Антисемитизм в Японии: История и Проявления

none

Antisemitism in Japan has developed over the years despite the presence of a relatively small and obscure Jewish population. Japan had no traditional antisemitism until nationalist ideology and propaganda began to spread on the eve of World War II. Before and during the war, Nazi Germany, an ally to the Japanese, encouraged Japan to adopt antisemitic policies. In the post war period, extremist groups and ideologues have promoted conspiracy theories.

In 1918, the Imperial Japanese Army sent troops to Siberia to cooperate with the White movement. White Army soldiers had been issued copies of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and Japanese soldiers first learned about antisemitism. The Protocols continue to be used as evidence of Jewish conspiracies even though they are widely acknowledged to be a forgery.

In 1925 Captain Norihiro Yasue published the first translation of the Protocols in Japanese. A Russian language specialist, he was assigned to the staff of General Gregorii Semenov, a vehement anti Semite who distributed copies of the Protocols to all of his troops. Along with a few dozen other Japanese soldiers, Yasue read and accepted the premises of the Protocols, and contributed for a time to various antisemitic publications, including Kokusai Himitsu Ryoku no Kenkyu (国際秘密力の研究, Studies in the International Conspiracy), under the pen name Hō Kōshi. He later changed his views when in 1940 Japan signed the Tripartite Pact which formally sealed Japan's alliance with Nazi Germany. His newly pro Semitic stance led to his dismissal from the Japanese Army. A major journalist at the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun, Yamanaka was a prolific author of children's fiction who serialized the novel Daitō no Tetsujin (Superman of the Great Orient) from August 1933 until the end of 1934 in the periodical Shōnen Kurabu (Boys' Club), read mainly by Japanese boys between the ages of 8 and 12. The hero of this story is the detective Hongō Yoshiaki who battles the villain Sekima, head of the shadowy Zion Alliance, a Jewish secret organization seeking to undermine the Japanese Empire. A typical quote from Superman of the Great Orient:
blockquote|There are about 13.5 million Jews scattered around the world. Hundreds of years ago they gobbled up all the world's wealth. Especially in the United States, Britain, France, and in other Western countries too, there are many rich Jews who do whatever they want with the money of the people This wealth is used to increase the invisible Jewish power throughout Europe and the United States These scary Jews have a secret society called the Zion Alliance. The goal of the Zion Alliance is that all nations be ruled by Jews This is a real global conspiracy. with the publication of Shishi ō Zenshū Daisan shū (Complete Works of the Lion King), in which he said:

At present sixty to seventy percent of the world's money is said to be in Jewish hands. There are many poor and penniless countries that end up having to accept capital from abroad in order to get by, and consequently they have to submit to Jews in order to borrow the money they need. Typically Jews invest in transportation facilities, electric plants, railways and subways. The reason for this is based on the plan contained in the Protocols to constantly foment revolution in various countries, eventually leading to their collapse. It is then that the Jews will be able to take over. According to Victoria, "Tanaka argued that Jews were fomenting social unrest in order to rule the world. He  [points out] that Jews advocated liberalism, especially within academic circles, as part of their plan to destroy the people's moral sense  Helped by men like Tanaka, antisemitism spread rapidly throughout Japanese society despite the near total absence of Jews." His proposals included the creation of a concentration camp on Chongming Island in the delta of the Yangtze, or starvation on freighters off the coast of China. The Japanese admiral responsible for overseeing Shanghai would not yield to pressure from Meisinger; however, the Japanese built a ghetto in the neighborhood of Hongkew which had already been planned by Tokyo in 1939: a slum with about twice the population density of Manhattan. The ghetto was strictly isolated by Japanese soldiers under the command of the Japanese official Kano Ghoya, and Jews could only leave it with special permission. Some 2,000 of them died in the Shanghai Ghetto during the wartime period. However, Japan refused to adopt an official policy against the Jews. On 31 December 1940, Japanese foreign minister Yōsuke Matsuoka told a group of Jewish businessmen: "Nowhere have I promised that we would carry out Hitler's anti Semitic policies in Japan. This is not simply my personal opinion, it is the opinion of Japan." Nonetheless, until 1945 the Holocaust was systematically concealed by the leadership in Tokyo.</blockquote>

Although Yasutani was well known to have been a friend and mentor of the Nazi propagandist Karlfried Graf Dürckheim, Victoria feels that Japanese antisemitism evolved independently from the "heart of the 'home grown' reactionary social role that institutional Buddhism played in Japanese society following the Meiji Period." In 2008, the children of one of the victims sued North Korea for plotting the attack, one of several acts that got the rogue nation listed as a state sponsor of terrorism in 1988. At the end of the 20th century, many books about Japanese Jewish common ancestry theory were sold. Numerous theories and explanations for the alleged Jewish control of the world were circulated. These books, called tondemo bon (outrageous or preposterous books), contained elements of the occult and tabloid style speculation. In 1979, a book named 日本人に謝りたい あるユダヤ人の懺悔 Nihonjin ni ayamaritai Aru yudayajin no zange (I'd like to apologize to the Japanese: A Jewish elder's confession) was published. The author of this book, Mordecai Mose (モルデカイ・モーゼ), called himself a rabbi, but actually, it was a pseudonym of the self styled translator of this book, Masao Kubota (久保田政男). Kubota also spread the rumor that "Enola Gay" means "Kill the Emperor" in Yiddish. This rumor is groundless, but anti Semites in Japan still give credence to it.

In 1984, a book named 世界を動かすユダヤ・パワーの秘密 Sekai wo ugokasu yudaya pawah no himitsu (Secrets of the Jewish Power that Controls the World) was published. This book is based on Jewish conspiracy theory. The author, Eizaburo Saito (斉藤栄三郎), was a leading member of the Liberal Democratic Party. In 1986, a book named ユダヤが解ると世界が見えてくる Yudaya ga wakaruto sekai ga miete kuru (To Watch Jews Is to See the World Clearly) became one of Japan's best sellers. This book is also based on the Protocols and the author, Masami Uno (宇野正美), writes that the Ashkenazim are actually descendants of Khazarian, hence they are "fake Jews," and that Sephardim are true pedigreed Jews. According to him, some of the Japanese are the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel and that the Japanese Sephardim will defeat the Ashkenazim. The same year a book named これからの１０年間　ユダヤ・プロトコール超裏読み術―あなたに起こるショッキングな現実 Yudaya purotokoru cho urayomi jutsu (The Expert Way to Read Jewish Protocols) also became one of Japan's bestsellers. The author, Kinji Yajima (矢島鈞次, 1919–1994), an economist and a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, stated that although the Protocols is probably a forgery,
it was put together from the results of all the research ever done on the Jews There is no doubt that the contents consist of the wisdom of the Jews. In 1987, a magazine named 歴史読本 Rekishi dokuhon (The History Magazine) featured articles titled 世界、謎のユダヤ Sekai, nazo no yudaya (The world of the Mysterious Jews), which insisted that the Watergate scandal and the Lockheed bribery scandals were Jewish conspiracies. It also reported that former prime minister Kakuei Tanaka said "Yudaya Nelson Rockefeller ni yarareta, yudaya ni ki wo tsukero," [I've been gotten by Jews, Nelson Rockefeller, be wary of Jews] when he was released on bail in 1976.

Since the turn of the century, Ryu Ota, an ex Trotskyist, is one of the leading propagandists for Jewish conspiracy theory. He has translated the books of Eustace Mullins into Japanese. On March 8, 2009, Soichiro Tahara (田原総一朗), political journalist and host of TV Asahi's Sunday Project program, told Makiko Tanaka that her father, former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, was "done in by America, by the Jews and Ozawa, (leader of the Democratic Party of Japan) too, was done in [by America and/or the Jews]" during a live broadcast. The Simon Wiesenthal Center strongly criticized Tahara for antisemitic and anti American accusations. In 2014, 31 municipal libraries in Japan reported having 265 copies of The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and other books vandalized, usually with several pages torn or ripped out. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that police were investigating. Japanese politician Nariaki Nakayama said that the act could not have been committed by a Japanese, saying that it was against Japanese sensibilities. A 36 year old man was arrested in connection with the vandalism on March 14, however in June prosecutors announced that they would not press charges after a psychiatric evaluation revealed that the man was mentally incompetent. According to an ADL telephone survey of 500 people, 23% +/ 4.4% of the adult population in Japan harbor antisemitic attitudes. Furthermore, the study reveals that 46% of the population agree with the statement "Jews think they are better than other people", and that almost half of the respondents (49%) think that "Jews are more loyal to Israel than to Japan." However, this survey has been critiqued by journalist Jesse Singal as being unreasonably simplistic in its classification of "harboring antisemitic attitudes".