HON. TOM LANTOS
OF CALIFORNIA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Monday, July 20, 1987
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, a column by Hobart Rowen in the Washington Post last Thursday deals with what he calls the "aston- ishing spread of anti-Jewish literaturę in Japan." Despite the fact that there are virtual- ly no Jews in Japan and that there is no tradi- tional anti-Semitism, Mr. Rowen writes that crude anti-Semitic lies which I find reminis- cent of the worst the Nazis and czarist Russia had to offer are being published in Japan: The Jews caused the Great Oepression; the Rockefellera are Jews and, along with other Jews, run IBM and General Motors: the Jews control the media; the U.S. Cabinet is run by Jews like Weinberger and Shultz.
I find it mind-boggling that today—40 years after the Holocaust in Europę—the worst forms of anti-Semitic slander still find currency in a country which is one of our closest allies, to which we were magnanimous in victory, and in which we helped plant the seeds of de- mocracy.
Mr. Speaker, it does not surprise me that such slander is possible, but I am surprised and very disturbed that responsible leadera of Japanese public opinion the Prime Minister, leadera of the political parties, business leadera, scholara, and intellectuals have not spoken out forcefully against the publication of such shocking and disgusting anti-Semitic materials.
Mr. Speaker, I ask that Mr. Rowen’s timely and disturbing column be placed in the Recoro.
[Prom the Washington Post, July 16,1987]
“An Astonishing Spread of Anti-Jewish Literaturę in Japan”
(By Hobart Rowen)
New York—Over the ages, Jews have been cast in the role ot scapegoat for the ills in many a nation's society. In the latest variation of this tired theme, there has been an astonishing spread of antiJewish literaturę in Japan. It blames Japan's current economic problems including the high yen on Jews working behind the scenes to control world events.
In this replay of the Jewish-conspiracy theory, American Jews are also responsible for the Reagan administration's recent trade sanctions growing out of a dispute over semiconductors.
"Japan is in a ragę, strongly believing that it is being bashed by America on trade issues," says Herbert Passin, the distin- guished anthropologist and scholar who has worked and taught in Japan for the past 40 years. “They say, 'How can you do anything like this to us?’ So what you have [in the antiJewish booksl is a proxy for antiAmerican feeling."
Jews and Judaism are almost unknown to Japanese citizens. In Japan. a country with a population of 120 million, there are no morę than 150 Western Jewish famllles, according to the AntiDefamation League of B'nai B'rith.
Yet books elaborating the Jewish-conspiracy theory are almost-certain best-sellers, some attainlng a sale in excess of 1 million copies. The most provacative tract is called "It You Can Understand the Jews, You Can Understand the World: and If You Understand the Jews, You Can Understand Japan,” by Masami Uno.
Uno's central theme is that the Jews caused the economic depression in the 1930s, have now orchestrated the rise of the yen and decline of the dollar to "hollow out” Japanese industry and are arranging to have another depression take place in 1990, for which Japan will be madę the scapegoat.
According to the Yomluri Shimbun. a leading Japanese newspaper. Uno’s books are given respectful attention within the Bank of Japan, the country’s equlvalent of the Federal Reserve Board.
Bookstore chains such as Klnokuniya, Including its New York branch In Rockefeller Center, respond to the demand with special displays called "Jewish comers.” Ironically, one of Uno’s prlmary targets is the Rockefeller family, which he alleges is one of the many Jewish famllles that run multlnation- al companles such as IBM and General Motors, major American newspapers, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, and key news agencies.
Not all Japanese believe this nonsense, but Passin told me in an interview in New York that 90 percent of the Japanese people really belleve the Rockefellera are Jewish. Some Japanese authora, tapping into the same rtch sales vein, say that although Ronald Reagan can't be proven Jewish, he is pretty well controlled by two powerful Cabinet membere, Caspar Weinberger and George Shultz, both falsety identified as Jewish.
Japanese govemment offlcials, responding to complaints from American congressmen, point out that there Is freedom of the press in Japan; hence, there is nothing they can do about it. They Cite evidence of past good- will and humanlty toward Jews, especially just prior to World War II, when Japan aided Jews to escape from Europę and began a project—the Fugu Plan—to develop a Jewish community in Manchuria.
But why do highly educated Japanese fali for a mix of slander and fictlon, including the discredited "Protocols of the Eldera of Zioń,” a forgery and hoax going back morę than 80 years, alleglng a secret plot among Jewish leadera to dominate the world?
I am indebted to Passin for an account of some of the historical antecedents to the current wave of Japanese anti-Jewish books. Passin says that "the structure of thought is there”: a complex and ambivalent Japanese feeling about Jews.
Negatiye feelings were stirred up at the end of the Meiji period, a century ago. when the firat Christian missionaries to Japan portrayed Jews as anti-Christ. Then, when Japan ran out of money in 1904-05 at the time of the Russo-Japanese war. it was res- cued by Jacob Schiff. a leading American banker who happened to be Jewish. Schiff sold $200 million worth of bonds for Japan— a huge sum at that time—when all othere said it couldn’t be done.
The Japanese of that period were im- pressed and grateful, but "there was an ob- veree side," Passin recalled. "The Japanese said to themselves, 'Why did Schiff do that for us? It must have been to hurt the anti- Semitic Russians.’ Their conclusion was that there must be a worldwide network of Jewish financiere.”
For a period of time, Japanese military of- ficials wondered how to tap into that mythi- cal network, perhaps through an alliance with pereecuted but wealthy European
Jews. But once the Axls Alliance with Germany became a formality, such notions were put aside and Japan adopted the Nazis' propaganda linę.
Now, latent negative feelings have been rekindled, the excuse being Japan’s economic problems. But Jews, having survlved woree, will outlive a book barrage by Uno and othera. The Japanese govemment need not stoop to censorahip. It should recognize, however, that the current anti-Semitic cam- palgn is, in reality, an attack on America that puts at risk the vaunted "special” rela- tionship between Japan and the United States.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GPO-CRECB-1987-pt15/pdf/GPO-CRECB-1987-pt15-2-2.pdf
