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I came across the following anecdote from the Judaism Stack Exchange: https://judaism.stackexchange.com/questions/5940/jewish-community-in-china-around-ww2/5942

During the questions portion of the lecture someone asked Professor Xin why the Japanese, allies of the Nazis tolerated Jewish emigration from Europe to China during WW2 if the Japanese knew of the Nazi's plans with the Jews? Professor Xin offered an anecdote about how the Japanese, who were not fully understanding of the Nazi animosity towards Jews, gathered some prominent Jews that were in the area and asked them why the Nazis hated them so much. The Jews told the japanese "it's because we are Asian". That got a laugh from the crowd, since Professor Xin had framed the lecture earlier by mentioning that Israel could geographically be considered part of Asia.

(I am not sure if the humor comes across well in writing so I will explain it:) The joke was that the Jews understood that the Japanese, the ones asking them the question, were Asian. So by linking the Jews to Asia they would be suggesting that perhaps the Nazis might have it out for the Japanese as well, and as a result the Japanese would not be so keen on helping the Nazis.

There's an answer with a citation, but it was somewhat qualified:

I can't vouch for the reliability of this source, but the story is found in Warren Kozak, The Rabbi of 84th Street: The Extraordinary Life of Haskel Besser (HarperCollins, 2004), pp. 176-7 (cited in the Wikipedia article on the Shanghai Ghetto):

When the Germans pressed the Japanese to turn over the entire Jewish community [in Shanghai], the Japanese military governor sent for its leaders. Fearing the worst, the community sent a small delegation including the Amshinover Rebbe, Shimon [Shalom] Kalish, along with someone who could translate through English...

The Japanese governor was curious. He did not understand why these Jews were singled out from all other Europeans... Finally the governor broke his silence, speaking in Japanese with a quick, terse question, which was translated by one of his lieutenants into English. The English-Yiddish interpreter then translated it into Yiddish. "Farvoos hoben di Daitschen aich azoy feint - Why do the Germans hate you so much?" Without hesitation and knowing the fate of his community hung on his answer, Reb Kalish told the translator, "Zugim weil mir senen orientalim - Tell him the Germans hate us because we are Oriental."

The Japanese governor, whose face had been stern throughout the confrontation, broke into a slight smile. In spite of the military alliance, he did not accede to the German demand and the Shanghai Jews were never handed over.

To me, it's an amusing anecdote about how easily governments can be manipulated if you fit their ideology, and how arbitrary race is, but it sounds like the kind of thing someone would make up.

Did this exchange, or something similar to it, happen?

Andrew Grimm
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  • I read the title to mean "Did the Jews tell the Japanese that the Japanese were asians?" -- Not a very interesting claim... After reading the question it's clear what was meant. I hope my edit is not too awkward. – Flimzy May 12 '13 at 18:47
  • @Flimzy I'm ok with the edit. – Andrew Grimm May 12 '13 at 20:52
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    Please note that oriental and Asian are often conflated incorrectly. In the German context of mid-20th century the Orient would usually be understood in terms of contemporary Near-Middle East. The last stop on the orient express was Istanbul, for example. The rabbi in the anecdote is making a political point, but not about Asia. He is correctly claiming to have oriental, in other words, Middle Eastern, ancestry. Voting down until the title reflects the quote correctly. – denten May 12 '13 at 22:27
  • @denten the word "Asian" was used in the question at the Judaism Stack Exchange. I don't know what the word "orientalim" means in Yiddish, and how it should be translated in English. – Andrew Grimm May 12 '13 at 22:52
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    Aren't they Asian? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_in_Asia – vartec May 13 '13 at 16:24
  • Even if there ever was an exchange where Jews told Japanese that Jews are Asian, I doubt very much it was meant seriously/literally. – A L Jul 08 '13 at 05:01
  • Well, on what continent is Israel (ancient or modern)? (I assume that's the point of vartec's link.) – hunter2 Jul 08 '13 at 10:34
  • Given that, I fail to see @denten's point; Turkey connects Europe with Asia. (Can you explain a the difference that you say is being falsely conflated, denten?) – hunter2 Jul 08 '13 at 10:42
  • @hunter2 "Asian" would carry a race connotation, usually denoting the people of Eastern or Southeastern Asia. The rabbi however says "oriental", which referred to the territories east of Europe generally, and very much included the contemporary Middle East. "They hate us because we are all eastern," would be a decent way to translate the "orientalish" to avoid exactly this confusion. In no way do I endorse such distinctions. My point is that "asian" and "oriental" are not historically equivalent terms. Substituting "asian" for "oriental" as is done in the 1st paragraph confuses the matter. – denten Jul 08 '13 at 19:17
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    "Orientalim" means "orientals." See my comment above. – denten Jul 08 '13 at 19:22
  • @denten According to the Wikipeda result for "Oriental" (caveat Wiki), "The Orient means the East... In English it is largely a metonym for...the continent of Asia." Which comports with my understanding. The Orient Express example is a good reminder of how far west the Orient continues, but. Your translation, "eastern", doesn't 'de-conflate' things, IMO. I also disagree about "race connotation". // Practically: We can take this to ELU.SE if you like. / I'm not sure how relevant it is anyway, but I think you would need to demonstrate the dis-equivalence in a relevant time & place. – hunter2 Jul 09 '13 at 04:41
  • To be clear on that last point - It's possible you're right about connotation/overtone/non-equivalence in the setting where this allegedly transpired, and that *could* be relevant to the question, but you would need to back that up. (Especially in the face of current accepted use of these words.) // Just re-read where you say "German" .. so this may be a non-English language-issue (Yiddish, German, or specifically Nazi-German ... or Japanese, or Mandarin, I guess) - in which case, please enlighten us. – hunter2 Jul 09 '13 at 04:44
  • (Closer reading of the Wiki page says, briefly, that German does use the terms as you suggest, so ... I see where you get the distinction, at least.) – hunter2 Jul 09 '13 at 05:04
  • Let's just simplify. The Yiddish quote says "oriental" and not "asian." That would be an easy answer to the question. "Did jews claim to be asians to imperial Japan?" No, the very quote in the original says "oriental." The difference between the two is a matter for another discussion (although we can already agree that the terms have different histories, even in English). – denten Jul 09 '13 at 05:07
  • @denten did you read the part of the question that said "it's because we are Asian"? – Andrew Grimm Jul 09 '13 at 05:27
  • @AndrewGrimm Exactly my point. The Yiddish source (repeated in the second quote and elsewhere) says "it's because we are oriental." The "asian" comes from a bad translation. Let's at least get that off the table. – denten Jul 09 '13 at 05:51
  • How is this not a duplicate of the question you link to on Judaism.SE? (Not really pejorative - I'm probably being thick ...) – hunter2 Jul 10 '13 at 07:15
  • @hunter2 Largely because the answer we'd get here would be different to that on Judaism.SE. Also, I didn't get any objections for copying http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/9228/104 , and when I jokingly noted a duplicate on superuser for http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/q/4868/104 , another person noted that the answers on SU were "just anecdotes". – Andrew Grimm Jul 10 '13 at 08:50
  • I'm no expert or rules police, but that seems like a pretty thin reason, to me. It's not like the MY one was asking for interpretation or perspective, it asked for a reliable source - so it really is the *same*. // Admittedly I didn't look at the 'flip version' of the others, but the travel one .. Sure, it's phrased as skeptical, but that can apply to way too many questions for that to be enough; and even if there's arguable overlap, it fits *better* there. / The HD I like better (and was looking at recently anyway) - I guess I have a hard time saying why, *exactly*. (more analytical answers.. – hunter2 Jul 11 '13 at 08:52
  • Just to add that many of the Shanghai Jews were from places like Iraq (which is surely unarguably Asian?), though obviously not Shimon Kalish. – Francis Davey Sep 09 '21 at 20:21

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I have done much research into Jewish settlement in imperial Japan but I have never once seen the claim that Jews seriously proposed a link of pan-Asian brotherhood. It is true that some of the Japanese who rescued them believed in some kind of pan-ethnic brotherhood, such as Norihiro Yasue (my article outlining his ideology is on academia.edu), but this was not the explicit reason given for rescuing Jews. The actual reason for the policy was humanitarian need and the duty to grant asylum to political refugees. In the early 1930s, it seems, some Japanese officials wanted to create a Jewish colony in Manchuria to attract their money, but that ended up having little influence on the status quo that emerged when World War II and the Holocaust actually began.

Most of the visas to get to Japan were written by Chiune Sugihara and you can read about his motivations for yourself.

As for the humorous quote, Wikipedia points out that "orientalim" is not good Yiddish and it is unlikely that he actually said this, regardless of what was actually said.

Avery
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  • A curiosity: the Soviet Union established the [Jewish Autonomous Oblast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast) in Russian Manchuria in 1934. It still exists, but is now about 1% Jewish – Henry Aug 07 '16 at 10:58
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The Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review and Oriental and Colonial Record, third series, volume IV, (1897), pages 301-311, in the article The Return of the Jews to Palestine and the Zionist Movement, does refer to Jews as oriental.

...prohibited the further entry of Jews into Palestine. Attempts were then made to found colonies in America. But singularly enough, it spite of excellent reports and highflown encomiums and vast sums bestowed upon them, they soon withered and dried up. The oriental plant could not take root outside of Palestine.

Even more clearly, it is stated that in The Jews and Moors in Spain (1886)

We know that the Moors and Jews are Oriental people, and, therefore, not indigenous to the...

So Jews were recognized as originating from Asia and being oriental. Today the term "Asian" is often used in a discriminatory or exclusive way that excludes some people living in or originating from Asia, considering that Asia includes portions of Turkey, Russia, Egypt and all of Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, etc, but this use of "Asian" is a modern term.

DavePhD
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  • Off topic, but the original Moors and Berbers (before the Arab/Muslim invasions) from Mauretania and Morocco - spot the etymological links - were as western as it was possible to be in the then known world. – Henry Aug 07 '16 at 11:11
  • Generally, the best and easiest way to really tick off an Israeli is to remind them that Israel is in Asia. They _so_ like to think of themselves as European, but Geography simply won't cooperate. – Jeffiekins Feb 20 '17 at 16:50
  • Orient just means "East", as in, they came from the East so they're Oriental. It doesn't specify how far East, just *East of here*. – Separatrix Nov 17 '17 at 09:05