to Italy then all around Europe through the Roman empire.

Why just one root language out-did all the other languages?, I guess many reasons could be thought of. I personally think it was just a matter of natural selection between knowledge and civilizations over time.

Needless to say, I have a different view of the world since then.

What really struck me in Japanese is a Japanese name called "Tanaka", I forgot what that was in Judaism, but in Japanese it means "in-the-field". When Japanese names are spelled in English I think in many cases it is spelled in ways familiar to those that know middle-east history. That kind of fascinates me.

TK
 
dauer said:
Indo-European's older than sanskrit I thought: Indo-European languages - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


also this might interest you: Mat.1.5(IE Map)

lots of nice maps.
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FYI, note: I wasn`t talking about the oldest. Logically civilization flows from the civilized to the less-civilized. And personally knowing how knowledge came to Japan from India, and hearing how old and civilized India was which might be biased on my part, I think north-west India at one time achieved a pinacle in our world history and contributed to the world significantly by providing the building blocks of our modern language. That, I personally believe that countries west of India including Europe refuse to acknowledge for obvious reasons, but I`ll eventually double check this as you pointed out.

I guess I could only continue if I found proof that we are linguistically related through Vedic Sanskrit. But we are definately connected linguistically somewhere, and I could have sworn that I read somewhere that it was proven in the late 1800`s.

As a thesis I recall I was looking for the oldest language somewhere between Mesopotamia and India, as the cradle of modern(not farming but language, and maybe iron) civilization and the oldest I could find that made sense to me was Vedic Sanskrit.

The map you provided is definately very interesting. But isn`t the starting point a bit far east to call it European?? or a bit far west to call it "Indo"??

Anyways let me check this out.

TK

p.s. in the meantime you gotta admit its very confusing in identifying the oldest out of the Indo-European languages in how it is documented. When going from Indo-European pages to Indo-Iranian links to Sanskrit pages. I frankly feel that when the information are combined it says that Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest language in the Indo-European language. But still even wiki sucks in this sense with regards to this topic.

Vedic Sanskrit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Vedic Sanskrit is an a Old Indic language. It is the language of the Vedas, the oldest shruti texts of Hinduism, compiled over the period of the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BC. It is an archaic form of Sanskrit, an early descendant of Proto-Indo-Iranian. It is closely related to Avestan, the oldest preserved Iranian language. Vedic Sanskrit is the oldest attested language of the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family.
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Sanskrit - Mother of European Languages says Prof Dean Brown The Great Indian Mutiny

This page probably states all the arguments east and west on regarding Sanskrit (it was so long I stopped reading..).

Sanskrit is the root language of all languages east of India (fact). Thus it would not surprise me if all European languages are rooted in Sanskrit. If thats so hard for one to imagine, check into how even China which was also influenced by India, influenced the world.

In terms of middle-easterners and Europeans(who in civilization descend from the middle-east) on what their language is descended from, its anyones call but in the long run I think it may be futile.

I mean even with just Greek and Latin being treated as something that happened somewhat simultaneously; such arguments are just absurd, and bringing Sanskrit into the same group; ... time will tell. Its obvious who`s language went where to nurture Latin.

One problem I do see is the glorification of Sanskrit as a divine language. I`d just like to treat it as an ancient single root language as fact, and personally a gift from God. And move on.

If old-Sanskrit is not the mother of all languages I apologize in advance.

TK
 
p.s. In case some of these comments at the link I referenced above offends anyone, my intentions are not such.

Personally as a theory, I believe that what offends modern Jewish people in these senses, were specifically performed to falsify, in order to cloud these Sanskrit facts, and a simultaneous attempt to establish, a European monopoly on these India facts that failed. In essence I view it as an ill-willed crusade-like propaganda attack towards Sanskrit and Buddhism involving tragedy on behalf of West European people during WWII.

No offense intended.

My goal in expressing these views is to bring about a one family atmosphere, fyi.
 
TheKhan said:
Logically civilization flows from the civilized to the less-civilized.
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i have just one word to say to that: eurodisney. what i mean is, it's not that logical and it's certainly not one-way.

I believe that what offends modern Jewish people in these senses, were specifically performed to falsify, in order to cloud these Sanskrit facts
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if i understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that a falsification took place to hide sanskrit influence on the middle east - and i just can't see what the evidence is for this would be. that's a pretty large claim and i can see that making it in the way you are doing would indeed be quite aggressive.

a simultaneous attempt to establish, a European monopoly on these India facts that failed.
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but judaism isn't european. more to the point, we've been in india as long as anyone can remember.

In essence I view it as an ill-willed crusade-like propaganda attack towards Sanskrit and Buddhism involving tragedy on behalf of West European people during WWII.
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er.... i think you'll find that the study of linguistics and philology started rather a long time before that and is not, moreover, confined to western europe.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
bananabrain said:
i have just one word to say to that: eurodisney. what i mean is, it's not that logical and it's certainly not one-way.
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Talking about history, not now. In the past it wasn`t as accepting, and more discriminating and not compatible as it is these days in some modern countries. We weren`t as mixed either. The only reason in the old times why a culture would learn from another culture would be for a matter of survival, it was a necessity. Basically I wanted to say for example bronze cultures aren`t going to majorly influence iron cultures with bronze. But bronze cultures would have done anything including learning languages to communicate with iron cultures.

In that sense it may not be 100% pure one-way, the civilized might have learnt a thing or too from the old/new, but the flow of civilization would roughly be in one direction in old times. Hey maybe some day the French would claim they invented French fries and McDonalds and Americans may have a problem with that.

bananabrain said:
if i understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that a falsification took place to hide sanskrit influence on the middle east - and i just can't see what the evidence is for this would be. that's a pretty large claim and i can see that making it in the way you are doing would indeed be quite aggressive.
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Yes I am making aggressive claims but not towards what you would likely care about unless you are a staunch zionist, and it is based on my experience and educated guess. But I admit it is a theory and not fact, and it is your choice to decide what is the truth at this moment, I`ve already made up my mind mostly.

I`m also pissed off that likely anyone Jewish who saw the buddist swastika-like mark would get all kinds of emotions sturring if they didn`t know what it was. And the name of the group of people who are recognized as the inventors of Sanskrit probably immediately offends Jews, as I assume its a taboo mostly at this moment.

And evident at the comments of the link I posted on the opinions about Sanskrit also seems to attract White-supremacist idiots. This all is bugging.


bananabrain said:
.. more to the point, we've been in india as long as anyone can remember.
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I think you can take this both ways.. It might actually support my thesis..

(but I also have another thesis that Jewish people originate from north-west India, that could be called Jew Eden, but again its just a theory)


bananabrain said:
er.... i think you'll find that the study of linguistics and philology started rather a long time before that and is not, moreover, confined to western europe.
Click to expand...

I would have to disagree. We were mainly bogged up with religion and other things to even consider a language connection between the east and west until very recently (1800`s), and those that did were probably like just a handful of individuals in a century prior to the 1800`s. Look up Marco Polo, people like him didn`t exist in the hundreds and even he didn`t have a clue with regards to Sanskrit. He was happy just being the only one in Europe who had an accurate map of Asia. And I certainly know that most people don`t know that the first five alphabets of Japanese are the same as the vowels in English (fyi, I use to know Latin and know the history).

Frankly I think you neglect how long we have come. But anyways, if you want to prove a single root language exists, you`d have to find a connection between India and the Middle-east and in which direction the root language flowed. Its clearcut in Asia. In Europe it seems confusing whether intentional or not (although I think it is intentional).

Sometimes as you pointed out, civilization does flow from the new to the old.


TK
 
Bananabrain said:
i am a staunch zionist. i probably don't mean what you probably mean by that, though.
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Not related to the thread, but related to the current forum discussions: I personally have noticed that you make an effort to oppose off-brand zionisms in other religions, rather than just ignoring them. You're not leaving them for someone else to handle. That is consistent with someone who is truly expects to be held responsible for their actions. Kudos.
 
Who has time to go around cleaning other people's carpets, but I don't assume everyone is equally enabled to determine his or her own fate. Slavery comes to mind. A zionistic irony is that a lot of well intentioned Christian and Muslim people believe that Jesus is coming as messiah, and a lot of other well intentioned Christian and Muslim people believe the antichrist is coming but calling himself Jesus! Not in your department, I know.

I assume a true zionist feels responsible for his or her actions and occasionally also for inaction, mostly for his own health but occasionally for someone elses. The point is, a confusticated zionistic brand war would hardly serve either a messiah or a messianic age, so a true zionist doesn't encourage off brand zionisms and occasionally might discourage them. Otherwise a messiah might express disappointment over inaction, or a messianic age might never come. I am assuming, though; so this might just be a silly putty copy of the real situation. Second point is that in such confusing times I like to see consistency.
 
Not all zionists believe in a messiah or a messianic age, nor do all zionists place higher value on the lives of one group over another, if that's what you're suggesting when you say: " mostly for his own health but occasionally for someone elses."

Those people I know well personally, including members of my own family, who would identify themselves as zionists, don't make a connection between their zionism and either a messianic figure or a messianic age.
 
dauer said:
Not all zionists believe in a messiah or a messianic age, nor do all zionists place higher value on the lives of one group over another, if that's what you're suggesting when you say: " mostly for his own health but occasionally for someone elses."

Those people I know well personally, including members of my own family, who would identify themselves as zionists, don't make a connection between their zionism and either a messianic figure or a messianic age.
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I only assume other people are like me: my interests begin with my own beating heart and extend outwards. A small amount of true concern for others represents a huge personal accomplishment, in my opinion. In your post you are make an outwards effort towards clarification for my benefit. The less this benefits you, the more internal effort it takes you and the less able you are to maintain interest in me. This has nothing to do with valuing one group over another but is about our limitations.

What a staunch zionist is I'm wasn't sure; and I was trying to cover the spectrum. I had thought the 'messianic age' included the broadest concept of zionism in Judaism, but you're saying it is a broader idea.
 
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