Japan: My Blanky

By Robin Broder
JTS / Columbia University
Originally posted Adar I 5768

Half of my classes are in Jewish studies. One of my majors is Jewish Women’s Studies and the other is Urban Studies and Environmental Science. Basically, it has nothing to do with Japanese. However, during my first year I decided that I wanted to try something new, something that would shock me out of my familiar setting. I decided to take Japanese and subsequently go to Japan. There are not many Jews in Japan. However, Judaism has always been a huge part of my life. Finding a balance between the life I wanted to experience and the life with which I was comfortable was a difficult task. I hoped to throw myself into life in Tokyo, a life where being Jewish is tough and certainly a far reach from spending hours a week at one of the few Conservative Jewish seminaries. There is one major Jewish Community Center in Tokyo and a Chabad. I did not think I would get many chances to participate in a service, yet I still felt compelled to bring my siddur with me. I am not sure why, considering I rarely even use it in the States. I suppose it was like the blanky that was inevitably carried around everywhere during childhood, the one that makes you feel safe and at home.

Almost immediately after I got there, the High Holidays rolled around. Caught up in a blur of meeting new people, I attempted to find the Jews in the program in hopes that I might convince them to find a service somewhere in the country. After a bit of a search (though the Jewish last names certainly helped), I found three others to make the trek with me to the JCC in the center of Tokyo. At this point in the experience, I knew little about the geography or train system in Tokyo. Slowly but surely, we worked out how to get there and, after classes on Friday, we took the hour-long train ride over. We tried to scarf down some rice balls (called onigiri) before the Yom Kippur fast started and worked our way to the building using my crudely drawn map. I generally have a pretty good sense of direction, but Japanese maps throw me off a bit. For starters, they are almost never oriented north, but rather the direction that you are facing or whatever direction is most convenient. Needless to say, we were lost after about five minutes. Using whatever Japanese we had, we attempted to ask for directions, however, not many people would have known or heard of the Jewish center. Half an hour later we found the buildingand we knew it must be the one when a taxi full of Israelis walked into the entrance.

My favorite part might have been the guards out front. When we approached, they were joking to each other in Hebrew — two Israelis and one Japanese man. We had heard before coming that the population was composed mostly of expatriates, so I was surprised to hear a Japanese man speaking fluent Hebrew with a better accent than I have ever had. They looked at usand immediately started speaking in English. After confirming that we had no guns and were really just college students looking for a minyan, we went in to find an egalitarian service and a non-egal service. We were about 45 minutes late, but once we got into the service I felt like I was in a time warp. I could have been anywhere, at any shul. I felt this same feeling when I was in shul in Pragueand at the great synagogue in Paris. Walking into a Jewish institution, especially during a service is one of the most familiar feelings I know. After leaving the unfamiliar streets of Tokyo and strange sounds of people only speaking Japanese, I was surprised at how similar our religion can be no matter where one is in the world. I opened the same mahzor I had seen for 20 years on Yom Kippur and found my place. It was a strange experience, shocking because I felt so comfortable when I had really expected to be surprised. I kept replaying the same song in my head, "Wherever you go, there’s always someone Jewish, you’re never alone when you say you’re a Jew… ." I am happy to have such a security blanket. No matter what I do, I know I will not leave home without it.

Robin Broder is a junior in the joint program between Barnard College and the Jewish Theological Seminary. She plans to work towards a degree in environmental engineering after graduation.

[Posted 7/2/08]