A Look at Kobe

And
The Jewish Communities of Japan
1937 to 1954

John Sidline

December 3, 1990
 Table of Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Kobe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Foundations of the Jewish Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Kobe Jewcom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

The War With The United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Epi logue ............................. ". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0 •• f) 10

 PREFACE

Once upon a time ... not the usual beginning for a research

paper, but fitting in this instance, for once upon a time, there

was an active Jewish community in the Far East.

Many people have heard of Shanghai and Harbin, the cities in

China where large and prosperous Jewish communities grew before

the dawn of World War II. Few however are aware of Kobe,

Karuizawa, and Yokohama, where smaller Jewish communities

existed.

It is a shame that historians have seemed to pay only passing

attention to the Jewish communities of Japan before, during, and

after World War II. True, they were small. But for their size

they made an impressive contribution to modern Jewish history.

The saga might begin with one man, Anatole Ponevejski, born

before the turn of the century in Irkutsk, Siberia. He settled

in Harbin, and eventually came to Kobe in 1937. At the time, a

handful of Jewish families, about 25, lived as merchants.

Anatole Ponevejski organized these families into a community, and

he became their leader. Anatole Ponevejski was my maternal

grandmother's older brother -- and my godfather.

For me, this is a personal story. I am a first generation

American whose parents, grandparents and other relatives lived in

these communities. My father was born there. And it was members

of my family and their friends who built these communities during

difficult times.

Kobe was a major port city in Japan; second only to Yokohama.

Because of its military importance, it was also the site of many

1
American bombing raids.

Despite Japan's alliance with Nazi Germany, despite that

Japan was at war with the Allies, despite that the Jews were

obvious foreigners, despite all the hardships that go hand in

hand living in a nation at war, the Jewish community of Kobe

Jewcom as it became known -- saved the lives of thousands of

Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe and even Germany.

If for this one accomplishment, volumes should exist to

document their effort. If they do, they are hard to find. Among

the refugees saved was a famous Hassidic rebbe, a prominent

Zionist, and even a man who became Speaker of the Knesset in

Israel. Even so, Jewcom is remembered only in-a scant few pages

or paragraphs in books on Shanghai and Harbin.

For this reason, this paper does not contain many primary

historical references. Instead, it is filled with anecdotes and

personal accounts of some of the members of the Kobe, Karuizawa,

and Yokohama Jewish communities.

And so we begin, once upon a time ...

KOBE
Foundations of the Jewish Community

In the years just prior to the opening of the Pacific theater

of World War II a community of about 15 Jewish families was

organized in Japan's second largest port city -- Kobe. The year

was 1937.

Anatole Ponevejski, a Russian Jew from Irkutsk, Siberia, came

to Kobe with his wife Gita and his daughter Tamara to take care

of the Japanese branch of the textile business he owned with two

of his brothers.

2
 Anatole had had a strong Jewish upbringing in Irkutsk. His

grandfather, Yosef, was a Nicolas Soldat -- a conscript in the

army of Czar Nicolas I, stolen from his family at the age of

nine. Part of his basic training, one might say, was to remove

his Jewishness. All facets of his identity were stripped away,

even his name. He adopted the name of the Polish town in the

Pale of Settlement where he was born -- Poneverjz.

After serving the Motherland for twenty years, Yosef settled

himself in the Russian frontier, Siberia. There he resurrected

his Jewish lifestyle with a vengeance. His eldest son Hircsh Svi

also kept a strict Jewish home. Although Hirchs Svi's children

grew up to lead more secular, less observant lives, they always

remained attached to their faith and heritage.

When Anatole arrived in Kobe from the thriving Jewish

community of Harbin, he saw that the 25 or so families there were

living rather independently from each other. Guided by this

sense of faith he possessed, he worked to form the 15 Ashkenazi

Jewish families into a community.

The Ashkenazi Jews in Kobe were refugees and their

descendants- of the pogroms unleashed by Czar Nicolas I. They

came from Russia, Poland, and the Baltic states of Latvia and

Lithuania. The turn of the century brought the completion of the

Trans-Siberian Railway which allowed some of the refugees to go

east. Many went to Harbin. Some, a relatively small number,

went to Japan.

There were also Sephardi Jews in Kobe. Their community was

about the same in size as the Ashkenazi -- about 10 families.

These Jews came from Arab countries like Syria, Iraq and those in

North Africa. They spoke either French or Arabic. By and large

the two communities, which totaled one hundred Jews, lived side

by side but with infrequent social interaction.

The Jews in Kobe were part of a foreign population of about

three thousand who for the most part engaged in some aspect

import-export activity. There were Russians, Turks, Germans,

French and Portuguese communities in Kobe. There were some

social contacts with these gentile groups, but again infrequent.

This cosmopolitan character of Kobe fostered acceptance of

the members of the different communities by the Japanese

residents. While anti-Semitism was growing in other parts of the

country, it remained, among the Japanese, a virtual anomaly in

Kobe.

Each Jewish community had its own synagogue. The Ashkenazi

synagogue, which was also the social center of that community,

was led by "Rabbi" Jacob. Rabbi Jacob was not an official rabbi,

he was the shohet, the kosher slaughterer, in the community. But

he was very learned and observant. He led the community before

and during the war.

There were regular Shabbat services on Saturday mornings, but

attendance was usually low and sometimes failed to get a minyan.

Attendance was high on holidays. Most of the community would

show up for Simchas Torah, Hanukkah, and Purim where parties

usually followed services. Of course everyone attended High Holy

Day services.

There was no religious school for the community. But private

Hebrew lessons were given by Rabbi Jacob to boys studying for

their bar mitzvahs.

4
 The children of the foreign communities attended Western

schools. There were several schools, some German, some French.

There were a handful of English language schools: American

School in Japan, the Anglican run English Mission School, the

Saint John's Institute run by the Marianist Catholics, and the

Canadian Academy.

Most of the Ashkenazi children and some of the Sephardi

attended school at the Canadian Academy. It was a private Coed

school run by British and Canadian teachers. Parents created a

bussing system of sorts with the Hanshin Taxi company. Two or

three taxis would convoy around the community picking up the

children and deliver them to the school.

Kobe Jewcom

In the summer of 1940, Anatole (shortend

Ponve from

Ponevejski) received as leader of the Kobe Ashkenazi community, a

telegram from Vilna, Lithuania. The telegram asked if he, on

behalf of the community, would write a letter to Japanese

authorities guaranteeing support for seven Jews as they made a

stop in Japan in transit from Vilna to the United States. He

took care of the arrangements and sent a confirmation back to

Vilna.

Thereafter Ponevejski began receiving scores of telegrams

weekly. In July Ponevejski called a meeting of all the families

that were members of the community. They set up committees to

handle the various needs of the vast numbers of transient

refugees they were about to receive. The committees dealt with

immigration procedures, temporary housing, clothing, visa

problems, etc.

5
 The community was willing to gladly give of their time and

talents to help deal with the refugees, but they also needed

financial assistance. The cabled a request for funds to the

Joint Distribution Committee in New York.

The JDC cabled back to the Kobe Jewish community:

"TO KOBE JEW COM

SAVE JEWS MONEY NO OBJECT"

This was the birth of Kobe Jewcom, which took care of 4,680

refugees from Eastern Europe and Germany, 2414 from Poland alone,

between July 1940 and November of 1941.. Many of these refugees

were able to get Palestine Certificates from the British

government office in Vilna. They made their way across the

Soviet Union and eventually to Japan where Kobe Jewcom helped

/

them to get to Palestine. The whole journey could take as long

as two years.

The refugees would travel across 6,000 miles of the Asian

continent until they reached the Russian port city of

Vladivostok. From there they would take a boat to Tsuruga,

Japan. Toward the end of this rescue effort, boats would be

overloaded with hundreds of refugees.

When they reached Tsuruga Japan, representatives of Kobe

Jewcom would meet them to make sure that they had their papers in

order and translate between Yiddish and Japanese for immigration

personnel. After clearing Tsuruga, they would travel one hundred

miles to Kobe . There they would wait until they could receive

re-embarkation arrangements. Sometimes this could take a couple

of months. Once the arrangements were consolidated, they would

go to Yokohama, and then to their final destinations: the United

States, South America, the Philippines, Australia, Palestine!

6
 Many of the refugees were Hassidic Jews. They needed special

attention. Clothing for example had to be made from cotton and

sewn by hand and not by machine. The women of the Kobe Jewish

community took care of this task. They found the materials and

the tailors who could make the clothes. Every aspect of the

refugees wants and needs were taken care of.

Several anecdotes come from this tremendous undertaking. One

of the personalities who arrived in Kobe from Vilna was Rabbi

Shimon Kalish, the Amshenower Rebbe. The Rebbe sent a telegram

to a colleague in Lithuania. Before it was sent it was stopped

by Japanese censors. The censors sent for Leo Hanin, one of

Jewcom's leaders.

Hanin was asked to translate the cable from Hebrew to

Japanese for them. "Shisho miskadshim b'talis echad," it read,

"Six people may pray under one talis." Hanin explained that the

sender was the Hassidic leader of Amshenov, Lithuania, and the

message to his colleague in Vilna was of a religious nature.

The censors okayed the message and the cable was sent. Hanin

later asked the Rebbe what the cable actually meant. He fully

expected to be admonished for forgetting some important Talmudic

passage. Instead the Rebbe explained that since Japanese

authorities were issuing entry visas to families. The message

was in a religious code of sorts that really meant that six

strangers should act as one family in order to escape from

Lithuania.

In another instance 80 or so yeshiva students arrived in

Tsuruga on a Friday after sundown. They perplexed the

immigration officials when they refused to sign their landing

7
papers. The Jewcom representative was a Mr. Gerechter who could

neither explain to students the urgency of signing the papers or

to the immigration officials why the students were refusing to

sign. Eventually Mr. Gerechter signed "Shabbos" on the papers

and the students were allowed to pass. Thereafter religious

refugees referred to Mr. Gerechter as the "Shabbos Goy" -- the

"Shabbat violator."

The Japanese residents of Kobe welcomed the refugees. They

brought gifts of clothing, food, and money to the newcomers.

They provided fresh fruit for holiday tables. There were

instances when Japanese doctors refused payment for treatment of

refugees.

Of all the Japanese who helped Jewcom in their efforts, one

stands out. His name is Dr. Setsuzo Kotsuji. Dr. Kotsuji was a

Japanese Christian who had impressed the Kobe community by his

knowledge of the Torah and Talmud and his ability to speak a

first-rate Hebrew.

At the beginning of the refugee effort, Jewcom perceived a

problem with the three week limit on the visas issued to the

refugees. If any problems were to occur for an individual, three

weeks did not provide enough time solve them it took nearly

three weeks to get a letter from Kobe to New York, for example.

Anatole Ponevejski asked Dr. Kotsuji if he could help get an

extension for the visa. He spoke to everyone in the foreign

ministry, eventually to his old supervisor, _Yosuke Matsuoka, the

foreign Minister. Matsuoka informed Dr. Kotsuji how to bend the

rules.

By not informing any Tokyo offices, local authorities could

8
in fact extend the length of the visas. Dr. Kotsuji spent weeks

wining and dining the local immigration authorities, wooing them

with expensive foods and geishas, until he managed to have them

agree to the time extensions. Thanks to this achievement,

Jewcom's efforts were both meaningful and successful.

After the war, Dr. Kotsuji converted to Judaism. He

travelled to Israel where he had his circumcision.

On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and the

flow of refugees was cut. Those who were already en route

eventually made it. But by November 1941, the last were already

in Kobe.

Among those who were saved by Kobe Jewcom were Zorach

Warhaftig, an early member of the Knesset and Minister of

Religious Affairs, and Menachem Savidore who became the Speaker

of the Knesset.

The War With The United States

On December 7, 1941, Japan went to war with the United

States. Rationing began soon after. Still, the Japanese were

respectful of the Jews in Kobe. Understanding that certain items

were needed in the observance of Jewish holidays, the Japanese

saw to it that they would be made available.

For example during passover, flour was given to the community

in place of rice rations so that they could make matzo. Esther

Moiseeff, Anatole ponevejski's1 younger sister knew how to make

make Matzo because her father had taught her. They made the hard

--------------------
1 Anatole Ponve was in the United States at the outbreak of war
with Japan. His wife and children (he had a daughter Irene since
moving to Japan) were en route to meet him in early December, and
were stuck in the Phillipines for the duration of the war.

9
dough and then baked them in small ovens on the tops of hibachi

barbecues.

The Canadian Academy went through some drastic changes at the

start of war. The British and Canadian teachers repatriated to

their home countries. The buildings were converted into

internment camps for enemy aliens. The school was moved to the

center of Kobe and existed through the war run by Japanese

teachers fluent in English. foreign students were of parents

from neutral countries like Sweden and Switzerland.

Life continued for the Jewish community and Kobe much as it

had before, with some natural adjustments due to the war. Some

of the recent immigrants to the community were interned because

they were considered enemy nationals. -But the internment was not

dramatic.

In the spring of 1945, the United States began bombing raids

over Kobe. Many of the Jews had to flee the city.

EPILOGUE

Two families are of some great importance to me. The family

of Boris Sidline arrived in Kobe in 1925. He was married to

Fania Tunkel a few years later. Their first son, Alexander was

born in Harbin in 1931, and their second son, George, was born in

Kobe in 1934.

The family of Moise Moiseeff arrived in September 1941 after

fleeing from Belgium. Moise had married Esther Ponevejski, the

younger sister of Anatole Ponevejski. They had two children,

Gregory and Simonne.

The children attended the Canadian Academy together. Both

Fania and Esther worked on the women's committee in Jewcom that

10
provided clothes to refugees. The families became friends.

In 1942 the Moiseeffs moved to Karuizawa. The Sidlines

caught up with them there after leaving Kobe literally as it was

being destroyed by United States warplanes in July 1945.

At the end of the war, Gregory went to work for the United

States army as a translator and Alexander as a telephone operator

in the 361st Station Hospital.

In 1946, because Anatole Ponve (shortened from Poneverjski

upon arrival in the United States) was a resident of California,

the Moiseeffs were able to emigrate to the United States. They

moved to San Francisco that year.

The Sidlines remained in Japan, moving to Yokohama in 1947.

There had previously been a very small Jewish community of less

than 10 families in Yokohama before the war. There was no

synagogue there. But the United States Army provided a

multi-denominational chapel. On Friday nights and Saturday

mornings Jewish services were held. On Sundays, there were

Christian protestant services.

In that chapel George became a bar mitzvah in 1948 at age 14.

In Yokohama the Jewish community still observed the holidays.

There were large passover seders for example, held jointly with

the United States Army.

Throughout the years the Sidlines and the Moiseeffs remained

friends through the mail. Esther and Fania shared a whimsical

fantasy that their two youngest children, Simonne and George, who

were the flower girl and ring bearer in a wedding in Kobe, might

someday reappear in a wedding ceremony of their own.

In 1954, the Sidline left Japan and settled in Montreal,

11
Canada. In 1962, George visited San Francisco on a vacation.

There he was reunited with the Moiseeffs. A short time later he

and Simonne were planning the reunion of the Kobe Jewish

community which happened on December 15, 1962 at the Fairmont

Hotel -- at their wedding reception.

Three years later they were to have a son, John, who would

write this paper.

12
 Bibliography

Dicker, Herman. Wanderers and Settlers in the Far East. New

York: Twayne Publishers, 1962.

Kranzler, David. Japanese, Nazis and Jews. New York: Yeshiva

University Press, 1976.

Moiseeff, Esther. Personal interview. November 1990.

Moiseeff, Moise. Personal interview. November 1990.

Sidline, George. Personal interview. November, 1990.

Sidline, George. Unpublished memoirs of Japan, ts. Personal

collection, Belmont, Ca.

Tokayer, Marvin, and Mary Swartz. The Fugu Plan. New York:
Paddington Press, 1979.

Photographs from the personal collections of Moise Moiseeff,

George Sidline, and Simonne Sidline.

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, all photographs are from Kobe, Japan.

13
The Wedding of Bella Dinaburg to a Sephardic Jew, 1942

Simonne Moiseeff (front left), the flowergirl ,

was escorted down the aisle by George Sidline (front right)

 The second time George Sidline escorted Simonne Moiseeff

down the aisle was in 1962 at their wedding .

Guests at the wedding included many members of the pre-war

Kobe Jewis community . Among them the Ponves , the Hanins, and of course

The Moiseeffs and the Sid lines .

In the home of Anatole Ponevejski

(1st row second from left) Simonne Moiseeff, (2nd row second from left) George Sidline

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Gregory Moiseeff , age 16, translator for the

United States Army in Tokyo, 1945

JEWCOM Women's Committee, 1941 (seated far left) Rasha Kolberg (seated second from left) Fania Sid line , (standing second from left) Esther Moiseeff
refugee registration in Kobe Jewish Community Center, 1941 (seated third from right) Menachem Savidore
 Lieutenant Milton Rosen
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 celebrating the new year, 5702, with refugees in Kobe Jewish Community Center

(standing second from left) Leo Hanin, (seated third from left) Anatole Ponevejski, (seated far right) Moise Moiseeff

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New Years party , 1942 , at the home of Sam Evans .

the President of the Jewish Community
 Rabbi Shimon Kalisch

The Amshenower Rebbe