Jews In The Japanese Mind » (REVISED)

The popularity in Japan of books about Jews has climbed to staggering proportions....What explains the virtual obsession with Jews in Japan—a country that has no Jews? Many of the Japanese books about Jews are overtly antisemitic; but even a large number of otherwise respectable scholarly books are replete with egregious distortions and antisemitic canards, and most propagate the myth that Jews control the American media and dominate international finance. How can we account for the indiscriminate mixture of fact and fantasy in the Japanese view of the Jews? In this cultural and intellectual history of modern Japan, authors David Goodman and Masanori Miyazawa use the Japanese image of the Jews to illuminate the Japanese mind. Tracing the sources and historical development of this image of the Jews against the background of Japan's emergence from centuries of cultural isolation, the authors reveal how its subtle alterations over time also reflect the changing character of Japanese social and political experience in this century. But while the Japanese do seem to have accepted all of the worst anti-Jewish stereotypes at face value, the remarkable fact is that, unlike Western antisemites, the Japanese frequently admire the Jews for achieving such disproportionate power, and argue that their countrymen should follow their example.

New York Times Book Review

An enlightening and thorough examination of Japanese notions of the Jews. . . . "Jews in the Japanese Mind" is not a book about Jews. It is a book about being different, about not being Japanese, about the vast array of people with whom Japan still struggles to come to terms.