We positioned our move here as a cultural experience and immersion into a foreign culture and were well aware that maintaining our religious practise as jews would be challenging.
Saying that maintaining the basic jewish customs like Friday night dinners and celebration of the jewish festivals is important to us, and we were still keen to try create a sense of being jewish in our home least of all for consistency for our children.
Making this happen - not quite as simple. We have no access to kosher meat or chicken, no kiddish wine or grape juice and no challah (we're in Japan after all - rice is eaten over bread at a meal). Throughout December the girls arrived home from school reciting Christmas carols and hymns they learned in the run up to Christmas....December is a very festive Christmas month at their school, so its all about winter wonderland, Christmas assembly and Rachel 's year in reception put on a performance of the nativity play (the teacher thought I was nuts when contrary to all the other mums I asked them to give her a very 'low key' role in the play).
Arriving in Tokyo days before Yom Kippur fast tracked our ambition to find a synagogue or community. We had done some basic internet research but weren't sure where to go exactly or wether the existing Jewish Community Centre was the right stream for us. Turned out it wasn't. We live very close to a beautiful and famous Tokyo shrine in a gorgeous leafy park called Meiji Jingumae (and visited on New Years Day by millions of people) but that wasn't going to work either ! We needed to find fellow jews to pray with on the holy day!
I dont profess to be the worlds biggest eaves dropper, I'm ok (my sister on the other hand can strike up a random conversation with a total stranger after over hearing half their conversation) but when you're on day 3 after arriving in Tokyo sitting in a local Starbucks and there is 1 other westerner standing a few paces away, talking on the phone (in an Australian accent to his father ) and he wishes him a 'good fast' my ears pricked up and I pounced on him the minute he put down that phone. I introduced myself and asked him to help us find a shul for Yom Kippur and a place for our children to feel jewish while living in Tokyo.
And that is how we met Michael - a very warm and lovely man who has lived in Japan for many years (originally from Sydney's East) and one of the main founders of a wonderful Jewish Community called Etz Chaim.
Etz Chaim is affiliated with Chabad and comprises about 30-40 families who meet up on Jewish festivals to celebrate (we spent a lovely morning at the Israeli embassy decorating the sukkah in October) and they run a Sunday school every week using a kindergarden facility where the children learn about the chagim, perform lots of Jewish arts and crafts and take some basic Hebrew lessons. For a few hours on a weekend the girls connect with jewish friends from all around the world.
Over the last 4 months we've met some really wonderful people from America, Australia, Israel, Ethiopia, Brazil and Japan and we will hopefully remain in touch for many years to come. One lovely woman I met, invited me to her home to teach me how to bake challah. I took her up on the offer and have made a few successful batches on my own despite having issues with working out what Yeast is called is Japanese.
I attended the opening of the new Tokyo Mikvah recently at chabad which was a really big step for the community, I loved being part of that and it was a very special milestone for Jews in Japan. Rabbis and special guests attended this event from all over Asia and Israel. We try take the girls to chabad for their communal shabbat dinner once a month (with lots of random visitors from all of the globe) and make do at home on our own for most Friday nights. Its great for the kids to drink grape juice and feel the spirit of shabbas at chabad. The Rabbi Mendy and his wife Chana are special and we really enjoy being with them.
The girls are learning about Shintoism and Rachel's class is visiting a local shrine this week. I think its fab they're learning about different culture and religion. She's getting a bit rusty on the blessings over the challah and wine - but guess that's to be expected when you are 4 and learning Japanese at the same time as hamotzi. We'll keep connecting in with our jewish roots and they'll hopefully be ok in the end.
