Asian Jewish Life- Summer 2010

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE A JOURNAL OF SPIRIT, SOCIETY AND CULTURE SUMMER 2010

Animating Jewish-Chinese Relations A story of lasting friendship

The Endless Jewish Audience A Japanese Jewish convert speaks

The Color of Carefully Ordered Chaos The work of Nir Segal From A Jewish Girl in Shanghai

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

A JOURNAL OF SPIRIT, SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Finding a Lost Tribe of Israel in India The long road home

by Michael Freund 4 The Color of Carefully Ordered Chaos The work of Nir Segal

by Amy Har-Even 9

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Living Tikkun Olam in Nepal Profile of Tevel b’Tzedek

by Jana Daniels 14 Ain’t No Glass Slippers in Cambodia

by Raquelle Azran 17 Animating Jewish-Chinese Relations A story of lasting friendship

by Erica Lyons 20

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The Way Home A filmmaker’s adoption story

by Erica Lyons 25 Book Reviews

by Susan Blumberg-Kason

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The Endless Jewish Audience A Japanese Jewish convert speaks

by Akira Ohiso 30 Places I Love 33

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Poetry

by Eliyahu Enriquez

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A Week without Weekends A social activist in Japan

by Michael H.Fox 36 Expat Diary

by Rosita Rivera 38 From Lo Mein to Laksa- Kosher in Asia 39

25 ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

SUMMER 2010

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Inbox

Dear Editor: I read the article India Journal and have a question. Are the Bene Ephraim, Bene Mensahe and the Bene Israel different? Are they just different names for the Jews of India?

Martha Weinstein Dear Martha Thanks for the interest. To clarify, the Bene Israel , the Bene Menashe and the Bene Ephraim are three very distinct groups. The Bene Israel are the Jews of western India and were recognized as Jewish by Israel’s rabbinate in 1964. The Bene Menashe live in Manipur and Mizoram in northeastern India and claim descent from the Tribe of Menashe, a claim recognized in 2005 by Israel Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar. The Bene Ephraim are the smallest of the three; they live in the Indian state of Andra Pradesh and have not yet won recognition from the rabbinate. AJL spotlighted the Bene Ephraim community in the Spring Issue and this issue includes a feature on the Bene Menashe. Each group has a unique history of their own. Please look out for our Fall Issue with a piece on the Bene Israel.

Erica Lyons Editor-in-Chief

Dear Editor, I just want to thank you for referring me to your Asian Jewish Life Facebook web page! I love the interesting and entertaining news articles and videos that you put up on there from publications around the world. I am amazed that you can find these stories on a regular basis. I also think it is wonderful that people who are interested in the history and the culture of the Jews in Asia can mingle and interact in such friendly forum. I feel privileged to be a part of this growing Facebook community of people fascinated by the subject of Jews in Asia.

I have a question I want to ask you. I know you featured some truly splendid interviews and engrossing personal interest stories in your previous issues of Asian Jewish Life. But publications such as Asian Jewish Life also usually discuss films as well in the forms of reviews and critiques. Is AJL going to devote a section to movies in its next issue? Maybe you can recommend to us curious readers some quality movies (with both Jewish and Asian themes) that readers can watch...

Jessica McKinnon Dear Jessica: Thank you for your letter. I am glad that you are part of our growing Facebook community. We work hard to find stories and published around the share our same focus. As you have seen, the links provided send readers to sources that include Chabad News, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tablet Magazine, The Jewish Chronicle, The Forward and The Jewish Telegraphic Association (JTA).

With respect to your interest in films, last issue we included a film synopsis on Rafting to Bombay. In this issue, two of our features highlight films, one discussing the documentary Going Home and the cover story discussing the animated A Jewish Girl in Shanghai. We are looking at two other films for future issues as well.

We would welcome an experienced film critic onboard to provide regular pieces on individual films as well as broader trending articles. If you know of films that would be of interest to us and you would like to see in the magazine, please write in.

Erica Lyons Editor-in-Chief

COPYRIGHT Asian Jewish Life is the sole title published by Asian Jewish Life Ltd. © Copyright 2010. Written material and photographs in the magazine or on the website may not be used or reproduced in any form or in any way without express permission from the editor.

Printed by: Fantasy Printing Ltd. 1/F, Tin Fung Ind. Mansion, 63 Wong Chuk Hang Rd, Hong Kong.

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ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

SUMMER 2010

Hana’s Suitcase published in Japanese manga (graphic novel) See your photos here submissions@asianjewishlife.org

How to reach us: Online http://www.asianjewishlife.org Email us: info@asianjewishlife.org On Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/ Asian-Jewish-Life/183624201891 On Twitter: at AsianJewishLife Asian Jewish Life Suite 804, Winning House 10-16 Cochrane Street Central, Hong Kong Fax (852) 2868 4227

DISCLAIMER

AJL does not vouch for the kashrut of any product in this publication.

EditorMission

In April 2010, just following the publication of our second issue, the Hong Kong Government officially granted our tax exempt/ charitable status made retroactive as of January 2010.

With respect to appealing to a diverse audience and representing our readership, please let us know how we are doing. This issue spans the continent and the spectrum of Jewish belief and observance. We feature the moving story of a young Jewish man’s journey to his native Korea in search of his birthmother and the lessons he learned along the way in The Way Home. The journey of the Bene Menashe is also again examined in Michael Freund’s article, Finding a Lost Tribe in India.

Dear Readers: Having just returned from Israel after nearly a month there, I am inspired and energized. While in Jerusalem, I attended the rally for Gilad Shalit on July 8th.

Tens of thousands of people gathered together in Independence Park. Looking around at the faces at the rally was again a reminder of the mission of Asian Jewish Life. The rally was a snapshot of the Jewish people.

Though the rally was in Hebrew a chorus of other languages buzzed through the park and Jews united behind one cause forgetting for a moment that differences that divide us. The sanctity and value of a human life was the unifying force.

Birthplace, race and affiliation melted away. Asian Jewish Life aims to live in that moment of unity.

That same week, also in Jerusalem, I was given the opportunity to speak at the PresenTense Institute (a joint with the Israel-Asia Center). My talk entitled Off the Jewish Radar: Growing a Jewish non-profit in the Far East addressed Jewish life in Asia in general as well as the challenges of launching a Asia-wide project in terms of reaching an audience over a vast geographic area, raising funds from a rather finite pool, and the ability to create a product that truly expresses the diversity of Jewish life in Asia. Asian Jewish Life is working hard at meeting these challenges with some measure of success along the way.

Taking us to China is the cover story and some insight into the inspiration of a Chinese film-maker to produce of film on the Jews in Shanghai. Representing Japan, we have included Akira Oshiko’s Viewpoint essay, The Endless Jewish Audience, while Raquelle Azran, hailing from Israel and Tel Aviv, has contributed a short story of adventure in Cambodia, entitled Ain’t No Glass Slippers in Cambodia.

In the creative category, we also have the poetry of Eliyahu Enriquez, a Filipino Jewish lover of words and spirituality.

Also hailing from the Philippines, we have included a unique twist to our Expat Diary by opening up a glimpse at the world of a domestic helper working for an observant Jewish family in Hong Kong.

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE A JOURNAL OF SPIRIT, SOCIETY AND CULTURE SUMMER 2010

Animating Jewish-Chinese Relations A story of lasting friendship

The Endless Jewish Audience A Japanese Jewish convert speaks

The Color of Carfeully Ordered Chaos The work of Nir Segal From A Jewish Girl in Shanghai

Asian Jewish Life is a free quarterly publication designed to share regional Jewish thoughts, ideas and culture and promote unity. It also celebrates our individuality and our diverse backgrounds and customs.

Asian Jewish Life has been granted provisional tax exempt/ charitable status from the Hong Kong SAR. Editor in Chief Erica Lyons

Additionally, Michael Fox has written a feature on his activism work in Japan, entitled A Week without Weekends. Our Artist Profile is back with a look at the work of Nir Segal in an article by Amy Har-Even.

Copy Editor Jeffrey A. Foxhorn

Thanks for continuing to follow us. We would love to hear from you.

Design Director Edward Hanapole

Shana tova!

Designer Terry Chow

Erica Lyons

Books Editor Susan Blumberg-Kason

Board of Directors Eli Bitan, Bruce Einhorn, Peter Kaminsky, Amy Mines

Editor-in-Chief

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

SUMMER 2010

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Feature

by Michael Freund

Finding a Lost Tribe of Israel in India

The long road home

T

he road leading to the village of Churachandpur winds through lush and verdant fields. Aside from an occasional military checkpoint, there is little vehicular activity along the thoroughfare, in this remote region of India’s northeast.

Located in the state of Manipur, near the border with Burma, Churachandpur is a sprawling complex of stone, wood and bamboo structures, interspersed with vast meadows and farmland. The rhythm of daily life is pastoral and tranquil, lending an air of calm and even serenity to the people who call it home.

It is late in the afternoon, and hundreds of members of the local Bnei Menashe

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Michael Freund with Bnei Menashe children in India

(Hebrew for “Sons of Manasseh”) community, a group descended from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, have gathered in the local synagogue to recite the afternoon prayers.

that one is standing in a synagogue in northeastern India, rather than in London, New York or Tel Aviv.

The men sway back and forth in intense concentration, reciting the words in Hebrew with deliberate precision and care. Naturally, they all rise turn towards the west, facing Jerusalem as they reaffirm their determination to return to the land of their ancestors, the Land of Israel.

The story of the Bnei Menashe is truly breathtaking, one which almost defies rational explanation. Despite being cut off from the rest of world Jewry for more than 2,700 years, they managed to preserve their Jewish heritage, while always nourishing the dream of returning to Zion.

To a visitor from abroad, it is a magnificent sight to behold. Indeed, when closing one’s eyes, and listening to the chazzan (cantor) recite the repetition of the Amidah prayer, it is easy to forget

Some 7,000 Bnei Menashe currently reside in the Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, along the border with Burma and Bangladesh. Their tradition, passed down through the generations,

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A life in exile

Feature

by Michael Freund

is that they are descendants of the lost Israelite tribe of Manasseh, which was exiled from the Land of Israel by the Assyrian empire in 723 BCE. Throughout their wandering in the Diaspora, the Bnei Menashe observed the Sabbath, practiced circumcision on the eighth day, kept the laws of Kashrut and meticulously upheld the rules of family purity. They even established cities of refuge, where people who had killed inadvertently could flee, just as the Torah prescribes.

that his uncles used to say while conducting the sacrificial ceremony.

The words in the song, and their Biblical origin, are unmistakable: Terah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the Red Sea, Marah and Shiloh (site of the ancient tabernacle and capital of the northern tribes of Israel until the Assyrian conquest).

This ancient Bnei Menashe prayer, known as “Miriam’s Song”, parallels the Biblical account of the Exodus from Egypt: “We had to cross the Red Sea, our enemies were coming after us with

chariots, the sea swallowed them all, as if they are meat. We are led by the cloud during the day, and by fire at night. Take those birds for the food, and drink water coming out from the rock.”

In their community, among strangers To locals living in Mizoram, there is no question regarding the origins of the Bnei Menashe. Lal Thlamuana, 45, a devout Christian who is the proprietor and principal of the local Home Mission School, has no doubt about the Israelite

Evidence of the Bnei Menashe’s ancient connection with the Jewish people abounds. On a visit to the community in India, I met with a Bnei Menashe elder named Yossi, a 69-year old resident of Aizawl, capital of the state of Mizoram, where many of the Bnei Menashe currently live.

Two of Hualngo’s uncles served as village priests and, speaking through an interpreter, he offered a detailed description of the ceremonies they performed. His uncles, he said, would don white garments before carrying out sacrificial rites, including one with strings dangling from its four corners, reminiscent of the tallit with arba kanfot (the four-cornered ritual prayer shawl) worn by Jews.

In the spring, at Passover time, they would mark an annual festival of deliverance by sacrificing an animal, but not before smearing its blood on people’s doorways, just as the Israelites had done during the Exodus from Egypt. Indeed, according to Hualngo, there was a rule that the priests had to carefully remove the meat from the bones of the animal without breaking any of them, just as the Bible instructs regarding the Passover sacrifice (Exodus 12:46).

Then, in a remarkable scene, Hualngo proceeded to chant one of the prayers

Bnei Menashe at Kotel

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Feature

by Michael Freund

origins of the Mizos (the local name for the tribe from which the Bnei Menashe come).

“Even Christian Mizos believe the Bnei Menashe are descendants of Israel,” he says, and proceeds to expound on a number of the community’s ancient customs and traditions, such as circumcision of newborn boys on the eighth day, levirate marriage, and strict laws regarding menstruation, all of which are strikingly similar to Jewish law.

The British colonialists, Thlamuana notes, referred to the Mizo people as Lushei, a mispronunciation of Lu Se, which means “Ten Tribes”. According to the Bnei Menashe, their ancestors migrated south from China to escape persecution, settling in Burma and then moving westward into what is now Mizoram and Manipur in India.

Bnei Menashe in Churachandpur Manipur

A century ago, when British missionaries first arrived in India’s northeast, they were astonished to find that the local tribesmen worshiped one god, were familiar with many of the stories of the Bible, and were practicing a form of biblical Judaism. Before long, the missionaries succeeded in converting most of Mizoram’s population. Yet many of them, Christians and other tribesmen alike, proudly continued to preserve the tradition that they are descended from the ancient Israelites.

Some, however, did not convert, and remained faithful to the ways of their ancestors. Indeed, in recent decades, the Bnei Menashe have built dozens of synagogues across India’s northeast, and three times a day they turn fervently in prayer, with their eyes raised toward Zion.

Over the past decade, thanks largely to Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), the organization that I chair, some 1,700 Bnei Menashe have moved to Israel, where they have undergone formal conversion to Judaism by Israel’s Chief Rabbinate

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in order to remove any doubts regarding their personal status.

In March 2005, after I approached Israel’s Sephardi Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and asked him to study the community and its origins, the Chief Rabbi formally recognized the Bnei Menashe as “descendants of the Jewish people,” and agreed to facilitate their return.

In September 2005, Rabbi Amar dispatched a rabbinical court to India, which converted 218 Bnei Menashe in Mizoram back to Judaism, and in November 2006, they all made aliyah to the Galilee, in Israel’s north. An additional group of 230 Bnei Menashe from Manipur made aliyah in 2007, completing the conversion process once they arrived in Israel. Part of the group settled in the city of Upper Nazareth, with the rest making their homes in Karmiel. In recent years, two Bnei Menashe scholars have since received rabbinical ordination, while another is a certified religious scribe whose quill has

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produced beautiful Scrolls of Esther. In the summer of 2006, over a dozen young Bnei Menashe served as soldiers on the front lines in Lebanon and Gaza.

Those still in India continue to grow in Jewish knowledge and practice, and hundreds of Bnei Menashe currently study at one of the three educational centers that Shavei Israel has established on their behalf in Mizoram and Manipur.

Patiently, they await the day when Israel’s government will allow them to make aliyah and be reunited with their friends and family already living in the Jewish state.

Khaute’s journey For Tzvi Khaute, a Bnei Menashe community leader in Israel, the separation from his family back in India has not been easy. Though he has been living in Israel for ten years, and has successfully been absorbed in the country, he still feels pangs of yearning for his close relatives who remain behind.

Feature

by Michael Freund

to reach the Promised Land. “The first official letter was sent in the name of the Bnei Menashe to (then prime minister) Golda Meir in 1974. We wrote ‘we are Jewish. We want to come back home.’

But we received no answer.”

After his arrival in Israel ten years ago, Khaute began working in the greenhouses in the village of Sussia. But he didn’t actually get his hands dirty.

With a degree in economics from India’s prestigious University of New Delhi, he served as the greenhouse’s in-house statistician. And in order to deepen his knowledge of Judaism, he spent six years studying Torah part-time at the Machon Meir yeshiva in Jerusalem.

Michael Freund with a Bnei Menashe boy in India

One of six children, Khaute’s youngest brother is serving in the Indian army. He has a cousin who is the chief of the Indian Police Intelligence department in his home state of Manipur, and another cousin who is a former government minister. As a child growing up in Churachandpur, Khaute recalls, he didn’t pay all that much attention to Jewish tradition.

Like most kids, Khaute was more interested in playing soccer with his friends and doing well at school.

Nonetheless, even from a very young age, he always knew that by being Jewish he was different. “My grandfather, who was the chief priest of the village, told us that our living in India was only a sojourn and temporary, and that we Bnei Menashe are separate from the rest of the country - politically, socially and ethnically,” Khaute recalls.

His family instilled within him a deep pride in their roots as Bnei Menashe, and as he grew up, Khaute began to take more interest in his heritage.

He took note of the rituals of the Bnei Menashe that he would later learn were in many ways parallel to modern Jewish observance. “Shabbat was always observed as a rest day from work,” he says. “We never mixed milk and meat, and chicken and cattle were slaughtered by the community priest.”

Other Bnei Menashe customs Khaute remembers include a form of brit mila (circumcision) which was followed by a community feast; a mourning period that lasted 30 days (rather than the usual Jewish custom of seven); tithing one-tenth of one’s agricultural produce to sustain the community’s priestly caste; and a strict policy against intermarriage.

Rediscovering Zion The community yearned for Zion, but “we thought Zion was in heaven. We didn’t know it was real,” Khaute says.

After the creation of the State of Israel, the Bnei Menashe began their struggle

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Khaute’s grandparents – who were influential in his initial Jewish reawakening – died over ten years ago, and never fulfilled their life-long vision of reaching the Promised Land. But he remains confident that the rest of his family, and community, will soon be able to come on aliyah. “We pray and hope for them every day,” he says.

The saga of the Bnei Menashe is testimony to the power of Jewish history and Jewish memory. The Bnei Menashe clung to their identity despite 27 centuries of wandering, never forgetting who they are or where they came from, even as they nourished the dream that one day they would return. Their story is our story, and it underscores our people’s faith and resilience even in the most trying of circumstances. May they reach their destination speedily and without delay.

The writer served as deputy communications director in the Prime Minister’s Office under former premier Binyamin Netanyahu. He is the founder and Chairman of Shavei Israel (www.shavei.org), a Jerusalem-based group that facilitates the return of the Bnei Menashe and other “lost Jews” to the Jewish people.

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ArtistProfile

By Amy Har-Even

The Color of Carefully Ordered Chaos

The Work of Nir Segal

Background (Taxi)

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ArtistProfile

By Amy Har-Even

N

ir Segal is nothing if not prolific. One look at the Israeli artist’s website and his dizzying array of work-paintings, drawings, photography, and installations, poetry and essays--and a person starts to feel downright lazy by comparison. Even as I write this, Segal is putting on an exhibition in Bangkok, including paintings, photographs and installation pieces.

It’s his second in Thailand in a year: he had an exhibition in September 2009 at Bangkok University--called Which Wait-and its success led to an invitation from the Israeli Embassy in Thailand to show at Bangkok’s National Gallery this summer. This show, called Sit-You-Ate, incorporates some of last year’s pieces and a selection of new works, which, knowing the artist, means there will be plenty to see characterized by bold colors juxtaposed against darker and subtler tones and a carefully ordered chaos.

As Segal explains, “some of the new work will take on the playfulness of the previous show, where people had to situate themselves within a sea of plastic stools in order to view the works on the walls.” Once set up, the exhibition space from 2009’s Which Wait could have been mistaken for an outdoor food market awaiting its first customers, if not for the presence of the paintings. The colorful plastic stools that covered almost every inch of the floor mimicked the oil and acrylic works on the walls...as well as a few on the floor. The riot of bright, organic shapes against sharp white backgrounds in works such as “Soup” and “Background (Taxi)” appeared again in “Heavy Paint,” a collection of fake gems and bright pebbles painted with acrylic and gold and silver leaf in an attractive pile on the floor, inspiring the imagination of viewers who see this work through a multitude of diverse lenses and allowing for an active interaction with the art.

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“The Same But Lighter,” a 105 x 210-centimeter acrylic painting, is another brightly colored work, this one depicting tube-like shapes which are echoed in the actual fluorescent tubes attached to the front of the canvas. Referring back to the stools that cover the exhibition floor, Segal says, “I basically like the idea of people having to make some effort in order to find the optimal way in which to experience the work.”

Segal has his own effort to make as well, which is with painting itself, and with finding the inspiration to create it.

“I do not take inspiration for granted. It is not always that I have it,” he admits.

“However, it is within this life that I find inspiration: patterns of everyday life, human relationships with nature, personal experiences and mostly my life as an artist. These are all reference points to the work I make.”

And especially lately for Segal, his real inspiration seems to come from within: “My most recent works are inspired by personal issues that I have with my paintings. I am trying to create this ideal ground where the figure and image exist

in peace with the painted surface. In other words, I feel a constant struggle with painting. The figures fight for their right to exist, reflecting the struggle between abstract and figurative painting.”

He also draws heavily from the world around him, pulling emotion and complexity out of the ordinary. One can almost feel the chaos of the Bangkok streets bubble beneath the paint even through the abstraction. As far as artists he is inspired by goes, Segal’s list is long and as varied and diverse as his portfolio.

He mentions Roni Horn. As he explains, “Horn approaches nature in a unique and inspiring way. I specifically relate myself and my work to the way Horn defines duality in nature. He is likewise inspired

by Allan McCollum who he simply describes as, “an American artist whom I find very exciting.” He also cites the work of Anselm Kiefer, the German painter and sculptor. “What I find really admirable is the sense of place that can be seen in almost all of Kiefer’s works.” His diverse list also includes the prominent British artist, Prunella Clough; Laura Owens, a contemporary American artist; and the work of German Imi Knoebel.

Nir Segal at Sit-You-Ate

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ArtistProfile

By Amy Har-Even

What’s surprising is among Segal’s list of inspirational artists are those he doesn’t mention: the Fauves, or even David Hockney. Many--if not most--of his paintings from 2009 recall Andre Derain’s and Henri Matisse’s vibrant canvases (“The Dessert, Harmony in Red,” comes to mind) or Hockney’s “Nichols Canyon,” from 1980. Strong colors, simplified forms and painterly brushstrokes all describe Segal’s works, and the struggle between abstract and figurative painting that he mentions above is apparent, but in an altogether pleasing way. Segal says, “When I reach the point of making my work, I try to depict local imagery, mostly images that already exist in, or as, a pattern.” Evidence of that is on display in “Black Eye” and in one of his many untitled works from 2009: both appear to be newspaper photographs that he’s painted his own version of, but where he’s left intact the structure of the newspaper page, along with the photograph’s caption.

And these are just the paintings. His far reaching oeuvre already includes photographs, drawings, installation pieces, poetry and essays as well. Is there anything left? Is there any medium that he has not experimented with?

“Lately I have been very interested in the moving image,” Segal answers.

“Even in my last residency in Bangkok I started looking into ideas of moving patterns within a still image. I would also be interested in exploring the different techniques of sculpture such as metal construction and wood structures.” And if that’s not enough, “Have I mentioned performance?” he adds. “It’s something I will definitely consider and would like to do in the future.”

Black Eye

Clearly Segal is an artist unafraid to try new things, and one seemingly happily immersed in his work. In fact, when asked what he does when he’s not creating art, Segal replies, “I usually

Heavy Paint

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ArtistProfile

By Amy Har-Even

spend most of my time thinking about creation: basically that is life for me.” A series of works from this show, called Facing Thailand, attests to that. The collection of photos shows everyday scenes wherein Segal has found a smiling face: a pair of clouds flanking a setting sun (the eyes and nose) above a sidewalk in the foreground (the smile) in one; a streetlamp (the eyes) in front of hanging bunting (the smile) in another.

The photographs speak to his fertile creative mind; he finds art everywhere.

So what about when he’s not creating, or thinking about creating? “When I am not painting I go to see shows, or hang out with my family and friends. I enjoy the time amongst the people who are close to me.

I also work in Sommer Gallery in Israel and as an independent photographer shooting events and weddings. I love playing the piano, listening to music, cooking and eating and dancing. Pretty much like every person.”

La Conjillo de Indias

Installation view

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But for now it’s all about the art. SitYou-Ate runs through July 30, and after Bangkok, the artist has an unsurprisingly ambitious list of things he’d like to accomplish. “Hopefully more shows in Israel and around the world,” he says.

“I have applied for master courses so there is a possibility that next year I will be doing my postgraduate studies. Other than that I plan to keep on making work, and to hopefully start teaching at some point. Most important I hope that soon I can settle down and work toward having a family of my own. Can’t wait to be a dad!”

Having a consistently full plate is obviously what makes Segal happy. He seems unable to resist keeping it that way; taking on new mediums, working when he’s not technically working, finding inspiration in nearly everything he experiences. As he summarizes while he scans the room, breathing in further inspiration, “This art world and generally this life are so full of material and ways of making art and all of it is inspiring.”

Best of AJL

by Jana Daniels

Living Tikkun Olam in

Nepal

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n rural Nepal a woman goes blind and is left by her husband alone to raise her children. Her oldest daughter is forced to go into prostitution, working as a ‘hostess’ in a bar on a trucking route, in order to help support the family. This is the beginning of a Jewish story because it is a human story. Volunteers from Tevel b’Tzedek, or The Earth in Justice, through one of their women’s programs in the village, stepped in. Upon discovering that she had never received medical care for her condition because the hospital was an hour’s drive and the care too costly, volunteers were able to get her to the hospital. Her diagnosis: cataracts. In most of the Western world, this is curable, but for her and her family it was a sentence to fall deeper into a cycle of desperation, poverty and prostitution. Tevel b’Tzedek covered the cost of her surgery; returning her sight and therefore enabling her to farm again and save her daughter from a lifetime of prostitution.

change. A number of our graduates have started projects back in Israel; others are studying international development, public health and other related subjects.”

For this family, the effects are clear, but as Micha Odenheimer, the founder of Tevel b’Tzedek explains, “On the program participants, the influence of the program has been profound.

They describe both a deepening of their Jewish identity and also an opening up of their perspective on a global level, as well as a strengthening of their commitment to working for social

Odenheimer had experience reporting from developing countries where he had firsthand knowledge of how poor and vulnerable populations lived. This, coupled with his experience reflecting and learning within a Jewish context, fueled his initial impetus to get this program off the ground. He recognized a population with profound need and another with a tradition

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The vision that has driven this project from its inception in 2007 was Odenheimer’s belief in the power of tikkun olam as a positive force for social and economic justice while simultaneously teaching the world that this is a core Jewish value. Tevel b’Tzedek focuses on aiding developing countries within a Jewish context. According to Odenheimer, “within the Jewish world and even in Israel, the idea of tikkun olam--fixing the world--as an important horizon in Judaism has become more and more accepted; so while we started out as pioneers out on a limb with what some people saw as an eccentric project 3 years ago, we are now much more in the center of things in the Jewish world.”

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Best of AJL

by Jana Daniels

of responsibility. To Odenheimer these two were inextricably linked – the question was how to impart this knowledge to young people. While traveling he came across thousands of Israeli backpackers throughout South East Asia searching for a way to connect with the developing world and looking for meaning. “I wanted the opportunity to influence this young generation and their culture of post army travel, and to strengthen their belief that they can help change the world for the better.”

The program was later expanded to also include Diaspora Jews.

Including Diaspora Jews has added an entirely new dimension to the benefit of the program as Diaspora Jews and Israelis are given a forum within which to interact in a meaningful way and to use their unique perspectives to build on common values. Together, through Tevel b’Tzedek, they learn to create a community of the next generation of Jewry, one that is passionately engaged in social and environmental justice.

While the creation of this sense of community amongst volunteers is an added benefit, the clear beneficiaries are the Nepalese. Nepal was in fact chosen because not only is it a popular stop on the Israeli backpacker trail, but it is the poorest country in Southeast Asia. With so much need, deciding

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Best of AJL

by Jana Daniels

where to focus resources is difficult. As the program develops, Odenheimer finds that they are becoming more and more effective. “We feel that slowly but surely we are understanding what we can do, how we can make a really substantial impact in areas such as agriculture, informal education, women’s empowerment and so on. We now have something to give and have developed models that other international organizations are interested in,” adds Odenheimer.

Tevel b’Tzedek runs an intensive four month Nepal experience that will commence in February, but they are also currently accepting applications for three 5-week programs that run in October, November and December. The October cohort will be the eighth such program.

Tevel b’Tzedek considers itself an evolving program that is able to adjust in order to meet the needs of the beneficiaries.

Drawing on core Jewish values, they use their resources to help communities move towards self-sustainability. They aim to approach giving with deep humility and the real desire to learn from those they are helping, so they can better learn how to repair our own societies. As Jews, Tevel b’Tzedek hopes we begin to actively take responsibility to ensure that others have enough food, clean water, shelter, healthcare, education and basic human rights. This is the Earth in Justice.

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For more information about Tevel b’Tzedek and how you can help, see their website at http://www.tevelbtzedek.org.

SUMMER 2010

Writer’sDesk

by Raquelle Azran

Ain’t No Glass Slippers in Cambodia

F

orty years old, free, white and female and here I am, backpacking solo in Southeast Asia. Huge raindrops fall in gray, unending sheets as I land at Pochentong International Airport in Pnom Penh on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I share a taxi into town with a few selfless but gorgeous doctors from Medecins sans Frontieres. Should I fake appendicitis, I wonder, as my stomach rumbles its Delhi Belly refrain. Too late – the doctors get out at their clinic, flashing humanitarian smiles, and I continue on with the driver until he slows and parks in front of a huge puddle. Behind the puddle lies the mother of Cambodian guesthouses,

the Capitol Restaurant and Hotel, my destination.

I climb up a dark narrow flight of stairs to the office, and ask for a room. The only vacancies are the $3 basic rooms without shower or toilet. Not exactly luxurious, but I am assured of being upgraded the following day to the $4 suite with toilet, shower and balcony. All the rooms, the manager grandly informs me, come equipped with fan and four poster bed with mosquito net canopy. I pay the $3 room charge, dump everything on the bed and hurry outside to the sad, beckoning streets of Pnom Penh.

One week later, while searching for

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

SUMMER 2010

peanut butter in a downtown minimarket, I meet a group of American officers, part of the US delegation assisting Cambodia in roadbuilding. Over the past decade, numerous countries have aided Cambodia in demining, roadbuilding, and restoration of ancient temple sites.

The Americans ask how I’m managing in Phnom Penh. When I describe my “luxurious” surroundings, they invite me to join them at the pool of the Sofitel Cambodiana where they are stationed, courtesy of US taxpayers.

If the Cambodians seem focused on their ‘here and now’, the expatriate community embraces the good life even more heartily.

Three locales are popular with the expats

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Writer’sDesk

by Raquelle Azran

in Phnom Penh: the No Problem Café, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club and the Sofitel Cambodiana Hotel. All are tastefully designed to erase reality. The Café boasts a pool table while the FCC offers gin and tonic and black leather settees, but the Sofitel Cambodiana is the ultimate in escape therapy, with plush carpets, subdued lighting and impeccable service.

at the Capitol in a fancy car doesn’t seem like such a great idea. “I’ll meet you here in the lobby at 7:45,” I say.

“I need this clothing in three hours,” I pantomime. The ladies giggle their agreement.

Only after bidding the French gentlemen farewell and sauntering toward the pool exit does it hit me: I have nothing to wear! Jeans and an “I dig jazz” T-shirt don’t seem appropriate. I need a fairy godmother, or her local rep.

Three hours later, the outfit is ready. I try it on, to the approval of the sewing ladies, pay the $18 bill and voila - one has what to wear, as they say in French.

As for shoes, Nike Airs just don’t look right and there ain’t no glass slippers in Cambodia, so I wear my flip-flops.

The switch from grubby Capitol backpacker to Sofitel Cambodiana poolside lady of leisure is disconcerting.

It takes me a few minutes to refocus, much like going from boardroom to bedroom. So here I am, sipping fruit juice on a chaise lounge, far away from poor, battered Cambodia, when I hear a conversation in French about problems with an English translator for an official dinner that evening.

“Take me to Psar Cha,” I tell the cyclo driver. “Quickly!” At the market, near the stalls selling textiles, women stitch away at ancient foot-powered sewing machines. I tap one of the seamstresses on her shoulder. Out of my pouch I pluck pen and paper, and quickly sketch a long straight skirt and tunic top. She nods her head in understanding. Together, we choose a bolt of green raw silk with gold embroidered borders from an adjacent stall, and after successful haggling (her, not me) with the cloth merchant, the two of us return to her work area.

Surrounded by giggling women, I strip to my underwear so my seamstress can take measurements.

With blatant chutzpah (nobody knows you, so you can’t make too big a fool of yourself) I turn around, introduce myself and admit to overhearing their conversation. “I would be honored to translate for you,” I offer in my rusty French. “That would be marvelous, Madame,” the two gentlemen reply.

“Dinner is at 8 o’clock this evening. Are you staying here, or may we collect you from your hotel?” Having them show up

The dinner goes splendidly - interesting people, great food and my translation is, in fact, quite credible. I find myself seated next to the economic and financial consultant to the Royal Cambodian Government, whispered to be an illegitimate son of the King of Cambodia.

As the evening draws to a close, I accept the profuse thanks of my hosts and à la Cinderella, quickly exit.

Returning to the Capitol by cyclo through the deserted, unlit streets, I pinch myself to make sure it isn’t all a dream. My fancy attire and the prince’s business card in my pocket assure me I am totally awake.

A native New Yorker, Raquelle Azran divides her time between Hanoi, Vietnam, where she specializes in Vietnamese contemporary fine art (www.artnet.com/ razran.html) and Tel Aviv, Israel, where she writes in her inner city aerie overlooking the Mediterranean.

Azran has been widely published. Some of her accomplishments include her short story ‘By the Roadblock of Bethlehem’ which was awarded honorable mention and published in the International Herald Tribune literary supplement of the Middle East edition (2002). Her work has also appeared in publications such as The Writing Group Book (Chicago Review Press, 2003), Aunties:Thirty Five Writers Celebrate Their Other Mother (Ballantine Books, 2004), the Culture supplement of the Haaretz/International Herald Tribune, Yuan Yang, a Hong Kong based literary journal and the 2009 Tel Aviv Short Stories anthology.

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CoverStory

by Erica Lyons

Animating Jewish-Chinese Relations

J

A story of lasting friendship

udaism and Israel are hot topics in China. Over ten Chinese Universities now offer programs in Judaic Studies, at least one offering a doctoral program. China’s state-owned television network, CCTV, recently aired a documentary titled “Walk into Israel- Land of Milk and Honey”, its first series on Israel.

The story of the Jews in Shanghai in the first half of the 20th century, a story little known to even most Jews in the world, is suddenly popular in China. The opening of the Israeli Pavilion in Shanghai, along with architect Haim Dotan’s own China story, made headlines. And shortly after the May opening of the World Expo in Shanghai, the Chinese government granted the Jewish community in Shanghai, long-awaited permission to again use for worship the Ohel Rachel Synagogue, a historic synagogue built just after the turn of the 20th century.

The growing ties between Chinese and Jews helped set the scene for the release of director Wang Tianyun’s animated film, A Jewish Girl in Shanghai. It not surprisingly is self-cited as the first Chinese animated film to portray the Holocaust.

While some might question whether it really portrays the Holocaust, which largely is just a backdrop for a family drama, for many Chinese the movie will be their first introduction to the destruction of European Jewry. The film’s producers also refer to A Jewish Girl in Shanghai as the first animated film to express the Chinese- Israeli friendship; an increasingly important relationship for both sides.

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A Jewish Girl in Shanghai tackles many difficult topics as it tells the story of a Jewish girl named Rena who along with her brother, MIshalli, seeks refuge in Shanghai after escaping from Europe. While awaiting the arrival of their parents, Rena meets a young Chinese boy, A-gen, and immediately the two forge a friendship. They share their cultures with one another and help one another to ease their burdens of everyday living in a war-torn world where poverty, loss and conflict are their shared realities.

The screenplay is based on a graphic novel, also titled A Jewish Girl in Shanghai, published by the East China Normal University Press in 2008. Wu Lin, from Shanghai himself, wrote both the graphic novel and the screenplay. Wu says the book was a huge success, selling 4,000 copies in the first half year since its release. The book, published in China, has a somewhat limited market, as it was only published in English though the film version is in Chinese and subtitled in English. A Hebrew edition of the book, Wu said in the interview with AJL, is in the pipeline.

A year after the book’s publication, he created the screenplay for the animated film version hoping this would allow the story to reach a broader China-based audience.

The film version premiered throughout Shanghai in May and then debuted in Israel at the Jerusalem International Film Festival in July. Wu adds that this was the first Chinese film to be included in the Jerusalem Film Festival and was very well received. It was nominated for an Avner Shalev Yad Vashem Chairman’s Award

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CoverStory

by Erica Lyons

for Artistic Achievement in Holocaust-related Film.

Wu, sitting at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Macau the week after the Jerusalem premiere, spoke enthusiastically about his affinity for the Jewish people. He adds that events marking the end of the Second World War initially inspired him to tell this story taken from the pages of a history little known to most, Jew and Chinese alike. Wu, who started his entry into the workforce as a history teacher, explains that, “In 2005, for the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the victory of anti-fascism war, many newspapers and magazines in Shanghai published the stories of Jewish refugee in Shanghai during the 1940s.” He wanted to learn more and knew that he would somehow develop this into the framework of a novel, “to take a small story and build it up,” he explains.

He was moved by the struggle the Jews endured during that time and saw parallels between their struggles and those of the Chinese against Japan and explains that it was a very hard time for both people in the face of fascism.

Within Shanghai, the story of the Hongkou Jewish ghetto is now familiar to many and, he explains, has made an impression on both Chinese and Jews. “It was not forgotten for our people.”

He talks about the number of former Shanghai Jews who still hold China in a special place in their hearts, a sentiment repeated throughout many recent memoirs and films produced about the Jewish experience in China. Over the years, Wu has met many of these former Jewish Shanghai residents who spent their childhood in the city while on various business trips to the United States. He also had the opportunity to meet other former Jewish resident of Shanghai at the Jerusalem Film Festival.

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Their wartime stories of life among Shanghai’s Jews and Chinese helped inspire Wu to write his novel. “Mutual help and support during the harsh time illustrates the harmony and friendship between the two races,” he says. “Hence I came up with the idea of writing a book to demonstrate this period of history which would also provide more or less positive impetus to the peace of the world.”

Further inspiration came from Wu’s time living in for several years in Los Angeles, where he worked as a company manager.

While in California, Wu made a number of Jewish friends. He says he loosely based the character of the brother Mishalli on Jerry Moses, a friend from Los Angeles whose real Shanghai story is similar to that of Wu’s characters. Originally from Breslau (what is today known as Wroclaw, Poland), Moses, like the fictional Rena and Mishalli and approximately 35,000 other Jews, was offered a safe haven in Shanghai’s Hongkou district.

While living in Los Angeles, Wu explains that he was able to get help on some of the details in the book from Moses and other Jewish friends, especially information on Jewish practices and beliefs. Overall, Wu says the film is “both true and untrue,” a composite of collective memory and history fused with some fictionalized elements. “The main characters were all based on real prototypes…I can’t promise it’s 100% accurate, but I think it fits the background of the time.”

To tell the story of the Jews of Shanghai, Wu also includes background information in the film to give viewers a glimpse of the Nazi campaign against the Jews and the war on the Western front. For instance, He includes Kristallnacht and scenes of the bombing and destruction throughout Europe.

In one scene, Rena and Mishalli are first prancing through the

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CoverStory

by Erica Lyons

idyllic rural countryside of their early childhood only to be torn from it by bombs exploding around them. Later on we learn that their mother was killed by the Nazis and her hair was woven into a rug, giving the children a glimpse of the Germans’ incomprehensible evil and cruelty.

At first, Wu thought about making his story for adults but in the end decided to write for children because he hopes that this story will influence the future generation. As Wu explains, although the film is for children, “reality is the first priority that we pursued during the stage of creation. As a famous saying goes, truth is power. Realism does give people power and advantages to pursue a better future. The script was composed by me, which is certainly based on real stories, while the paint of the animation was required to be neat, plain and little bit of Chinese style.” The film has hit a chord with young audiences in China and Israel alike, he says, explaining that Chinese children, like Israeli children, both laughed and cried at the screenings.

“This is really a China-Israel story,” Wu says that Chinese have a great interest in learning more about Israel and the Jewish people. After returning from Israel in July, he immediately published three very popular articles on his visit in the Chinese press. One article covered the film festival itself, another on how to market a Chinese film to international audiences and a final one on his impressions of Israel. He says he is most impressed by the Israelis’ spirit of environmentalism and careful use of natural resources. He was impressed the moment he stepped off the plane and saw the airport surrounded by greenery rather than the concrete

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that characterizes most other international airports. He also laughs and adds that he felt very much at home when at a celebratory dinner in Jerusalem, six dishes were served and everyone finished all the food. This is a cultural reference he explains he can really relate to. He also notes that he, like most Chinese, look up to Jews because “they are very smart people, with so much respect” and he adds, “Marx and Einstein were Jews, you know,” a comment made with true admiration.

Overall Wu stresses the affinity and love that he, like other Chinese, feel for the Jewish people and he also adds that he knows that this feeling and love is mutual. This is part of the power of the film, that neither Jews nor Chinese forgot this brief shared history. A Jewish Girl in Shanghai, to Wu, is a very meaningful work. He hopes, “that it reflects his admiration and respect for Jews.” He cites the introduction to the graphic novel, “benevolence and righteousness are the guide of one’s soul,” it begins.

For the future Wu reveals that he is planning to write a second animated work in this series that tells Rena’s father’s untold story, hoping that this too will have the same emotional impact.

He explains that he wrote, “the front of the face and now need to write from the back.”

“A Jewish Girl in Shanghai” will have its Macau premiere on November 14 at Macau Jewish Film Festival and its Hong Kong premiere at the Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival on 21 November. Wu will be present at both events.

SUMMER 2010

Write to

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE Send us your work: AJL is looking for potential editorial contributions with Jewish content and Asian flavor that focuses on art, cultural events, non-fiction, history, diversity, education, spirituality, politics, Israel and literature. Original poetry, photography, book reviews and fiction are also welcome.

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For more information, please contact us at info@asianjewishlife.org

Feature

by Erica Lyons

The Way Home A filmmaker’s adoption story AJL caught up with Jason Hoffman, whose film “Going Home”, was screened at festivals worldwide including at the Korean American Film Festival in his hometown, New York City.

The Hoffmans in a Korean orphanage (production still)

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Feature

by Erica Lyons

W

inding through the streets of Seoul, if it weren’t for the film cameras, Jason Hoffman in many ways would be much like any other American tourist discovering a country completely foreign to him; trying new foods, hitting the major tourist sites, posing for photographs, stumbling with the language. But Jason is far from being an ordinary tourist; this is not a holiday and this is not his first time in Seoul.

Jason was born in Seoul and placed for adoption as an infant. He grew up far from his native Seoul, in New York City’s West Village as the only child in a Jewish family. The film Going Home is his story.

What started as a joint graduate film project with fellow Emerson film student and girlfriend Mikyung Kim, the film is an incredibly moving journey of selfdiscovery, a quest to search for roots and the need to define home. As Jason explains, “I just knew I wanted to find her [his birthmother] and say to her, thank you for giving me up for adoption.”

Hoffman in a scene of reflection (production still)

When asked about the title, Going Home, Jason chuckles and admits to AJL that after he and Mikyung submitted their proposal they were told they had to come up with a title for their fledgling idea. Pressured to come up with a title on the spot before the project even took shape, Jason suggests that it was somewhat of an arbitrary selection.

But, in the end, the title truly defines his journey to find his birth mother.

Jason begins his search for his roots with first consulting his parents (that is, his adoptive parents). The scene in the film is touching and defines this relationship between parents and child.

He is able to have a very open and honest dialogue with them about his desire to locate his birth-mother without fear and apprehension. He explains that he has concerns that this decision would hurt them and has to carefully weigh the benefits and the potential harm it might cause them. Despite his initial apprehension, they were warm, open

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Hoffman’s Bar Mitzvah photo

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SUMMER 2010

Feature

by Erica Lyons

and accepting and told him it was a decision that he alone could make.

Jason explains that his parents were always very open with him about his adoption, he laughs and adds it is a fact that is difficult to ignore given his Asian face. The Hoffmans created a family ritual to mark Jason’s adoption day. The family would make their way to K-Town (the local name for the Korean section of New York City) and sample traditional foods. They participated in the annual Korean Day Parade in New York City and proudly dressed Jason in the bright, traditional clothing of his birthplace.

Together they marched as a family to celebrate their connection to Korea.

Jason explains that their decision to adopt from Korea in the first place was a practical one as Korea was known at the time as a fairly easy place, politically speaking relative to other Asian countries, to secure a foreign adoption.

He also explains that they had joined a group called AKA (Also Known As) to guide them through various stages of the adoption process and many of the other families in the group had also looked toward Korea.

on an additional layer of importance.

When his Bar Mitzvah invitations went out to his friends from public school, he explains that people were shocked.

They laughed. He was asked by friend if this was a joke. To those 13 year olds, they were only able to see an Asian face. He was just beginning to feel a pull between his two seemingly conflicting identities as a Jew and a Korean. For that day, however, in that moment, questions about his identity disappeared. His Bar Mitzvah, he explains, cemented his personal identity as a Jew. He knew his place. It was a moment of clarity and a celebration of being at home in a community.

Jason explains that now he strongly indentifies as Jewish based on cultural ties and his value system. This is not in any way a result of being adopted in but a result of how he was raised, his parents own brand of Judaism in a secular, liberal, cosmopolitan New York City in the 1980s.

Forming a dramatic contrast to the Bar Mitzvah scene, is a later scene in the film when Jason and Mikyung visit a Korean

Temple in Seoul. For Jason, surrounded by white lanterns in a place of worship so unfamiliar to his own, the emotions were intense.

“I wonder if they ever came to pray for me here,” he questions. “My life flashed before my eyes at that instance. Who would I be if I had stayed here? What would I be like as a person? Could this be home?

I saw images of my Bar Mitzvah, my parents.”

Reaching that moment was a long journey. When he bought his plane ticket to Seoul, he explains that he was absolutely prepared that he might turn around empty handed without any information about his past. He says that he was completely prepared for the visit to Seoul to not go well, unsure if he would find his mother and if she wanted to be found. He jokingly adds, though, that without an ultimate meeting, this would have been a very short film. He roams the city hoping

As for his Jewish education, Jason explains that at 8, he was given the choice to attend either Korean School or Hebrew School. Jason again laughs and tells AJL, “I chose Hebrew School.

All of my friends were going.” He recalls being the only Asian face in his Hebrew School, but in the liberal, Reformed environment he grew up in, he was not conscious of this difference. He describes himself as not religious and secular, yet purposefully he includes a clip from his Bar Mitzvah in the film, the only clip from his childhood.

Jason explains this by offering his understanding of the significance of a Bar Mitzvah in Judaism to define the individual and to solidify their connection with the community. He explains that for him it was truly was a turning point of self-realization and an event that took

Jason Hoffman and his biological sister (production still)

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Feature

by Erica Lyons

to connect with this culture that is so foreign to him while trying to continue to remain strong enough for the emotional reality and challenges that await him.

As a New Yorker, he explains that he connected with the energy of the city.

While he talks about a real feeling a familiarity, he also admits that it might have been a result of the pressure to forge a connection.

Ultimately, Jason meets with both his birthmother and biological sister. His sister never knew of his existence, yet the two immediately connect. He explains that this may be in part due to the fact that they both grew up as only children and they have no context for their relationship.

The reunion with his birth-mother seems a bit more constrained and reserved. Her face is not shown. Jason explains that this was done out of a cultural sensitivity and a recognition of the need to protect her identity and shield her from any shame she might be made to feel.

To support their son, Jason’s parents also

journey to Seoul. Together they visit an orphanage and his parents hold babies metaphorically completing Jason’s journey. As he ultimately learns, while his Korean identity and his biological sister and mother are integral parts of him, he didn’t need to journey to find home.

“Searching for family and discovering who I am reminded me of the unbelievable support of my friends and family. That is home.

New York City is home. This is where I belong.”

He adds that the nonlinear structure of the film forced him to step back to achieve this clarity. It is then, in the review process, that he understood how much meaning was attached to the film’s title.

With respect to the aftermath, when the cameras were no longer rolling, Jason explains to AJL that the film, “in many ways has brought me even closer to my parents. We talk frequently and very openly about adoption and feelings. I

was raised as their flesh and blood. That is real.” He heavily relied on the support of his parents and their guidance.

Off-screen, he continues to have a relationship with his biological sister but does find language to be a barrier. In the film the two pledge to learn each other’s languages. When asked how his Korean is coming, Jason confesses it’s not great, but he is very clear about his love for his biological sister. He wants her to come to the United States to visit along with his biological mother, though a visit from his birth-mother he admits is highly unlikely.

As far the perspective he gained, he is clear about the centrality of family in his life and to the Judaic tradition in general.

This is something, coupled with the role of ritual and tradition, he finds to be a similarity with Korean culture. This brand of Judaism, built on family tradition and culture, is something he has proudly shared with his Korean girlfriend and fellow filmmaker, Mikyung. She has celebrated Hanukah and Passover with the Hoffman family.

Though Jason has never been to Israel, he says he would very much like to go and said he has been toying with the idea of participating in a Birthright Tour.

Maybe he will discover that Israel is in fact home; or perhaps he really has found it in the West Village of New York City.

Mikyung Kim and Jason Hoffman

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Jason hopes that people understand his film to be a “celebration of adoption and ultimately about family and about my journey. Adoptions can be wonderfully successful and beautiful.” In Going Home, he simply rediscovered his place in the world through new lenses, comfortable in his own skin of complex layers. He says he identifies himself as an American, first and foremost, a filmmaker second and Jewish and Korean in equal part. As for the future, he says should he have children of his own, either biological or adopted, he plans to give them the opportunity to discover both their Jewish and Korean roots. They too will have a place to go home.

BookReviews

by Susan Blumberg-Kason

Worlds Apart:

Displaced During World World War II During the early years of World War II in Europe, when Jews had few options—and opportunities—to flee their homelands a small window for escape opened, they turned to faraway and exotic places, including Asia and Africa.

European Jews in the 1930s also chose other continents to escape, such as Africa.

Peter Godwin’s riveting memoir, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun (Little, Brown and Company, 2006) recounts the current problems in Zimbabwe, where he was born and raised. Godwin also reveals a long-kept family secret he learns about just before his father passes away.

In Shanghai Shadows (Holiday House, 2006), Lois Ruby chronicles the fictional story of Ilse Shpann, a 13 year-old Austrian Jew who flees Europe in 1939 with her parents and older brother, Erich.

The Shpanns settle in Shanghai, the only place that took in refugees without visas back then.

At first the Shpanns live a comfortable life in Shanghai. It’s not what they were used to in Austria, but their three room apartment in Shanghai’s International Settlement is adequate. The family subsists on Ilse’s father’s violin teaching salary and the money her mother earns from a part-time bakery job and English tutoring. They enjoy Austrian pastries, classical music, and the freedom to travel around the city. But that’s the highlight of their existence in the Chinese metropolis.

After the US enters the war, tens of thousands of Shanghai Jews are rounded up and sent to the former Chinese section to live in a ghetto. Ilse’s family is cramped into one room. Her parents lose their jobs and the family struggles to survive, barely able to scrounge up enough food for one meal a day. In the course of the story, Ilse falls for a young Polish Jew and learns a dark secret her mother has kept for years, one that tears her family apart during the Japanese occupation.

Lois Ruby vividly recounts the lives of the Shanghai Jews in Shanghai Shadows, touching upon the resistance, the brutal Japanese military, and the citizens of Shanghai—Chinese, Jewish, and Japanese—who join together to support one another during this dangerous time. The Shpanns’ elderly Japanese neighbors prove to be some of their most loyal friends.

Other books set in Shanghai during the war, such as Emily Hahn’s China to Me (Country Life Press, 1944) and Vicki Baum’s Shanghai ‘37 (Oxford University Press, 1986) also touch upon the Jewish community there. But Shanghai Shadows (which is marketed as a young adult novel, but includes mature subjects like prostitution) differs in that it provides a comprehensive understanding of daily Jewish life in wartime Shanghai.

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

At first, Godwin’s book narrates the eviction of white farmers from their Zimbabwean land starting around the year 2000. The more violent the conditions in Zimbabwe, the more frustrated Godwin becomes as his parents refuse to leave their home out in the countryside. Living in fear that their house will be taken from them—or worse—the elderly Godwins love their country so much, they not only refuse to leave, but Mrs. Godwin insists on continuing her work as a doctor, even though she’s years beyond retirement. To protect themselves from being murdered in their own home, Godwin’s parents erect metal guard rails around their bedroom. Sometimes Godwin can’t reach his parents because the phone lines go dead or the power shuts off. It’s like a war zone, and Godwin starts to feel like he’s become the parent of his own parents.

During one visit home, Godwin discovers some old framed black and white photographs, tucked away in his father’s closet, of people he doesn’t recognize. And then one day he father tells him about those photos. They were taken in 1930s Poland. And the people in the photos were Godwin’s deceased grandparents and aunt. He didn’t even know he had had relatives in Poland, or that they were Jewish.

Godwin always knew his father had arrived as a young man in then-Rhodesia. But he’d also assumed his dad was British and that his ancestors had lived in Britain for centuries. His father never spoke much about his childhood until his health deteriorated, when he unraveled his family’s tragic story during the war. And as Godwin learns his family’s true background, he better understands his parents’ loyalty to Zimbabwe.

Like Shanghai Shadows, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun is also a heart-wrenching story of displaced people in a land where the government no longer welcomes them.

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Viewpoint

by Akira Ohiso

The Endless Jewish Audience A Japanese Jewish convert speaks 30

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SUMMER 2010

Viewpoint

by Akira Ohiso

I

n Kenji Yoshino’s book Covering, he compares Samuel Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner to his coming out as a gay man. Coleridge’s main character, a sailor, must continually tell the story of how he killed the albatross as penance for his sin.

Yoshino says, “he is compelled to speak and they are compelled to listen. So he tells and tells, hoping one day to tell the story well enough, or often enough, that he will no longer need to tell it.”

This is how I feel as a Japanese Jewish convert. Whenever I walk into a new social situation whether a synagogue, a Shabbat dinner or a Judaica store there is always the chance that I will have to tell my conversion story to a confused, sometimes judgmental, audience.

In the parking lot of my son’s Hebrew day school, a woman said, hands making a circular motion in the shape of my round Asian face, “What’s up with your face?”

At a sushi Kiddush, ironically, as I was waiting on line for maki rolls -yarmulke on and fliegling a transliterated siddura woman asked me to get more plates for the Jewish congregants. Early in our marriage, my wife would preface that I am a “ger” (convert) as to avoid uncomfortable questions and stares.

“Ahh,” with detectable relief, is the typical response.

I’ve often done the same thing just so I could get on with things. When will I not need to answer such questions? When “normative” Judaism is comfortable with a Jew of Color. Much like larger society, Ashekenazi Jews have white privilege.

You don’t walk up to an Ashkenazi woman in a skirt with tichel (headscarf) on and say, “What is up with your face?”

There is a comfortable assumption that this woman is Jewish because she looks and behaves like the “normative” Ashkenazi Jew. No questions, no stares, no angling for a personal history.

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Viewpoint

by Akira Ohiso

Sometimes people will come up and ask, feigning matter-of-factness, “Where are you from?” “Long Island” is usually not sufficient. Yoshino says, succinctly, “Coming out is a process as endless as its audience.”

My mother married a Japanese immigrant.

I’m a first generation Japanese American. Growing up, our house was always about blending cultures.

It was not a conscious deliberate act, it just happened because my parents were open to that blending.

There was no perceived threat to their histories and backgrounds.

On the flip side, there was assimilation in order to survive. My father changed his name from Hisaaki to Mike.

I sometimes pulled the Irish card to pass in a conspicuously white environment.

I often stayed away from Asian girls because the association accentuated my Asian-ness. Eric Lui, in his book The Accidental Asian, talks about the whitewashing of his yellowness to the point where being Asian was just an “accident” of his assimilated self. Now he refers to himself as “an assimilist in recovery.” As a multicultural Jew, there is reclamation to understand and inhabit all of my cultures.

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Recently, I learned that my Jewish great-grandfather, who hid his Judaism, was one of ten siblings. Turns out I am related to Friedlanders, Mendelsohns and Jacobsohns just to name a few.

Names like Fruma, Tauba, and Hirsch had my mother quip, rather Jewishly, “Were not Jewish, we’re really Jewish.”

My Japanese father always had rice and nori (Japanese seaweed) on–call to supplement whatever American dish we were eating. My Irish Russian mother who grew up in Brooklyn made corned beef and cabbage and Beef Stroganoff.

I was confirmed in a Methodist church.

I ate the body and blood of Christ and dripped wine on my confirmation gown.

Today, I eat challah, say Kiddush on Friday nights, and sometimes dribble kosher wine on my kittel. Reclamation.

In my house, the rice cooker gets more use than the chollent pot, but that does not make me any less Jewish. Soy sauce not schmaltz is a staple. My two sons are named Boaz and Simcha Bunim, but their last name is as Japanese as it gets.

It is also as Jewish as it gets.

living as a Jew. Narrative therapists use a technique called “re-authoring,” where unhealthy stories are talked into healthier stories. In Narrative Therapy: The Social Constructs of Preferred Reality, Jill Freedman and Gene Combs state: “As people begin to inhabit and live out the alternative stories, the results are beyond solving problems. Within new stories, people live out new self images, new possibilities for relationships and new futures.”

In my healthier story, I am now a third generation Jewish American. Not that it’s anyone’s business, yet I still feel compelled to tell my story to a seemingly endless audience. Being authentically understood, though, for better or worse, is the first step towards acceptance.

Each new audience is an opportunity to move closer to that acceptance.

Akira Ohiso is a writer who published his first book Surviving in 2008.

His second book,

Haunted 61, is due for release in early fall. He lives in the Catskills

My story changes as I become more comfortable living as a Jew and society becomes more comfortable with me

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with his wife and two boys.

Places I Love The Zen garden in the Ryoan-ji in Kyoto, Japan All the historic temples of Kyoto are fascinating, but the Ryoan-ji is extraordinary. It contains the quintessential Zen garden, with fifteen large boulders floating on a lake of raked sand. There’s no spot from which a person of normal height can see more than fourteen of the stones, however: an implied, unspoken koan.

Contemplating the garden for an extended time encourages a highly charged sense of primed emptiness, exactly what is required for any activity that demands extreme concentration. That state is essential for a conductor, and I find it helpful to use the sensememory of my visits to Ryoan-ji to recover it.

The balcony of my late father’s apartment on Rehov Diskin in Jerusalem

Photography by Atta Wong

My father moved to Israel in the late ’70s, and for the last seventeen years of his life lived in a flat on Rehov Diskin in Jerusalem. His block was next to the upscale Kiryat Wolfson development, but much more heimish. On the street side he was on the second floor just above the busy street life, but the rear – with a good-size balcony – was on the cliff wall, far above the Valley of the Cross, with a spectacular view across to the Israel Museum on the far side, the Monastery of the Cross below and the Knesset building in the distance. Inside was the bachelor flat of a frum scientist whose publications ranged from teaching manuals for Talmud to works on biblical archeology, piled from floor to ceiling and from wall to wall with seforim and secular books. Visitors would make their way to the guest room, which they’d share with motors and measuring equipment on the inventor’s workbench. Going from inside the flat to the balcony was like emerging from a cave into a magnificent world.

Jerome Hoberman grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey. He earned degrees from Brandeis and the University of Wisconsin, and a doctorate from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. He moved to Hong Kong in 1991 and is about to begin his nineteenth season as music director of The Hong Kong Bach Choir and Orchestra, and is also principal conductor of the Baguio Cathedral International Music Festival in the Philippines. Among the orchestras he has conducted are the Shanghai Symphony, Shanghai Philharmonic, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Manila Symphony, Ukraine State Symphony and Muntenia Philharmonic in Romania.

Places I Love is a unique travel-geared feature that asks artists, musicians, writers and other prominent personalities to share their favorite travel destinations and attractions with readers. Given the unique focus of Asian Jewish Life, both an Asiabased destination and either a city or particular attraction in Israel, are highlighted. It is a chance to see the world in an entirely different way.

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

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Poetry

by Eliyahu Enriquez

Extremism on Wall Street A homeless man offers to sell me A used C.D. As I walk out the music chain He says, C’mon, it’ll turn that frown Upside down (I’m no clown, Mister).

In public school I learned Textbook violence: That Fridays bring out The animal in people.

We’d thank G-d for no homeWork, more, amplified Mischief. To this very day I anticipate that frown of mine To appear out of nowhere Like a coveted purchase At the end of the week The bum flashed A wide grin And in an instant I was reminded: A smile May be a frown Upside down The beggar offers Joy for free.

Says, It’ll cost you — Everything. Sorry Sir, I’m no clown.

Don’t pimp my love on holidays, either!

As the bellringer in the Joker suit freezes, I can still hear Santa hoing down the street All the way to the Bank.

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ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

SUMMER 2010

Poetry

by Eliyahu Enriquez

Akhdut I attended two funerals today I did not bother to bring an umbrella Or flower Or Bible Or date A few others did A few We are divided by denominations We are divided by languages We are divided by customs We are divided by cultures We are divided by politics We are divided by nations We are divided by names Our colors are life and death We have been given two shades One much deeper than the other YHVH has no signature color If people who need People do not come together He will surely bind us In common danger

Sea of Bamboo “Efrayim joins the wind and chases the east wind” — Hoshea 12:2 Asian trees bear strange fruit Blood on the reeds and blood at the Rut Brown bellies swaying in the Eastern Breeze Strange brood swinging from the Cypress trees Junglist scene of the Bamboo south The slanted eyes and the razor mouth Cent of rice terraces, sticky and fresh Then the sudden stink of burning flesh Here are Prutas for Paro to pluck For the rain to wash, for the wind to suck For Thy Sons to spoil, for Dragons to drop Here is the strange and bitter crop:

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Eliyahu Enriquez is the author of G Y C MP (Chipmunka Publishing, 2009). He first received Honorable Mention in Fordham University at Lincoln Center’s Robert Nettleton/Ully Hirsh Poetry Prize for his poem, Fu. Since then, he has worked in the Editorial Departments of A Gathering of the Tribes, The Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Persimmon: Asian Literature, Arts, and Culture, as well as Creative Writing Instructor for The Philippine American Center.

He was the Featured Playwright at The Consulate General of the Philippines — New York and The AAWW with selected readings from The Playground Trilogy (Flipsiders, Salvaged, and Pearl’s Kaddish). Publications include Blackmail Press, Generationrice, MaARTe, Poeticmindset, Zeek: A Jewish Journal of Thought and Culture, as well as a a chapbook, Heaven is a Country. He also has a short film, Comfort Room currently in post-production.

Eliyahu’s follow-up volume of Pin@y Piyyutim, Critical Mass is forthcoming.

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Writer’sDesk

by Michael H. Fox

A Week without Weekends: A social activist in Japan

Monday

Wednesday

It is often said that what most people covet in life are small things: a decent paying job, respect, affection, free time..things which too many of us take for granted.

Some want even less...just a visa--a stamp in a passport--and the privilege to live in a foreign country. Today, my energy is focused on helping Emiko, a woman whom I have never met, attain this end.

Molested by her father during her teens, she studied English, went to the States and found solace in the psychological therapy unavailable in Japan.

I have an appointment with Japan Times staff writer Eric Johnston. Eric is researching the case of Matt Lacey, an American who bled to death after being struck on the head with a blunt object in his Fukuoka apartment. The photos and evidence from the scene clearly indicate murder. But dead gaijin (foreigners) do not look good on police reports, draw the attention of embassies and news agencies, and require investigations of non-Japanese--many of whom can only communicate in English--a difficult conundrum.

Nearing the end of her stay, she applied for and was refused a visa extension.

Her last chance is to apply for political asylum. Usually, this status is reserved for those facing political or ethnic violence in their homelands. Nevertheless, records show that some Japanese have been granted political asylum from the 1970’s onward. I spend some hours sitting at the keyboard, describing the sordid state of psychology and counseling in this country. Her chances for success are indeed slim, but it is a card that should be played.

It is startling to wonder how much of someone’s life and future happiness could end up in the hands of an indifferent and apathetic immigration clerk. My grandfather took his family to Cuba in the 1930’s after being refused visas from the USA and Canada. I sympathize with the plight of these people.

Tuesday Our university’s human rights committee has a meeting with the Buraku Liberation League. Quite similar in purpose to the Anti-defamation League, the league represents--Burakumin-a minority group within Japanese society. During the middle ages, the Burakumin performed menial tasks which were considered impure according to Confucian

36

Solomon and Fox

sensibilities: the butchering of animals, the tanning of hides, and the disposal of corpses. Ethnically, they are completely similar to the Japanese majority, but still face intense discrimination in marriage and employment. It is one of the most irrational forms of discrimination anywhere in the world.

Why are we meeting? At a recent university introductory symposium, our dean of Academic Affairs encouraged parents to carefully monitor their children’s behavior throughout their university years. “Large corporations often use detective agencies to investigate prospective recruits so personal behavior in an important facet in job searches.”

The Buraku Liberation League absolutely despises detective agencies. Such agencies possess and disseminate lists which identify those of buraku heritage, leading to loss of job offers and severance of marriage proposals. Many local government offices display posters shunning the use of detective agencies for these matters. The comment made at the university open house seminar rightly alarmed the Buraku Liberation League. During the two hour meeting, I enjoy watching the barbs being tossed at one our administrators, who even if not discriminatory himself, is certainly representative of the mentality penetrating the college.

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

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So, how do you cover up a murder? Easy, fabricate a reason for the cause of death: dehydration. The poor guy could not cope with Japan’s hot, humid summer. In a bout of heat exhaustion, he keeled over and hit his head.

Eric and I brainstorm possible avenues for obtaining autopsy evidence and bringing the case into public view. Our efforts later lead to reward: the Fukuoka police department release autopsy records to Charles Lacy, Nagoya based brother of the deceased. Two American pathologists later write opinions confirming that assault and murder were the cause of death, not dehydration.

Thursday In the morning, I venture off to the foreigner’s prison, better known as the West Japan Immigration Control Center.

The building, one of clean and refined architectural tastes, serves the illusion that foreigners who overstay their visas are neatly housed and warmly treated.

I have interviews with two inmates: Samuel from Uganda, and Solomon from Ethiopia. After exchanging letters and speaking on the phone, we meet for the first time. Samuel is suing the center for a vicious beating, vengeance in response

Writer’sDesk

by Michael H. Fox

to a sexual harassment complaint lodged against a guard. Solomon, an Eritrean, was scheduled to leave for Australia early in the year. Suddenly, a female Japanese acquaintance, in a fit of romantic jealousy, began spreading rumors, and his visa was repealed. Ventilation at the center is unsanitary and Solomon contracted a sinus infection which attacked his auditory canal and resulted in a hearing loss. He is suing for redress, as well as seeking refugee status.

I have 30 minutes with each. They are seated behind a plexi-glass screen and accompanied by a guard who takes notes, and sometimes dozes, as we speak. We discuss strategies for promoting their cases. I promise to come again, especially to Solomon’s trial.

Friday AM Received a report that a long time Afghani resident of Japan with a Ph.D. from a Japanese university, who is now seeking refugee status, has been arrested and is being detained on a larceny charge.

I know that the larceny charge is a hoax, the Japanese government has taken a strong interest in attempting to rid the nation of Afghanis: 44 were deported last year; none were deported in the previous five years.

According to Dalia Anavian, a Kobe Jewish Community member who translates for Farsi and Kurdish speakers in police and judicial matters, the police ask why the expired passports have not been renewed. The Afghanis honestly explain: “Our country has been at war for twenty years. In the present circumstances, they are impossible to obtain.” The pleas fall on deaf ears.

PM I glance at the calendar and see it is time to light the Shabbat candles. I sit back with a glass of wine and watch the flames flicker in a dance of celebrationanother week has passed. The date on the calendar triggers a memory, and suddenly I am spinning back in time.

Today is exactly 25 years to the day that I was deported from India. A young man with a backpack and curiosity about the world, entirely apolitical, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Calcutta was to be the venue of a religious organization

Congregation Ohel Shelomo

with seditious political ambitions. In order to placate the government in Delhi, police and immigration organs rounded up foreigners en masse for deportation.

Saturday The morning in our Kobe synagogue is a spiritual treat- a haven from the frenetic insane world. The weekly Torah reading is one of the most animated tales in ancient Hebrew literature. Balaam, a devout servant of the Lord is riding upon a donkey who suddenly stops for no apparent reason in the middle of the road. Balaam berates and beats the donkey. The donkey brays and speaks: “Idiot. Open your eyes, look at the road, do you not see the angel with a sword ready to kill you!” Balaam sees the angel and bows to the ground. The angel states, “If the donkey had not stopped, I would have killed you. (Numbers 22: 28~33)” Due to the donkey’s awareness, Balaam survives with his life.

The passage is stunning. I have spent the last 15 years of my life listening to these screaming donkeys. And I wonder, “Why are they talking to me?”

The reading of the Torah is followed by a reading from the Prophets. Today we are reading Micah, root of the English word Michael. The prophet summarizes Jewish belief in ten terse and beautiful words “Do Justice, Love Goodness, and walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8).”

I am again profoundly moved. Most of my Jewish education was about do’s and don’ts, rules and laws. Beneath the surface, after many years, I perceive a luminous core which is simple and magnificent.

Sunday

synagogue the previous day, I cross galaxies and enter the Tamatsukuri Catholic Church in central Osaka. In the sanctuary is a huge mural with angels clad in traditional kimonos soaring through the air. The church, strongly involved in refugee activities, shelters many Afghanis and Iranians. One of the Iranians--Hamid--I know quite well. Sick and tired of waiting for justice in the procrastinating courts, and fed up with bad food and the slow erosion of hope during detention, he went on a hunger strike. After we met on the 36th day of the strike, I gave him up for dead. The next day the government relented, a provisional release was granted, and he abandoned the strike.

Hamid introduces me to other asylum seekers sheltered in the church. The majority are Hazari who are Shi’a and were persecuted under the Taliban. One made his way to Japan, the majority of his $6000 fee going to a South Korean fisherman who offered secret passage in the cargo bin. Dropped off in the middle of nowhere, he was picked up by immigration police and immediately incarcerated. Expecting to be treated humanely and kindly by sympathetic and technologically advanced Japanese, he was instead prosecuted with the intent of deportation. Returning back to Afghanistan would result in near instantaneous execution.

A couple beers are opened, and we toast in Japanese, the only language we share.

24 hours ago I was sitting in a synagogue with Israelis praying in Hebrew, and now I am in a church speaking in Japanese with Muslims from central Asia. It is amazing how such completely different universes exist so close together.

I get on the train and look at my watch.

Sunday night, ten p.m. It has been a long week. Tell me, when does the weekend start?

Michael H. Fox is associate professor at Hyogo University and director of the Japan Innocence and Death Penalty Information Center (www.jiadep. org). He is affiliated with the Jewish Community of Kobe, Japan.

After spending many hours in the

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

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37

ExpatDiary

by Rosita Rivera*

From Behind the Kitchen Door Life as a Filipino domestic helper in an observant Jewish home

the children’s service with the younger children and babies while the older children have their own service and the adults have theirs. We learn their songs and hymns with them and many of us can sing along too.

I am a Filipino, who has worked as a domestic helper here in Hong Kong for almost eight years. I have worked for many families, five in Hong Kong. This is my life. I have met all kinds of families. I left mine behind.

My employer now is an Orthodox Jewish family who arrived in Hong Kong directly from Israel.

It is a new experience for both of us as they were new to Hong Kong and life as expats and I had never met a Jewish family before. Some friends of mine and those who see me taking care of four children (ages 5, 4, 2 and a month old) think that I have a really hard job. I suppose it sounds difficult but after hearing my side and learning about how my employer treats me, some even began asking me if I knew other Jewish employers that are friends of my employer who are looking for a helper.

Since I love reading very much, when I saw Asian Jewish Life I started reading it. I also read the book Hana’s Suitcase. I had heard a little bit about the Holocaust but was told mostly about it by my employer and the need to remember it, but it was the book that really made me feel and understand it.

When I told my employer regarding my thoughts of contributing some writing of mine to submit to the magazine, she gave me courage and even inspired me to share my words in the open. This again is something new to me. In my role there is often little opportunity to speak out. Helpers seldom can share their experience and attitudes.

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I was raised as a Catholic and am now a Born Again. I come from a family who are very much devoted to their religion. Growing up, during my primary school years through college, I attended a school run by nuns and priests. I even worked for a company owned by a Catholic congregation for seven years until I decided to apply as a domestic helper here in Hong Kong. I did this mainly due to marital problems.

I needed to get away. Money is just a secondary reason why I applied as a domestic helper.

Never in my life did I think nor plan to work for a Jewish family. Not only that, it never even occurred to me about the existence of Jewish people living in Hong Kong until I came to see it and worked within this community. Just imagine how shocked I was seeing how big the Jewish population is and how active they were.

I hope to enhance my wisdom and my knowledge of the life, culture and history of modern Judaism. It is something I knew almost nothing about. My first month was spent getting used to going to their shul or synagogue to help with their children. Many of us (domestic helpers) go every week to synagogue.

It is part of our routine. We sit through

ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

SUMMER 2010

Before getting to know this family and learning about their customs and practices, what I knew about Jewish people was based mostly only on the words of the Bible. Growing up in the Philippines, never did I expect to see and meet a Jewish person in my life, much less work with these chosen people of God. We grew up learning that the Jews were the chosen people. I am grateful that I had this experience to live with them and learn more about the people of the Bible.

I believe that God led me to my employer today. They are good people with good values and love for their children and other people.

And, these are people that have so much respect for family tradition. While every Sunday, I spend my time going to church to attend the services and taking apart in my community, during the week, I manage a kosher home. I have learned many of the rules. I have taken classes, made notes and learn more all the time. I like the taste of all of the Jewish foods. They are all new to me and so different from the foods I grew up with and ate in the homes of other employers. My favorite is cholent on Saturday and also Israeli couscous.

In keeping a kosher home, at first it was difficult, but I am adjusting. * The author’s name has been changed at her request.

Kosher in Asia

From Lo Mein to Laksa

Chef Pliego’s Recommendation

Cooking with Chef Hector Pliego

Seared tuna with sumac-black sesame crust

When thinking about kosher cuisine, Hong Kong is not likely the top destination on most people’s travel lists for food, but after speaking with Chef Hector Pliego, the Executive Chef at the JW Marriott in Hong Kong, perhaps this is worth a second thought. Chef Pliego, a well travelled and experienced chef, has had the opportunity to work worldwide and he ranks Hong Kong, New York and Bangkok as his top three food cities.

Chef Hector Pliego

As Pliego enthusiastically offers, “Hong Kong people are really obsessed with food. I have never lived anywhere with such a vibrant restaurant scene.” The kosher menus he has coordinated for private events reflect the diversity and vibrancy of the Hong Kong scene.

He has a ‘can do’ approach to cooking kosher and as he explains, “My perspective is simple. What can I do to make it kosher?” He doesn’t see limitations on the type of cuisine that can made kosher and is “willing to make anything with adaptations.”

Pliego’s first introduction to kosher cuisine, he explains, was while he was working in the Middle East. He would go from Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt to Eilat. “Dining in Eilat made me realize that kosher food is not boring. Chefs in Israel were doing some really cool stuff. Israel is a place that attracts people from all around the world, from many different cultures and the food reflects that. They have a really modern approach to cuisine.”

When asked to cook kosher in Hong Kong, Pliego says, “The first step was really understanding what kosher was, the rules and the ‘why’ behind them.” He worked closely with Chabad’s Rabbi Mordechai Avtzon throughout the entire process which he describes as “very hands on and detail orientated.”

The challenge was really mastering the learning curve and ensuring that the kitchen staff also understood the importance of the process. Plego explains that obtaining kosher ingredients in Hong Kong was not a problem. Overall he says that there, “are many suppliers in Hong Kong to bring foods in relative to other markets.” For sourcing, he also worked closely with the Jewish Community Center and Chabad and learned that many of the products they were already using were kosher.

pickled lemon, eggplant, turmeric potatoes and olives Ingredients: Serves 4 400 gm.

50 ml.

50 gm.

50 gm.

30 gm.

240 gm.

1 tsp.

200 gm.

20 ea.

1 pack.

200 ml.

Yellow fin tuna loin Extra virgin oil Toasted sesame seeds Sumac powder Pickled lemon skin Potatoes, peeled and diced Turmeric powder Baby eggplant, sliced and grilled Sun dried black olives Shiso sprouts Lemon vinaigrette

Preparation: • Season tuna loin with salt and pepper, cover with sesame seeds and sumac powder.

• Heat olive oil in a heavy bottom skillet, and quickly sear tuna loin, careful not to cook all the way through, should take only a minute or so.

• In a sauce pot pour enough water to cover potatoes, bring to a boil, add turmeric powder, and potatoes. Cook until potatoes are done. Drain and let potatoes cool.

• In a dinner plate arrange the potatoes, eggplant, olives and sliced tuna.

• Drizzle with lemon vinaigrette and sprinkle with shiso sprouts.

He was amazed at the koshering process and jokes that after his kitchen was cleaned with a blowtorch it was no doubt the cleanest kitchen in Hong Kong. For Pliego the process was extremely challenging and rewarding from the initial planning and discussion stage through to implementation. He is amazed at the close supervision required and the attention to detail. “Cooking kosher,” he explains, “forces you to really closely examine where the ingredients are coming from… it provides a new appreciation for things often taken for granted.”

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ASIAN JEWISH LIFE

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Message from the Chairman of the Israeli Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong We are dedicated to promoting trade and development between Hong Kong SAR and Israel for mutual benefit.

Our loyalties lie first and foremost with our members, acting as their voice in advising the Israeli Government in matters affecting businesses and the economy, providing members with business information and opportunities, and facilitating networking through a variety of chamber activities.

Rafael Aharoni Tel. 852-2312-1111 Fax. 852-2311-6999 E-mail : icoc@netvigator.com c/o The Jewish Community Centre, One Robinson Place, 70 Robinson Road, Mid-Levels, Hong Kong