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6

Seclusion and Explosion

THE MASSIVE absorption of Western civilization by both Jews and Japanese in the last century and a half was preceded by a long period of seclusion during which both of these peoples lived in their respective cocoons. In medieval Europe Jews tended to dwell in separate neighborhoods or adjacent streets, in order to maintain their communal life, but it was only in the sixteenth century that they started to be legally restricted to particular sections of town. These areas, designated as their exclusive living quarters, were the ghettos. The first ghetto was established in 1516 in Venice, where it acquired its name (from the Italian for "foundry," because a cannon foundry was located there). Other ghettos then appeared in the rest of Italy, southern France, and parts of Germany. In most Moslem countries Jews were similarly segregated, in quarters such as the mellah in Morocco, established in the fifteenth century.

The expulsion of Jews from most western European countries in the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern era brought about their emigration to Poland and to the Ottoman Empire. From this emigration developed the division of the Jewish people into the Ashkenazi (German) branch, which migrated to Eastern Europe and continued to speak a mixture of Hebrew and medieval High German (Yiddish), and the Sephardi (Spanish) branch, which remained in the Mediterranean basin and continued to speak a medieval Judeo-Spanish (Ladino). The rulers of both Poland and the Ottoman Empire at that time desired to attract Jewish capital and skills in order to develop the poor economies of their realms. Consequently, Poland came to hold the largest Jewish population in the world. There, Jews sometimes constituted the majority of the urban population, and there the Jewish shtetl (little town) originated as a place where Jews could congregate and maintain their cultural autonomy. The division of Poland in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries gave Russia, where previously no Jews had been allowed to reside, the largest Jewish population of any country. To prevent them from settling in Russia proper, the Jews were restricted to the Pale, i.e., the western borderlands stretching from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south. By the late nineteenth century, out of a world Jewish population of about ten million, more than five million lived in the crowded Russian Pale.

The physical seclusion and segregation of the Jews in ghettos and shtetls, whether resulting from coercion, necessity, or their own desires, was a central feature of Jewish life for a long time. However, the closed, cramped, and often impoverished environment of the shtetl did not breed intellectual stagnation. On the contrary, Jewish learning there flourished with a minimum of outside interference. Physical segregation enhanced cohesion and developed communal institutions. Traditional scholarship thrived, great talmudic schools (yeshivot) prospered, and a rich religious literature was produced. Constant argumentation over scriptural interpretation produced rival schools of thought. The Hasidim, who emphasized enthusiasm and mystical communion with God, clashed with the Opponents (Mitnagdim), who emphasized scholarship and a strict adherence to tradition. Proponents of Enlightenment (Haskala) advocated the introduction of secular Western studies and clashed with an Orthodox establishment afraid of outside influences. The increase in population, the spread of education, and the growing gap between the closed Jewish society and the materially advancing outside world turned the crowded shtetl into a social and intellectual powder keg where ideas, ambitions, and frustrations simmered. Then when the ghetto walls finally fell, these pent-up energies burst forth with a power that changed not only Jewish life, but also much of the outside world.

Something quite similar happened in Japan. Geographic isolation, a separate language, unique customs and institutions, and a long, uninterrupted independence caused the Japanese to perceive themselves as different and distinct from their neighbors. In the seventeenth century this mental detachment from the rest of the world was augmented by the official closing of the country (sakoku). Except for two small and well-controlled Chinese and Dutch trading posts at Nagasaki, and occasional delegations from Korea and the Ryukyu Islands, no contacts were maintained with the rest of the world for more than two centuries.

Thus, a little more than a century after Catholic Spain and Portugal had expelled their Jews, Japan expelled the Spaniards and the Portuguese living there and outlawed Christianity. The cruel persecution of the "hidden Jews" in Spain and Portugal—the so-called Marranos, who had become converts to Christianity under threat of death but continued to practice Judaism in secret—had its counterpart in the cruel persecution of the "hidden Christians" in Japan.

Seclusion denied Japan the fruits of international trade and arrested its technological and military development but saved the country from falling prey to the colonial ambitions of the European powers. Continued intercourse with the West might have kept Japan abreast of European inventions but might also have brought Japan to share the fate of the Philippines and India, which became Western colonies. Moreover, as it did with the Jews, seclusion had a positive internal effect. It consolidated the Japanese and united them into a nation as never before. It also imbued them, like the Jews in the shtetl, with great dynamism. Peace and stability stimulated internal commerce, promoted the growth of cities, and caused production to flourish. Scholarship, literature, and the arts thrived behind the closed doors of Japan, penetrating even the lowest classes of society. In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, different interpretations of the Confucian classics emerged, producing different attitudes toward the past and the present. Neo-Confucian ideas of the Zhu Xi school clashed with those of the Wang Yang-ming school, admirers of Chinese culture argued with supporters of the national studies (kokugaku), and conservatives debated with the advocates of Dutch learning (rangaku). As in the case of the Jews, the bottled-up energies of an increasingly sophisticated, educated, and ambitious population shut off from the outside world would soon explode with enormous force.

Holland was one of the leading nations of Europe in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; and it is no surprise that both Jews and Japanese came in touch with the European thought of that time through some Dutch connection. The first scholar to introduce modern philosophical thought into Judaism was Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza (1632-77), whose father had fled from persecution in Portugal and settled in Holland. Spinoza's rational approach appeared heretical to the Jewish rabbis of Amsterdam, and he was excommunicated. However, his writing had an enormous impact on European thought, ultimately securing his place as one of the greatest Western philosophers.

During the time of Spinoza, the only Westerners with whom the Japanese maintained some contact were the Dutch merchants in Nagasaki. In the middle of the eighteenth century the shogun Tokugawa Yoshimune ordered two scholars to learn the Dutch language from the Dutch in Nagasaki, and this initial study developed into a lively interest in Western disciplines, especially medicine and mathematics.

Even the nationalist romantics (kokugakusha), who called upon their country to return to its "true self," admired Holland. Hirata Atsutane (1776-1843), who claimed that Japan was superior to all other nations in the world, wrote in 1811: "The Dutch have the excellent national characteristic of investigating matters with great patience until they can get to the very bottom. . . . Unlike China, Holland is a splendid country where they do not rely on superficial conjectures." At the same time that scholars of Dutch learning were introducing concepts of European enlightenment into Japan, the Enlightenment movement of the Jews (Haskala), calling for the adoption of secular, Western learning, was emerging with the Maskilim of central Europe. While Dutch was for more than a century the language through which the Japanese learned about Europe, German became the language through which the Jews acquainted themselves with European culture in the eighteenth century.

The foremost proponent of the Jewish Enlightenment, Moses Mendelssohn (1729-86), first received a traditional Jewish education and then acquired a liberal Western education, mastering the German, Latin, Greek, English, and French languages and the philosophical writings of his time. Although he became a leading figure of German Enlightenment, Mendelssohn never distanced himself from Orthodox Judaism and was never excommunicated. Therefore he wielded more influence over his contemporary Jewish world than did Spinoza. Mendelssohn advocated that Jews should acquire Western civilization in addition to their Jewish culture, as these two could enrich each other. Like Hirata Atsutane, he also wished to return to the roots and revive ancient Jewish culture. He therefore wrote in modern German as well as in biblical Hebrew, two innovations for the Yiddish-speaking Jews of his time. The revival of the old Hebrew language, which paved the way for the Jewish national revival in the following century, was thus started not by conservatives but by advocates of modern Western culture.

In the nineteenth century, the walls surrounding the closed societies of the Japanese and the Jews collapsed before the onslaught of the industrializing West. In the seventeenth century no one questioned the right of Japan to close her doors to the world and no foreign country was strong enough to challenge that policy. But in the nineteenth century Japan's isolation came to be regarded as an affront to the international order, and the Western powers possessed the means to put an end to it. The refusal of one country, situated on the sea route from North America to East Asia, to trade with the rest of the world could not be tolerated by the expanding West. The industrial revolution provided the maritime nations of the West with firepower adequate to defeat anyone who dared to oppose them. The American gunboats of Commodore Perry thus opened the gates of Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century, but had the Americans not done so, the British or the Russians would likely have shortly thereafter. The walls that the Japanese had erected around their islands could not withstand the Western impact.

There was no need for gunboats to tear down the walls of the Jewish ghetto and shtetl, but the rationale for their dismantling was similar. In the increasingly integrated world of the nineteenth century there was no place for a detached society living and behaving according to its own rules. The concept of the modern nation-state that emerged with the French Revolution held that all citizens were equal, but each citizen was part of the integral community. During a debate on the Jews at the National Assembly of France in 1789, Delegate Count Clermont-Tonnerre declared, "The Jews should be denied everything as a nation, but granted everything as individuals.... If they do not want this, they must inform us and we shall then be compelled to expel them." The integration of Jews into Western society was attained through their surrender of communal autonomy and achievement of equal rights as individuals; the integration of Japan into the Western family of nations was achieved through accepting the international rules of the West and catering to Western interests in East Asia. Thus the Jews entered Western society as individuals whereas the Japanese entered it as a nation.

The crumbling of the walls that had surrounded the Jews and the Japanese for centuries resulted in an unprecedented explosion of talents and skills. Pent-up energies and frustrations that previously could not be released now found channels of expression; long-suppressed ideals, plans, and ambitions could now be put into action; and high standards of education and scholarship, which had until then been applied to archaic books, could now be used for practical purposes.

The yeshivah student, absorbed for years in studying, memorizing, analyzing, interpreting, and debating difficult talmudic passages, had no particular problem in mastering modern medicine, law, or philosophy. For scholars who had racked their brains on ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts, modern German, with its similarity to Yiddish, was an easy language to master. A long familiarity with abstract argumentation prepared the Jews well for scientific discourse. And for the Jewish peddlers and shopkeepers, the world of modern finance was not that strange. Generations of insecurity had taught them the art of adapting to new opportunities and new methods. Skillful in handling goods, money, and ideas, the Jews of Europe mastered quickly the secrets of modern economy. Within one generation of opening themselves to the secular culture of the West, the Jews of Europe not only caught up with the level of civilization around them, but soon numbered among its cultural leaders.

The enthusiasm with which the Jews immersed themselves in the German language produced outstanding literary fruits, exemplified in the writings of Heinrich Heine (1797-1856), one of the greatest German poets of all time, whose lyric verses and essays influenced many European writers of the nineteenth century. Heine studied at a private Jewish school until the age of eleven, when he was transferred to a French lycee. At age twenty-eight he was baptized as a Lutheran, but until the end of his life he stressed with pride his Jewish origins.

The emancipated Jews of Europe flocked into many fields, where their individual excellence and intellectual virtuosity bore much fruit. Medicine was one such field. Jewish doctors and medical scholars became prominent, particularly in such new and related fields as biochemistry (Benedict Stilling), immunology (Paul Ehrlich), X-ray therapy (Leopold Freund), and psychiatry (Cesare Lombroso and Sigmund Freud).

The same held true in the performing arts, music, and painting. The two most famous actresses of the French stage in the nineteenth century, Sarah Bernhardt and Rachel, were both Jewish. Among composers were Felix Mendelssohn (grandson of Moses Mendelssohn) in Germany, Jacques Offenbach in France, and Gustav Mahler in Austro-Hungary. Among the Jewish artists were Camille Pissarro and Amedeo Modigliani.

The Japanese too were well prepared for modernization. Samurai schooled in the difficult texts of classical Chinese, who had mastered the complex Chinese writing system and its adaptation to Japanese, devoted the same energies into the learning of English and German. Yet, it was difficult for them to speak these languages. The classical Chinese that the Japanese had learned was not meant for oral communication but for textual comprehension. An educated Japanese was supposed to understand foreign books, not engage in a conversation with foreigners. The polyglot Jew did not have his counterpart in the islands of Japan; still, passive understanding served the Japanese well in absorbing Western culture.

Since the Japanese did not possess a tradition of scholastic argumentation, practical ideas interested them more than abstract considerations. In possession of a rich tradition of sophisticated craftsmanship, well-developed learning skills, elaborate organizations, and rigorous personal and communal discipline, the Japanese could quickly adopt Western skills. Versed in the manufacture of high-quality ceramics, silks, and swords, they could comprehend how to handle a steam engine or operate a smelting furnace. The Japanese merchant had no great problem in learning to use a modern bank. The warrior trained in the leading of troops was easily transformed into a modern military officer.

Japan adopted Western techniques with a speed that astonished foreign observers. In 1855, one year after opening the country to intercourse with the West, the Tokugawa government built its first Western-style ship. Five years later, a Japanese crew commanded by Kimura Yoshitake and Katsu Kaishu first sailed a Japanese ship, the Kanrin maru, across the Pacific Ocean. In 1871, three years after the Meiji Restoration, which turned Japan into a centralized state, a postal system was established; and in 1872 the first railway, between Tokyo and Yokohama, was inaugurated. By the end of the nineteenth century Japan had become the most modern country in Asia, boasting a thriving light industry, a victorious army and navy, a sophisticated educational system from compulsory elementary schools to an elite university, a vigorous press, a dedicated bureaucracy, a sound banking system, a constitution, and an elected House of Representatives. In 1905 Japan defeated the mighty Russian army and navy and became the strongest local power in East Asia.

The Western notion of the Japanese as a nation of imitators incapable of original thinking derived from the fact that quite often the Japanese would adopt foreign techniques and institutions down to the minutest level. But this was true only at the initial stage. It would have indeed been foolish to try to develop an original modern technology or original modern institutions when Western techniques and institutions were working well and available. Yet, within a short time the Japanese started modifying and improving on what they had learned from the West, making their own contributions in various fields.

In 1888 a Japanese engineer, Shimose Masachika (1859-1911), developed a new and more powerful gunpowder, which later helped his country win the war against Russia. The Japanese too were attracted to German medicine and excelled in the fields related to it. In 1889 Kitazato Shibasaburo was the first to discover the bacterium which causes tetanus, and five years later he discovered the bacillus which causes bubonic plague. Kitazato's Institute for Infectious Diseases soon became one of the world's leading institutes in that field. His disciple Hata Sahachiro helped the German-Jewish immunologist Paul Ehrlich to develop a drug against syphilis. In 1901 the Japanese chemist Takamine Jokichi was the first to isolate adrenalin, and nine years later Suzuki Umetaro was the first to extract vitamin B.