Kaku – may be “Ktov” which means write (as an order)
Toru – “Tol” means take (as an order)
sumu – not sure what parralels this, neshom means breath (order again)
harau hara – no idea what that can be like. Maybe “Tahara” which means purity.
Horebu – Hurba means a ruin. Lehariv means to ruin.

see at http://www5.ocn.ne.jp/~magi9/isracame.files/israca18.gif

let’s see
the lost tribes said to be walking around one and an half year
i try to calculate ( not in exact way )
let’s us said that in a 3 second a human can walk for 2 metres
2 metres multiply with 20 so we get 40 metres in one minute
then multiply again with 60 so we got 2400 metres for 1 hour
then we multiply again with 6 ( but why six? cause people in israel work in 6 days and on the seventh day they rest , in 6 days God created earth and on the seventh day, He rest)
because in every sunday they don’t walk
so we calculate 365 + 187 – 78(many of sundays) = 474 days
calculate the result with 474 days and we got 6825600 metres = 6825.6 km

the lost tribes were taken to a assyria near the black sea
if we count the distance between the black sea and japan
we got approximately 6600 km

this is only my theories
i’m not a professional

don’t forget ephraim is a mix between jews and egypt
so they have a different look with the other tribes
they also have gone for a long time, i think there’s a possibilty of assimilation between jews culture, asian culture and egyptian culture
ephraim also said to worship baal
and Shinto god “Susanoh” resembles Baal in several aspects
the bible also said that the ephraim will forget about his tradition

i’m here not to claim japanese are jews
but there’s a big percentage

Han-
There are Asian Jews.
I for one am an Asian Jew (Indian). A mix.
My father being a typical American Jew with Ashkenazi (European Jewish) decent.
My Mother is a pure Indian Jew, from Ahmadabad, of the Bnei Israel. There was a few large Indian Jewish communities in India for ages now… It has gotten smaller, because most of the Indian Jews have left for Israel. I was born, and raised here, in the US. A lot of Americans, American Jews (that have easily assimilated into American culture), foreigners, people who do not have such a knowledge on Judaism, and the Jewish people find it shocking to hear of an Indian Jew, or simply put it an Asian Jew.
I can tell you that there are most defiantly Asian Jews out there (a lot of them over the years, assimilating into their Asian brethren’s culture and moving on… But, now a lot of young Asian Jews are rediscovering their Jewish heritage). The known Asian Jews (that I know of, and read about) consist of Chinese, Indians (that of which I have a heritage), Burmese, and Thai.
I am very interested in this topic about Japanese and Jews.
I have read many articles about such, and seen many videos.
There just isn’t enough research to prove so.. Though it seems so close to being true. I am waiting for the day to when this topic is disclosed as either; Fact, or Fiction!

-Leora

**Also there is a very good book written by Avigdor Shachanabout how Jews dispersed through Asia. Afghanistan, India, China, and Japan.

Hello all. I have a background in Japanese culture and history and have been very interested in this subject.

Im new to this conversation but would like to chime in from time to time.

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him.Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. “But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. “His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’ “But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.”
Matthew 18:21-35

practice what you preach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people

are too much modern! its after aliezer ben-yehuda rebuilted hebrew…
if you compare it with ancient hebrew you will see it matches…

While trade can cross pollonate linguistic phrases, artifacts, coinage, etc. Institutions as well can be transfered and many times, larger trade groups establish settlements. Remember this is a non-European paradigm. Europeans tend to maintain residency in their area prior to the modern age. But traditionally all cultures tended to have large migrations in following trade routes.

Kaifeng in China has a documented Jewish settlement over 1000 years old. Torah and Megilah of Esther scrolls were kept in its Shul, and Chinese government documents verify the dates of residency there. However, people can accept Blonde hair blue eyed Jews but not asian ones. It is outside of a paradigm. Like Ethiopian Christians…who have a longer chain of unbroken observance than the Catholic Church and yet the latter is seen as more “legitimate”. Interesting.

Finally the pieces that made it interesting for me are not the ones non Jews will really understand, but Jews will. Tzit Tzit and Teffelin. Shinto Priests and the legendary Tengu both have Tonkin….Teffelin in appearance and use. No other culture has these types of phylactaries in use, even those surrounding the Jewish settlements throughout the centuries (Central Asia to Europe, Tunisia, Morocco, etc.). The Tzit Tzit on the end of the Shinto robe is another indicator when combined with the other aspects.

And remember, within populations the exponential increase. Even if 10 families were in Japan 1500 years ago. By doubling their population every 20 years (mean child bearing age in modern times) the genetic trace will be within over a million people within an island nation.

1. Japanese do have two distinct and documented traces to Areas farther afield than the Mediteranean. Their language is Ural-Altaic, not Chinese in origin. Meaning, in pronunciation Japanese is closer to Finnish than Chinese. Migratory patterns 2 to 3 thousand years ago moved through Mongolia, Korea, and into Japan bringing the language with it. And of course the Ainu are Caucasian in appearance and genetics. Japan is not so distant as Europeans tend to believe. In Roman and Greek times movement from the Mediteranian and Europe was easier than during the Middle Ages and up to modern times.

2. Kaifeng China has a shul (synagogue..Greek term so I don’t like to use it.) that is 1500 years old. There is an inscription there thanking the Jews (Ivrit) for settling there and establishing a silk production facility. The shul has Hebrew scrolls, Torah, and Megillah of Esther. At the beginning of this century no one could be found in Kaifeng that could read Hebrew, but they kept the scrolls nonetheless. And to this day many in Kaifeng do not eat pork (very strange for Chinese!)

So it is extremely easy to see how Jews could migrate into Japan. There are many other parallels. Modern Westerners tend to accept “Ashkenazic” looking Jews all too easily (with detrament to Israel from the waves of so called lost Russian Jews that are really nothing of the kind in many cases, yet have a hard time with Asian looking ones. Jews of two thousand years ago looked like modern Arabs, yet over time, adaptation and assimilation can bring physical characteristics simular to the area….Caucasian or Asian. No one would dare think of believing that Einstein, Rabbi Schneerson, or Frued were not Jewish because they looked so European, and Germany is sooo distant from Israel. Yet we accept that easily. But Asian looking…..”Funny, they don’t look Jewish.”

And I am still looking into it. But the “Cohen Gene” was detected in Japan, but I will not comment until I can get the article with the information.

to write:’Lichtov’
To take: ‘Lakachat’
To Live: ‘Lichyot’
To purify: ‘Letaher’
To be destroyed ‘Neheras’or’Neherav’

Any similarities to Japanease???

The video is so wrong in details:
The closest lake to Jerusalem (the only lake in Israel) is about 100 miles away from it.

See this page:
http://www.kahaku.go.jp/special/past/kao-ten/kao/jomon/jomon-f.html
from the National Museum of Nature and Science for more details before you accuse me of making “ignorant and direct assumptions”. Take it up with them if you like.

Or see this:
http://rhetric.hp.infoseek.co.jp/se1_diary/219.html

This kind of video, while opening up an avenue for a plausible theory (that the Japanese are related to, somewhat, the Jews), also exposes the hidden dangers of interpreting the message wrongly. It’s interesting, yes, but as I said, there are movements in Israel that wishes to move these “lost” tribes to back Israel.

The last thing to add fuel to an already fired-up Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is more influx of “lost Jews” by way of “settlements.”

Although I think that the PBS’s article is just a crap, the links that hoihoi provide here and Oniazuma’s blog are really interesting.

http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/linguist/issues/12/12-1871.html

There are various schools of thought about where “the Japanese” came from. An influx through the Korean peninsula coupled with an earlier influx from southern or central China is one prominent theory. This is reflected in the so-called “Jomon faces” and “Yayoi faces,” the former being wider and squarer, the latter being longer and slimmer. Interestingly, the Yayoi face was the ideal of beauty in the Edo period (check out Utagawa’s prints) while currently the Jomon face (being rounder and cuter) is more popular, apparently.

駄弁る 【だべる】 (v5r,vi) to jabber; to chatter; to chat with

喋る 【しゃべる】 (v5r,vi) (uk) to talk; to chat; to chatter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_China

But it must be admitted that even though a Jewish connection in Japan is possible, it is hardly unusual for a migrant group to cause wide-ranging change. The Roma of Europe (gypsies) are known now to be migrants from India, for example.

I think the most important aspect of this situation, both as an American and a person with some Hebrew heritage, has got to be in allowing us to recognize the interconnectedness of history. In school, I was taught world history in a haphazard, geographic way, downplaying inter-cultural exchange. It probably never occurs to many people that, say, Vedic Indian culture influenced other civilizations, let alone that they even exist in the same chronology.

I still say they adopted it.

Think about it..Buddhism is from India and yet it is the religion in south east asia, china and to a large degree Japan…and are they all Indian? No. Are people scrambling around trying to identify japanese as some long forgotten indian tribe? No.

They adopted buddhism from india.

The cynic in me says that some japanese people would love to have some real connection with jewish people since Japan erroneously believes that jews rule the world.

The question asks if it’s possibly, yet more than half of the people responding can’t imagine this possibility. That’s what I’m finding so hard to swallow.

1: It’s all coincidence.
Hard to prove this one way or the other, but it’s probably the default stance.

2: There was influence, but it was indirect.
As I noted, this is quite possible, and doesn’t require a huge leap of faith.

3: Jewish people from the Middle East actually settled in Japan.
This requires some pretty impressive proof, that not only the ideas and culture arrived, but so did the people.

4: A Lost Tribe of Israel founded Japan.
This is the extremist position, and is going to require some pretty damned amazing proof.

I’m quite shocked by the number of people who outright refuse to see it as a possibility. Of course it could all be something else, but to flat our write off the idea is absurd.