What do you think?
Rate this book
The Japanese and the Jews
/ / Religion / Engels / English / Anglais / Englisch / hard cover / 16 x 24 cm / 194 .pp /
193 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1981
4 people are currently reading
58 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 22, 2020
Entirely by chance I found a copy of this in a Jinbocho bookshop - I think it was Isseido - when I was studying in Tokyo. What appears to be at first glance an anthropological work comparing the Japanese and Jewish people by a Jew born and raised in Kobe was later revealed to be a Japanese author, Shichihei Yamamoto, writing under a false identity, using the worldly foreign persona of "Isaiah Ben-Dasan" to peddle his conservative political theories and convince people that his views on Japanese people were valid because they were held by a gaijin. When it was released in 1971 the book sold 500,000 copies in Japan, a massive hit, and won the Oya Award for nonfiction, as well as praise from the local rabbi, Marvin Tokayer. "Mr. Ben-Dasan," apparently retired and living in Terre Haute, Indiana, did not show up to accept the award, which should've been people's first clue that he never existed.
The second clue should've been the book's content, which rivals Malcolm Gladwell in the way it takes stereotypes and ethnic assumptions and tries to turn them into proven theory. As a New York Times reporter wrote at the time of the book, "His basic thesis is that the Japanese are like youths brought up without a care in the world, 'in a gardenlike villa just off the Eurasian land mass.' whereas the Jews, he says, are like 'waifs hurled naked onto the great highway linking Eurasia and Africa.'" Sure, if you ignore the Sengoku Jidai/Warring States Period, and the few hundred years afterward when the Tokugawa Shogunate ruled the country with an iron fist, and, uh, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are some interesting ideas in the book - I thought a lot about the theory of "inner vs outer ghetto," which upon revisiting is borrowed from Theodore Herzl - but they're undermined by Yamamoto's rightist theories of "Japanism," an idea that the Japanese culture and way of life can be described as its own religion. They're also undermined by the fact that most of the book is completely fabricated.
The actual relationship between Japanese and Jewish people has been interesting. There are plenty of people in Japan that believe the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real and Shylock is an accurate character and not a racist caricature, plenty that buy books like The Japanese and the Jews, manuals on Jewish business secrets, and other well-meaning but misguided literature. There are holocaust deniers and anti-semitic conspiracy theorists in Japan, like the guy that wrote Attack on Titan and the guy that believes the Jews fear the samurai. But there are also people like Chiune Sugihara, the diplomat that saved 6,000 Lithuanian Jews from the Nazis in defiance of the government. In 2017 the English publication Tokyo Weekender declared Sugihara the greatest Japanese ever over the likes of Oda Nobunaga, Ichiro Suzuki, and Hayao Miyazaki. So it's like any other place. You get both. As for The Japanese and the Jews I treat my copy as kind of a fascinating curio. It may be a load of bullshit, but it's an interesting one.
The second clue should've been the book's content, which rivals Malcolm Gladwell in the way it takes stereotypes and ethnic assumptions and tries to turn them into proven theory. As a New York Times reporter wrote at the time of the book, "His basic thesis is that the Japanese are like youths brought up without a care in the world, 'in a gardenlike villa just off the Eurasian land mass.' whereas the Jews, he says, are like 'waifs hurled naked onto the great highway linking Eurasia and Africa.'" Sure, if you ignore the Sengoku Jidai/Warring States Period, and the few hundred years afterward when the Tokugawa Shogunate ruled the country with an iron fist, and, uh, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are some interesting ideas in the book - I thought a lot about the theory of "inner vs outer ghetto," which upon revisiting is borrowed from Theodore Herzl - but they're undermined by Yamamoto's rightist theories of "Japanism," an idea that the Japanese culture and way of life can be described as its own religion. They're also undermined by the fact that most of the book is completely fabricated.
The actual relationship between Japanese and Jewish people has been interesting. There are plenty of people in Japan that believe the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real and Shylock is an accurate character and not a racist caricature, plenty that buy books like The Japanese and the Jews, manuals on Jewish business secrets, and other well-meaning but misguided literature. There are holocaust deniers and anti-semitic conspiracy theorists in Japan, like the guy that wrote Attack on Titan and the guy that believes the Jews fear the samurai. But there are also people like Chiune Sugihara, the diplomat that saved 6,000 Lithuanian Jews from the Nazis in defiance of the government. In 2017 the English publication Tokyo Weekender declared Sugihara the greatest Japanese ever over the likes of Oda Nobunaga, Ichiro Suzuki, and Hayao Miyazaki. So it's like any other place. You get both. As for The Japanese and the Jews I treat my copy as kind of a fascinating curio. It may be a load of bullshit, but it's an interesting one.
December 13, 2015
A Jew born and raised in Kobe, Japan, Ben-Dasan presents in this book a thoughtful, in-the-know study of two peoples whose worlds he has seen and lived in. His method of comparing and contrasting the Japanese and the Jews is extensive, intelligent, personal, even anecdotal; and he backed it with an in-depth study of history, literature, geography, politics, religion and other relevant aspects that brought these two groups of people to rise and be where they are now.
It is worth pointing out that Ben-Dasan wrote the book in Japanese along with the fact that this work was a runaway bestseller in Japan, and that many have praised him for his keen observation and sensitivity to the "nuances of the Japanese national character" - and perhaps the language as well. The scope of this book is extensive, going back to a millennia of history to explain why some things are the way they are for both people. And these things are still being wondered at up to the present such as the relative safety of Japan and the state of affairs in the Jewish homeland in the author's time.
The author's ideas, of how he connects past actions to the current state of both people , are convincing, and also debatable. Just take for example of what he calls the national religion of Japan: Nihonism. To him, the Japanese are a religious group of people, professing their "faith" in Nihonism in a unique way that revolves not around a deity and the dogmas of a church, but rather around the people and their common or shared national characteristics. To those who love, or hate, and who are curious about Japan, this book can be an insightful read.
It is worth pointing out that Ben-Dasan wrote the book in Japanese along with the fact that this work was a runaway bestseller in Japan, and that many have praised him for his keen observation and sensitivity to the "nuances of the Japanese national character" - and perhaps the language as well. The scope of this book is extensive, going back to a millennia of history to explain why some things are the way they are for both people. And these things are still being wondered at up to the present such as the relative safety of Japan and the state of affairs in the Jewish homeland in the author's time.
The author's ideas, of how he connects past actions to the current state of both people , are convincing, and also debatable. Just take for example of what he calls the national religion of Japan: Nihonism. To him, the Japanese are a religious group of people, professing their "faith" in Nihonism in a unique way that revolves not around a deity and the dogmas of a church, but rather around the people and their common or shared national characteristics. To those who love, or hate, and who are curious about Japan, this book can be an insightful read.
September 20, 2016
Insightful book into the thinking of the Japanese. Ben-Dasan is a pseudoname for Shichihei Yamamoto, who published this book in 1970. I've read the book in Japanese and believe this translation is excellent.
The book compares and contrasts similarities and differences between the 2 cultures, and exhibits fascinating insight, from views of law, to views of safety, to views of nationalism. Reading it almost 50 years later, it's interesting to see how Japanese culture has shifted somewhat.
The book compares and contrasts similarities and differences between the 2 cultures, and exhibits fascinating insight, from views of law, to views of safety, to views of nationalism. Reading it almost 50 years later, it's interesting to see how Japanese culture has shifted somewhat.
May 8, 2020
Isiah Ben-Dasan’s (the pen name for Japanese author Shichihei Yamamoto) book about the relationship between the Japanese and the Jews isn’t so much a compilation of similarities and differences as it is a Japanese national touting his belief in his country’s exceptionalism. Other reviews have mentioned that this reads at times like nationalist propaganda, and I’m not inclined to disagree. Some sections are woefully out of date (which can be forgiven, considering the book was published in the 1970s), but I found myself disagreeing with a lot of the points made. As someone who studies Japanese history and culture, some of Ben-Dasan’s comments appeared stereotypical at best. Was this done to appeal to western audiences? That could not be the case because the book was published in Japanese at the outset. Second, some of the points made about Jews irked me (I have more first-hand knowledge about Jewish culture as I grew up around it). Overall, this was a decent read. It certainly is a decent starting point in researching connections between the Japanese and the Jews. I would recommend other texts over this one for a more factual and grounded-by-research look into the topic, though.
November 17, 2024
This book was sensational at the time it was published (1970s), it was then unknown who is the the author and whether he's Jewish or Japanese.
Now that we know it's the latter (the translator and publisher was also the author) I was interested to read how it reads so many years later. In hindsight, it appears obvious that the voice of the author is that of a Japanese and not a Jew. I got a couple of insights but found other statements less valuable. Wouldn't say that it's a good resource nowadays for those who want to better understand the Japanese or the Jews.
Now that we know it's the latter (the translator and publisher was also the author) I was interested to read how it reads so many years later. In hindsight, it appears obvious that the voice of the author is that of a Japanese and not a Jew. I got a couple of insights but found other statements less valuable. Wouldn't say that it's a good resource nowadays for those who want to better understand the Japanese or the Jews.
February 7, 2020
The author is/was a Jew born in Japan and offers fresh and interesting insights about the parallels in the two cultures and about the underpinnings of each society, revealed through a contrasting consideration. There are far more ideas in this slender volume than I expected and I have continued to think about some of them for years.
Read
April 17, 2023Initially an interesting comparison but the author was just a fake
October 11, 2017
Fascinating book, especially first and last chapters. The middle part is hard to understand for non-Japanese (and perhaps for Japanese as well). Some bits seem a little outdated, not bad for a book that dates from the 70-s.
November 14, 2011
山本七平に対する評価はいろいろあるらしいが、面白い視点で書かれた本。
これを全部信じる信じないという話ではなく、物ごとを立体的に見るのにはとっても役立つ本だとみた。
どうかな。
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews