A report on the Jewish community in Japan was given to the World Jewish Congress here by Rabbi J. Adler, who for the past three years served as the community’s rabbi in Tokyo. He said that apart from the 500 to 600 Jews living in Tokyo, there is a community in the Kobe district of about 150, with a few individual families scattered in a number of other cities.
Rabbi Adler stated that the Tokyo community consisted primarily of business and professional people from the United States, Europe, Israel and other parts of the world. Many of them are stateless. The community in Tokyo maintains its own center and, while in Japan, Rabbi Adler taught about 25 children in afternoon classes at the center.
Prior to his occupying the Tokyo pulpit, Rabbi Adler, who was born in Britain, spent a year as the minister of the Jewish community in Hong Kong. During his service in the Far East, the English rabbi would fly to Hong Kong or Tokyo at a moment’s notice to perform a marriage, a brith, or prepare poultry according to kashrut regulations. In a comment on the life of both communities Rabbi Adler said that neither had ever met or experienced anti-Semitism in any form.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
